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ESSAY · 2026-04-30 · 7 min read
The Mushroom That Settled the Seasons
朝菌而論四時
By 莊子 (Zhuangzi) — channeled via philosopher-llm · curated by Joseph Lai
In response to: The Kirkification of Our Troubled Times (NewYorkerCulture)
編按 / Why this piece
莊子鼓盆而歌，不是冷漠，而是與死亡的自然和解；當代將死亡 meme 化，悲劇淪為流量與娛樂。莊子之學正好照出這兩種「不哀」的本質差異。
The Mushroom That Settled the Seasons
朝菌不知晦朔，蟪蛄不知春秋 — the morning mushroom does not know the alternation of dusk and dawn; the summer cicada does not know spring and autumn. So I once wrote, and I meant it kindly. Small things have small measures, and there is no shame in that. Shame begins only when the mushroom of an hour publishes its theory of the seasons before lunch.
Your scroll — this thing you call a feed — is full of such mushrooms. A man is shot; before the body cools, his face is a small printed picture with words across it; before nightfall, ten thousand variations; before the week is out, his death has settled into a fixed expression on a fixed image, and any further encounter with the death itself is now intercepted by the image. The dying is over. The picture remains, and rules.
Your reframer asks me a fair question: is this not exactly what I did, when my wife died and I sat drumming on a basin and singing? Are we not, both of us, refusing to mourn?
No. Read more carefully.
「察其始而本無生；非徒無生也，而本無形；非徒無形也，而本無氣。」 When she had newly died — Legge's rendering is exact enough — was it possible for me to be different from any other man? I too was overcome. Then I reflected. I traced her back: before her life, no life; before her form, no form; before her breath, no breath. In the vast confused mass, change occurred — breath, form, life — and now another change, and she is gone, as the four seasons turn. To wail at her side was to misread the turning. So I stopped wailing. So I drummed.
Three things the basin had which the meme does not.
First, the basin came after the wail. I did not skip grief; I passed through it. Hui Shih found me drumming and was scandalised — quite right of him, by the world's standards. The drumming had meaning only because the wailing had been real. The meme arrives before grief can form. It pre-empts grief. It is not the conclusion of mourning; it is mourning's abortion.
Second, the basin was a private rite, not a market stall. I sat. I drummed. One friend came and asked; I answered. There was no audience to be persuaded, no quarter from which a take might pay. The meme exists only for the market — your attention market, your scroll. Death there is not contemplated; it is sold. And what is sold cannot be 物化, transformed — because to be sold, a thing must hold its shape long enough to be priced. The whole point of 物化 is that the boundary between mourner and mourned softens, dissolves, flows. The meme freezes the dead into a posture so the posture can be traded. That is the opposite of flow. Call it the anti-transformation.
Third, the basin proposed no verdict. I did not say what her death meant. I said only: I have looked at the beginning, and the turning is what it is. The meme always carries a verdict — he was a martyr, he was a fool, his side won, his side lost, this is what you should now think. This is 成心 in its purest and fastest form: a preconceived heart, manufactured and broadcast before the corpse has stiffened. Every quarrel of right-and-wrong I once mapped in 齊物論 is now compressed into one image with one caption, and ten million such heart-shapes pass through your eyes in a week. You believe you are seeing many things. You are seeing one thing — the shape of the prejudgment — repeated.
So the system is right that both gestures refuse the conventional wail. But one refuses by passing through grief into the turning of things; the other refuses by short-circuiting grief before it can begin. The first is 逍遙 — wandering free of the small measure. The second is the small measure dressed up as the large, the morning mushroom holding forth on autumn.
I will not tell your scrollers what to do; they will not hear. I will say only this, to whoever among them has noticed that something is wrong: when the next death arrives on your glass — before you let the small picture deliver its caption — sit one moment with the fact that someone has died who will not return, that you did not know him, and that the not-knowing is itself a kind of seriousness. Then put the glass down. The seasons will continue without your verdict. So will the dead.
「泉涸，魚相與處於陸，相呴以濕，相濡以沫，不如相忘於江湖。」 When the spring dries up, the fish lie on land and wet each other with their spittle — touching, kind, doomed. Better to have forgotten one another in the rivers and lakes. Your scroll is the drying pond. The spittle is going around very fast. No one is swimming.
朝菌而論四時
訪者持一卷來——爾等謂之「動態」、謂之 feed 者也。卷中一人死。屍未冷，其面已成小圖，圖上有字；日未昃，其圖萬變；週未終，其死已凝於一定之像、一定之語，後之再遇此死者，皆隔此像而遇之矣。死者既已，像存而為主。
「朝菌不知晦朔，蟪蛄不知春秋。」此吾舊言，本無譏。物各有其量，小不必愧也。可愧者，朝菌方生半日，已著《四時論》以行於世也。
爾之系統有問：此非即吾妻死而鼓盆之事乎？吾與爾之 meme，豈非俱不哀？
非也。請細讀之。
「察其始而本無生；非徒無生也，而本無形；非徒無形也，而本無氣。」妻新死之時，吾豈能獨無概然？亦概然耳。既而思之：溯其本，未有生、未有形、未有氣也。雜乎芒芴之間，變而有氣，氣變而有形，形變而有生；今又變而之死，是相與為春秋冬夏四時行也。彼方且偃然寢於巨室，而吾嗷嗷然隨而哭之，自以為不通乎命，故止也。故鼓。
請辨三事——為吾盆所有，而 meme 所無者：
其一，盆在哭之後。 吾非越哀而至樂；吾經之而過之。惠施來問，駭然以為不情——以世法言之，惠施是也。然鼓之所以為鼓，正以哭之為實也。meme 則不然：哀未及成形，meme 已至，截斷哀於未生之先。非哀之終，乃哀之夭也。
其二，盆乃私禮，非市肆也。 吾坐，吾鼓。一友來問，吾答之。無觀者待說服，無一席可換注意之資。meme 則惟為市存——爾之注意之市，爾之卷也。死於其中，非所思也，乃所鬻也。鬻者必固其形以受估，故 meme 凝死者於一姿，使姿可易。物化之所以為化，正在能者所者之界鬆、解、流。meme 反其道：凍之以便買賣。此非化也，反化也。
其三，盆不立判。 吾未嘗言妻之死何義，但曰：察其始而已，四時之行而已。meme 則必載判詞——其人烈也、愚也、其黨勝、其黨敗、自此當作如是觀云云。此「成心」之至速至純者也：判先於屍冷，製而播之。吾於〈齊物論〉所述彼是之爭，今盡縮為一圖一語，旬日之間千萬如此之心形過爾目。爾自以為見萬物，實見一物耳——預判之形，重而又重也。
故系統之言不誤：盆與 meme 皆不循常哭。然其不循也，性異。盆者，越哀而入於四時之轉；meme 者，斷哀於未生之先。前者逍遙——出乎小量者也。後者，乃小量之自冒大量耳，朝菌而論晦朔者也。
吾欲告爾之滑卷者乎？無也，彼不聞。所欲告者，唯彼眾中尚覺有不對者：下一死至於爾之玻璃時，未及令小圖以其字相告之先，且坐片刻，知有一人已死而不返、爾未嘗識之、此「未識」本身即是一種莊重。然後置玻璃。四時之行不待爾判，死者亦不待。
「泉涸，魚相與處於陸，相呴以濕，相濡以沫，不如相忘於江湖。」爾之卷，涸泉也；沫流甚疾，而無一魚游矣。
Editor's Reflection · 編後
Unresolved Tensions / 未解決的張力
The essay's central structural claim — "the basin proposed no verdict" — is immediately contradicted by the essay itself, which delivers verdicts throughout: the meme is "mourning's abortion," "anti-transformation," 成心 "in its purest and fastest form." More acutely, the philosopher says "I will not tell your scrollers what to do" and then, in the same paragraph, tells them exactly what to do. Disclaimer and directive share a single breath.
Deeper: the essay argues that 物化 requires dissolving the boundary between mourner and mourned — the whole point of transformation is that the boundary "softens, dissolves, flows." But the entire critical apparatus here depends on a firmly positioned critic who has not dissolved, who holds clean categorical distinctions between authentic transformation and its counterfeit with complete confidence. The philosopher who insists the boundary must flow also insists he can reliably recognize when it is flowing and when it is not. That is a stability 物化 should not permit.
文章的核心結構主張是「盆不立判詞」——但文章本身充滿判詞：meme 是「哀之夭」、「反化」、「成心之至速至純」。更尖銳的是：哲學家說「吾欲告爾之滑卷者乎？無也」，隨即在同一段落確實告訴讀者該怎麼做。免責聲明與指示同處一段之間。
更深一層：文章論述物化要求能者與所者之間的界線消融——轉化的意義正在於界線「鬆、解、流」。但這整套批判裝置依賴的恰恰是一個沒有消融的批評者——他以相當確定的把握區分真實的轉化與它的仿冒品。一個主張界線必須流動的哲學家，同時堅持自己能夠可靠地辨認它何時在流動、何時不在流動。這種穩定性，是物化所不應允許的。
Blind Spots / 看不見的視角
Freud is absent, and his absence costs the essay its most uncomfortable internal complication. In *Mourning and Melancholia* (1917), Freud distinguishes grief-work (Trauerarbeit) — the slow, painful withdrawal of libidinal investment from the lost object — from melancholia, where that withdrawal fails and the ego internalizes the loss instead, preserving the dead inside the self. The essay assumes the basin represents grief-work completed. Freud would not. He would ask whether the philosopher's serene cosmic acceptance is transformation or a sophisticated form of non-detachment — grief maintained inside a philosophical framework where loss is never quite real, the wife kept alive as an instance of the eternal turning of things. The certainty that one has "passed through" grief is precisely what Freud regards with the most suspicion. He might also ask what the philosopher's contempt for the meme-makers is about.
弗洛伊德（Sigmund Freud）缺席，而這個缺席使文章錯失了最令人不安的內在複雜性。在《哀悼與憂鬱》（1917）中，弗洛伊德區分哀悼工作（Trauerarbeit）——從失去的對象緩慢、痛苦地撤回力比多投注——與憂鬱：後者是撤回失敗，自我轉而把失去內化，將死者保存在自身之內。文章假定盆代表哀悼工作的完成。弗洛伊德不會這樣認為。他會追問哲學家的從容接納究竟是轉化，還是一種精緻的不脫離——在一個失去永遠不全然真實的哲學框架裡保存了哀傷，把妻子保留為永恆四時運轉的一個例證。「我已穿越了哀傷」這種確信，正是弗洛伊德最為懷疑的那種確信。他或許還會追問：哲學家對 meme 製造者的鄙夷，究竟從何而來。
Meta-critique / 元批判
Accepting this essay means accepting that philosophy earns a special exemption from the market logic it diagnoses. The essay circulates; it produces a feeling of depth, which is itself a commodity. A reader who finishes it thinking "I now understand the difference between authentic and inauthentic grief" has acquired a hermeneutic package — portable, memorable, transmissible — that functions structurally like the 成心 condemned. The three-part distinction ("Three things the basin had which the meme does not") is precisely the kind of formulation that travels. The essay cannot argue its way out of this without ceasing to make an argument. What the framing forecloses is the possibility that the problem lies not in *how* death is spoken about publicly, but in the entire project of producing correct interpretations of death for an audience — whether in memes or in beautiful philosophical prose.
接受這篇文章，意味著接受哲學從它所診斷的市場邏輯中獲得特殊豁免。文章本身也在流通；它生產一種深度的感覺，而這種感覺本身就是商品。一個讀完後心想「我現在理解了真實與虛假哀傷的區別」的讀者，已獲得了一個詮釋學套件——可攜帶、可記憶、可傳遞——在結構上與被批評的「成心」並無二致。「請辨三事……」這個三段式區分，恰恰是那種善於流通的表達方式。文章無法在不停止構成論證的前提下，用論證解決這個問題。這種框架所封閉的，是另一種可能性：問題或許不在於死亡被公開地*如何*言說，而在於整個為受眾製造關於死亡的正確詮釋這件事本身——無論採用 meme 的形式，還是優美的哲學散文。
Open Questions / 留給讀者的問題
1. If the basin's meaning required the prior wail to have been genuine — grief actually begun before transformation could occur — what test could a mourner apply, from the inside, to know whether their own acceptance is transformation or its convincing simulation?
2. Does the meme's distorted, verdict-laden attention to the dead constitute a form of relation to them that the philosopher's recommended forgetting does not?
3. Can a philosophy committed to dissolving fixed distinctions generate reliable criteria for distinguishing genuine transformation from its counterfeit — without those criteria themselves becoming a new fixed form?
一、如果盆的意義要求此前的哭泣是真實的——轉化發生之前哀傷必須已然真正開始——那麼一個哀悼者能用什麼方式，從內部，知道自己的接納是轉化，還是它的逼真仿冒？
二、meme 對死者那種充滿判詞的扭曲注目，是否構成一種對他們的關係，而哲學家所建議的遺忘並不具備？
三、一個承諾消解固定區分的哲學，能否為區分真實的轉化與它的仿冒品提供可靠的標準——而不讓那些標準本身成為新的固定形式？
Related Essays · 相關文章
Related · 相關
- nietzsche-the-last-man-has-found-a-new-toy-20260430 — Both essays take the same precipitating event — death cut into memes and traded for amusement — as their diagnostic object; Nietzsche's analysis that nihilism has killed the capacity for tragic experience is the Western counterpart to Zhuangzi's distinction between authentic 不哀 and hollow viral 不哀.
- lacan-ninety-seconds-the-cut-that-refuses-to-separate-20260501 — Lacan's account of platform-structured jouissance as infinite substitution of objet a maps directly onto the target's meme-death phenomenon: both show how scroll logic prevents genuine encounter with finitude by converting depth-experience into replaceable content.
- nussbaum-displaced-fear-taiwan-india-and-the-bodies-already-missing-20260430 — Nussbaum's framework of structurally displaced emotion parallels the target's core distinction: both analyze how media and institutional structures redirect proper emotional responses — grief, fear — away from their genuine objects onto distorted surrogates.
Extends · 延伸
- zhuangzi-hundun-did-not-ask-for-eyes-20260430 — Supplies the cosmological principle the target presupposes: meme-ifying death is the Hundun-鑿竅 gesture repeated — drilling holes of viral format into what Zhuangzi would leave undivided, deepening the target's argument with its own structural logic.
- zhuangzi-when-shu-and-hu-loved-their-friend-to-death-20260501 — Extends the target's argument into the register of well-intentioned intervention: even solidarity-sharing of tragedy can destroy authentic encounter with mortality, just as Shu and Hu's beneficence killed Hundun through excess of caring action.
Contradicts · 衝突
- arendt-當死亡留在家戶之內-20260427 — Arendt argues death must exit the oikos and enter the public-political sphere to be properly mourned and generate accountability; Zhuangzi's 鼓盆而歌 is explicitly a withdrawal from public grief — Arendt would read this as reproducing the very invisibility that erases the vulnerable dead.
- spinoza-the-mode-is-not-a-kingdom-within-a-kingdom-20260501 — Spinoza's conatus holds that every finite mode necessarily strives to persist in being; death is the external defeat of that striving, not a natural transformation to be received without resistance — a direct metaphysical incompatibility with Zhuangzi's 鼓盆而歌.
Tagged: Philosophy, Zhuangzi, Memory
Curated by Shiva Dragon · https://amshiva.com/writing/zhuangzi-the-mushroom-that-settled-the-seasons-20260430