“If you were Charlie, would you choose to undergo the surgery?” you asked in your last letter.

At the time, my answer was no—ignorance is bliss. But after reading most of the book, I’ve begun to reconsider—this time, through the lens of love.

In the first half of Flowers for Algernon, I had always believed that Charlie’s mother, Rose, was the only person in the world who truly cared for and loved him. I even mistook his father Matt’s calm demeanor for indifference. When everyone else had given up hope that Charlie could ever become “normal,” I was moved by Rose’s relentless determination—whether she was scolding Charlie, pleading with doctors, or arguing with Matt.

But everything changed with Norma’s arrival. It became clear that Rose’s persistence wasn’t about Charlie’s well-being; it was about proving to others that her child wasn’t an idiot—or that she wasn’t the reason for his condition.

The more she tried to prove herself, the more desperate she appeared, the more she clung to the hope of Charlie becoming “smart”—all of which only revealed her subconscious disdain for him. This subconscious rejection ultimately manifested in her threatening Matt with a knife, forcing him to take Charlie away that very night.

In contrast, Matt’s attitude was far more rational and genuine. He believed Charlie had the right to live his own life, even if it was the life of a “simpleton.” He was more concerned with his own survival, with the things he despised and the things he desired. His lack of obsession, his refusal to force anything—that was his way of respecting Charlie.

Now, back to your question: Would we choose the surgery? I think, more often than not, if we were in Charlie’s shoes, we wouldn’t actually have the luxury of choosing the life we want.

What I’ve been pondering instead is: What if we were Rose? Or Matt? Or Norma? Or even Alice? What would we do? That feels more realistic, more practically meaningful for the future. After all, we’re bound to encounter people like Charlie—strangers, neighbors, relatives, children, even friends. Would they be friends?

Could the people in the book be someone we know in real life? If we were Charlie, would we resent them? Would Norma resent her parents? Probably not.

Recognizing true love is difficult. Most of the time, we’re just Charlie wetting his pants, not the Charlie with superhuman intelligence.

Maybe not recognizing it is the better choice—just like refusing the surgery might be.

Love,
Zhuzhu
April 14, 2025

P.S. Character relationship chart:

Lately, my sleep schedule has been irregular, making it hard to fall asleep. When I lie awake and observe my thoughts, I realize that on the surface, I don’t seem stressed, but my mind is flooded with all sorts of distracting and annoying thoughts.

• Where do I need to go tomorrow? What do I need to do? And the day after? This is the most fragmented and complicated question.
• How’s my CSC application going? Why hasn’t it been processed yet? How should I respond to different possible outcomes?
• I might not finish all the food I bought—what should I cook tomorrow, or what should I do with it?
• Suddenly remembered an idea for fixing an unresolved bug on my website—feels like I should jump up and work on it right away. What other optimizations can I make?
• I haven’t read a book in a long time, and my mind feels empty. I really dislike short-form videos; I should treat them like enemies.
• What happens if I stay awake for too long? Will it affect important tasks tomorrow or the day after?
• Gotta take a photo of little Huanhuan.
• Oh, I should also shower tomorrow.
• What might my friends and family be up to these days…
• Suddenly feel like buying something, but I don’t have much money left—maybe look for alternatives. Then I remind myself not to buy non-essentials. And then I think, having a stable monthly income would be nice.
• I remember going a long time without insomnia—what’s going on lately? Need to reflect on what’s different about my current state and make sure I don’t slip into depression.
• ……

10:43 Spent Some Time Organizing My Blog

Realized my old blog was a mess—lots of tiny, trivial posts that didn’t deserve standalone entries. Also, categorizing articles is an important issue—it needs to be logical. Ideally, it should be based on the file directory structure, with additional fine-tuning via frontmatter tags.

10:45 Remembering the Past

Thought back to when I first created my blog—I even encouraged others to contribute content, imagining that one day we could compile our writings into a book. Looking back, that idea still feels romantic and meaningful.

In the future, I should focus on learning, absorbing, creating, and sharing. With little Huanhuan by my side, I’ll probably stick with it even longer.

15:58 Getting Ready to Go Out

I took the meat to my brothers, then got ready to take the bus to Hongguo.

Recently, my work has started to slow down. I really love this grounded feeling of focusing intensely to finish tasks and then leisurely sending emails. Today is Friday, and we’ll be seeing each other soon. Just thinking about it makes my heart play Like Sunday, Like Rain uncontrollably—haha, I’ve been completely obsessed with this song lately.

I want to share with you a book I just finished: Flowers for Algernon. By the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably, secretly shedding “little pearls” again.

The protagonist, Charlie Gordon, is a man with an intellectual disability. He is kind-hearted, diligent at work, and eager to become smarter, but due to his congenital condition, he faces constant discrimination. One day, he is selected to participate in a scientific experiment. The experiment successfully enhanced the intelligence of a white mouse named Algernon, and now Charlie is the human subject, undergoing brain surgery to boost his intellect. After the surgery, Charlie’s IQ skyrockets. He attends university, studies, and becomes a knowledgeable genius. But as his mind awakens, he begins to recall lost familial love from his childhood, the mockery and exclusion from his so-called “friends,” and the complexities of human nature in modern society. He realizes that even after becoming smarter, the things he thought he would gain start to crumble. To the experimenters, he is merely a successful test subject, not a person deserving of respect, care, or acceptance.

Later, Algernon’s intelligence suddenly declines, and he dies. Through his research, Charlie discovers that the intelligence enhancement is only temporary, inevitably followed by decline and death. Charlie faces the agony of a countdown to his end, slowly approaching death.

After finishing the book, I began pondering some questions.

What is a person?

I remember that night when you asked me, “What is a person?” At the time, I answered from a biological perspective, but your answer was, “A person is the sum of social relationships.” Throughout the book, after Charlie gains high intelligence, he repeats over and over, “I am a person. I was a person even before the surgery.” Whether now or in the past, what we pursue as “personhood” is no longer just about using tools, thinking, or walking upright. It carries a strong social dimension—we crave recognition, care, and fulfillment. But was Charlie, with his intellectual disability, not a person before? He was kind, sincere, hardworking, self-sufficient, and persistent in learning. In my heart, he already surpassed many so-called “normal” people.

Does enhanced intelligence make one a person?

I don’t think so. If someone’s intelligence is heightened but they lack emotions, they’re no different from a cold machine. The book says, “Without the tempering of human emotions, intelligence and education are utterly worthless.” The measure of a person shouldn’t rely solely on scientific metrics. Extraordinary intelligence doesn’t grant someone a radiant soul. As independent individuals within social relationships, learning helps us cultivate better personalities. And the bonds we form with others allow us to better understand ourselves and the world.

If you were Charlie, would you undergo the surgery? (What about you, Zhuzhu?)

I think I would. Even if it meant facing the pain of intellectual decline and death like he did, I’d still choose it. Looking at Charlie’s life, his “moment of brilliance” was fleeting, but it was largely fulfilling. After his intelligence improved, he acquired vast knowledge, mastered multiple languages, and conducted independent research. When he learned his intelligence would decline, he returned to the home he had lost and regained warmth from his family. He found love and realized it wasn’t just about physical intimacy. He went back to the bakery where he once worked and found true friends. Those around him, upon learning of his journey, came to respect his courage and pursuit, and Charlie ultimately earned recognition as a person. If I were destined to live a stable but ignorant life in darkness, but had even a sliver of a chance to grasp the light, I’d choose that path without hesitation, just like Charlie.

Zhuzhu, I think whether we’re in darkness or light, or whether others are in darkness or light, we must always strive for the world and the love we originally envisioned. In that world, we treat every life as equal and worthy of respect, never mocking others or flaunting our arrogance.

The book opens with a quote from Plato’s Republic:

“Anyone with common sense remembers that the eyes can be confused in two ways and from two causes: coming from light into darkness or from darkness into light. The same applies to the mind’s eye. When someone sees a soul confused and unable to see clearly, they shouldn’t laugh mindlessly but ask whether this soul has just come from a brighter life and is unable to see because it’s unaccustomed to the dark, or whether it’s come from darkness into the light and is dazzled by the brilliance. They would consider one happy for their condition and circumstances, and pity the other. Or if they must laugh at the soul emerging from the light, their laughter would be less absurd than laughing at the soul returning from the darkness into the light.”

Love,
Huanhuan

March 28, 2025

Is There a Stop Button for Life? Without relying on any external forces.

On a Saturday evening, I was strolling down the street with my partner when I received a call from my dad: “Your grandmother isn’t doing well. I’m taking leave tomorrow to visit her.” Later that night, my mom also tried to video call me. My phone was on silent, and by the time I noticed the missed call, it was almost 11 PM. When I called back, she didn’t answer.

I dread those few seconds of silence before my parents speak when they call me—it often signals that they’re about to share some unwelcome news. The weight of those moments is palpable, and I’ve received several such calls before. Each time, I’m left at a loss for how to respond.

This time, it was about my grandmother. Strangely, my heart didn’t churn with the usual turmoil, mainly for two reasons: first, my grandmother had been ill for a long time and was already 89 years old; second, I’ve experienced far more sorrowful events, and my interactions with her had been limited.

If the World Were an Animal

I once compared our lives to the process of digestion, with the world as the animal. Whether we’re apples, rice, eggs, beef, water, or anything else, our birth is like entering the mouth of society. We’re broken down, absorbed, and our inherent value is extracted. When we’re deemed worthless, we’re expelled from this societal body.

And just like that, our lives come to an end. But what choices do we have in this process? Upon reflection, quite a few. From the moment we enter the mouth, we can choose to cling to society’s front teeth, or become a fishbone stuck in its gums. Once in the stomach, if it’s unbearable, we might turn into watermelon or scalding hotpot oil to hasten the end of this painful ordeal. Or, adopting a sacrificial approach, we could become sickly sweet beverages, giving our all to inflict ailments like diabetes upon this societal organism…

Of course, these are just fantasies. More often than not, we have no say in what we become. Sometimes, society might not even want to consume us—most “food” is stripped of nutrients and expelled without exception. The silver lining is that whatever consumes us has its own life cycle—it too will fall ill, die, decompose, and be absorbed. After we’re expelled, though our nutrients are gone (nutrients being relative to the society that digested us), we’re actually returning to—or entering—a vaster world, where life continues endlessly.

If this is the truth of life, how should we choose to live? Different people will offer different answers, some of which may work temporarily. Transforming ourselves into toxins might seem impactful, but from the perspective of our ecosystem, the effect is often negligible.

Perhaps the most optimistic attitude is to view this digestive process as a journey. Actively explore, observe, and marvel at the exquisite world our lives create and sustain. Alternatively, quietly completing this journey without overthinking is also a perfectly valid choice.

The Love of Parents

This article has taken so long to finish that I’ve forgotten what this subheading was meant to convey.

Alas!

First, let me state my viewpoint. This question arises from observations of internet blogs, and personally, I hold a positive stance.

Before the advent of AI, many people would document their learning processes and outcomes when they acquired new knowledge, publishing these on their technical blogs. With the help of search engine SEO, we could easily find out if others had encountered the same problems we faced. More often than not, we relied on this process to seek solutions to our issues.

The emergence of AI has made solving some simple problems much less laborious. Here, “simple” is not meant in the literal sense but rather in comparison to the high intelligence of AI. After all, these are problems that often leave us racking our brains without finding a solution.

Thanks to AI, understanding and solving problems has become much more convenient, and the process has been simplified. It might even help us save a few strands of hair. Many times, we don’t even realize that a problem is worth documenting, let alone publishing it on a personal blog.

Based on the above analysis, people’s motivation to create simple technical documents or basic thought pieces has diminished. Of course, this is the opposite for those who use AI to generate large amounts of low-quality content to fill the internet and monetize traffic. Those who are unaware of advanced technologies and their trends are inevitably becoming victims of AI on the internet today. A plethora of fake AI videos, voiceovers, and aimless text are being created by individuals with a bit of psychological knowledge and AI skills, flooding the internet. It’s no wonder that the internet feels both magical and boring, like the sky covered by a kaleidoscope. For me, the emergence of AI has shifted people’s focus more towards humanity itself rather than the technical issues they encounter. The questions being pondered are also more closely related to the meaning of human and societal existence and development.

Yesterday, I came home for the holiday and went to bed early. In the morning, Manman ran to my bedside to play with my phone, but soon got bored. After glancing through the app list, I opened Google Earth and asked Manman where she wanted to go.

Man: I know this is Earth, our planet! It’s so, so big!

Me: Yes, Earth is very big, but it’s also very small. Look at those stars next to it—they seem tiny, but many of them are likely bigger than Earth.

Man: Where are we?

Me: First, we need to find Asia, then our country—China. After that, we’re in Guizhou Province, right? Then Liupanshui…

Man: Uncle’s house!

Me: Right! That’s Shuicheng. We’re in Pan County.

Man: Where’s Pan County?

Me: We’re in Pan County right now. Hongguo, the center of Pan County—you went there with Mom just the day before yesterday.

…

Finally, we zoomed out to see how big Earth is, and Manman discovered that the globe could be rotated. She said she wanted to spin it.

Me: Earth actually rotates on its own.

Man: Then why isn’t it spinning (the Earth on the phone)?

Me: This Earth is fake (the one on the phone).

Man: Then is our Earth fake too?

Me: It’s probably real… but it could also be fake. But the one on the phone is definitely fake.

Manman’s sudden suspicion about Earth struck me like lightning, instantly wiping away all my drowsiness. I quickly followed up with another question.

Me: Are you real?

Man: I can’t tell you. You’ll have to guess.

With that, Manman walked out the door.