mingling in the city

    In my eyes, the world is as vast as the marketplace. Though my heart lies beyond the marketplace, my being is ultimately buried within it. Few can truly live outside of it; its hustle and bustle, its conflicts and vulgarity, make it the stage for most. Perhaps people express this hustle and bustle, these conflicts and vulgarities through their own emotions and desires.

    If the marketplace is the stage for most, then from a smaller perspective, it might simply be a person's normal state. It's like a person's facial expressions; crying and laughing are merely ways to lighten the monotony. On the stage of the marketplace, everyone is their own protagonist, and everyone else is always a supporting character. This isn't about the importance of the roles on stage, but rather the narrowness of human desires.

    On the stage of the marketplace, everyone's joys and sorrows, their true good and false evil, can be gathered and accommodated; it's just that we find it difficult to clearly distinguish between them. The marketplace is the world of ordinary people, and almost no one knows its boundaries. This is like people not knowing how vast the macrocosm is, nor how small the microcosm is.

    This dialectical relativity exists only in the eyes of philosophers who are detached from worldly concerns. Perhaps a few of them also mingle with us in the mundane world. But they understand the art of restraint, they comprehend the power of composure. They can cultivate themselves in the state of "moderation" before joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness arise, and they can find peace and tranquility in the state of "harmony" when emotions are expressed.

    The vast majority of us are too pragmatic. We cannot let go of our own gains and losses; giving and receiving are always a matter between ourselves and others. We cherish what we have and let others give it up. This defies common sense, yet it is a common human behavior. Living for oneself, living for one's family, is their solace in transcending narrow-mindedness. No one laughs at this behavior, because for the vast majority of those mingling in the mundane world, they are ordinary and humble. Taking care of one person, one family, is already difficult enough, especially since they are constantly busy with the mundane necessities of life.

    Every day they hear the groans of the elderly and sick, every day they have to calculate their children's expenses, and sometimes they even have to work harder to earn a little more money. They rarely experience their own joys and sorrows, simply going through life with their inseparable partners. All their ideals, all their romantic notions, are steeped in the bitterness of life. The marketplace is a bottomless abyss for them. And they are merely a weary ship on the crest of a storm, still heading out to sea.

    Sometimes they feel like pigeons that leave early and return late, sometimes like swallows that have parted ways. Their decades of life are merely for the continuation of a generation. They are tired, not physically, but emotionally. The marketplace is vast, but there is no home. Home, to them, is a harbor for rest, but not a refuge for their souls. They are selfish because of their ordinariness and humility. What others possess is not necessarily what they desire; they have simply accepted inequality and become accustomed to injustice. Thus, a narrow-mindedness shattered the tranquility deep within, a primal kindness was overturned, and a new worldview emerged.

    The marketplace remained the same marketplace, but the person mingling in it was no longer the same. The initial simplicity of humanity had almost vanished, leaving only the resilience and strife of the marketplace.