For a while, I suddenly found the world a little ridiculous. Not the joyful kind of funny, it's more like a tired smile.

Everything now has to be “mixed” to count as interesting. If you can dance, you’d better talk about investing. If you talk about Buddhist sutras, you should be begging. If you sell something, it has to be a collaboration. If you speak, there must be contrast. Normal itself seems to have become a kind of crime.

The world is working very hard to avoid being predictable. So it chooses chaos instead. But after enough chaos, nothing feels exciting anymore. Only a familiar reaction remains “Oh. This again.”

So I slowly stopped looking at those things. Instead, I started watching people.

I like watching those who can sit quietly on a bench, staring at the surface of the water. Children lying on the grass with a book, turning one page and pausing for a long time. Kids digging the sandbox, square by square, with no rush to finish anything. And elderly people by the window, simply watching the flow of passersby come and go.

None of them are “producing.” None of them are proving what they’re doing. But as I watch them, my own heart slowly settles.

This kind of spacing out is actually very uneconomical. That time could be used to grow an account, edit videos, create content, build a persona. It could be monetized. And honestly — I understand all the patterns.

But I’ve become increasingly unwilling to “use up” this kind of time. Because these moments without purpose, without scoring, without being watched are quietly bringing me back to myself.

The world today is very good at pretending to be interesting. But I’ve realized that what truly makes people stop has never been chaos.

It is slowness.

So slow it has no use. So slow it isn’t worth recording. So slow it can only belong to oneself.

This kind of time, when not turned into profit, becomes the most luxurious thing I can give myself.



—— XC Scribbles · 柒拾陸 LXXVI 🌊