About Me
In the long river of time, to my left is Einstein’s dream of the universe and the unknown; to my right, Nalan Xingde’s reflections on words and the human world. At the center of that current is the person I am, carried downstream yet sometimes turning back to seek the source, somewhere between reason and poetry.
I was once captivated by literature, and I remain drawn to the different ways of being alive behind words—not merely springtime sorrow and parting grief, but echoes of the human world in all its variety.
I admire Tao Yuanming’s quiet detachment in “Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, I catch sight of the southern mountain”; Li Bai’s exuberance in “Laughing to the sky, I walk out the door—how could one such as I be a common man?”; and Su Shi’s composure in “A bamboo staff and straw sandals are lighter than a horse—who is afraid? In a straw cloak, I’ll walk through wind and rain.” Each meets the world with a different kind of freedom.
I am equally drawn to the compassion in Du Fu’s grave, measured verse, the fierce sincerity behind Xin Qiji’s visions of warhorses and battlefields, and the tenderness in Nalan Xingde’s lucid lines. Some withdrew to their fields; some set out with swords at their side. Some carried the fate of the realm in their hearts; others watched the human world through rain at dusk. Literature preserves hundreds of ways to live, allowing me to cross time and meet distant yet vivid souls.
Literature is more than a refuge for emotion. It reveals the subtleties of individual lives and the weight of an age. It teaches me to hear the silence beyond words, to understand the circumstances behind a point of view, and to keep both tenderness and clarity in a complicated world.
I, too, once gazed up in wonder at the depths of the physical world, beginning with a deceptively simple question: Why does the world work the way it does?
How does light cross the vastness of the universe? How is a star born, and how does it fall silent? Why do speed and gravity alter the passage of time? Why does the quantum world reveal itself only through probabilities? Such questions remind me that beneath familiar reality lies an order far larger than intuition.
I am fascinated by Newton’s use of mathematics to describe the laws shared by planets and dust alike, and by Einstein’s weaving of time, space, and gravity into a single picture. I marvel at the quantum challenge to certainty, and at the symmetry, conservation, and unity disclosed by compact equations.
Physics does not diminish the poetry of the world; it reveals a deeper kind of romance. The starlight reaching our eyes may have traveled for millions of years. The elements in our bodies were forged inside ancient stars. And with finite lives and limited reason, we can still try to understand a universe immeasurably larger than ourselves.
Physics teaches me to question, and also to be humble. Every answer opens another question; every arrival reveals a wider unknown. The universe does not fall silent because we are puzzled. Exploration is the answer we offer in return.
Ultimately, following the glimmer of thought Turing left behind, I entered the world of computing and traveled ever farther along that road. Literature gives me the sensitivity to feel the world, physics trains me in how to question it, and computing gives me tools with which to build. They may seem to belong to feeling, reason, and practice, yet in my life they ultimately join the same river.
I also enjoy looking back through the long scroll of history. The rise and fall of dynasties, the passage of civilizations, and the fortunes of individuals are more than stories sealed in the past; they are recurring echoes of humanity and its times. Reading history helps me understand the present on a larger scale—and reminds me that many of today’s uncertainties have been lived through before, in other forms.
Science and art are two sides of the same whole: science asks why the world is as it is, while art answers why life can move us. Reason gives imagination its boundaries, and imagination opens new possibilities for reason. History tells us where we came from; reflection on life helps us choose where to go.
Life may not have a single answer. More important than arriving is to remain curious within our finite years: to feel deeply, keep asking, and create with our own hands something worth leaving behind.
The journey has its course, but exploration knows no bounds. Here I record the words I have read, the code I have written, and the thoughts gathered along the way.
About this blog
Hi, I’m Nalansitan（纳兰斯坦）.
This is my personal blog for software engineering, reading notes, and long-term thinking.
Good writing is more than publishing conclusions; it is also a way to organize how I think. I hope these notes remain useful to my future self and to anyone who happens to visit.
The site uses Astro Cactus, Markdown, and pnpm, and is published to GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions.
