★A curated collection of essays by Liang Xiaosheng, winner of the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize and original author of the TV series "A Lifelong Journey".
★The heartfelt musings of a writer who has weathered the storms of time and practices self-reflection. Focusing on life’s essence, he dissects the roots of modern restlessness and advocates a "less is more" philosophy, celebrating the resilience of existence.
★As a witness to transformative eras, Liang juxtaposes past and present through the lens of a nation’s vitality, channeling his meditations on history, writing, friendships, and reading into a tapestry of human experiences.
★Rational discourse on lived experience: Amid rapid economic growth and eroding humanistic values, this book invites pause — to ponder universal humanity and contemporary societal challenges.

This book is a collection of essays by Liang Xiaosheng, a recipient of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, in which he deeply contemplates the depth and breadth of life. It covers all aspects of life, including the author's reminiscences and reflections on his personal experiences, as well as critical and contemplative thoughts on multi-layered cultural issues from the perspectives of the times and history, and various musings on the changes and development of the era.
As a writer who has grown up with the new era, he uses empathy and compassion to express his thoughts on the essence of human nature, life's direction and purpose, and personal growth. With his profound awareness of the ordinary people, he writes about the insights into the ordinary lives of common people. Readers can feel the "philosophy of life" from Liang Xiaosheng, someone who has been through it all.

Liang Xiaosheng (original name ​​Liang Shaosheng​​) is one of the representative symbols of contemporary Chinese culture and one of the representative contemporary Chinese literary figures. He is also one of the important contemporary Chinese realist writers. He is known as the “writer of the common people” because he is good at focusing on the ups and downs of ordinary people's lives in great times. His works are characterized by a strong sense of reality and a commoner's sentiment. Together with Wang Meng, Lu Yao, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Tie Ning and others, he has become an important window for observing contemporary Chinese society and cultural trends.

Some readers consider Liang Xiaosheng as the “Chinese Balzac,” because he is committed to writing a “social encyclopedia” and portraying the destinies of people from all walks of life. His works are often used as important texts for studying and understanding Chinese social and cultural developments between the 1980s and 2020s. His work Chinese Peach and Plum is included in the collections of many overseas libraries. His work Father is selected as a textbook for advanced Chinese courses published by the University of Washington Press in the United States.

He has so far created more than ten million words of works, including essays, novels, miscellaneous discussions, and documentary literature. His representative work, The Story of "A Lifelong Journey​", won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize. This novel has a cumulative circulation of more than 2 million copies and are called the “fifty-year history of Chinese people's lives”. The TV drama adapted from it caused a nationwide viewing craze as soon as it was broadcast and set a new record for the prime-time viewership of CCTV (with a total audience scale of 371 million people). Disney purchased the overseas distribution rights of the drama in the first month of its production. His another long novel Snow City is selected into the “70 Classic Chinese Novels of New China's 70 Years”.

His works have been translated into English, French, Russian, Japanese, and Italian. The author was awarded as one of the “Top Ten Writers of the 2024 Hall of Fame Annual Humanities List”. In 2023, he was named as the “Cultural Figure of the Year” among the “2022 Annual Influential People” by China Newsweek. Since 1984, his name has been listed in the "World Who's Who" in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Chapter 1: The Art of Subtraction
Life’s Meaning Lies in Responsibility | 002
Memories of Orange Peels | 005
Reply to Huang Yiyong: On Life, Knowledge, and Duty | 008
Thoughts on a Zodiac Year | 013
Why Not Subtract? | 019

Chapter 2: Cultural Fragments
Musings on Traditional Culture | 028
The State of Chinese Humanistic Culture | 034
On the Pitfalls of "Ascetic Culture" | 045
Eight Questions About Literature | 049
The "Rules" of Love Stories | 054
Film and Literature: A Brief Dialogue | 059
Reading a Heart | 065
What Can We Give Them? | 072

Chapter 3: At the Millennium’s Crossroad
Truth vs. Rationality | 078
Solemn Thoughts at the end of a Millennium | 082
Sisyphus and the "Stone" of Thought | 085
This Era’s "Troika" | 088
Defining Epochs: Resilience and Force | 095
Times and Theater | 097
To Create Is Glorious — Letter to Shenzhen’s Deputy Director of Culture | 100
Understanding the New Requires Studying the Old | 108
Year of the Tiger Reflections | 110

Chapter 4: Glimpses of the Human World
The Language of Shoes | 116
What 10,000 Yuan Can Buy | 121
Thoughts on "Green Leaves" | 126
Perceiving Animals | 129
Reflections During Wildlife Conservation Year | 159
Nuwa and Eve | 164
The Beauty of Nude Art | 168
Some Poets Resemble… | 174
Cinematic "Manifestos" | 178

"In fact, the life energy that the heaven bestows upon each individual is extremely limited. Therefore, the capacity of one's 'life playbill' is also definitely finite. The notion of expanding it infinitely is an irrational view of life. Typically, it is difficult for us to determine exactly how many things we can handle, especially when we are young. At that time, our life energy has not yet been fully mobilized, and it remains unknown. However, this does not mean that we cannot draw conclusions about what we cannot handle. Who among us can break a world sports record? None of us can. Who can become the second Jordan or Yao Ming? None of us can. How about being a singer? Still not possible. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Likely not either. These are all undeniable conclusions. So, let's eliminate all these particularly desirable but far-fetched ways of lifefrom our minds! The idea of an additive life, that is, the belief that we can happily handle all social roles and accomplish everything in the world, lacking only the opportunity, is sheer self-deception."

A truth about life is that no matter how diverse the industries in the world are and how abundant the opportunities are, the things each of us can do well are always just a few. Sometimes, it's only one.

So even when we are young, we must be good at understanding the essence of a subtractive life: repeatedly removing those things that interfere with our thoughts from our "life playbill." This simplifies and clarifies the content of it and brings to the fore the things we can do well. The so-called value of life is nothing more than doing the things that suit us best with dedication and without regrets.

It is too costly to spend a lifetime understanding this point, and even if we do, it is too late. Spending half a lifetime to understand it is also a sign of slow comprehension.

Modern society is sufficient to enable people to understand what they are suited for at a young age. As long as one is willing to first admit to themselves which things they simply cannot do, it is equivalent to telling oneself not to even think about such a life. Nowadays, the word "restlessness" has become a buzzword, but most people only use it in passing without deeply considering its causes. In my view, many people are restless and suffer from it because they are unwilling to first admit to themselves which things they simply cannot do. Therefore, they cannot make the things they can do well stand out clearly on their "life playbill" and still keep adding various contents that are doomed to be irrelevant to their lives...

In this regard, the culture that is aimed at the majority in China plays a rather poor role — it tirelessly implies that everyone can succeed in everything through perseverance. However, it seldom conveys such a philosophy of life: more often than not, perseverance is futile. Instead, it is better to remove some desirable content from one's "life playbill." This better reflects the rationality of life because those contents are clearly unsuitable for some people's life situations...