Give me liberty or give me death.
- Patrick Henry
A while ago, during my time in Europe with Rachel, our schedule was basically that she and her friends would go sightseeing, while I attended the VivaTech conference, took phone meetings at the hotel, or simply caught up on sleep. When it was mealtime, I would take a taxi to meet them for a meal, then return to the hotel for more meetings.
I've never been particularly fond of traveling; I can't get too excited about activities that don't have direct commercial outcomes. Compared to visiting places like the Louvre, holding a valuable meeting seems far more appealing to me. Although sometimes I also feel that being too practical isn't ideal, as an overly standard science-and-engineering-oriented woman, I am indeed this pragmatic.
Rachel said that one meaning of travel is to escape daily life for a bit, asking me if there was anything in my current life I wanted to escape from. After careful consideration, I realized that I don’t have a marriage, no trivialities of daily life such as firewood, rice, oil, and salt, no mother-in-law or sister-in-law conflicts to worry about; I don’t own much property, so I don’t have to be enslaved by money, constantly thinking about maintaining and increasing its value, nor do I need to handle asset management tasks; I don’t want a fixed boyfriend, just dating when I like someone, and if the relationship becomes burdensome, I slowly let it go, without anyone or any relationship I must hold onto; I don’t have children, once during dinner with several fathers, they were all discussing child education issues, I remarked that now parenting pressure is really high, previously only mothers' gatherings mainly talked about children, now even fathers are involved.
So my current daily life is relatively simple, focusing on my career. Outside of work, I don't want to spend too much mental energy on other things, as long as I can survive, that's fine. Work itself has a lot of pressure and responsibilities to bear, such as hoping partners will make money in the end, wanting to give investors an account, wanting to provide employees with a good professional development platform, but these are secondary motivations. The main motivation is intrinsic: I hope to make the company great, and in this process, welcome growth and encounter a stronger self. After becoming mentally strong, external opinions become less important. Although I still have a sensitive personality and care about others' feelings, making some compromises socially, after several years of entrepreneurship, experiencing various setbacks and difficulties, my heart has indeed become tougher, gradually living into the person I want to become. I live more freely than when I was younger.
Previously at Gao Mountain Academy, I listened to Professor Wu Guosheng talk about the origin of science, touching upon what freedom is:
In traditional Chinese characters, there is no word for "freedom"; this term comes from Japan. Freedom means oneself, yet in our traditional concepts, people do not have an independent self; the self is the sum of social relationships, a function. For a long time, freedom was a derogatory term, such as "free and easy." Later, after studying Marx, we gradually inherited the Western concept of freedom and began to understand that one person's freedom is the condition for another's freedom. However, we still cannot truly grasp the meaning of freedom. For example, during the Korean War, China embodied the most typical Confucian thought: we must protect our homeland and country, marching proudly across the Yalu River! Protecting peace and defending the motherland is protecting our hometowns. In contrast, the U.S. believed they were fighting to defend freedom, as the 38th parallel was the fruit of victory in World War II, defending the 38th parallel meant defending freedom. Freedom is not free.
Religion and science are also built on the foundation of freedom. Western culture, religion, law, and science all focus on freedom. As mentioned earlier, talking about freedom requires first understanding oneself. Hebrew and Greek cultures both place “self” very highly. "Know Thyself" is one of the three famous inscriptions at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The self is a practical activity, finding oneself is a full commitment, gradually transforming the search for oneself into theory, cognition, and knowledge. Through the study of certain knowledge, one can find oneself. Human nature fundamentally lies in rationality, and rationality is unchanging—it is logic, rules. Principles, regulations, treaties construct Western humanity.
The self remains consistent and eternally unchanged; yesterday’s me and today’s me are the same me. This is why Galileo was rehabilitated 300 years after he was persecuted, rather than adopting the mindset that since the person is already dead, re-evaluating the situation seems meaningless, such as reflecting on the Cultural Revolution.
After discussing the self, let's talk about freedom again. Thought has its own self, which is "rationality"; things have their own self, which is "nature"; humans have their own self, which is "freedom". Freedom is not doing whatever one pleases. Under Greek culture, freedom is rationality; a free person cannot act recklessly. For example, if you’ve been hungry for days and see a steamed bun shop, does eating without money constitute freedom or lack thereof? If lacking money prevents achieving freedom, succumbing to desire makes one unfree. Nietzsche mentioned the will to power; God gave will to humans, so humans have free will. Why didn't God stop Eve from eating the forbidden fruit? Because freedom surpasses "evil." Human freedom is the most important value; all power stems from individual free will, manifested in each person's various feelings, desires, and choices.
We cherish freedom and do not bestow ultimate authority on any specific text, institution, or leader to judge what is true or correct. For instance, yesterday's amendment to the abortion bill saw five individuals without uteruses deciding women's bodies, depriving them of their right to choose abortion, which is a trampling on women's rights and freedom.
Therefore, wherever in the world, the road to freedom has never been a straight path forward.