First post of the year, let's have a chat.

The most satisfying piece in the past two months has been "Song Jiang's Midlife Crisis," but for some reason, its readership is the lowest recently.

I rarely have the mindset of "This is my painstaking work, why don't you read it." As a middle-aged person, of course, I know whether I've put my heart and soul into it is not important at all.

After all, I've seen too many mediocre coders who stay up late to write code that's as messy as a pile of excrement, which neither humans nor machines can quite understand, yet they are deeply moved by their own efforts. The essence of this world is that the work speaks for itself; no one really cares about the specific process of production. However, for some reason, this piece always feels a bit regrettable.

Often, readers say, "Why did I only get to know you now, I really like you," and every time I see it, I have mixed feelings. Because I know that as time goes by, most people will gradually change. How much they like today, they might feel indifferent in the future. Maybe it's me who has changed, or maybe it's the readers, and we slowly don't recognize each other anymore. I just hope that at that time, they won't say something like "Why is the writing getting worse and worse."

This is not nonsense. A while ago, I checked the private messages, and one reader only sent me two messages. One was sent in 2021, saying "I really like you, it's a pity we didn't meet earlier," and the other was at the end of 2023, also just one sentence, "The writing is getting worse and worse, unfollowing now."

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Dozens of messages before and after this comment are similar to "it's a pity we didn't meet earlier," and I guess in a few years, most people will leave in this way. Of course, it's also possible that I'm being sentimental. Maybe they've forgotten how they ever followed such a blogger, or maybe the public account will be gone by then.

There's nothing we can do about it. People always grow, and as long as there is growth, concepts will change. For example, during college, people tend to be more emotional and idealistic. After graduation, most people suffer from the harsh realities of life and feel disillusioned. After having a family and children, they will pay more attention to life itself and let go of their obsession with grand narratives. Most people will also change from being radical to conservative, and these changes will lead to changes in reading interests.

It's also possible that the author himself has changed, gradually drifting apart. Eventually, it becomes "Every encounter is for the sake of parting."

In addition, it has to be said that the current public account is on the decline. The rise of video has not been decisively destructive to long articles, but it has basically changed the entire ecosystem irreversibly.Videos, especially short ones, have a profound impact on the general public that goes beyond just making them more addicted; more importantly, they have changed people's reading habits.

If you often scroll through short videos, you might experience that after a while, you lose interest in mundane content, and on the other hand, it becomes very difficult to focus on one thing for a long time.

This has also led to public account owners, much like civil engineers, lamenting the decline of their platforms daily. I realized the issue last year and had already started making videos on Douyin, Bilibili, and Toutiao. Now, my articles barely reach a few hundred thousand reads at most, while my videos typically start at a million views.

Many friends have suggested that I stop publishing on public accounts because releasing the articles first affects video traffic. They advise me to focus on making videos for Douyin, Bilibili, and Toutiao, but I have decided to continue writing.

Among the many media accounts, the most enthusiastic and committed ones remain the public accounts. Even though every blogger knows that we might be the last group to see the public account through to its end. It is likely that public accounts will "Douban-ize," eventually becoming a niche platform. But even if it becomes like Douban, as long as it doesn't turn into Tianya, I will keep writing.

A long time ago, my mentor told me that if you persist in not learning, your beliefs will become increasingly steadfast.

On the flip side, if you keep learning instead of constantly indulging in past theoretical systems, your existing views will be continuously fine-tuned, and gradually they will become quite different from what they were a few years ago, and your previous readers will slowly drift away.

It's an inevitable part of life; everyone is just a companion on someone else's journey, even children to their parents, who may stay together for a dozen years or so, but as they grow up, they will inevitably move further apart. If this is the case for one's own children, it's even more so for readers.

Speaking of reading, it reminds me of an incident from a few years ago.

At that time, a reader was constantly sharing their insights from my articles on Weibo, and one day they said, "The great Jiu Bian is so impressive, reading two pages of a book every day."It's unknown who fished it out, and then it sparked a group mockery, being shared over twenty thousand times, with many people commenting that the threshold for being called a 'master' these days is really low, and is it even worth mentioning if you read just two pages a day? Later, the girl, who hadn't logged onto Weibo for a few days, was shocked when she logged in and quickly deleted it.

I was also amused, but I didn't explain. Today, I still want to say that often the hardest part is just picking up the book and flipping through a couple of pages; once you start, if time permits, you might be able to read half of it in one go.

It's also because of continuous reading that one's views cannot remain unchanged. Sometimes, I actually envy those who repeat the same set of words; they are the true successful individuals.

After all, it has been summarized a long time ago: why is "sustainable growth" so difficult? A significant reason is that once a person or a business succeeds, they often stop doing the things that led to their success in the first place.

Most self-media bloggers are the same; they might have gained popularity because they grasped some traffic code at a certain stage, but the problem is that anything said too many times becomes nauseating.

Moreover, writing itself is very influential on a person's shaping. A gaming blogger can maintain the same views for five years without any change, but it's very difficult for a text blogger to maintain long-term consistency because what you write is also subtly changing you, gradually moving away from your former self.

To avoid this, generally, the best method is "commercialization"; the original author stops writing after a few years and hires a few writers to continue writing according to the traffic code. If they violate the traffic code, they are replaced, which is how the original tone is maintained.

In other words, maintaining a static state through dynamic adjustments.

The best in this industry is Tang San, who is well-known for his insistence on not growing, outputting homogeneous content day after day for decades, but always occupying his own ecological niche. I'm not saying this to mock, after all, what reason is there to mock a billionaire who has already achieved financial freedom?

It is evident that while it is valuable for a person to keep progressing, staying still is also a kind of wisdom.In 2024, I am prepared to continue discussing knowledge and growth. As for making a living, that's necessary too, after all, I am now in middle age and need to prepare a parachute for myself.

I often find myself in a peculiar state. On one hand, I feel that after working in the company for so long and having achieved a certain level, I should not be kicked out, right?

On the other hand, I frequently witness peers being ousted for various reasons, which inevitably makes me feel a sense of empathy and sorrow. Especially when I take a ride in a luxury car worth a million dollars and find out that the driver used to be a manager at a big company, I can't help but think that this is another version of myself on a different path, or rather, something that could happen to me sooner or later.

So, the most helpless thing for adults is that the tasks that need to be done must still be done, commercial orders must still be accepted, and the W must still be scraped together. Once I take on a commercial order, I won't open up for appreciation, and everyone will understand.

As for how this year has been, I can't really say. It's a bit like a "curve"; we've already entered the curve, and what's ahead can only be known after we've passed it. Last year, the "million per person" prediction from the China International Capital Corporation was off by nine and a half out of ten, so you can see how unreliable predictions can be.

It's precisely because the future is unclear that "masters" have become a key competitive field in these two years. Remember the master I mentioned a while ago who graduated from a top-tier university? "Does Destiny Really Exist?" He said he got into the industry a year or two early and seized the opportunity, and in recent years, their industry has seen a significant boom.

When people are anxious, they want to consult masters, who then provide them with psychological comfort. Generally, masters have their own routines; they won't say that you lack ability or that your mind is not sharp enough. Instead, they will tell you that you are facing the inauspicious stars, your benefactors are being blocked, and petty people are causing trouble. They encourage you to let go of your obsessions, and rather than reflecting on yourself, you should look for problems in others.

Everyone is anxious, and as a result, the temple economy and the master industry are flourishing.

I understand that the most important thing moving forward is to think about the worst-case scenario. When doing anything, the first thought should not be "what if I succeed and reach the pinnacle of life," but rather "what if I fail?"

The most common type of person in the past two years can be understood as "anxiety-driven investors." They may have made some money in the past few years when things were going well, but now the old ways are not working, they are not willing to just lie down and do nothing, and they want to give it another shot for financial freedom. Then they take a tumble, and at best, they become a DiDi driver, and at worst, they end up on the list of deadbeats.After all, insurance comes first. Don't pick up coins on the highway, and don't take risks that you can't afford to bear.

We often talk about the term "overtaking on curves," but in reality, experienced drivers rarely take unnecessary risks on curves while driving; it's too dangerous. Once you've driven, you understand that it's easy to get into serious trouble because you can't see the situation on the other side. You can take a gamble when the situation is unclear, but never bet your entire fortune. There have been too many tragedies like this in recent years.

The best approach is to "invest time, not money." For example, you can spend time on self-media, but don't spend money investing in self-media companies. If you must invest, make sure not to risk your core assets.

Young friends ask me how to choose, and I'm not sure. However, my attitude has always been consistent. When young, the greatest capital is time. Spend it in your hometown, a small place, or in a first-tier city, or even abroad; it's all the same. In any case, ten years will pass in the blink of an eye.

I often recall the vigor with which I left campus more than ten years ago; it feels like yesterday, and now I'm here, feeling much older. But if I could start over a hundred times, I would unhesitatingly go to a first-tier city, at least a big city, not to make a name for myself, but just to see a bigger world.

As for buying a house or something, that's unpredictable. Almost everyone's salary right after graduation in a big city is not enough to buy a house, but in the end, the houses are still sold to these people.

A person's development is inherently the result of a mix of ability and luck, and both need to be tested in a larger space to know. These days, people are talking about "makeshift organizations." Over the years, I've indeed witnessed too many people who are undeserving of their positions, holding high positions without understanding much.

This also means that in many cases, a person's development might be "if you were in their shoes, you could do it too." People should still believe in luck.

In addition, it's crucial to take care of your health. Otherwise, you'll know how terrifying it is once you're hospitalized. It's costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. Moreover, there's a rumor in the hospital that if you're hospitalized for a certain condition, you'll eventually end up there again for the same reason, and you're likely to die from that illness in the future.

If you want to accomplish something significant, you must be in excellent health. Over the years, I've observed those impressive individuals, and without mentioning other aspects, their energy levels can outperform 99% of people. They don't get tired easily, don't get sick often. We might think they can endure hardship, but in reality, they might not feel it at all, just as I might think someone bench-pressing 150 kilograms must be struggling, but in fact, they're not exerting themselves at all.The biggest issue for most people in life is still their poor physical condition, with a short energy bar that gets depleted quickly after a while, leading to a state of irritability.

I believe all these can be taken as the baseline for 2024, invest more time, less money, exercise more, and consume fewer calories. The situation will become clearer after this year.

The end of the article. If you think it's well-written, please give it a like, thank you for reading.