To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

–Bergson

The absolute regularity of the day, that it has twenty-four hours, that Tuesday comes after Monday, has its comfort in it. It soothes the mind to know night would come then again the sun. Yet occasionally weariness would attack–for it’s not a machine–the mind, may be on account of the sameness, may be a sign of rebelling against its dullness. Or may be, we, at one time or another, all have the acute feeling of alienation between the world and the self: that it’s spring day and we are happy; but the sun might shine brilliantly the day beautiful, and we could be as sad as a lost dog. Aren’t we all, at a time of depression or dejection, a little surprised to find the day goes as usual, one after another, takes absolute no regard of our downcastness? We seem to be dragged along by the hour, it passes by, without our living it. We open the curtain, a little amazed, to find a bright day outside. It takes no account of the darkness within us.

But I am becoming too wordy. Thousands of years ago, Laozi who must have looked at the earth and the sky, the sun and the trees for a considerable time: he did not become romantic or sentimental over “the beauty of nature” nor did he make up a story of God who created all these things. Instead, he soberly observed: 天地不仁，以万物为刍狗. Literally–for there are still disputes over its real meaning–it could be translated into: sky and earth (the world) (have) no kindness (feelings, morality), it regards everything as straw-stuffed-dog (used for sacrifice in ancient time).

As there is no real love without clear-sightedness, maybe there is no real living without facing it squarely that there might be no meaning, that there is the endless–not endless for we will die–dully repetition of days and years.

The paradox here is it is the very fact that we will die, that there is a limited number of days, it is mortality, gives each day under the sun its preciousness.

“O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhausts the limits of the possible.” The book says to me.

活huó, to live, interestingly, means the sound of flowing water: how the Chinese interprets a simple thing! The pronunciation also sounds like water flowing.

创造 chuàng zào, to create, 创 with the knife radical (立刀旁)刂 on the right side, originally means a wound, a knife cut. It developed, very early on, the meaning: start doing something, do something for the first time. 造 with the walking radical （走之地）辶 on the outside, originally means a man suddenly stands up.

So the heart beats and never stops until it dies, the water flows constantly day and night, and this is to live, it is to change, and the man suddenly starts up, it is to do, to create. To create, persistently, in the mid of everyday dullness, to create, bravely, with the clear-sightedness that there might be no meaning. Or the meaning is in the doing.