Prologue

On the occasion of turning 29, I’m opening this space for writing.

Why open such a space?

Birthday Commemoration

I’ve been stubborn about wanting to throw myself a birthday.

Probably because 29 is a prime number, which fits my aesthetic sense about numbers. Also forgotten promises, a taste for ritual, and other reasons besides.

I’m jotting down the state of my mind at this moment, as a keepsake for some future day.

The Measure of Time

The denominator of memory has grown so large that new ideas and experiences, while still arriving, make up an ever-smaller fraction. Meanwhile the threshold for what registers as genuinely new keeps rising.

Subjectively, time distorts and accelerates. We need something to offset this disarray.

Calendars are too thin. Some people use film, landmarks, food, stamp albums… I use words. I use thoughts.

Soul Searching

The heart gathers dust and needs to be questioned from time to time. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

I open this half-acre pond. Wash your hat-strings or wash your feet here. Do as you please.

What am I trying to achieve?

Literary Version

May it cleanse the filth and illuminate the mind;

may it transcend mere repetition and draw distinctions through chaos and disorder;

may it give time its life, and the soul its depth.

Plainspoken Version

Fuck the flowery lines above.

This is just a place to vent freely, curse freely, write whatever I want.

Who are we? We are independent, free thinkers. I disregard every rule imposed from outside: laws, morals, ethics, social convention, common sense. None of them concern me. “Were rites and laws made for the likes of us?”

When I write in other places, there’s too much noise in my head, always having to consider how others might take it. I can’t freely write what’s heterodox, outrageous, or self-indulgent. It suffocates me.

What am I going to write about?

Topics

Stocks, history, current affairs, film, the ways of the world, the human heart, data, code, food and sex… whatever, have fun!

Fresh ideas, novel toys, or just throwing out an unanswered question to pick up later.

Anywhere the mind can be put to use, anything that can be played with for fun.

Principles

Nothing is too big or too small, nothing is off-limits, do as you please.

No promotion. No buying followers. No pleasing anyone.

Have fun!

Note: The account is named “Zheng Shiqi” (the regular 17-gon), borrowed from the wuxia novel Heroes’ Record. It evokes geyuan, the classical method of approximating the circle with inscribed polygons: the true circle is divine; mortals can only draw nearer with ever-finer polygons. The plan is to master seventeen fields.