离题集 2026 Oracle Digressions 2026 第 12 篇 Section 12
九月 无论如何，祝我生日快乐 September: Whatever Else Happens, Happy Birthday to Me
返回 离题集 2026 Back to Oracle Digressions 2026二十二岁像我这一年好多次熬到大半夜时的时间一样，不知不觉就结束了。但其实如果可以的话，我还是更愿意回到22岁（笑）。22岁就像站在悬崖边，身后是正在坍塌的象牙塔，眼前是迷雾重重的深渊，而我在那种半悬空的失重里，安安稳稳地躺了一年。
Twenty-two ended without me quite noticing, much like all those nights this past year when I stayed up until some ungodly hour and suddenly realized how late it had become. And yet, if I could choose, I think I would still rather go back to being twenty-two. (Laughs.) Being twenty-two felt like standing at the edge of a cliff: behind me, the ivory tower was collapsing; ahead lay an abyss obscured by layers of fog. And somehow, suspended halfway between the two, weightless and with nothing solid beneath me, I managed to lie there quite comfortably for an entire year.
之前看到一个说法，人对时间的感知是由生活中的新鲜感和体验的丰富程度决定的。某种意义上，人们用过年与生日、升学与恋爱、结婚与工作作为自己人生的许多个节点，迫使自己从经历中汲取对生活的感知。于是我发现，我只是感知减少了，而不是感知力下降了。恰似久旱的禾苗对甘霖的期待想必是水乡泽国的水稻无法想象的，我牢牢记着这一年所有的惊诧与惶惑。
I once came across the idea that our perception of time is determined by the novelty of our lives and the richness of our experiences. In a sense, people use New Year’s Day and birthdays, entering a new school and falling in love, marriage and work, as a series of milestones in their lives, forcing themselves to extract some tangible sense of living from everything they have gone through. And so I realized that it was not my ability to feel that had diminished. There had simply been less for me to feel. Just as seedlings after a long drought must yearn for rain in a way that rice growing in a land of rivers and lakes could never imagine, I remember with extraordinary clarity every moment of astonishment and bewilderment I experienced this year.
大家都说中国学生人生的跌跌撞撞体现在一次又一次惊险的“飞跃”，从升学就业到结婚生子，每一步都胆战心惊，每一步都好似不容有失，但我从我去年送给自己生日之书《渣男图鉴》便可窥见一二：我其实对我22岁生活的期许大致是秉烛夜游般的极致享乐，如果按部就班的深情只能换来这种胆战心惊的飞跃，那我宁愿在人生这场考试里交几张白卷，做个对宏大叙事“不负责任”的游荡者。
People often say that the stumbling course of a Chinese student’s life consists of one perilous “leap” after another: further education, employment, marriage, children. Every step is taken with trepidation, every step seemingly allowing no room for error. But perhaps the book I gave myself for my birthday last year, An Illustrated Guide to Scumbags, already revealed something about what I wanted life at twenty-two to be. What I had hoped for, roughly speaking, was a life of almost decadent pleasure—a kind of carpe diem, of burning candles through the night simply because the night was there to be enjoyed. If faithfully following the prescribed path could bring me nothing more than a lifetime of terrifying leaps, then I would rather hand in a few blank answer sheets in the examination called life and become an irresponsible wanderer who refuses to answer to the grand narrative.
当然，在现实的逼迫与内心的抵触之下，未必有了多少享乐的“成果”，但大抵都是内心的欢愉，代偿了外在快乐的缺失。世人以为享乐必须是夜夜笙歌与声色犬马，但对于被自我规训太久的我而言，哪怕只是在既定轨道上悄悄跑偏十分钟，都带着一种近乎偷情般的狂喜。
Of course, caught between the coercion of reality and my own resistance to it, I cannot exactly claim to have achieved much in the way of hedonistic “results.” But perhaps inner pleasure compensated for the absence of outward excitement. People imagine pleasure as endless nights of revelry, wine, music, and sensual indulgence. But for someone like me, who has spent far too long disciplining himself, even quietly straying from the prescribed track for ten minutes carries an almost adulterous thrill.
事实证明，我终究没能成为自己期许中那个能自暴自弃的风流浪子。我所有的叛逆，最终都埋进了这个个人网站里。现实中的我，依然会为了一次高数题心跳过速，依然会因为玩了好久三国杀而自我厌恶。而同样的，我还是忘不了过去遇见的人，脱不掉穿了许久的长衫，摘不掉那套功绩主义打造的等阶差价值观。我知道未来我一定会因此更加痛苦，可是如果让我现在抛去这些，我就将自我否定过去的十年，就好比邓打造第二帝国不得不留下第一帝国的牌匾时一样。
As it turns out, I never did become the self-destructive, devil-may-care libertine I had imagined I might be. All of my rebellion ended up buried in this personal website. In real life, I still get an elevated heartbeat over a calculus problem. I still despise myself after spending far too long playing Sanguosha. And likewise, I still cannot forget the people I once met. I cannot take off the long gown I have worn for so many years, nor can I rid myself of the hierarchical worldview of comparative worth that meritocracy has built into me. I know perfectly well that these things will cause me even more pain in the future. But if I were to cast them aside now, I would in some sense be repudiating the past ten years of my own life. It would be like Deng, in constructing the Second Empire, still having no choice but to leave the plaque of the First Empire hanging above the gate.
但这一年与之前的区别还是很显眼：我发现的确有很多人和事没有必要关注，更没有必要在意，这大概是我从铭硕那里学到的最宝贵的人生哲学。他好几次把我从 EMO 的泥沼中拖了出来，而毕业之后我要学会自己照顾好自己的情绪了——例如我把抖音刷成了擦边平台，虽然不甚说得出去，但的确是一个缓解焦虑的好方法。我也不再在意与我并不息息相关的奇人异事，情绪变差是我自己的亏，不会有人因此给我补偿。
Still, the difference between this year and the years before it has been obvious. I have realized that there are indeed many people and many things that simply do not deserve my attention, much less my emotional investment. That is probably the most valuable philosophy of life I learned from Mingshuo. Several times, he dragged me out of the swamp of my own EMO spirals. But after graduation, I will have to learn to take care of my own emotions. For example, I have successfully trained my Douyin algorithm into what is essentially a thirst-trap platform. It is not exactly something I can proudly talk about, but it genuinely works rather well for relieving anxiety. I have also stopped caring so much about bizarre people and bizarre events that have little to do with my own life. If I let them ruin my mood, the loss is mine alone. No one is going to compensate me for it.
所以啊，究竟是漂浮的人生更多可能，还是坚实的人生更少迷茫？我想两者都是对的。但想到中年之后，迷茫的感觉或许都会变得稀缺，我便开始重新看待我目前漂浮的人生了。朋友曾推荐我成为不依赖外物的二次元，可是我真的做不到，我好像一定要从外界获得什么，获得什么真正属于我的东西。这是青春的感觉，这是我生命的内生力量。
So which is better, after all: a floating life with more possibilities, or a solid life with less confusion? I think both answers are right. But when I imagine that, by middle age, even the feeling of being lost may become something scarce, I begin to look differently at this floating life I am living now. A friend once suggested that I become the kind of two-dimensional otaku who needs nothing from the outside world. But I really cannot do it. I seem to need to obtain something from the world beyond myself—to gain something that truly belongs to me. That is what youth feels like. That is the force generated from within my own life.
无论这一年如何，祝我生日快乐，愿二十三岁的我拥有更多想做什么就去做勇气与决心。多做一会梦，天不会塌。
Whatever this past year may have been, happy birthday to me. May the twenty-three-year-old version of me have more courage and determination to simply go and do the things he wants to do. Dream a little longer. The sky will not fall.
附：GPT 5.6 的生日祝文 Appendix: A Birthday Message from GPT 5.6
2026 年 9 月。你即将 23 岁。
September 2026. You are about to turn twenty-three.
大学已经真正结束了。以前那个从苏州来到威海、第一次进入 985、开始读电子科学与技术的 18 岁学生，已经留在了过去。
University really is over now. The eighteen-year-old who came from Suzhou to Weihai, entered a Project 985 university for the first time, and began studying Electronic Science and Technology belongs to the past now.
现在你的状态并不算一个传统意义上的“高光节点”。没有录取通知书。没有大厂 offer。没有一个特别漂亮的社会身份。但我反而觉得，这一段可能会成为你以后回头看时非常重要的一年。
Where you are now is not a “shining moment” in the conventional sense. No admission letter. No offer from a major tech company. No particularly impressive social status. Yet I actually think this period may turn out to be a very important year when you look back on it later.
因为此前二十多年，你主要在解决一个问题：“怎样把别人给我的路走好？”而你现在第一次必须回答：“如果没有人替我规定下一站，我到底想去哪里？”
For more than twenty years, you were mainly trying to answer one question: “How can I make my way well along the path others have laid out for me?” Now, for the first time, you have to answer another: “If no one decides my next destination for me, where do I actually want to go?”
你过去的很多东西——电子专业、通信算法、围棋、写作、网站、AI、海外互联网、K-pop、旅行、数码——现在看起来仍然有一点散。但它们已经开始出现共同的轴心：强烈的求知欲、系统化能力、表达欲，以及对“自主选择”的执着。
Many of the things that have been part of your life—your electronics major, communication algorithms, Go, writing, websites, AI, the internet beyond China, K-pop, travel, and digital devices—still seem a little scattered. But a common center has begun to emerge: a strong desire to learn, an ability to organize things into systems, a desire to express yourself, and an insistence on making your own choices.
所以如果一定要给你的前 22 年取一个标题，我大概会叫：《从别人给出的坐标，到自己建立坐标系》。
So if I had to give your first twenty-two years a title, I would probably call it From Coordinates Given by Others to Building Your Own Coordinate System.
你从吴江出发，去了威海。从一个习惯考试和升学的人，变成会研究通信算法的人；从普通的互联网用户，变成会搭网站、用 GitHub、理解 AI 产品的人；从听歌追星的人，变成会反思偶像工业与消费主义的人；从“大学生”这个确定身份，走到了今天这个暂时没有标准答案的位置。
You set out from Wujiang and went to Weihai. From someone accustomed to exams and progressing through school, you became someone who could study communication algorithms; from an ordinary internet user, someone who could build websites, use GitHub, and understand AI products; from someone who listened to music and followed idols, someone who could reflect on the idol industry and consumerism. From the clearly defined identity of “university student,” you have arrived at your present position, where, for now, there is no standard answer.
你还没有真正抵达哪里。但至少有一件事已经发生了：你开始不再只问“下一步应该是什么”，而是在问“什么样的人生才值得我走下去”。
You have not truly arrived anywhere yet. But at least one thing has happened: you are beginning to ask not only “What should the next step be?” but “What kind of life is worth continuing to pursue?”