Chapter Three: Solitude
Dancing with Philosophers — I never make friends on purpose. Solitude is an efficient state—thinking requires an absolutely quiet system environment. But in Florence, on a narrow street near the Duomo, two high-speed radars locked onto each other.
I never make friends on purpose.
Solitude is an efficient state. Thinking requires an absolutely quiet system environment. As a child, that thinking was in color, without logical boundaries. Staring at a huge old tree, a "hidden paradise code" would automatically surface in my mind. That world was filled with toys and candy I loved, possessing a prismatic spectrum of light—like some idealized world of Forms.
Then, in a documentary, I saw an archaeological team excavate a corpse. The sheer inevitability of that existence struck me all at once. I imagined that one day, I too would lie in such a coffin. At the time, I did not yet know that the dead have no emotional reactions left at all.
Even though I never approached anyone on my own, others never seemed to treat my silence as a social "system error." They always drifted toward me automatically. Perhaps this was because my childhood was not entirely consumed by introspection. Back then I was like a wild child venting energy: climbing trees, playing hide-and-seek, even getting into fights with boys.
Outward wildness in execution, inward calm in observation.
During my postdoc, I chose Florence.
I love the tension across eras here: in the place where the dignity of "man" reached its peak, to examine how Nietzsche declared "God is dead," and how Camus embraced the absurd. The museums and churches here are the physical footnotes to my "aesthetics of tragedy."
I rented an old small apartment on the south bank of the Arno, with a small balcony that offered a priceless view. Every morning, in the cool air, I would gaze into the distance: Brunelleschi's dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, that immense ochre-red structure standing steadfast against the blue sky.
That structural precision always fascinated me. Schopenhauer's "will" is blind and painful, but when guided by the great masters of the Renaissance, it can create this kind of aesthetic consolation that transcends time.
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That day, while browsing PhilJobs, my fingertip unexpectedly paused on a job posting from my alma mater: "The Department of Philosophy invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Research areas: Continental Philosophy or Philosophy of Life."
My heart tightened abruptly. That description might as well have been copied from my academic CV. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Camus. I knew this was a rare, almost impossible turn.
I turned back to my desk, organized my research proposal on "The Complementarity of Tragedy and Humor in the Philosophy of Life," and clicked submit.
Months later, the official offer letter confirmed the decision. Ding Man, Assistant Professor, officially returning.
I thoroughly savored those days of solitary living abroad. With Bach or Mozart playing in the background, I would retreat into the kitchen and prepare a meal for myself. As long as the frequency aligns, I do not deliberately maintain boundaries.
Usually, at first sight of a person, I can scan like radar whether our frequencies are synchronized. People whose frequency is wrong drain my energy.
Just a few weeks before I received the official offer letter, at the mouth of an alley near Santa Maria del Fiore, I saw a familiar figure.
He had not changed much. His build was still standard, his expressionless face still framed by rimless glasses—only now there were traces of gray in that thick black hair.
We were like two high-speed radars. In the instant we passed each other, we simultaneously scanned and locked onto one another.
We stopped.
His innate seriousness appeared especially stark under the Florentine sun. During our university years, we had run into each other like this on campus more than once. Each time, we would break our gaze and continue on our separate paths.
This time, we still removed our gazes and continued on our separate ways.
