The Creator is Dead, the Experiencer Lives Forever

The Possibility of Social Value Circulation Based on Meaningful Inner Experiences

Not long ago, I visited Qing Shan Village with friends. Apart from becoming an internet-famous village, it still attracts a wave of new villagers with lofty ideals, strong determination, execution, and a high level of education. They are the earliest initiators of this "ecological, co-governed" new village, with a more primitive and human-nature-oriented "hippie co-living" style.

They grow their own crops, brew their own wine, renovate old houses, host guesthouse exhibitions, open hand-drip coffee shops, and hold bamboo weaving and natural ecology workshops. They often go without their mobile phones. A Xinjiang guy who looks like a "veteran" said it took him a year to adapt to his lifestyle, switching from efficiency logic to embracing and harmoniously integrating with the entire new village. He is happy with his transformation.

"Why do I see that most of the activities here are closed-loop, such as serving coffee to villagers, exhibitions for villagers or tourists to see, and growing crops for themselves? Why don't we pursue the digital nomad lifestyle of 'high-paying online work and offline life in a close and beloved community'?" I once asked in the beginning.

"Why would you want to live here then? If you want both efficient and productive life experiences connected to the land, sometimes you're asking for too much," he said.

Asking for too much, in short, is greed. Those who truly settle down here are those who have figured out the true meaning of investing their hearts in a new, meaningful connection with the land. The economic circulation of the consumerist world outside is not that important to them. In this perspective, I am undoubtedly a capitalist fanatic at heart, eagerly pursuing the use of money, power, and fame to promote my aesthetics, with a seemingly gentle and cultured exterior.

This has been a source of confusion for me all along—I stand at the intersection of two continents: one is the Western concept of work hard, play hard, liberal individualism with a touch of heroic struggle; the other is the gentle and effortless harmony of Taoism from the land where I grew up.

However, this harmony cannot be integrated into the consumerist circulation after urbanization—if I don't "dance well," I won't have food to eat.

Upon reflection, the fundamental reason is that society is still dominated by efficiency logic. Experience logic may have to be reconstructed from scratch after a global financial game collapses. Such a collapse may occur in the foreseeable future.

After returning from New York, I increasingly feel that the city's extremely diverse cultural creativity can only flourish for another one or two decades. Although different things emerge, and there are no shortage of various cultural creative forces based on the "right" values, postmodernism's financial leverage-driven artistic innovation has become extremely difficult—the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and the mess left by postmodernism is almost entirely cleaned up.

I tend to agree that postmodern art came with the rise of America's political and economic hegemony after World War II, plundering cultural hegemony from Europe and other regions. This was coupled with a world system dominated by the US dollar, constantly leveraging external value inflows to create overnight success for American artists through cultural narratives. Now, this financial order is under fundamental threat.

Modern rising countries, to a greater or lesser extent, are also playing this capital game in a very similar way. Therefore, when the global economic environment or domestic economic environment is under pressure, capital naturally wants more people to be included in the economic circulation; otherwise, they will be disconnected from it, not generating consumption or contribution.

But this logic is based on efficiency, not experience. Gradually, more and more places have an excess of intellectual capacity, while the new wave of AI further intensifies this process. It seems that the only jobs that won't be replaced are those not done for work's sake—pursuing meaning, interests, values, and happiness. I call this meaningful inner experience.

This leads to an existential crisis for many, including myself. More and more people are pushed to the intersection of two continents, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions frequently occur.

So perhaps the next big collapse will be the remedy for this problem.

Maybe then, socialism and related concepts will be realized on more land—that's after a new wave of social restructuring following the fall of the whales, providing guaranteed material and spiritual satisfaction for more people, and establishing an "valuation model" for meaningful inner experiences.

At that time, you will live in a certain country or region because the people, community, and environment there recognize a particular lifestyle and experience. Meanwhile, more and more efficiency-oriented tasks will become the new utilities, hidden from the majority's sight.

Harmonious, beautiful, dangerous, and full of charm.

At that time, we will no longer value "creation" so highly.

At that time,the "experiencer" will truly live forever.