Haven’t written anything long or posted in a while—mostly because of my recent state of mind.
How to describe it? Let’s just say: chaotic. (I’ll process these past few weeks another time.)
Nvm. Reading has always been my favorite and most valued form of leisure, though in recent years I’ve set it aside for… various distractions.
Today, I suddenly remembered a few books I deeply loved and reread many times. Sharing them here as I revisit:
1) Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher
(Note: The original Chinese title 《天才在左 疯子在右》 by 高铭 translates roughly to “Genius on the Left, Madman on the Right,” but since it’s not widely available in English, I’ve substituted a well-regarded memoir on mental illness that carries similar themes of perspective and reality.)
Excerpts (Descriptions/Viewpoints I Appreciate):
We look at ants and see them crawling, but do we really see the whole picture?
An ant is just a cell—the entire colony is the true living being. A “loose form of life”!Me: “How is a group a life form?”
She, seriously: “The brain is just flesh—so where does thought come from?”In the eyes of a stone, even if we stood still our whole lives, they wouldn’t notice us—too short!
The soul is caught in between, struggling. Desires pull it down; warnings hold it back. We’re trapped in that struggle. Meaningful? No—just inevitable nature.
Me: “So you admit I’m human now? Not a character you created?”
He: “I set your role as human—and you’ve completed your task.”
Me: “Which was?”
He: “To stir my thoughts.”Her “cat” mother was cautious, meticulous, yet appeared carefree on the surface;
Her “ray” father was like a manta ray—slow-moving but young at heart, curious about everything.When you bite through the peel of an apple, that faint fresh scent crosses a threshold and begins to spread in your mouth, growing richer. As you chew slowly, the juice explodes wildly across your tongue, savagely sweeping over parched taste buds…
Personal Thoughts / Why I Recommend It
Not sure why it’s hard to find on common reading platforms—it was published around 2010. The book consists of interview notes with individuals diagnosed with mental illness. To me, these are their stories, their experiences—condensed by the author from four years of interviews into fifty-plus chapters.
What’s fascinating is how, as “sane” readers, we begin to see that their perspectives can be understood within certain dimensions. They operate with their own logic and face their own “problems.”
As Goethe once wrote:
“Truth belongs to man, error to the age.”
I’ll leave it at that—too much personal interpretation risks distorting the original.
Btw, I’ve only revisited the first 11 chapters so far. The most iconic is probably “The Taste of an Apple” (Ch. 11), though every story holds something interesting.
A gentle reminder: treat these as stories. You can try seeing things from their angle, but don’t dive too deep. The author once consulted a friend in the field who warned:
If you always see things from their perspective, you become one of them.
(Even if you think you’re “normal”—so do they.)
P.S. The Hypnotist’s Notes (Seasons 1 & 2) are also intriguing—look them up if you’re curious (I read them about a year and a half ago).
2) Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang
Haven’t finished yet, but it’s undoubtedly a masterful work. Will share excerpts and reflections once I’m done.
My typing and focus are slow due to my current state, and extracting excerpts from web versions is a hassle (requires correction). But I’m slowly reclaiming the habit of reading.
Hope to finish my extracurricular tasks soon so I can lose myself in books again.
That’s all for now—gotta keep my sleep schedule from falling apart.
P.S. There are more excerpts, but some are too long or might lead to preconceptions (related to plot, with spoilers).
One Final Excerpt (Slightly Edited for Flow):
“But how can you prove your feelings are real, or that anyone actually gave you those feelings?”
He looked coldly at me: “Go back just over a hundred years. Tell a top physicist then that you could talk to someone far away with a device smaller than a book, using a card the size of a fingernail and satellites orbiting Earth; that you could see and speak to strangers thousands of miles away on a small screen with no wires; that you could watch a game on the other side of the world by pressing a button on a remote. He’d think you were insane—because it was beyond any known science, utterly incomprehensible, right?Let me tell you the real Three Little Pigs:
Three pigs lived in a great palace. Life was good, each doing what they did best. Then two of them discovered a terrible monster had entered. They fought it together, but it was too strong—one pig died. With his last breath, he asked his brother to protect the youngest, to keep using the palace’s complexity to stall the monster, and to hide the truth.
So it went on. But he was too weak to ever win. The monster grew stronger, until it took over the palace’s most vital room. Though driven out, the room was badly damaged. The secret was out.
The youngest pig, still innocent, didn’t understand. The older pig lied: ‘The palace is under repair—it’ll be fine.’ He kept protecting her, visiting when he could, shielding her from the brutal truth.
This isn’t a comedy.
In the end, the monster found the youngest pig and killed her.
The last remaining pig swore revenge at any cost. He decided to burn the palace down—and take the monster with him.
That… is the real story of the Three Little Pigs.”
— Xiao Chen Notes
March 2025
