The Present of a Nobody Turning into Forty

Writer: Zheng Chang

Introduction:The original project director of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games' marketing department franchising office; the program specialist of the Present of Beijing. He has worked in franchise and authorization work of huge activities and sports competitions. He is the current CEO of Beijing Tianpinyixuan Culture Co., Ltd.; he is responsible for the authorization work and development of the national famous artists’artistic by-products.

Text:

I have been working in culture authorization, as in the famous IP authorization industry nowadays. I always thought that entering this industry is inevitable, but entering culture authorization through the industry of sports authorization is an accident. It is inevitable because I think I have a heart of an artist. Probably the best explanation for my life these years is that sports and culture are connected.

Falling in love with the outdoor sport is an accident. But there is a certain connection to the accident. I don’t have talent in the sport, my body’s coordination is just fine. Because of my parents’education, the catcall of my buddies and the not-so-accurate-scout of my teacher, I was trained professionally in baseball ( still not a famous sport now). But that experience helped me a lot during my life, work and study later on.

There are not many excitement in my life these years. I went to school, graduated and then work like most of the people, repeating the history generations after generations. But the accidents in life seemed spiced up life. I have worked in real estate industry since I had graduated from college. I always thought my cultural knowledge is limited, but I am working in a Cultural Co., Ltd. Listening to the line in the Can’t Bare My Lonesome of Zongsheng Li which is the thirty is coming, I am nearly forty. Forty is described as a huge gap of life by many of my friends; I feel more hopeless than looking forward.

Like everyone else, I am married, and now I have a child. But my body was marked with age. My digest system was like a Pi Xiu, what comes in doesn’t come out. After I gave up on myself, I was 80 kilograms when I graduated from college, and my weight increased to 100 kilograms. Someone insisted on saying that I am 0.126 ton. I guess it is because that is easy to connect to tonnage. Facing this huge turn of myself, I used the famous line on the internet which is that time has taken its toll on me to console myself and used it as an excuse.

One day, out of sudden, I got a call invited me to join my best friend’s funeral. I thought, and I still hope that it was a white lie. But when I saw him lying still among the flowers, I realized it was real. I remembered talking to him over the phone several months back, and he said if he could give himself a healthy body when he turned into forty, that would be the best present. Now I understand what he meant.  

I have to admit that after saying goodbye to him, I kept asking myself that what have I done these years? The career I have is to build an exciting number as my psychological anticipation, and I take financial freedom as my ultimate goal. Under this drive, I welcome people and say goodbye to people, and I drink every day. And what have I gained?  

Ordinary people have the common problem. I make myself feel better sometimes by saying that there aren’t many people who insist in the world. So we feel comfortable with letting ourselves become who would settle for live-by until we face the cross-road of life when we are turning forty. I felt overwhelmed. A friend said that it is a good option to stop and enjoy the view for a change. This sentence made me realize what I have lost.

What was the present for a nobody turning forty? It is easy, a healthy body. If we have to use the parameter to measure, then I hope I no longer need to use tonnage to describe my steadiness. Walking, yes, walking. I was going to walk to the outside and walk in nature.

At first, I thought keep walking was easy, but soon, I found it was very difficult to do so. I had to face the temptation of endless meal, all kinds of discomfort, and a lot of people tried to talk me out of it. There was hesitations and I thought of quitting.

But there was a voice kept asking that if I want to wobble to forty like this. Would this be forty?

Finally, I insisted. I never treated myself hard before. It was OK that I could not keep walking anymore, I would created circumstances for me to walk. I would leave home without cellphone and enough money, then I would take a cab to a place far away to force myself to walk back home. When you feel desperate about the modern means that make like easy with a bitter smile and when you had to keep working after cursing yourself for doing this to yourself and reminding yourself never do it again, you started to fell calm. You started to see the views and the odour of nature started to appear in the air. You could smell the odour of water, grass and even feces of animals. It turned out that we could feel the existence of so many different things except the smell of smoke, alcohol, food, tea, gas, ink and anything chemical and the sound of voice,light, electric motor and the unsettling voice of the city.

 I had to say that climbing mountain was the most difficult part for me. My heart beat faster when I saw the rugged mountain road. The only physic I remembered which had not returned to my teacher was not climbing high. Because the quality is proportional to the weight and height that it could burden. There was no other choice so the only thing I could do was curse my self with laugh that I had to climb mountain carrying half of a pig more than others.

When I recalled the memory of that time,even though I could not see myself, if there was an audience, he would found a fat guy who weighted 0.126 ton was like a psycho. Making all kinds of faces sometimes and talking to himself sometimes while walking like no one was around.

Finally I arrived the top. The collapse and fatigue that I pre-booked did not came, instead I felt pleasant. My body was nearly crushed on the halfway but it felt nice at that moment. I did not want to sit because at that moment all you could see is the magnificent view and the world seemed smaller. This must be what feels like when human stands on the top of the high mountain and found the world so small. Standing straight while facing the mountain wind, my feet seemed grew into the mountain peak and had been here since the birth of the world.

Is it true that there is one thing that will touch you and make you cry? No. There are not many affections. This is what my experience of forty years left me and I could not tell it is good or bad but it seemed useful and true.

Chinese curse is a magical sentence and the foreigners are hard to tell if is a curse. Because it can send all kinds of emotions and most of time it is harmless. At that moment, a Chinese curse was in the mountain wind which was followed by some sentences with heavy breath.“Looks like I am still young. ... I am back...”

After climbing many mountains, I started to try walking in the desert. I was a lonely walker and felt the solemn of the desert. I pushed my physical limits again and again and I learned to listen to my heartbeats. I lied on my back and accepted the baptize of the hot sun. I knelt face down and felt burn of the gravels. I experienced the pain of the body and the sweet after the pain. I kept walking towards afar.

“Life is more that survive, there is poem and afar.”I suddenly found that I had a literary heart that made me say a line like this. Then another fat face appeared before my eyes. He was the one who said that line originally with a fan in his hand waving literarily. And then I felt grab his collar, and hit him on the ground.

Do not talk about poem with me. There was only afar. Walking with pain and pleasure endlessly in the world.

I was at lost and now I learned to overlook the human who was walking. One step after another. Walking and walking and became a pure walker gradually.

Breathing the smell of nature at the famous mountain and river; feeling the stretching road and the taste of the urban at the rural villages; watching sunset and lonely duck at the river bank and finding smoke and sunset at the desert.

Feeling the view the nature brought us and do not ask for a deeper feeling about life. Just keep walking and do what needs to be done. Perhaps the gift of being forty years should be a healthy body, a heart that willing to return to the nature, welcome and enjoy every progress in the future calmly and go over the endless hills in the future step by step.