---
title: "The Dog Days of Middle Age: We Should Learn to Revere—Jiang Wen"
description: "The author reflects on the transition from youthful labor to middle age, realizing that middle age is not the leisurely time he once dreamed of, but a period of struggle, compromise, and the need to revere life, time, and experience."
author: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-09-21"
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# The Dog Days of Middle Age: We Should Learn to Revere—Jiang Wen

> The author reflects on the transition from youthful labor to middle age, realizing that middle age is not the leisurely time he once dreamed of, but a period of struggle, compromise, and the need to revere life, time, and experience.

When I first entered the workforce at 19, I did manual labor in a machinery factory, **repeating monotonous work like a donkey circling a mill. My biggest life dilemma then was whether to save money by eating fried rice or fried noodles.** My landlord was a man in his 40s who slept in every day, leisurely inspected our rented rooms, and spent his abundant free time napping, drinking tea, and watching the sky. Worse, the bastard even had stewed meat for breakfast, its aroma teasing my taste buds like a dog's tongue. **Back then, I dreamed of the day I would turn 40, so I could also stroll through time with such ease. What an enviable age it seemed!**

**Before I knew it, I rushed into middle age, only to find it shattered into pieces of烟火 (fireworks).** Middle age is an age of selling smiles—you must please the elderly, set an example for your children, constantly watch your wife's mood, and cater to your boss's whims. For survival, face, house, car, tickets, and money, you keep spinning. Eventually, you realize that passion is a waste for the middle-aged, and dreams are a memorial arch—you must guard your chastity while playing the whore.

**Middle age is a struggle: man cannot fight fate, and fate cannot fight time.** Many obstacles that seemed insurmountable at the time become trivial after a few years. I've never seen anyone hate another for a lifetime; what's more terrifying is forgetting and not caring, and in the end, all lose to time. Even the pampered Jia Baoyu would become a monk; even the mighty Tathagata cannot defeat the indifference of demons; even Christ Jesus uses the cross to comfort believers; even the majestic Mao Zedong lies there for people to queue up and visit.

**Zen says: one flower, one world; one leaf, one Tathagata. Do what suits your age; don't force it.** If 60-year-old Liu Xiaoqing insists on competing in beauty with 30-year-old Fan Bingbing, she's either seeking death or asking for trouble. Teresa Teng became a legend because she never gave you a chance to share the stage with her—that's what makes a legend. Qi Qin and Luo Dayou have reduced themselves to circus headliners at rural gatherings, needing a whole day to dress up to evoke past stories. **Fighting against time, only legends lose. Rather than swimming against the current, it's better to go with the flow—that is reverence for life.**

Middle age is a cup of clear tea. After the clinking of glasses and the dispersal of the crowd in the dead of night, it's half compromise, half persistence, each side giving a little. Compromise becomes composure; persistence becomes elegance. With more composure, you can be magnanimous and gentle, appreciating the reluctance between resentment and the unrefined yet solid and warm way of life in the marketplace. **Tea should be sipped slowly, leaving more blank space, more room to turn around. Silent tears and a pursed-lip smile are both scenery. Every period of time is the best passage, and every woman has her most beautiful moments.**

**Middle age can be profound, but never sharp; see through things, but don't expose them.** Those who are loud and boisterous are deeply insecure, which is why they act so arrogantly. I've seen people who find nothing in the world worthy of their attention—giants in words, dwarfs in action. Those who fail to measure themselves use acerbity to filter life, ending up gloomy and depressed, living like eunuchs. How can they experience life's ups and downs, the ebb and flow of the tide? A doctor friend told a joke: One day, a patient came in, saying he had spent half his life on health and wellness, with no bad habits, and couldn't understand why he was always plagued by illness. The doctor paused and asked, "Do you smoke?" "No." "Do you drink?" "No." "Do you visit prostitutes?" "No." The doctor said solemnly, "Then just die. What's the point of living?" The doctor friend said, "In this world, doctors can only treat diseases, never save lives." For those who live so sharply, there's no way to comfort them except to let them rush toward death.

Middle age is contentment. Having an umbrella in the rain, shade in the heat, a couple of ounces of liquor, a plate of peanuts, accepting a widow's flirtatious glances, directing a bachelor to fetch water, comparing wealth with beggars, playing five-cent mahjong with a group of idlers—that's contentment. Opening WeChat Moments, seeing Wang Shi inviting you to climb mountains, Pan Shiyi inviting you for tea, having recent free time to climb Mount Everest, renting a luxury cruise to take Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li to bask in the sun in Hawaii; swirling aged red wine to see the legs, collecting the twelve lost bronze animal heads, having your own clothing line—that's also contentment. **Contentment is the password to happiness. Constantly comparing yourself in a frenzy will only bring disappointment, loss, and despair. If you're still obsessed with why someone else is doing better than you, thinking 'Back then he...'—that person is not middle-aged; he's just over 40.**

Middle age is silence in solitude and frivolity in company. It's not the light description in speeches of "raising a hand is spring, lowering a hand is autumn"; it's the crisp efficiency of "raising a hand to hail a taxi, lowering a hand to pay" in the arena of life. In that raise and lower, many details are kept to oneself.

Middle age is the damn reality. **When we finally have plenty of time, we realize that middle age is not what it seemed. The damn middle age not only thins our hair but also loses our passion and dreams. Sometimes, waking up, I forget many important memories.** Worse, loneliness becomes rich, and melancholy is unusually excited. The only constant is Brother Mao's coldness toward me, and there are no rental rooms for me to inspect daily. **Now I understand that the realm of life is not daily happiness but daily freedom from annoyance.** If there are some thoughts and cares that can enter dreams, dreams will be long; if there are some hobbies that can enter the heart, life will be fulfilling; if there are one or two people who understand your silence, the night won't be long; if there are one or two circles to share with, time will slow down. Without hobbies, time is boring; without interests, life is tasteless. **Life is not a race to the finish line, ignoring the scenery and cheers along the way—that is not middle age.**

**Middle age is not rock and roll.** Constant anger and excitement won't bring happiness. I've seen a fighter; every time I met him, he wore a worried look about the country and the people, as if nothing in society pleased him, like Lu Xun. Living in extremes always tilts, especially for a woman; forgetting softness is chronic perversion. **Middle age is not folk music either.** Being so fresh as to forget your age, so naive as to ignore worldly affairs—both are unacceptable. You can't fight against life; if you do it well, you're Liu Xiaoqing; if not, you're Liu Hulan. **Middle age is even less like the academic national singing style—everyone looks and sounds the same.** It can't ascend to the elegant stage, yet disdains the primitive in the countryside, and in living, forgets the way it came. **Middle age should learn to revere: revere life, revere living, revere experience, revere age.** There are two things middle-aged people should do less: one is using your mouth to interfere in others' lives; the other is using others' brains to think about your own life.

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