2025.08.25 - In Chinese civilization, things that have power always have “li” (ritual) and “yue” (music) behind them

Title: 2025.08.25 – When Chinese civilization is powerful, it is always backed by “ritual” and “music”

Grandma passed away, and the world lost another hard‑working soul

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jRv4QTP5gmJ9TVl3s2j_Wg

Each generation has its own experiences, its own burdens. My generation may not have endured the material scarcity of Grandma’s time, but we have our own kinds of hardship and toil. I should learn from Grandma’s spirit: face the inevitable hardships calmly, get to know them, study them, then turn around and solve them in practice, treating them as a backdrop. On the massive backdrop of our era, the traces we leave will, looking back, show a heavy silhouette; looking forward, they should also bear an optimistic smile.

How short videos silently ruin your luck

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/OVcjV_g0njLe6hU_ZPLD_w

Luck doesn’t fall from the sky; it is forged by your mental state, judgment, and actions. Short‑form videos act like a precise “luck harvester,” silently draining your energy, patience, and focus, eventually causing you to lose in life, work, and even relationships. Many think luck is random—a matter of “destiny”—but good luck is usually the intersection of ability and opportunity, while bad luck appears when your abilities are exhausted and you can’t seize the chance that comes. The danger of short videos is that they let your abilities wither in entertainment, and you remain blissfully unaware.

Poetry is special

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vnFhWcBtkJnOjV3kTvA3Zg

Life is more than “the petty concerns before us”; poetry always keeps a “windy place” for us. Poet Mu Dan’s famous line, “Only now do I realize that all my effort has merely completed an ordinary life,” alongside verses such as “Beside the sunken ship, a thousand sails pass; before the sick tree, ten thousand trees bloom in spring,” “The mighty pass is truly iron; now we step forward from the beginning,” and “Since we have chosen the distant road, we press on through wind and rain,” have inspired generations to march bravely. Poetry tells us that even when life is riddled with wounds, we can still plant a spring for the next year. The power to “let flowers bloom on ruins” may be the most precious gift poetry gives us.

Posture matters more than looks | Help you develop a beautiful shoulder‑neck structure

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rggUftPSKkAVeBDbm8ammg

In our fast‑paced lives, have you ever found yourself, after a short stint hunched over a computer, instinctively kneading sore, tight shoulders and neck, or stretching your arms back to chase away lingering stiffness? Neck and shoulder pain is no longer a “senior‑citizen patent.” Students lugging backpacks and office workers glued to screens both suffer. What makes these problems so universal? Today we’ll look at it from a structural perspective.

Xue Renming: When Chinese civilization is powerful, it is always backed by “ritual” and “music”

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BnzpSc4pYNHAqFcs4h9Clg

There is a fundamental difference between the civilization of rites and music and individualism: individualism stresses that a person must be outstanding, must be seen, must stand out. The problem is that once you are already prominent, someone else will be even more prominent, and anxiety keeps rising. This is actually a core reason for the widespread anxiety—and even large‑scale depression—among today’s Chinese youth. Everyone has been taught to be “excellent”; everyone is competing, everyone must shine. The civilization of rites and music does not oppose excellence or distinction; it seeks to remind us that beyond those things there are even more important values.

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Originally written by Ping Xia (平侠) and published in Chinese on 拾一集 (Weekly Reflections). Translated and adapted for DriftSeas with permission.