I fully understand your to-be-or-not-to-be quandary. It's positive, as it means you are alive. When you are alive, you experience life and are fully in touch with life. When something is amiss or missing in life, you instantly become aware of it.

That's where the appeal of "Love Is in the Air, in a Village" lies.

We, living in the cities, are too far removed from the reality of life, the life that our ancestors lived for millions of years. Urbanisation is a very young process. So, when you see what goes on in a village, when you feel the "earthiness" of the people portrayed in the drama, some memory, in both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, is brought back, and it chimes with the yearning in your heart.

There's some sort of "completeness" about that life, which is missing in today's urban life. It's self-contained and comforting.

Now, if you watch Jia Zhangke's "Still Life" (San1 Xia2 Hao3 Ren2, or Good People of the Three Gorges), you'll find out how that life in the village becomes the life we are unfamiliar with, in cities.

But don't worry, we, as a race, are evolving still and the city life is a testing ground for each of us. If we can find warmth in a cold place, find solace in an emotional desert, and find purpose in a pointless reality, we triumph. When we triumph, we become "whole". We will never own what is external to us; we must never lose what is inherent in us.

I've also had some quiet weeks, devoted to translation and meditation. This has been a precious few weeks for me.

In some contexts, "画蛇添足" can be rendered as "trying to re-invent the wheel". Of course that only applies to some limited contexts and we shall never use it at international conferences where some smart speaker may then go off on a tangent and start discussing the taxonomy of snakes: Speaking of snakes, there are southern snakes and there are northern snakes. The northern snakes tend to go into deep hibernation in winter, whereas the southern species only take short naps in that season… So, if you add legs to the northern variety in winter, they can't find much use for them; but if you do the southerners, they may decide to crawl out on their newfound limbs now and again when the sun is out. But whoever sees them will scream – look, some novel species of lizard! (Sorry if you find this article perplexing. It refers to an anecdote that you might not know.)

醒来时痛哭一场。

想起了我的父亲。他临终前半年左右，突然迷上了香功，而且进步神速，经常给我写很长的信，里面讲的道理非常深刻，完全超出了我练功十几年的心得。现在看来，香功恐怕属于旁门左道，但田师傅好歹打的是非常明确的佛教的旗号，所以我爸可能在潜意识当中寻找半年后解脱的道路（当时还不知道自己患有绝症）。而且到了后期，喜欢双手合十，口中念阿弥陀佛，对人都这样打招呼，我妈觉得特奇怪，因为田师傅也没有教过这一招。

他脑癌手术之后，在病床上弥留了一个多星期。

有一天，他的一位同事萧老师（练气功很多年，估计实际上是修法的），在打坐时突然看见我父亲“身披金色袈裟，冲天而起”。第二天试探性地问了我母亲，我母亲告诉他，我爸还活着。不过萧老师心里明白，我爸的灵魂已经走了。

我父亲去世后，几个人一交流便有些明白了。就在那一天，我母亲在我爸床边，他突然伸出手来抓住我妈的手，用力捏了捏。我妈好高兴，以为他有希望了。其实他是在跟我妈告别，要我妈坚强一点。

就在那一天，我在香港做了一个梦，梦里我爸来看我们（当时我儿子六个月大），没说什么，用毛笔在卧室的墙上写了“永葆平安”四个字。而且“葆”字是他喜欢用的，有别于别人用的“保”字。

第二天，我前妻告诉我，她在打扫卫生时莫名其妙从墙上抹下黑色的东西，而墙壁却是白的。

就在那一天，我前妻遥遥地感觉到我爸的病床冷掉了。就在那一天，她远在英国的母亲，感觉到我爸到她那里告别（他们从来没见过面）。

也就在那一天，我们一家三口在一个商店里，突然有个衣衫褴褛的独眼老人盯着我怀里的儿子，直直地走过来，握住他的小手，连说：Good boy, good boy。然后声音很响地说了一句：Good-bye!

前妻在一旁已经明白了，不敢告诉我。

就这样，两天后，我爸走了。53岁。

我爸是个非常善良的人。善良到什么程度？看到狗咬不动骨头，他会用榔头一块一块敲碎；我中学时班上出了个小偷，回家告诉爸妈，我爸的第一反应是：哎呀，真可怜，一定是家里太穷了。

但我爸是水产工程师，一辈子繁殖了无数的鱼，也杀了无数的鱼。他那么善良、敏感的性格，是不适合那样的工作的。他第一次杀鸭子是在崇明老家，全家几代人在那里看，等鸭子下锅，他不忍心下手，磨蹭了半天，随后还是没杀死，全家人说他没用。后来我们家下放到农村，他需要经常性地杀鸡，非常痛苦，总是手抖抖地去做，而且很笨拙，村里的农民都会笑他，成为长效笑柄。

但他还是杀了，杀了鱼，杀了鸡。从此，这个业他就背上了。

现在我明白了。

可能就是因为他临终前经常念佛号，使得他走得很干净，连前妻那么敏感的人都感觉不到任何残留的拖挂。这是我最大的安慰。他一辈子挺苦。

他去世后，骨灰一半撒在他奋斗了一辈子的地方、也就是他最心爱的一片湖泊--江苏兴化的“乌金荡”。另外一半埋在他的故乡--上海崇明岛。第一次给他上坟的时候，旁边有几棵非常直挺的树，就在我默祷的时候，来了一阵很强的风，将树叶搅得哗哗响，我抬头一看，一片片叶子在阳光中舞动，正面的绿和反面的白，不断翻转，似笑似歌。

我明白了。

此后，每当我想起父亲（起初有八年时间根本不敢想，一想就落泪），就想起那几棵树、那些舞动的树叶......

The following is my reply to my uncle's email, with a photo of his design attached. The design is of the gate to the technical school where he teaches. He mentioned his intention to move to another working environment, in another city.

非常喜欢你的设计，可以解读出很多含义，而且大气。颜色搭配也是你设计的吗？我觉得恰到好处。
人生一个阶段一个阶段地走，而且往往不是直线，有时有些回归，动极生静，静极生动。我正好在翻译有关歼-10飞机的一篇文章，讲到了一个设计概念，就是“静不安定性”鸭式布局。鸭式布局指的是尾翼在前面，反而不是在尾部，这样将前端水平翼（传统的尾翼）翼尖产生的涡流，吸到主翼上方，增加升力，所以是双升力，而本来尾翼产生的向下升力的平衡性就丧失了。这样一来，飞机飞行灵活了，但操纵容易失稳，所以必须要靠大量的计算机帮助。
我的生涯中有过几个类似的反复，就是将尾翼安装在哪里的选择，是不变求稳，还是求变而失稳？

This is his reply:

我对校门设计的主导创意是那个圆弧顶，象征半本翻开的书，现在大学招生多了，容易进了，稍微有点可能读书的人都想进高中然后进哪怕三流四流大学，象我们这种学校就是一些实在不愿意读书的人或者从小没有好好读书的人来的，那些学生前半部的书没有读好，我希望他们后半本书读读好。还好，我们学校每年倒也有不少学生以同等学历的资格考上了大专，“学一技之长，走技师之路”是校训。