I. The Soul-Crushing Routine
The light of dusk crept in through the tall windows of the city library, creating golden lines between the rows of old bookshelves. Li Yuan sat at the same wooden table, the one in the corner near the window, with a worn surface full of scratches and names of people who had sat there before. He stared at the open book in front of him.
Page 47. He had been stuck on the same page for two weeks.
It wasn't because the page was difficult. Nor was it because he didn't understand. But because his eyes read without his mind following, like water flowing over a stone, touching the surface but not soaking in.
"Li Yuan, are you still here?"
Tian Wei's voice broke the silence. Li Yuan looked up, seeing his friend standing with a canvas bag full of books on his shoulder, his hair a little dishevelled like someone who had just woken up from a nap which was true, because Tian Wei always slept in the reading room on the second floor after lunch.
"Still," Li Yuan answered curtly.
Tian Wei approached, glancing at the open book. The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. A book Li Yuan had borrowed three times from this library, always extended, never finished.
"You know," Tian Wei said, pulling up a chair and sitting down, "back in the day, people didn't learn from books like this."
Li Yuan slowly closed the book, as if closing a door. "Then how did they learn?"
"From a teacher. From observing. From doing something over and over until the hands and mind become one." Tian Wei offered a faint smile, the smile of someone who knows something but doesn't want to seem preachy. "My grandfather learned calligraphy for thirty years. Every morning, he wrote the same character. Just one. Until his brush became an extension of his arm, until the ink flowed like his breath."
Li Yuan was silent. Inside his chest, something trembled like a plucked string, but not hard enough to make a sound.
"But you," Tian Wei continued, "how many books on 'how to learn' have you read? Five? Ten?"
"Seven," Li Yuan answered softly. "Seven books."
"And... what has changed?"
The question hung in the air like dust visible in the evening light. Li Yuan didn't answer, because the answer was too painful: Nothing has changed.
II. An Inventory of Failures
That night, in his simple rented room an woven mat on the floor, a small wooden table with a stack of books and scattered papers, a cold porcelain teapot, and a soft-glowing oil lamp Li Yuan sat cross-legged with an old notebook in his lap.
He had owned that notebook for three years. Its cover was made of faded blue fabric, sewn with gold threads that were beginning to unravel. Inside, his own handwriting was sometimes neat, sometimes hurried, sometimes almost illegible from being written in the dark or from exhaustion.
He opened a blank page. He dipped his small brush into the ink and began to write slowly, each character formed with care not because he was skilled, but because he wanted to honor this process of acknowledgment.
"Why do I always fail?"
He stared at the question. Then, as if opening a box he had long kept locked, he began to write a list an inventory of the failures he had accumulated like unpaid debts.
Calligraphy:
Studied from a guidebook for one year
Bought the best brushes, the most expensive ink, authentic xuan paper
Practiced basic characters: Yong, Yi, Ren, Shan
Result: strokes still stiff, no spiritual resonance
Never sought a teacher, felt he could learn alone
Status: Brushes are now dry, ink has hardened in its container
Guzheng (Chinese Zither):
Bought a used guzheng from an antique market (spent two months' worth of money)
Learned from notations found in an old book
Memorized a few simple melodies: Yu Zhou Chang Wan, Gao Shan Liu Shui
Fingers often hurt, never got past that phase
Played without feeling, just following the notes
Status: Guzheng lies in the corner, two strings broken
Classical Literature:
Read Shi Jing (Book of Songs), Lunyu (Analects)
Memorized a few famous poems
Understood the word-for-word meaning, but didn't grasp the soul
Like a blind person touching an elephant knows the parts but doesn't understand the whole
Status: Books are piled up, bookmarks have never moved
Weiqi/Go:
Learned the basic rules from the book Go for Beginners
Played alone, analyzed master games
Understood the theory of tesuji (vital points) and joseki (corner patterns)
But never played with another person
Feared losing, feared looking stupid
Status: The go board is folded, the stones are stored in their container
Taijiquan:
Watched movements in the city park every morning
Tried to imitate them at home alone
Knew the 24 basic movements, memorized their sequence
But the movements were stiff, breathing didn't follow
No teacher to correct him
Status: Stopped after three months, felt untalented
Li Yuan stopped writing. The ink on the tip of his brush slowly dripped onto the paper, forming a small, spreading circle. He let it remain a stain on an already stained record.
He stared at the list with tired eyes. And for the first time, with painful clarity, he saw the same pattern repeating in every failure:
Initial enthusiasm -> Learning alone from a book -> No teacher -> No correction -> Frustration halfway -> Quitting before understanding -> Guilt -> Searching for a new thing to learn -> The cycle repeats
He closed his notebook. In the silence of the night, only the sound of crickets outside the window and his own heart beating could be heard. His own voice whispered, barely audible:
"What's wrong with me?"
III. A Dream That Leaves a Mark
That night, Li Yuan's sleep was filled with a strange dream not a clear dream with a narrative and plot, but a dream that felt like being between two worlds, like standing on the edge of a thick fog in the morning, when the sun has not yet fully risen and everything is still hazy.
There was an old figure in the dream. The figure sat on the riverbank, in a simple white robe, with long hair tied with a plain cloth. His face was unclear Li Yuan tried to focus but the more he tried, the more blurry the face became, like a painting viewed too closely so that only separate strokes without a complete form could be seen.
But his voice his voice was clear, deep, echoing like a temple bell struck in a distant mountain, its sound flying across valleys and forests before reaching the ear.
"Understanding begins not with learning... but with feeling."
Li Yuan tried to answer in the dream, but his mouth felt heavy, as if filled with sand. He could only listen, only observe.
The figure stared at the river flowing in front of him. The water moved calmly, creating small ripples that reflected the moonlight. The light danced on the surface of the water like calligraphy written by an invisible hand each stroke flowing into the next without pause, without hesitation, without correction.
"The river flows... because it knows its path. And you too will flow... toward your own path."
Li Yuan wanted to ask, "How does the river know its path?" But before he could, the scene changed like a book page turned by the wind.
He now stood in a room whose walls were full of ancient written characters characters written in various styles: regular script, running script, cursive script. The characters seemed alive, moving slowly, flowing from one form to another.
The old figure extended a hand, his long finger touching one character: "to learn."
"A written character is not just a form... each stroke carries meaning, and each meaning can open a door to understanding."
The character slowly broke down before Li Yuan's eyes. The top part: a sign of divination, change. The bottom part: a child. In the middle: guiding hands.
To learn.
A child guided through change. But then, in the dream, the guiding hands slowly faded, and the child stood alone not abandoned, but... freed.
"The sky is not high, the earth is not low. Everything depends on where you stand."
Li Yuan looked down. He stood on something perhaps a mountain, perhaps flat ground, perhaps even a cloud. There was no way to know because there was no other reference. Perspective is an illusion created by our own position.
"True learning begins when you walk that path alone."
The figure began to fade, like morning fog dissipated by the first rays of sunlight. Li Yuan felt a panic he still had so many questions, he still didn't understand, he still needed answers.
"Whoever reads to seek understanding... has begun the journey to their true self."
"Wait!" Li Yuan shouted in the dream, his voice finally coming out but sounding distant, like it was shouted from the bottom of a well. "I don't understand! How?"
The figure had almost completely disappeared. Only his voice remained, echoing from all directions from the water, from the sky, from the earth, from within Li Yuan himself:
"Knowledge is never lost... it only waits for the right soul to find it."
Then... complete silence.
IV. Waking with a Question
Li Yuan woke up out of breath, like someone who had just run a long distance or dived too deep. His room was still dark, only moonlight entering through a crack in the window, creating thin lines of light on the wooden floor.
He sat up slowly, feeling the coarse woven mat beneath him, the cold night air touching his sweaty skin. The dream... it wasn't an ordinary dream. It felt too real, too clear, too... important.
He could still feel the echo of those words in his chest, like a bell that had just been struck its sound was gone but its vibration still resonated in his bones.
"Understanding begins not with learning... but with feeling."
Li Yuan got up, his feet touching the cold wooden floor. He walked to his small window, opening the wooden shutters. Outside, the night was still thick. There was no moon the sky was covered with thin clouds. Only the silence of the small city in the hours before dawn, when even the dogs had stopped barking and only the wind still roamed.
He lit the oil lamp with a match. The small flame flickered a few times before stabilizing, illuminating the room with a soft, dancing yellow light. Li Yuan's shadow stretched on the wall, like a ghost following him.
He picked up his notebook again. Opened a new page. He dipped his brush into the ink the ink had begun to thicken from being open for too long and began to write, slowly, each character formed with full awareness:
"What is learning, really?"
He stared at the question. Three simple characters that formed a question he had avoided for years.
"Have I truly been learning all this time?"
The question cut deeper than the first. Because the answer, which slowly crawled up from a dark place within him that he had been avoiding by busily reading books and starting new hobbies, was:
No.
He had never learned. Not in the real sense.
He had just... collected knowledge like someone collecting beautiful stones on a riverbank admiring their shine, putting them in a bag, taking them home, storing them on a shelf, and never using them for anything.
Li Yuan wrote again, faster now, as if something wanted to come out:
"The learning I've done so far:"
Read books, but only with my eyes, not with my heart
Memorized, but didn't understand the essence behind the words
Imitated, but didn't absorb the reason behind each movement
Practiced alone, but no one corrected my mistakes
Feared failure, so never truly tried
Didn't ask questions, because I was afraid of looking stupid
"Results:"
Know a lot, but can't do anything
Never go deep, always stay on the surface
Always start, never finish
Feel smart, but am actually incompetent
Li Yuan stopped writing. The ink on the tip of his brush dripped onto the paper, forming a circular stain that slowly spread like blood. He stared at the stain, and in the silence of the night, an awareness slowly took shape a painful awareness but also, for some reason, one that felt like liberation:
All this time, he had been learning the wrong way.
No, more than that: He had never truly learned at all.
He was like a person who wanted to learn the art of swimming by reading an ancient book on the movement of water, memorizing the names of techniques, observing others swimming from the edge of the pool but never getting into the water. And then wondering why he drowned when he finally tried.
"Understanding begins not with learning... but with feeling."
The words from the dream returned, echoing louder now in the silence of the room lit only by the oil lamp. And for the first time, Li Yuan felt he was beginning to understand not with his mind, but with something deeper.
Learning isn't about collecting information.
Learning isn't about memorizing texts or imitating movements.
Learning is about... transformation.
Transformation from "not knowing" to "knowing." From "can't do" to "can do." From the outside in. From the book to the blood. From the head to the hands. From the word to the experience.
And that transformation doesn't happen just by reading or watching or listening.
That transformation happens by feeling, by doing, by getting fully immersed like a cloth dipped into dye, not just having its surface touched but soaked until every fiber absorbs the color.
V. Facing the Mirror
Dawn began to break. A reddish light slowly crept from the east, changing the sky from black to deep blue, then purple, then pink. Li Yuan was still sitting on the floor of his room, the notebook open in his lap, the oil lamp still lit although no longer needed.
He looked at his list of failures one more time. But this time, he didn't look at it with shame or regret that made him want to close the book and forget. He looked at it like an ancient doctor looking at a patient's tongue objective, analytical, seeking the root of the illness.
The repeating pattern of failure:
Learning without reflecting: Collecting information without understanding. Like filling a leaky container.
Reflecting without learning: Too much thinking, never doing. Like planting a seed without water.
Learning alone without a companion: No correction, no mirror. Like playing weiqi alone always winning, never learning.
Learning without practice: Knowing the theory, can't apply it. Like knowing a recipe but never cooking.
Fear of failure: Quitting before truly trying. Like never fighting but already surrendering.
Li Yuan took a deep breath. The cool morning air filled his lungs, bringing the scent of dew, wet earth, and blossoming flowers in the neighbour's front garden.
He took the brush again, dipped it into the fresh ink he had just poured, and wrote with a firmer stroke:
"The real problem isn't that I'm untalented... but that I've never truly immersed myself."
Yes. That was it. The core of all his failures.
He had never truly immersed himself in what he was learning.
He always stood on the edge of the pool, dipping his toes, feeling the water was too cold or too deep, then backing away. He always kept one foot out, one exit door open, one reason to give up.
He never jumped in completely.
He never allowed himself to truly enter.
Last night's dream came back to him more clearly now, like a fog that had been blown away by the wind, revealing the scenery behind it:
"The river flows because it knows its path."
How does the river know its path? Not because it has a map. Not because it has read a book about gravity and topography. But because it has no choice but to flow. Nothing holds it back. No hesitation. Just a natural movement, following a law deeper than knowledge the law of existence itself.
And humans, Li Yuan thought, learn the same way.
Not by reading about something from a distance.
But by fully immersing oneself, by becoming a part of what is being learned, by allowing oneself to be transformed by the process.
Like a calligrapher who doesn't just study the strokes, but becomes the strokes themselves his hand, his breath, his mind, all one with the movement of the brush.
Like a guzheng player who doesn't just memorize the melody, but becomes the melody his fingers dance without thinking, the music flows like water.
Like a martial artist who doesn't just imitate movements, but becomes the movements his body moves with a wisdom that needs no words.
"True learning begins when you walk that path alone."
True learning begins when you walk that path alone.
Not alone in the sense of being isolated.
But alone in the sense of... being fully responsible. No one can learn for you. No one can understand for you. There is no shortcut, no cheat code, no way to bypass the process.
A teacher can point the way.
A book can provide a map.
But you are the one who has to walk.
VI. The Lesson Yet Unnamed
The sun had fully risen now. Its golden light filled Li Yuan's small room, chasing away all the shadows of the night. In the street outside, he heard the sound of footsteps of people going to work, a rickshaw passing by, the porridge seller calling out in his sing-song voice.
Life began again. As usual. Like yesterday. Like it would tomorrow.
But something inside Li Yuan had changed.
He couldn't name the change at least not yet. But he felt it, like a person who suddenly realizes he has woken up from a very long sleep, a sleep he didn't even realize he was in.
He stared at his open notebook. All his writings the list of failures, the questions, the reflections looked different in this morning light. No longer as a record of failure, but as... a map.
A map of where he had been.
And perhaps, if he was brave enough to follow the clues left by last night's dream, a map to where he could go.
Li Yuan took a new page. His brush moved across the paper, writing with a more confident stroke:
"The lesson I found in the darkness of the night:"
I recognize my own pattern of failure
Learning is not collecting information, but transformation
I must immerse myself wholeheartedly
Feeling precedes understanding
The journey is alone, but not lonely
Li Yuan closed his notebook slowly, like closing the door of a temple after praying. He felt something strange in his chest not happiness, nor sadness, but something in between. Perhaps... hope. A cautious hope, a hope that was still small and fragile like a sprout that had just emerged from the ground after a long winter.
He got up, stretching his stiff body after sitting cross-legged for too long. His bones made a popping sound, pop, pop, pop like cracking bamboo under the weight of snow. He walked to the window, opening it wide.
The morning air flowed in, cool and fresh, carrying the scent of waking life. In the small garden in front of his rented room, a sparrow landed on the branch of a plum tree, its head tilted, its round eyes staring at Li Yuan with an innocent curiosity.
Li Yuan smiled his first smile of the morning, maybe his first smile in days. The bird chirped once a short, high note then flew away, its wings making a sound like fabric being shaken out.
"Alright," Li Yuan whispered to himself. "It's time."
Time for what, he didn't know exactly yet. But he felt something moving inside him, like the ground beginning to tremble before an earthquake not a destructive earthquake, but an important one, one that shifts plates that have been stagnant for too long in the same position.
VII. A Meeting in the Park
That afternoon, Li Yuan went to the city park as usual. Not because he had a specific purpose, but because his body was accustomed to this route leaving his room, turning left in the narrow alley, passing Ibu Lin's stall who always smiled at him, crossing the small bridge over the muddy river, and arriving at the park gate whose red paint was peeling.
The park was not big. Just a patch of green land with a few old trees, a small pond with lazy koi fish, and a wooden pavilion in the center where old people often gathered to play weiqi or just chat while drinking tea.
Li Yuan usually sat on a bench under the willow tree, reading a book or just daydreaming while watching people pass by. But today, something was different.
In the pavilion, there was an old man he had never seen before.
The man sat alone, with a weiqi board open in front of him. But he wasn't playing just sitting, staring at the empty board with a gaze that was... difficult to explain. Not an empty gaze, but one full of attention to something invisible, like a person listening to music only he could hear.
Li Yuan felt drawn without knowing why. His feet carried him closer, as if an invisible rope were pulling him.
When he reached the pavilion stairs, the old man looked up. Their eyes met.
The man's eyes... Li Yuan couldn't find the right word. Clear? Calm? Deep? All of those, but also more. Like looking into a very deep well where at the bottom there was a glittering light, but the light came not from above but from inside the well itself.
"Sit," the man said, his voice soft but carrying a weight that made it not an offer but... an invitation that couldn't be refused.
Li Yuan climbed the stairs, took off his shoes as etiquette required, and sat across from the old man. The weiqi board was spread out between them 19x19 intersecting lines, empty, full of possibilities.
"Do you play weiqi?" the man asked.
"A little," Li Yuan answered honestly. "But... not very well."
The man smiled faintly a smile that didn't reach his mouth but was visible in his eyes. "Not very well," he repeated, as if tasting the words on his tongue. "That is a good start."
Li Yuan was confused. "Why... is not being good a good start?"
"Because people who say they are 'so-so'..." The man took a black stone from the container, holding it between his two fingers, staring at it as if seeing a gem. "...they have usually stopped learning."
The words hung in the air. Li Yuan felt something tremble in his chest like a touched string.
"Whereas a person who says they are 'not good'..." The man placed the black stone on the board not at a specific point, just on the edge, outside the grid. "...their heart is still open."
Li Yuan stared at the stone. A single stone on the edge of an empty board.
"Master..." The word came out without Li Yuan realizing it. He didn't even know why he called this man 'master' they had just met. But the word felt right, like finding a word he had been searching for but didn't know he was looking for.
The old man didn't correct him. He just nodded slightly, as if accepting the title not as an honor but as... a responsibility.
"Do you want to learn?"
A simple question. But in it, Li Yuan felt a weight that was not simple at all. This was not a question about weiqi. It was a question about... something bigger.
Li Yuan remembered his dream last night. The words that still echoed:
"True learning begins when you walk that path alone."
But maybe 'alone' doesn't mean without a teacher. Maybe 'alone' means... having full responsibility, but being guided by someone who knows the path better.
"Yes." Li Yuan answered, and his voice was more certain than he expected. "I want to learn."
"Good." The old man took a white stone from the container, placing it in Li Yuan's hand. The stone felt cold, smooth, heavy heavier than it looked. "But first..."
He looked at Li Yuan with those clear eyes.
"...tell me, why do you want to learn?"
VIII. The Confession
Li Yuan stared at the white stone in his hand. Cold. Smooth. Round but not perfectly round if felt carefully, there was a slight irregularity, evidence that it was made by a human hand, not a machine.
Why did he want to learn?
The question sounded simple. But when he tried to answer, the words did not come easily. Like trying to catch water with his hands the more he squeezed, the more spilled.
"I..." He started, then stopped.
The old man waited. Not with impatience, but with... space. As if he was giving Li Yuan room to find his own words.
Li Yuan took a deep breath. Then, in a quieter voice than usual, he began to speak and what came out was not the answer he had planned, but a truth he didn't know he was holding:
"Because I'm tired of failing."
The words came out like pus from a wound that had been left to fester for too long painful but also a relief.
"I've learned so many things..." Li Yuan continued, the words now flowing more easily, like a dam that had cracked. "Calligraphy, guzheng, classical literature, weiqi, taiji..."
He counted on his fingers, then realized he had run out of fingers.
"...but I haven't truly mastered anything."
The old man nodded slowly, as if he had already known this answer even before Li Yuan spoke.
"Do you know where the problem is?"
"I think..." Li Yuan hesitated. "...I haven't tried hard enough?"
"No." The man shook his head. "Effort is not the problem."
He took a few black stones, placing them randomly on the board one here, one there, one in the corner, one in the middle. They didn't form a pattern. They were not connected.
"Look." He pointed to the stones. "This is your learning."
Li Yuan stared. The stones were separate. Isolated. None of them formed a territory. None of them worked together.
"You've learned many things..." The man continued. "...but you've never gone deep."
His old finger moved across the board, pointing to the separate stones.
"You touch this for a moment, you touch that for a moment. You taste but never get full. You start but never finish."
Each word was a mirror Li Yuan was forced to face.
"And also..." The man looked at Li Yuan with a penetrating gaze. "...you've always learned alone."
"But..." Li Yuan protested weakly. "You just said learning has to be alone..."
"What I said 'alone'..." The man raised one finger. "...does not mean 'isolated'."
He took a few white stones, placing them on the board this time in a connected formation. A group. A living shape.
"'Alone' means..." He looked at the formation. "...you are responsible for your own learning. No one can learn for you."
He pointed to the connected white stones.
"But you need a teacher. You need a friend. You need..."
He looked at Li Yuan.
"...you need a mirror."
"A mirror?" Li Yuan repeated.
"Yes." The man nodded. "When you learn alone, you can't see your own mistakes. It's like..."
He thought for a moment.
"...like trying to see your own eyes with your eyes. It's impossible."
Li Yuan was silent. Every word from this old man was like an arrow hitting a target he didn't know was there.
"So..." The man tidied the stones on the board, returning them to the container with slow and deliberate movements. "...the first lesson is not about weiqi."
"Then what is it about?"
The old man looked at Li Yuan with eyes that were serious yet gentle.
"The first lesson is..."
He stopped, allowing the silence to fill the space between them. Birds chirped in a nearby tree. The wind moved through the leaves with a whispering sound. Life flowed around them but inside this pavilion, time felt slow.
"...learning how to learn."
IX. An End That Is a Beginning
The sun was beginning to slant toward the west when Li Yuan finally took his leave from the pavilion. The old man, who introduced himself as Zhang Shifu, gave him a simple instruction:
"Tomorrow, same time, come with your questions."
"Questions about what?" Li Yuan asked.
Zhang Shifu smiled the first smile that truly reached his mouth.
"About everything."
On the way home, Li Yuan felt something strange. His feet walked the same path, passing the same sights, but everything felt... different. Clearer. More alive. As if a filter that had been covering his eyes was now lifted.
The dusk sky was orange with purple streaks. The clouds moved slowly like ships sailing on an ocean of air. Birds returned to their nests, making a perfect V formation without anyone giving a command.
All of this had always been there. But today, for the first time in a very long time, Li Yuan truly saw.
In his rented room, he lit the oil lamp again. Opened his notebook to a new page. The brush in his hand, fresh ink in the container.
He wrote only one line, with a slow and deliberate stroke, each character formed with full attention:
"Today, I began to learn how to learn. This is the true beginning."
He closed the book. Carefully put the brush down. Extinguished the lamp.
In the darkness, he lay on the mat, staring at the cracked wooden ceiling. But this time, the darkness didn't feel scary. It didn't feel empty.
Because he knew: tomorrow was a new day.
And for the first time in years, he wasn't afraid of what he would learn tomorrow.
He was even... looking forward to it.
CHAPTER'S END REFLECTION
Li Yuan didn't know it, but that night he slept more soundly than he had in months. There were no dreams or more accurately, no dreams strong enough for him to remember.
Only silence.
And in that silence, something inside him began to change.
Not a dramatic change. Not a sudden enlightenment. Just... a small shift. Like a door that had been locked for years, and now there was a small crack small enough that it wasn't visible from the outside, but big enough for light to begin to enter.
Big enough for new air to begin to flow.
Big enough for possibilities to begin to whisper.
And sometimes, that is all that is needed to start a transformation: a small crack.
Because it is through a small crack that a great river begins.
It is through a small crack that a giant tree breaks a stone.
It is through a small crack that light finds its way into the darkness.
Li Yuan didn't know it yet, but he had just passed the most important turning point in his life.
The point where he stopped being a spectator of his own learning.
And began to be a participant.
THE CRYSTALLIZED LESSON:
Learn to Know Yourself.
Before you can learn anything correctly, you must first get to know your own patterns of failure. Not with shame or regret, but with the clarity of an objective observer.
Question for the Reader:
In your life, do you also have a pattern of failure similar to Li Yuan's?
Write them down. Do not judge. Just observe.
Because only when you see the problem clearly can you begin to look for the answer.