希望—2026
2025年，我读了很多鲁迅。1925 年，整整一百年前，鲁迅四十四岁。那年一月一日，他写下一篇随笔，题为《希望》。其中有一句话，后来常被单独摘出：
“绝望之为虚妄，正与希望相同。”
过去读的时候，我是困惑的。他是说绝望和希望一样，都是假的吗？是因为它们都是对于未来的想象吗？为什么连希望都是虚妄的？
那是一个极易滑向绝望的时代。1911 年清朝覆灭之后，五四运动曾激发起整整一代知识分子的热情，他们相信教育、科学与启蒙能够拯救这个国家。这些理想曾承载着巨大的希望。然而到了 1925 年，那种高涨的激情已经幻灭在了现实中。鲁迅正是在这样的疲惫之中写下《希望》。
他选择弃医从文，是因为在他看来，当一个民族的灵魂已经病入膏肓，单单医治它的肉体并无意义。
而那时候，他的这份信念也开始动摇了。他被同侪攻击，被政府通缉，他与弟弟周作人决裂，贫病交迫，为生活所困，不得不做些自己鄙薄的事。
“我先前何尝不出于自愿，在生活的路上，将血一滴一滴地滴过去，以饲别人，虽自觉渐渐瘦弱，也以为快活。而现在呢，人们笑我瘦弱了，连饮过我的血的人，也来嘲笑我的瘦弱了。”（鲁迅《两地书·九五》）
群氓是麻木的，人血馒头是美味的，大众是健忘的——鲁迅并非看不透世情，也并非没有过悲观和虚无。但在心底，他还是不愿意放弃对中国的期望。他的呐喊与战斗，是对于外部世界的，也是对于他自己的内心。
在我们这个时代，最容易的选择，就是犬儒。站在一旁，冷静地拆解一切为何注定都是徒劳，远比继续对自己仍然选择去做的事情负责来得容易。批评和解构是最不费力的事。行动者跌倒了，犬儒者只需冷冷一句：“我就说吧。”
犬儒让我们免于受伤，免于被辜负。滑向绝望然后放弃，可以让人感觉“清醒”、“成熟”、“看透世事”。
今天才觉出来鲁迅俯视黑暗的气魄来——他敢直面失望和绝望，不被它们吞噬，也不向它们屈服。
人常常以为绝望的人是清醒的；希望则是天真和傻白甜。但鲁迅说，相反，绝望并不因为冷酷就更接近真理。
希望和绝望，都是对于未来的想象。既然二者同样“虚妄”，那就没有理由认为绝望更深刻、更真实。希望并不比绝望更“错”。
世界可以阻挠我们的行动，可以让我们对真理、正义、和爱的追求在现实层面受挫。但人可以被打败，不可以被打倒。
2025 年，无论我的努力是否成功，我尽了我的责任。我可以在我热爱的故乡被塑造成一个个代号，我可以被羞辱、被嘲弄，但我仍然可以选择不让自己变得渺小或者气馁。路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索。
希望，朋友们，2026年，也请继续保持希望！希望并非由命运赐予，也不会因失败而被剥夺。希望本身就完整地存在于我们心中。我们仍然可以选择追求真理；仍然可以选择坚持心中的正义；仍然可以拒绝把他人当作工具去利用；仍然可以在我们有限的能力之内，对身边的人保持善意，即使在最艰难的时代，也守护住内心的柔软。
上一学年，我和我的哲学教授读了很多康德。很多人说康德天真、傻，但他会说：一个人可以无能、无用、被挫败，但只要他仍然以善意行事，他就没有在最根本的意义上失败。
也许在这个季节，一切努力都显得徒劳。但朋友们，请不要忘记：
“绝望之为虚妄，正与希望相同。”
我依然这样相信——无论时代有多光明或者黑暗，我希望自己成为一个内心丰富、精神自由、身有所长的人，值得被爱并勇敢给予，并对世界的美好与软弱永不失去感知。
大家新年快乐。
Hope - 2026
I read a great deal of Lu Xun in 2025. 1925 was when he was forty-four. He wrote an essay on January 1 titled Hope. From it there comes a much-quoted line:
“Despair is as illusory as hope.” (绝望之为虚妄，正与希望相同。)
I got really confused the first time I read it. I didn’t understand what that meant.
China, at the time, was a young republic. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the May Fourth Movement animated a generation of intellectuals who believed that education, science, and enlightenment could bring salvation to the nation. These ideals carried enormous hope. By 1925, that high excitement was replaced by disillusionment and despair. And Lu Xun was writing from that exhaustion.
He had once trained as a doctor, believing he could save the country through medicine. He later abandoned the profession because there was little use in saving a nation’s body when its soul was sick. He devoted himself instead to writing, becoming one of the most formidable voices of his generation.
He was attacked by his peers and students, hunted by the government, and estranged from his brother. Impoverished and in ill health, he had to make a living and put food on the table. These forced him to take on a job he himself despised.
“Did I not, of my own will, let my blood fall, drop by drop, to feed people along the road of my life - growing thinner each day, yet calling it joy? And now? People laugh at my thinness. Even those who once fed on my blood now mock how little is left.” – Lu Xun, Letters Between Two Places (trans.)
He knew all too well that the mob is rarely noble. They are easily numbed, quick to forget, and hardly grateful. They do not remember their martyrs for long, nor do they protect those who go ahead of them. Lu Xun was neither naïve nor unfamiliar with nihilism. And yet he refused to let go of his hope for a modern China. His outcries were meant to wake his fellow countrymen—and, just as much, to keep himself from falling asleep and yielding to darkness.
Only now do I truly understand Lu Xun’s bearing, and his courage in looking directly in the eye of despair and darkness without being absorbed by either.
In our own time, the easiest posture is cynicism. To stand back and deconstruct why things fail is far easier than to remain answerable for what one still chooses to do. Cynicism spares us from being wronged and wounded. Despair flatters us to be intelligent and mature.
People often assume that despair is clear-eyed and hope is naïve. It is quite the opposite: despair does not come closer to truth simply because it is cold.
Hope and despair are both imaginings of the future. Since both are equally “illusory,” there is no reason to think despair is more profound or more honest. If hope is illusory, despair is no less so.
The world can block our actions, frustrate our plans, and cause our pursuit of truth, justice, and love to fail. In 2025, whether my effort in China was successful or not, I have done my duty. One can be destroyed but not defeated. I can be reduced to a symbol in my homeland, I can be thwarted, humiliated, ridiculed, but I can decide to suffer without becoming small. The world may claim my flesh, but it can not inherit my soul!
Hope - my friends, please keep hoping in 2026. Hope is not bestowed by fortune, nor revocable by defeat. Hope is complete within ourselves. We can still choose to seek the truth. We can still choose to fight for justice. We can still refuse to treat others as means. We can still, within our limited power, choose to be kind to those around us and stay soft in hard times. The world can cause my love to fail, but it cannot take from me my capacity to love.
Last academic year, I spent a lot of time with my philosophy professor on Kant. Many people dismiss Kant as naïve or foolish. But he reminds us: one may be incapable, useless, and repeatedly thwarted—yet so long as one acts from goodwill, one has not failed in the most fundamental sense.
Perhaps all endeavors are futile in this season. But, my friends, let us not forget:
“Despair is as illusory as hope.”
Happy New Year.
