2025 → 2026: Give Life to Time, Treat Years with Gentleness

Don’t try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.——Blaise Pascal

The last day of 2025 was an ordinary, uneventful day.

In the morning, a technician from the telecom company installed broadband at the “整点薯条吧” (Just Order Some Fries) courtyard.

In the afternoon, Cell and I recorded a podcast episode with the theme “如花在野，如鱼得水” (Like flowers in the wild, like fish in water).

In the evening, Zuo Zuo said she wanted pizza. So we called Feiji and prepared to take a taxi to the old town together.

On New Year’s Eve, transportation was limited, so…

The three of us arrived at Dali Old Town in a cargo van.

While enjoying the delicious food, we began to reflect on 2025.

Zuo Zuo said: 2025 was the year with her highest social intensity.

Feiji said: You can’t imagine what the food was like when I was living in the Middle East. Eating was just to fill the stomach.

Food, travel, freedom, wealth, work, choices, growth, socializing, emotions, happiness, experiences…

We talked about many things, and scenes from this year played out in our minds.

Before leaving, we also visited the “暖暖” (Warm Warm) Youth Hostel. On the poster wall in the lobby, I noticed the following poem.

Passing by the seaside, feeling the temperate monsoon.

In the hours before sleepiness, listening to the breathing of seagulls and the chirping of cicadas.

The wine here has intoxicated a sailboat.

I gaze at the boat, and also intoxicate a cup of summer.

Although Dali has a subtropical monsoon climate and cicadas are rarely heard even in summer, I particularly love the last two lines of this poem.

The wine here has intoxicated a sailboat. I gaze at the boat, and also intoxicate a cup of summer.

The road ahead is long, a small boat drifting with the wind, stopping here and now. As I gaze at this boat, I begin to examine myself, nothing more, just grateful for the gifts of summer and life.

We returned to Yinqiao around 23

. Originally planning to stay up until midnight to welcome 2026, but Dali’s magnetic field was too strong, and around 23, I fell asleep.

When I woke up again, it was already seven in the morning. Looking at the various greetings on my phone, scrolling through moments, I felt everyone’s expectations for the new year.

2025 → 2026, I had no intention of recording anything, until I saw the following text in a group chat.

Yes, for time itself, New Year’s Day is just an ordinary day. So what is the meaning of celebrating the New Year?

Because we like it? Yes, because we like it!

Time is always a relative concept; only the present feeling is the most real.

Metal, wood, water, fire, earth—sunlight, air, water, soil, space, and time.

My biggest realization last year was: humans and plants are essentially no different.

Do what you like, like a tree, growing freely!

Treat years with gentleness, give life to time!

In this short life we will eventually lose everything. Why not be bold? Love someone, climb a mountain, chase a dream!——Big Fish & Begonia