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This book is a story about philosophy, parallel universes, existence, and living—but above all, it is a story about regret.

Regret is an age-old cliché. When it comes to this emotion, we often hear people declare: “I never regret the past, because regret serves absolutely no purpose in the present.” Everyone aspires to live a life devoid of regrets, but is that truly achievable in the real world? To explore this question, we must first define what regret actually is.

The human brain possesses the unique ability to recall the past and envision the future, allowing our minds to traverse unrestricted through time—backward and forward among the past, present, and future. We can even mentally backtrack to a specific event in the past, anchor ourselves at that exact moment, and imagine how the future might have unfolded from there. In other words, our imagination allows us to mentally reconstruct past events. Consequently, branching out from that singular moment in the past, two distinct selves emerge in two different worlds: a virtual self inhabiting the reconstructed world, and a real self living in the actual world. Naturally, we compare these two versions of ourselves. When we perceive that the self in the real world is worse off, we experience pain and find ourselves blaming the choice we made at that past juncture. This entire cognitive and emotional architecture is what we define as regret.

Once we comprehend the true nature of how regret is generated, it becomes glaringly obvious that the experience of regret is universal. Furthermore, it is utterly impossible to live a life entirely free from it.

Why is regret unavoidable? Because in the exact moment of the past, we had no way of knowing that we would come to rue the choices we were making. Of course, some might counter: “There were times when I acutely felt that I might regret what I was doing, yet weighed down by the emotional gravity of the moment, I felt compelled to proceed anyway.” Indeed, we cannot deny the existence of such scenarios. However, looking back, if you had already predicted future regret at that past moment, does that not precisely prove the sheer inevitability of regret itself?

Since regret is an inescapable process, and since it inherently brings feelings of pain and guilt, how then should we coexist with it?

First, face it with equanimity. A regret-free life simply does not exist; every single person carries their own catalog of regrets. Regret is not a matter of shame, so please look your regrets dead in the eye. Second, strive to let go. If there is no such thing as a perfect life, then by the exact same token, there is no such thing as a worst-case life either. Even if one were to argue that our current life is merely the karmic retribution of a series of “wrong” choices, at the very least, every beautiful thing we possess right now is also the continuation and reward of that very same past. Finally, refine the future. The duration and depth of the negative emotions brought by regret depend entirely on whether we take positive, proactive action. By reflecting on our regrets, we can make better decisions in our future journeys. If we do nothing, regret will vividly and repeatedly loop in our minds without end—trapping us, forever wandering, within the corridors of the Midnight Library.

“Life, as I understand it, is everything between sorrow and beauty.”

Seven short stories centered on “loss”. With a realistic touch, the author depicts the ordinary yet helpless pains of modern society. A heart-wrenching masterpiece.

In Korean Class

Teacher: Read any good books lately?

Me: Yeah, a novel. Outside is Summer by the Korean author Kim Ae-ran.

Teacher: What’s it about?

Me: … (Racking my brain, scrolling through vocabulary, assembling grammar, and forcing out a sentence. My brain cells were literally frying during this process.)

Teacher: I’ve been reading a novel recently too.

Me: (Still recovering from my brain short-circuiting) …

Teacher: (Staring at me) …

Me: (Reconnection successful) What’s the book?

Teacher: (Heaving a sigh of relief) If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura.

Teacher: (Starts explaining the plot) The protagonist is diagnosed with cancer and is told he’s “Sihanbu insaeng.”

Me: Si-han-bu-insaeng?

Teacher: Right, it means a “terminal diagnosis” or, in other words, a “prognosis of remaining life”.

(Ding! Korean vocabulary +1)

Teacher: (Continuing the plot) One day, a devil appears and tells him he’s going to die tomorrow. But, he can trade one thing from his life to vanish in exchange for one extra day of living. If it were you, what would you choose?

Me: … Cats?

Teacher: Starting with cats already?! Well, the protagonist chose phones, movies, and clocks. I won’t “Seupo” the rest for you.

Me: Seu-po?

Teacher: Yeah, a “spoiler” is shortened to “Seupo”.

(Ding! Korean vocabulary +2)

Right after class, I hopped on Amazon and ordered the book my teacher recommended.

Back in my university days, I was busy devouring works by Alexandre Dumas and Henryk Sienkiewicz—books I found in the school library that weren’t available in mainstream bookstores—while struggling through Dan Brown’s original English novels to prep for my language exams. I remember hearing about a female classmate who had read Gone with the Wind six or seven times. At the time, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Why spend so much time on a single book when there’s a whole world of literature out there? It wasn’t until many years later that I finally picked it up myself. Now, I must admit: I finally understand why someone would read it over and over. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a profoundly impressive masterpiece.

Here is why I fell in love with Gone with the Wind.

First and foremost is the character of Scarlett O’Hara. If you only look at the title, The Beauty in a Chaotic World, you might expect a simple romance set against the backdrop of war. However, it is actually a work of immense conflict and depth that explores the very essence of life. That depth lies within Scarlett herself: her first-love complex, her Irish blood, her ruthlessness and her vulnerability, her persistence and her compromises… all of these elements craft a character that feels incredibly real and full-bodied. Of course, the book is not just about Scarlett. While my personal reading style doesn’t usually lead me to read a book six or seven times, if I were to pick it up again, I would devote much more attention to another character I dearly love—Melanie Hamilton.

Throughout the book, I kept asking myself: “Gone with the wind”—who exactly is it that is “gone” or “drifting”? In the midst of shifting eras, it is: Scarlett, a resilient life influenced by the Old South yet refusing to be shackled by it; Rhett, a rebellious warrior who scorns tradition yet remains a tangled soul seeking a home in love; Ashley, the embodiment of the Southern aristocratic class, powerless to master his own destiny; Melanie, a brave and saintly soul who holds fast to old values while moving forward firmly in a new world. Ultimately, it is the thousands upon thousands of real individuals, swept up by the currents of history, drifting with the wind.

Finally, I have a deep appreciation for Mr. Fu Donghua’s translation. This version was translated in 1940 in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. At the time, the film adaptation had just premiered in the city, causing such a sensation that it “set a record never before seen since foreign films were first screened”. Though Mr. Fu was “weary of the task of translation”, after reading the original, he felt it was “indeed worth translating”. Encouraged by friends who noted that Japan already had two best-selling translations—”If they have it, how can we not?”—he embarked on the project. Looking back at Shanghai in that era, was it not also a “chaotic world”? In this intersection of time and space, whenever I encounter the Jiangnan dialects woven into his translation, it always stirs a faint, lingering sense of nostalgia.

In my student days, almost everything I read was fiction. I remember a senior in my research lab once telling me: “You should read more non-fiction; novels aren’t that meaningful.” At the time, I couldn’t grasp the weight of those words. It wasn’t until I left the ivory tower and entered society that I began to agree. I became more interested in the actual world I inhabited—craving to understand the stories that had happened, were happening, and would emerge within it. Fiction seemed to belong to another dimension entirely. Gradually, my passion for novels waned; I even began to look down on them slightly, viewing them as one might view “junk food”—an occasional indulgence for relaxation.

That was, until I read War and Peace.

If I had to describe the sensation this book gave me in one word, it would be “Impact.” How can I even begin to convey the magnitude of that shock?

War and Peace is an epic. Its grandeur lies not only in the restoration of sweeping battlefields but in the vivid portrayal of countless characters. One cannot help but be submerged in the vast ocean of the author’s imagination. Tolstoy is a master of realism. He creates such an immersive experience that you feel as though you are standing right beside the characters—clearly seeing their expressions, hearing their inner monologues, and feeling their joys, angers, and fears. His prose is a form of art. Consider this passage, where the imagery is almost palpable:

Since Rostov had entered, her face had suddenly changed. It was like a multi-sided, carved, and painted lantern; originally appearing coarse, dim, and crude, but once lit from within, this complex and exquisite work of art suddenly reveals its startling beauty with unexpected clarity. This was how Princess Marya’s face was suddenly transformed.

Interwoven throughout War and Peace are profound explorations of history and philosophy. “The will of a historical hero not only fails to guide the actions of the masses but is, in fact, constantly being guided by them,” Tolstoy wrote. Regarding freedom, death, religion, and love—themes that permeate the novel—one moment I am stunned to find my own thoughts mirrored in Pierre’s mind; the next, I see the same phantoms I once glimpsed through the eyes of Prince Andrei. As a reader, I found myself constantly forced to pause, to think, to attempt to understand and resolve these questions—because they are, after all, my own questions.

There are books that, once closed, leave us different from who we were when we first opened them. For me, War and Peace is exactly such a book. It has fundamentally redefined the place of the “novel” in my heart.

My father, caught completely off guard, could only stare down at the floor. It was not until Dr. Kafka had taken his seat at the desk that my father managed to find his words again: “My dear Doctor, you are a rebel.”

“Regrettably,” Kafka replied, “the rebellion I am engaged in is the most exhausting, and perhaps the most hopeless, of all.”

“A resistance against whom?”

“Against myself.” Kafka partially closed his eyes, leaning back into his armchair. “Against my own limitations and inertia. Ultimately, it is a resistance against this very desk and this very chair.”

In my high school literature textbook, there were two lessons that left an indelible impression on me. One was Lu Xun’s The Medicine—memorable because we actually performed it as a stage play in class, and I played the old father who bought the bun soaked in human blood. The other was Kafka’s Before the Law. Yet, my impression of the latter was not born of any profound understanding, but rather of its utter abstraction and incomprehensibility. After all, to a high schooler, anything abstract and mysterious equates to being sophisticated. It was much like when a classmate told me he was reading Nietzsche; it left me, a boy engrossed in Jin Yong’s martial arts novels, entirely speechless.

Many years later, I opened The Complete Short Stories of Franz Kafka, where Before the Law appeared once more. I had naively assumed that with a few more years of life experience under my belt, I would surely possess a deeper understanding of the piece than my student self. Yet, upon re-reading it, I found its underlying allegory more elusive than ever. And it was not just this story; all of his works seemed to me remarkably dense and impenetrable.

It was only later, when I read Conversations with Kafka, that I finally understood why he had previously eluded me: I simply did not know the man behind the words.

What kind of man was Kafka?

He held a doctorate in law, yet he was also an ordinary clerk at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute. He was the “rebel” of his own description, and the “homeless stranger” penned by his close friend Max Brod. Kafka had no home of his own, for as he once said:

“At home? I live with my parents. That is all. Although I have a small room to call my own, it is not a home; it is merely a sanctuary that masks my inner unrest, only to trap me even deeper within it.”

And literary creation, for Kafka, was perhaps nothing more than a helpless means to resist the daylight, to resist the self:

“If it were not for these grim, sleepless nights, I would not write at all. Yet, it is precisely because of them that I am repeatedly reminded of my imprisonment in this dark solitude.”

The question then arises: once we understand what kind of person Kafka was, does it mean we can finally comprehend his works?

Not necessarily.

Take The Metamorphosis, for instance. It evokes in my mind the modern phenomenon of the hikikomori—the shut-in youth living off their parents—but this could hardly have been the author’s original intent. How much comparability can there truly be between our life experiences and Kafka’s? Does our existence even require Kafka? As Kafka himself remarked:

“We can, with relative ease, distill many books out of life, but we can distill no life out of books.”

Our inability to understand Kafka is much like “the daylight failing to comprehend the darkness of the night”. Yet, we find ourselves willing to return to him, to read him time and time again. Why? Because having come to know Kafka, we simply cannot find it in our hearts to abandon him, all alone, to that bleak, sunless, and despairing frozen sea of solitude.

Ill on a journey / my dreams wander / over withered fields.

— Matsuo Basho

Life is a journey. “The universe is a temporary inn for all living things; time is a traveler through a hundred generations.” This was the profound realization of life captured by the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai in the year 733. Over a millennium later, Matsuo Basho echoed this very sentiment in the opening lines of The Narrow Road to Oku:

The sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years that come and go are travelers too.

While ancient scholars and officials either worried for the state from the heights of the imperial court or wrote of their personal paradises from the isolation of distant rivers and lakes, Matsuo Basho chose to comprehend the essence of life through the act of traveling. As this book stands as the crowning masterpiece of the Haiku Master, allow me to select a few of my favorite chapters to share with you.

Spring is passing— / birds cry, and tears / fill the eyes of fish.

Setting out on a long journey was by no means an easy feat for the ancients. Thus, upon the moment of departure, even the most mundane sights and scenes of daily life would cast a shadow of melancholy over the traveler’s heart. Yet, sorrowful partings were not confined to the beginning of the journey. In the latter half of the trek, Basho’s disciple Sora, who had faithfully accompanied him, fell ill and was forced to leave his master’s side. Facing the prospect of a lonely journey ahead, Basho wrote with deep emotion:

The sorrow of the one who departs, the regret of the one who stays behind—it is like a pair of wild ducks parting, losing themselves in the distant clouds.

A journey naturally brings all manner of encounters and sights. My absolute favorite episode in the entire volume occurs as they pass through the wilderness of Nasuno (Tochigi Prefecture). Lost in the fields, the travelers chance upon a simple local peasant. Too busy with his farm work to guide them himself, the peasant generously lends them his old horse to lead the way. What follows is a rustic yet heartwarming scene:

Two small children came running, following the horse’s tracks. One was a little girl named Kasane. Finding this unfamiliar name so remarkably gentle, Sora composed a verse:

The name Kasane / must surely belong / to the multi-petaled frilled pink.

Before long, we reached a village, tied the rental fee to the saddle-pommel, and sent the horse back on its own.

“Man is at leisure, cassia flowers fall; the night is still, the spring mountain empty.” Every era has its detached hermits who transcend the secular world. In Sukagawa (Fukushima Prefecture), the duo visited the haiku poet Kasai, a hermit who lived away from the world in a thatched hut shaded by a massive chestnut tree. To him, Basho gifted this exquisite verse:

A flower unnoticed / by the people of the world— / the chestnut by the eaves.

Upon arriving at the Iizuka Hot Springs (Fukushima Prefecture), Basho was tormented by severe abdominal pain. To make matters worse, their lodging was miserable—a leaking roof during a night of continuous rain, compounded by relentless mosquito bites. Contemplating the arduous road ahead, anxiety inevitably crept into his heart. Yet, thoroughly exhausted in both body and mind, Basho spurred himself forward with these words:

A pilgrimage to the remote borders of the earth, holding the conviction of selflessness and impermanence—if I should die by the roadside, it is but the decree of Heaven. With my spirits somewhat restored, I pressed on, traversing roads in all directions, and crossed the Great Gate of Date.

Reaching the coast of Izumozaki (Niigata Prefecture) and gazing out across the sea toward Sado Island—a place used as a land of exile in ancient times—Basho composed this awe-inspiring masterpiece:

The rough sea— / stretching over to Sado Island, / the Milky Way.

In the town of Ichifuri (Niigata Prefecture), Basho happened to share an inn with two courtesans. The courtesans, who sacrificed their youth to the pleasure quarters, and the haiku poet, who wandered to the ends of the earth, belonged to two entirely different worlds. Yet, in the grand design of things, there seemed to be a subtle, unspoken connection between them. Thus, Basho left behind this poignant reflection:

Under the same roof / courtesans too are asleep— / bush clover and the moon.

This captures perfectly the essence of Bai Juyi’s famous lines from The Song of the Pipa: “Both of us are castaways at the ends of the earth; meeting like this, what matters it that we were strangers before?”

Finally, I would like to praise the Kadokawa Shoten edition of The Narrow Road to Oku. The content is exceptionally rich. Beyond the original text, it includes modern translations, detailed commentary, and historical columns. It does not merely showcase the beauty of the written word; it serves as an invaluable guide for readers to understand the history, geography, and humanities of that era. I highly recommend it.

A book perfect for a Christmas gift. A book to read a few chapters of before drifting off to sleep.

Only a life fully lived can distill a worldview of such profound richness.

Diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only one year to live, Jonathan Clements, the former personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal, dedicated the final chapter of his life to a singular task. From the 1,009 columns he penned over a span of 14 years, he meticulously selected 62 of his most profound pieces. Organizing them into 11 major themes, he compiled the very book we now hold in our hands. The number 62 was perhaps an intentional choice, poignantly corresponding to the author’s age at the time of his passing.

This is a book that commands profound respect. Even before formally embarking on this reading journey, I could already feel its immense weight, for it inevitably encapsulates the philosophy and insights of the author’s entire lifetime. Upon reading it, it surpassed all expectations, which is why I have decided to share it here on my reading channel.