I often mention that being oneself is very important. But in China, the opportunity to be oneself actually requires three generations of effort to achieve a social leap. The first generation desperately pulls roots out of the soil, standing firm in a strange environment, solving the most basic needs for survival and food; the second generation achieves upward mobility through hard work and education, gaining dignity and stability in the city, yet still being tightly bound by pragmatism and a sense of security; it is only the third generation that has the confidence to say goodbye to heavy survival competition, pursue those "impractical" hobbies and dreams, and explore true spiritual freedom. This kind of confidence to live without regard for consequences or others’ opinions is fundamentally built on the costs paid by previous generations to eliminate all restrictions on freedom. Therefore, "being oneself" is actually an extremely luxurious act. But we also need to be cautious, because those evil people do not want this intergenerational accumulation to truly happen; they try to revert the third generation back to the first.

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