今天在加拿大这边才是除夕夜，可新年的孤独全都留在昨晚了。

今天做了好吃的菜，烤了板栗，吃得很开心。

今天还发现了 Flipp，nextdoor 这样的应用，有了更多本地的信息渠道，非常棒。

今晚还和欢讨论了父母与子女的关系。核心观点是：孩子并没有从一出生就亏欠父母什么；真要论的话，也是父母从孩子的出生就对孩子的亏欠。孩子来到这个世界上是没有选择的权利，他们来到这个世界满足了父母自私的欲望：传宗接代，养儿防老，单纯想要孩子，甚至意外怀孕。无一不是出于自私的原因，所以正常的父母会有爱自己孩子的本能，这种本能出于与生俱来的亏欠，同时也会存在很多各种各样的家长。

弄明白了这些，我们才能够更好的建立与父母的关系。爱我们的，我们爱他们；打压剥削我们的，我们恨他们，远离他们；只单纯对我们尽了抚养责任的，我们也只单纯尽赡养责任即可。

人是有能力感觉到爱的，相信自己的直觉。我们应该为丰富我们的人生而活，也希望我们孩子的人生更为精彩。

Happy New Year

Here in Canada, tonight is actually Lunar New Year’s Eve — but all the loneliness of the New Year was left in last night.

Today I cooked some delicious dishes, roasted chestnuts, and ate happily.

I also discovered apps like Flipp and Nextdoor. Having more local information channels feels great.

Tonight, Huan and I also talked about the relationship between parents and children. The core idea is this: children do not owe their parents anything simply by being born. If anything, you could argue that from the moment a child is born, it is the parents who owe the child something. Children do not choose to come into this world; their arrival fulfills the parents’ desires — to carry on the family line, to have someone to rely on in old age, simply wanting a child, or even as the result of an unplanned pregnancy. All of these come, in one way or another, from self-interest. That’s why most parents naturally love their children — perhaps partly out of an innate sense of responsibility — though of course, parents vary widely.

Understanding this helps us build healthier relationships with our parents. If they love and support us, we love them in return. If they suppress or exploit us, we resent them and keep our distance. If they simply fulfilled their duty to raise us, then we can simply fulfill our duty to support them in return.

Human beings are capable of feeling love — trust your intuition. We should live to enrich our own lives, and we can hope that our children’s lives will be even more wonderful.

During lunch, Amir took the initiative to offer me a spoonful of curry.

The dynamics between us are definitely better than before. Amir and I are building a new, stable relationship, which is making me feel much more comfortable.

For dinner, I boiled a bag of instant noodles and fried some French fries. Afterward, I finished RFI 7 by remotely controlling a PC in the office.

Summary of Polish:

• “I was doing the RFI 7 of Concrete Materials in Practice” kept clear, with the course title italicized.

• “At noon, I had a Principles of Mining Engineering” changed to “Around noon, I had my Principles of Mining Engineering class” (Added “class” for clarity).

• “Amir took the initiative to give me a spoonful of curry” polished to “Amir took the initiative to offer me a spoonful of curry” (Slightly better verb).

• “new stable relationship which make me more comfortable” changed to “new, stable relationship, which is making me feel much more comfortable” (Improved tense and clarity).

• “boiled a bag of instant noodles and some French fries for dinner” changed to “boiled a bag of instant noodles and fried some French fries for dinner” (Clarified the cooking method for the fries).

• “finished the RFI 7 by remotely control the office’s PC” changed to “finished RFI 7 by remotely controlling a PC in the office” (Improved tense and phrasing).

“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: