I’m a fairly lazy person. I’ve moved my blog so many times, and every time I’ve been too lazy to write a proper introduction. But quite a few people have told me I give off a “mysterious” vibe, and that what I write feels a bit “unapproachably highbrow.” That’s really not my true nature, nor is it the impression I want to give off. So, I really do need to introduce myself.

Speaking of “introducing myself,” let me stall for a moment first. From childhood on, whenever I had to fill in the “hobbies” or “talents” box on some form, I always found it hard — my mind would fill with questions like: how much do I have to love something for it to count as a hobby? How long does something have to last to count as a talent? Might what I love now stop being loved later?… I hate all certificates and credentials, but in moments like these, my mind would still conjure up those stiff, lifeless photos pasted into bright red booklets, along with the standardized, mass-printed fonts deliberately spaced out with extra line and letter spacing to produce “testimonials” — this could probably all be summed up simply, in the astrologer’s terms, as Libra’s notorious indecisiveness.

That’s right, I’m a Libra — though I don’t actually believe in astrology. I could easily list countless counterexamples to disprove any one-to-one correspondence between star signs and actual personality. And yet, sometimes, other people’s view of what a star sign means gets accepted and absorbed by me — the word becomes flesh, so to speak, and so I become a Libra. There’s an old saying that goes: you cannot choose your own identity, but skillfully performing the identity heaven has assigned you is a kind of mission of your own.

So it follows that everyone inevitably carries some of that Libra indecisiveness: on one hand, you cannot decline the role assigned to you; on the other, you must still retain some individuality, to show that you are you, and not just any other Libra.

I’ve heard that once a person reaches a certain spiritual sensitivity, they can walk with their eyes closed and everything they imagine becomes real — and this isn’t self-deception. When it comes to the attitude of self-knowledge, what we’re really pursuing is exactly that state of speaking with eyes closed, and this, too, is not self-deception. Don’t most people’s self-introductions hope to present themselves in a way that others can relate to and recognize? But within this kind of “self introduced through the eyes of others,” where exactly is the “self”? Aren’t the very tools used to construct it — words, music — themselves borrowed from others too?

Seen this way, the very existence of self-introduction is something worth turning over and savoring: if you like flirtatious, I’ll act a little flirtatious; if you like the strong and well-built, I’ll show off a bit; if you like a pretentious, scholarly air, I’ll casually drop the names of a few books I’ve never actually read, a few obscure films I’ve never actually seen; if you like the fresh and understated, I’ll write you a little poem, post a photo radiating worldly detachment. Through any self-introduction, the “me” you see, the “me” you come to understand, might just be someone you once knew, living again in your mind.

To put it plainly, I love everyone, because I love myself. (A voice in my ear says: that line is still as arrogant as ever.)