I was born in a scholarly family. Being imbued with the idea that a human being should adapt to society and his environment at a very early age, I never ventured to sing a different tone to the constituent majority of a group. Every time when I tried to assimilate into the crowd and some discords happened, I always regard myself to be the fall guy to be blamed: you are a good-for-nothing, you become an abhorrence again! If you go on like this, you will soon be driven out of the group! If I could be said too immature, illiterate, childish and thoughtless to have any thought against what parents told me as a boy, then I was so learned, well-informed and deliberate when I was grown up that, as I was well-acquainted with theories of different schools, I began to be suspicious about the idea I accepted as a golden rule before.

我出生在一个书香门第，在从小就被 “人应该去适应社会以及他所处的环境”之观念的洗脑下，我从来都不敢跟构成一个群体的绝大多数人唱反调，每当我在融入社会的过程中出了偏差，我都会在心里暗暗责怪自己：你真没用，你又成了一个所有人讨厌的对象！如果继续这样下去，你很快就会被驱逐出群体了！如果说幼年的我因为幼稚、不成熟、读书少、没心没肺而不会产生任何与父母灌输给我的相对立的想法，那么长大成人后的我因为学识渊博、见多识广和深思熟虑，在博览群书、通读了各家理论以后我开始对早年被奉为金科玉律的那些观念产生了疑问。

When I considered the idea “a human being should adapt to society” carefully, I found everyone is born to be a unique individual. When he gives up himself and caters to what a society needs, he is certain to reduce to a “screw” and, consequently, lose his meaning of life. If there is something wrong with the society, say, Nazi Germany and Manchukuo, everyone adapts to it must be twisted into a deformed screw and in this way leads an abnormal life. Even if China today is associated with modernity, advanced technology and fast economic growth, its disadvantages are too obvious to be ignored: money is considered to be a yardstick to measure everything, while the invisible spirit value doesn’t worth a cent; the college entrance examination plays an important role in seal every student’s fate, a genius is doomed to be ignored if he is not a qualified examinee; collectivism matters more than individualism, you will be a target of public criticism if you don’t follow the crowd. Even though you are far from being twisted into an abnormal human being when you adjust yourself to the modern Chinese society, you will lose your personality and reduce to an unreal being. Take myself as an example, if I abandon myself, assimilate into the society, find a job in it and lead an ordinary life, I must give up my music career, because, as it can’t promote economic growth, it is scarcely needed by any group, and take up a job I am neither good at nor fond of, because what I am proficient in is not demanded by industrial society.

当我认真思考“人应该适应社会”的观念时，我发现每个人生来就是一个独特的个体，当他放弃自我去迎合社会的需要时，他必定会沦为一颗小小的“螺丝钉”并因而失去他人生的意义，如果社会出了问题，比如纳粹德国、满洲国，每个适应社会的人都必定会被强扭成一颗畸形的螺丝钉并因此病态地度过一生。即便如今的中国总是跟现代化、高科技和快速经济发展联系在一起，它身上弊病依然是不容忽视的：金钱是衡量一切的标准，而那些看不见摸不着的精神价值却被人看得一文不值；高考在决定每个学生命运的过程中扮演着至关紧要的角色，一个天才只要不能成为试卷上的英雄就注定会被埋没掉；集体主义总是比个人主义更重要，只要你不肯随大流就会成为众矢之的的箭靶子，即便你在融入当代中国社会的过程中远不会被强扭成一个畸形的人，你也会在此期间失去你的个性并沦为一种非真实的存在，就拿我自己来说吧，如果我放弃自己，融入社会、找份工作并过上正常人的生活，我就必须舍弃自己的音乐事业，因为它不能促进经济增长，所以任何一个小圈子对搞音乐的人都没什么需求，并找一份自己既不喜欢也不擅长的工作，因为我所擅长的都是工业社会不需要的。

The germ of a whimsical idea that “I am normal and the whole society is a deformed outcome, I am a noble prince and everyone else is the slave of money” takes root in my mind when I have read extensively in western philosophy recently. The idea seems ridiculous at first sight: you are neither Einstein nor Marx, how can you say you are healthier than everybody around you? Whether it is objective or not, it can make a great weight off my shoulders: with the idea that a human being must adapt to society in my mind, I constantly blame myself for failing to be up to the standard; when I changed to its opposite, an old Chinese saying “everyone is filthy whereas I am pure, everybody is drunk whereas I am sober” soon floated into my mind. In this way, I am by no means as depressed and agonizing as I used to be when I had the strong impression that everyone is inferior to and humbler than me.

当我最近广泛涉猎西方哲学的经典文献以后，我萌生了“只有我是正常的，而整个社会都是畸形发展的产物；我是一个高贵的王子，而其他所有人都是金钱的奴隶”的古怪想法，这想法乍看上去很荒唐：你既不是爱因斯坦也不是马克思，凭什么说你比周围的所有人更健康？不管它是否反映了客观事实，它至少能让我卸下负担、轻装上阵：当我抱着人必须适应社会的想法的时候，我总是责怪自己达不到理想的目标；当我转向它对立面的时候，中国的一句古话 “举世混浊予独清，众人皆醉予独醒”立马就浮现在我的脑海当中，就这样，当我感觉所有人都不如我、都比我卑贱之际，我不再如以前那般痛苦和郁郁寡欢了。

To be frank, values have nothing to do with truth. You can lead a happy life even when your values seem to be full of holes. When I attended services and get in touch with those Christians, I found they had a ridiculous view of the world: the world is created by God, mankind is the descendant of Adam and Eve, Jesus had been risen from the dead, everyone has to stand trial after death and you will go to heaven as long as you adhere to your faith. I would have thought they are deceiving themselves: how is mankind created by God from vanity? Where are we tried when our bodies have already decayed? How can miracles befall you when its chance is less than winning lottery? Nevertheless, their faith gives them a kind of inward peace which can help them stand the test of violent storms and waves. Even if it is true that religious belief is a kind of delusion, why don’t we accept it as it can improve our subjective well-being? Objectivity is of no account to us, what matters is how we look at it. When you are optimistic, no matter how blind, unrealistic and scornful it seems to be, everything in your eyes will be beautiful; alternatively, your life will be full of misery and depression. Even if there exists an objective world, none of us is able to have knowledge about it. Philosophy has developed for thousands of years and everyone among them endeavored to find some objective answer for the world, but no unanimous conclusion can be drawn until now. In my view, our consciousness likes colored glasses, every information we get from the outside world must be processed by it. The difference between the processed information, known as knowledge, and the original one, known as perceptual materials, is like cooked meat and raw meat. The function of our mind is to “cook” the information into what we can understand and “eat”. As consciousnesses vary enormously and there are thousands of ways to process the perceptual materials, there must exist thousands of views of life.


老实说，价值观跟客观事实一毛钱关系都没有，即便你的价值观漏洞百出，你也能过上幸福的生活，当我参加礼拜并结识了那帮基督徒以后，我发现他们抱着一种特别荒唐的世界观：世界是上帝创造的，人类是亚当夏娃的后裔，耶稣死里复活，所有人死后都要接受审判，只有那些笃信上帝的才能上天堂，我本以为他们只是在自欺欺人：上帝怎么就凭空从虚无中造出了人类？当我们的肉体腐烂以后，我们去哪儿接受审判？既然奇迹发生的概率比中彩票还低，那又怎么可能降临在你的身上？尽管如此，他们的信仰却能给予他们一种任凭风吹浪打，胜似闲庭行步般的内心平静感，即便那些宗教信仰真的是一个哄骗人的把戏，只要能提高我们的主观幸福感，相信它又何妨？客观性根本就无关紧要，重要的是我们怎么看待它，当你抱有乐观的态度，就算是盲目、超越现实和被所有人嗤之以鼻的，你看到的所有东西都是美的，反之，你的生活中将充满了悲惨和不幸，即便真的存在一个客观的世界，也没有人能够得到关于它的知识，哲学发展了数千年，每一位哲学家都试图为世界找到一个客观的答案，但直到如今仍然是莫衷一是，在我看来，我们的意识就像是一个有色眼镜，所有我们从外界得到的信息都要经过它的加工，加工成的信息，也叫知识，跟原始信息，也叫感性材料，的区别就像熟肉和生肉的区别一样，意识的功能就是将它“烹饪”成我们可理解和“吃”的东西，既然不同意识之间的差别如此之大、存在着数千种加工感性材料的方式，那就必定有数千种截然不同的世界观。

Compare my new outlook on life with the Holy Bible, it, though not so systematic and rhetorical as that classic one, can provide a reasonable theoretical foundation for my current situation: for one thing I am satisfied with what I am doing now: writing music, dig into western philosophy and expand my knowledge, for another I need a good attitude against those misunderstanding eyes. With the idea “I am the only normal man while the whole world is deformed” in my heart, I, instead of feeling myself inferior than anyone, go so far as to pity the majority because they are too stupid to realize the truth that they have already been twisted into a deformed screw, even if I can only be counted as a failure in most people’s eyes. As there are thousands of ways of life and values in the world, why can’t I choose an alternative one when it is able to make me happier and healthier?

如果拿我的新人生观跟圣经作比较，它尽管远不如那部经典那般系统化和文辞优美，却能为我的现状提供一种合理的理论依据：一方面我对自己正在从事的事业（写曲子、深究西方哲学和扩展我的知识面）感到满足；另一方面我需要一个好的心态来对付那些不理解的眼光，当我抱着“只有我正常，整个世界都是畸形发展的产物”之想法的时候，即便所有人都将我看作一个失败者，我不仅不会为此而感到自卑，反而甚至因为他们太蠢了根本就意识不到自己已经被强扭成了一颗畸形的螺丝钉而可怜他们，这个世界上有千千万万种活法和价值观，只要我选择的价值观能让我快乐和健康，选一个非主流的又何妨？

I am that Claudio Huang who refuse to follow the crowd.

我就是那个不随大流的黄越青。