Right here, just as I am, with no time for secondary worries 👋🏻

So I blurted out: “Oh wow, so you’re a rich second-gen! I absolutely love making friends with rich second-gens.” Fulie’s mental reaction was probably: “I know you like making friends with rich second-gens, but did you really have to say it out loud…”

Fulie is a rich second-gen. Yes, that’s right, born into wealth. As for the details, I’m not entirely sure—after all, I don’t recognize various luxury logos. My realization was actually thanks to him introducing me to Arc’teryx. I once said, “The logo on your clothes looks quite nice; is it some kind of fossil?” He replied that it was a brand called Arc’teryx. I said, “Ah, it must be quite expensive then.”

But I didn’t know he was a rich second-gen by recognizing logos; I truly lack that ability. Instead, it came from our conversations—about his friends, about his family. So I gasped: “Oh wow, so you’re a rich second-gen! I absolutely love making friends with rich second-gens.” Fulie’s inner monologue was probably: “I know you like making friends with rich second-gens, but did you really have to say it out loud…”

When I first started hanging out with Fulie, I believed everything he said—about his family’s situation, his friends’ hardships. Whenever he saw an object or a person, he could immediately connect it to his friends and his past experiences. Forgive me, at that time I was just a fresh graduate who looked profound and cynical but was actually naive. Later I realized something was off: how could he connect everything to his life? How did everything relate to his family? How had he experienced everything? So, eventually, I stopped caring. Whether it was true or fake didn’t matter. Naturally, a lot of it was a mix of truth and fiction, because a person cannot fabricate details about things they have absolutely no exposure to. He must have seen some of it, must have lived through some of it.

But you can always trust your direct perception. Even though he is 2-3 years younger than me and often acts like a know-it-all who can guide me through life, I always say that deep down, Fulie is like a child desperately craving a sense of achievement and attention. Watching him on stage felt like listening to a soliloquy: “Even though Fulie talks about revenge and how bad people are every single day, most of the time he’s just a kid who wants to be noticed and validated.”

Yes, the words Fulie says the most are about wanting to get revenge on someone. After hearing it too many times, I’d say, “Revenge for what? Let’s just take a break…” Perhaps due to his childhood experiences and massive family upheavals, his perception of people and the world is overlaid with an incredibly heavy color—a shade close to gray. He often views people as inherently bad, harboring a somewhat extreme pessimism. But this gray is the protective armor he needs. You can’t say it’s wrong; you can only say his world requires him to be this way. Otherwise, he wouldn’t possess enough inner strength and would easily be swept away by the surrounding torrents.

He also always appears very playful, hyperactive, and cheerful, with all kinds of memes flying around. Malicious words are as common for him as they are for me. Yet, he always grinds hard in secret when no one is watching. On the flip side, I always proclaim that I’m going to work hard, but I rarely do—I say I’m studying hard, but in reality, I’m relaxing every day. Fulie says he hasn’t spent much time on his tasks and just plays all day, but frequently he loses himself in his work until midnight.

I think this is wonderful, because immersing oneself in a task brings its own kind of happiness and pleasure. While a good result is great, the process matters immensely. When he told me he had a new creative idea and sent over the cover art, I immediately called him: “Just do it! Why not? You absolutely can. This is fascinating—if you want to do it, go for it.”

He said, “We can perform this dance; I’ve been learning dance recently.” I replied, “No problem at all,” and decisively took on the heavy responsibility of being the dance teacher. To this day, I don’t know if Fulie was just speaking casually or if he truly meant it, but since you said it, I took it seriously. Although I have about two years of dance training, honestly, I have never put in real grit into dancing; I just do it for fun and freedom. It was simply the right timing, and fueled by Fulie’s encouragement, I led the choreography. In the end, a few of us stood recklessly on stage, performing for the audience below. I knew I was ecstatic, and naturally, I could feel Fulie’s joy. You see, movement and dancing are such blissful, fluid things. Regarding the performance, I said, “As long as we are happy ourselves, everyone below is just a head of cabbage, you know? A whole stage prepared just for you to老老实实 watch you perform—what a great occasion!”

Fulie also often takes me out for delicious food. I’d say, “I don’t want to eat, I can’t afford it,” and he’d shoot back, “No, you do want to eat, it’s my treat.” I’d agree and promise to treat him next time. Eventually, I spent a hefty sum to treat him to a meal too. Because I know his world operates on equal exchange; I remember him telling me that his friends care about whether the gifts he gives match the value of what they previously gave him. So, I looked at the issue from his perspective to maintain my own psychological balance.

Yet his core tint is highly mature and pessimistic. His expressions rarely reveal the youthful innocence expected of his age. Right now, as I sit in this café typing, there’s a guy sitting across from me to my left, appearing to be around the same age. But that guy blinks constantly, scratches his head, buries his face in his hands after looking at his computer, and uses his iPad Pencil with grand gestures to write solemnly on the screen. Although I always call myself cynical, profound, hyperactive, and beautiful, I actually have plenty of those little habits like blinking or propping my chin up. But you see none of that in Fulie. When he sits there, most of the time he looks like a weary elder who has lived through lifetimes. He has his hyperactive moments too, but they are mostly externalized through language and memes.

He always seems to be in a rush to catch the next thing. Frequently, the moment I see him, he immediately says he has to leave. I realize this isn’t an isolated incident, nor is it just the norm of this specific environment. Perhaps this is how his life usually looks—always rushing to the next scene, and consequently, always unable to savor the present.

On Lunar New Year’s Eve, this guy literally flipped the dining table. He must have cooked a whole feast with great enthusiasm, hoping his family could sit harmoniously around the table. But the conflicts between family members and their attacks on him became unbearable. He immediately flew to Northeast China for the Spring Festival, but he didn’t have a good time there either.

Yes, he cooks, and he can whip up many dishes. Although I’ve only seen photos and never witnessed him in the kitchen, he is naturally a gourmet. He has always consistently taken me to eat amazing food. Perhaps he finds peace and fulfillment in cooking, which is a beautiful thing—a gourmet always retains a passion for life and vitality. As someone who refuses to spend a single second on cooking, this often makes me think of my younger brother. They are the same age, and my brother is also someone who possesses intuitive creativity in cooking and invests time in it. My brother is the kind of person who, even when about to shove food into his own mouth, will hand it over to me if he catches my gaze. Though he is already married, I always say he is naive to a fault, yet a part of me hopes he can stay that pure and happy forever. I imagine both of them derive the exact same happiness from culinary creation.

But my brother is much happier than Fulie. His happiness stems from his world being small enough, having experienced very little. Fulie’s world is large enough, and while his experiences aren’t necessarily vast in variety, they are overflowing for someone his age. He once told me himself that someone his age should still be strolling leisurely through a university campus. His psychological age far exceeds his chronological age. When he said that, I wondered if he felt a sense of regret. Although he claimed it was nothing, a faint trace of wistfulness always lingered. Yet, having a psychological age older than your actual age can also be a wonderful thing—imagine combining a 40-year-old mindset with 20+ vitality. What a fascinating paradox, and what a completely unique way to look at the universe!

Fulie never posts on Moments (WeChat). Wait, no, that’s wrong. In my memory, he did post once. I’ve mostly forgotten what it was about—something like an artistic, somewhat lonely portrait with a rose. My memory is blurry, but I can still vividly recall the feeling it gave me. He wants to be seen and noticed, yet he refuses to post on Moments. Perhaps he doesn’t believe in things that are superficial but inherently unauthentic, or perhaps he just isn’t good at capturing those distinct moments.

Fulie has already nudged me for this article three times. From the moment I said I’d write it (May 28) to finishing it now (June 29), a whole month has passed. This month was indeed packed with pure joy (climbing, dancing, traveling, website troubleshooting, and sales work). Interspersed in between were other articles—pieces I urgently needed to write down just to offload my brain’s storage capacity. It wasn’t until today that I found a quiet pocket of time to begin writing. Many people hate being written about or defined, because being written about requires either knowing oneself deeply or not knowing oneself at all. Some people need to correct specific details when written about; some are casual—as long as I’m happy, it’s fine; some are shocked because rarely has anyone truly seen them before.

What about Fulie, then? He is probably curious—curious about how I perceive him, curious about how I view the chemistry between us. Because our daily, real-world interactions are lighter and more fragmented compared to text. But once a long-form article is complete, it just sits there quietly. It reflects the intersection of his world and mine—the structural observation and contemplation of one life observing another.

Yet, before I even sat down to write, fragments of text had already crystallized in my mind. From the very first day I intended to write about him, the words took shape naturally. When did this natural habit form? For instance, when I see his memes, I instantly think, “Okay, his playful side is back.” When I see certain messages, I know, “Okay, he’s frustrated with work right now and needs to be seen.” When I see him coming over to gossip, I think, “There’s that childish, cynical side of him again.”

Easter Egg

When I first set the tagline for my account, it read: thinking / writing / painting. Yes, painting has never been showcased, because my drawing skills are practically non-existent. But drawing is nothing more than arbitrary strokes replacing your thoughts. Thus, I am picking up the brush again, creating a custom cover drawing for every single article from now on.

Connect with Me

Welcome to join us at rightheretc@163.com to discuss fluid thoughts, reflections, and life sciences.

🎙️ Where to Find Me

• Official Account: 就在此地Right here (Right Here) Currently, our collections include:

1. Skills 2. Human Specimen Collector 3. Whimsical Thoughts 4. Continuous Ideas 5. Ingestion & Curation Notes 6. Solitary Diary 7. Tools 8. Cosmic Exploration Travelogue 9. Podcast: 就在此地Right here 10. Insight & Awareness 11. Daily Aesthetics & Pleasure Records 12. How to Write

• Podcast: 【就在此地Right here】 Domestic: Xiao Yuzhou, NetEase Cloud Music, QQ Music, Ximalaya, Apple Podcasts, Lizhi Overseas: Apple Podcasts, Spotify
• Email: rightheretc@163.com Note: If you have any topics you’d like to explore, feel free to pitch them to our email.