The idea to quit Shanghai / China comes and goes in waves, and I'll admit these dark cold and endlessly busy days I'm feeling rather keen on quitting. Nonetheless this city has formed a major part of my identity and social life and it makes more sense to stay here unless I have a clear idea of where I'd be going next from here if I did leave.
What it did occur to me over the weekend is that the more I learn or think I have "figured it out" or arrived somewhere in life, the more I don't know and there is a true sense that the journey has barely begun. In other words the 10 years spent here are only a small part of what may be next, whether I stay in this city or move on. It seems everything my own culture has taught me is a lie about the need to arrive at a state of self actualization. That never happens, and one risks the dangerous sense of complacency and pride at having achieved a sort of pseudo-arrival, where one becomes convinced he can then cruise along in his actualized state of knowledge until retirement and eventually death.
Maybe I know a few things about math or whatever and it can make me feel smart but I am coming face to face with the fact that I really know diddly squat. This latest proofs course for my masters degree brought that one home. There is a lot of truth embedded in a proof and I feel like with each day there is more I don't know, just as the saying goes. The good part is that the learning will go on for quite some time, and I don't expect to "arrive" at a state of self actualization. Not now, not ever.
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