《人选天选论》 Chapter 3 · The Coin World

姜蓝著

The reason behind “confusion” and “depression” is not that greed has disappeared; it is that greed, after repeated “failures” and “setbacks,” shatters into fear, clogging the river of thought and temporarily taking away the power to act.

This chapter, the Coin World, is important and difficult. Once you finish it, you will understand why greed turns into fear after failure, and how fear quietly drains our interest in the world, leaving us lost, depressed, and in pain.

I have always been fascinated by ancient coins. Beyond their monetary value, coins often symbolized “heaven’s will” at pivotal moments in history. That sense of justice in heaven’s will was a key step in seeing my own fear and greed clearly. The more I looked, the more I felt that what sits in the human heart is much like a coin. Fear and greed, knowing and doing — the two sides of a coin always exist at once, yet you can never see both at the same time. I first understood this not by reading books, but through a foolish yet vividly real childhood story about a coin and a bicycle.

When I was twelve, my father returned from Sichuan and brought me a gold‑colored panda commemorative coin. I always believed it was real gold. Later, I desperately wanted a better bicycle, but my parents refused and I had no money. So I began staring at the coin.

As I stared, a thought slowly formed: should I sell it?

The moment that thought appeared, things became interesting. From that instant, two forces were already standing inside me: one that wanted, and one that feared. Wanting the bike, wanting to turn “I like it” into “I get it” — that was greed. But I also knew the coin was a gift from my father. If I sold it, I feared being asked about it later, and I feared regretting it — that was fear.

So I began to “flip the coin.”

I first set a rule: if I got two heads, I would sell it. The first was heads, the second tails. Then I changed the rule to two tails, and again got one head and one tail. Then I changed the rule again. Again. Again. Again.

I kept changing the rules. Two heads? No. Two tails? No. One of each? Still no. I could never flip the “heavenly sign” that would make me feel at ease. In the end I already knew: the real difficulty was never the coin, it was me. I was not waiting for an answer; I was waiting for a reason — just like many fans who call in to me now. I wanted a reason that let me do the thing while avoiding the full admission: “This is my decision.” Later I changed the rule again. I said, three flips — if I get three non‑matching in a row, I’ll sell it. And sure enough: heads, tails, heads.

So I took the coin to sell it. But at the shop, they took one look and said it wasn’t real gold — it was silver plated with gold. I was crushed. I had tossed it again and again, changed rules again and again, persuaded myself again and again. And in the end, what I got wasn’t even what I thought it was.

And yet, in that moment, I suddenly understood something. I had been staring at the coin’s heads and tails, thinking I was waiting for “heaven’s will.” But what truly decided my action was never the coin. It was me — more precisely, the two forces inside me that had been fighting all along.

One wanted. One feared.

From then on, whenever I saw the word “coin,” I could no longer treat it as a simple object. It became a way to observe the world — my small world. Many years later, when I watched the TV drama The Young Marshal (《少帅》) and saw the old story of Zhang Xueliang, Yang Yuting, and Chang Yinhuai, I felt it immediately.

Many people tell that story by fixating on “how many flips,” “whether the coin was rigged,” or “whether it was fate.” I came to feel those details do not matter. What matters is this: why did he need a coin?

Most people are not clueless about what they want to do. They are unwilling to shoulder a single sentence: this is my decision. So we invent reasons, a reason that makes it seem not “me.”

Some look for luck. Some look for momentum. Some look for probability. Some look for a coin.

But these things are usually just the surface. Underneath are still the same two forces: one that wants to move forward, one that wants to pull back; one that wants to gain, one that fears losing.

That is why I grew used to using coins to understand many things. For a long time, I loved to sit near wish‑making fountains with clear, visible bottoms. Whenever I was wavering or anxious, I would go there and sit quietly, watching people drop their fear and greed into the water, reflecting on their costs and their inner structures.

When I stood aside and watched coins tossed one after another — cheers, disappointment, a shrug, repeated attempts — I stepped into my Coin World. In that moment, the lights of ten thousand homes felt like a coin.

One side is greed. One side is fear.

They do not take turns; at any moment, one side is simply facing up. When you rush forward, you think you are greed, yet fear is there too. You might fear poverty, losing, a lifetime of being ordinary. When you retreat, you think you are fear, yet greed is still there; you still want, still feel unwilling to let go, you just fear paying the price more. So a person’s true state is never “only greed,” nor “only fear.”

The real state is:

Greed and fear coexist. At any moment, whichever side has greater resistance, the water flows the other way.

Now we can clarify what we meant by “stones on the riverbed.” Not all stones are the same. Some are boulders; some are small gravel.

Greed is the boulder. It is more visible, easier to notice, and more likely to change the flow directly. Wanting money, wanting to rise, wanting success, wanting to prove yourself, wanting a certain future — these are usually obvious. You stand on the bank and see it at a glance: oh, I want that. Oh, that’s what I’m aiming for. Oh, I’m fighting so hard because I want it badly.

That is why I say greed is a big stone. This is not about high or low — it is simply that its effect on the flow is easy to see. When water hits it, the surface rises at once. People are the same: when someone is strongly greedy, they move fast, feel intense, decide sharply — you can see it.

Fear is different. Fear is like small stones: tiny, fragmented, easy to hide. It rarely says, “I’m afraid.” More often it says, “Wait a little,” “not ready,” “be more careful.” It is not “I can’t,” but “I want to think it through.” Not retreat, but “this isn’t the right time.” So people can feel fear, yet often fail to notice it.

You know you feel uncomfortable. You know you backed off. You know you hesitated. But you may not know what is under it: fear. Fear of failure, of losing face, of trouble, of wasted effort, of being laughed at, of admitting you are not that capable, of realizing you might be just ordinary.

So I came to feel that what people see is usually only the big stones. We think, I really want this, I really want to win, I really want to prove myself. But what traps people most is often the tiny stones. They are not obvious, yet they accumulate.

One fear of failure, one fear of embarrassment, one fear of wasted effort, one fear of rejection, one fear of being looked down on, one fear that you do not deserve what you want. Most people never look at them, and in their neglect things spiral out of control. Fear piles into a dammed lake — and that is the scariest part of fear.

Greed raises waves. Fear clogs the channel. Big stones lift the water; small stones block it.

Many people say they dare not read 《人选天选论》 because they feel unable to act or choose — that is a typical dam caused by fear. These people are not without desire, not without momentum, not without greed. They are simply blocked, little by little, by those small stones. They drift into a strange state: alive on the surface, still thinking, occasionally excited, occasionally envious, occasionally saying they want to change. But when it is time to move forward, they cannot.

It is not that there is no road. The river is blocked. The most troublesome thing about a dammed lake is not its size. It looks calm. Calm like reason, like maturity, like having seen through everything, like nothing is wrong. But if you look below, you will find the opposite.

The water is still there. The river is still there. Yet it no longer flows. Water cannot enter, and it cannot leave. The banks expand quickly. The more afraid you are, the more you study; the more you study, the more you know; the more you know, the more you know you do not know; the more afraid you are, the more the river clogs.

When a person is piled over by fear’s small stones, the most common state is not frenzy but procrastination, self‑justification, numbness. You cannot feel interest in anything, as if life has no hope.

Procrastination happens because the flow is blocked. Self‑justification happens because you need a reason for not moving. Numbness happens because after being blocked for so long, you forget where you wanted to go.

So many people feel lost not because they have no goals, but because their river has been clogged by small stones. Why is there so much fear? Where did greed go? This is the most frightening cycle: greed’s big stone shatters, but the small stones never turn themselves back into a big one.

When people are young, their greed is often large. They want to win, to be fast, to rise, to prove they are different. So the stone is big, and there are many big stones. When the water rushes through, the surface is all waves. But if they crash again and again, fail again and again, and pay the cost again and again, that big stone will shatter into many small stones. “I want to succeed” becomes: I fear losing again, I fear embarrassment again, I fear wasting effort, I fear being laughed at, I fear I simply do not have that fate.

So many people have not stopped being greedy — their greed has shattered into countless tiny fears after repeated shocks.

That is why some people are fierce when young, then grow more cautious and more willing to say, “Forget it.” Others may call it maturity, but often it is simply the big stone being broken by reality. And here is a point many overlook: even the act of observing ourselves, studying ourselves, trying to understand this whole system — is not neutral. Many people think they study the inner world because of reason, maturity, a desire to be awake. Often, they do not. Some observe themselves out of greed.

They want to figure it out, to make money. They want to figure it out, to see through others early. They want to figure it out, to win more in the world. They want to figure it out, to take fewer detours and rise faster.

That is greed pushing. Others observe themselves out of fear. They do not want to win; they are afraid of getting hurt again, of falling into the same pit, of something happening with no preparation. They fear that if they do not figure it out, bigger problems will come later. That is fear pulling.

So I came to understand: people rarely observe themselves out of pure curiosity. That is why so many oppose or deliberately misunderstand me. Most of the time, either greed pushes or fear pulls. That means even “observation” has already been influenced by the coin. You are not standing in a fully objective place; you are carrying a coin that is still flipping as you look down into the riverbed.

That is why I grew to value “how to observe.” If you want to see greed directly, it is not difficult. Look at the moments you are most excited, most driven, most eager to prove yourself, most unwilling to let go, most desperate to “get it.”

That is how big stones behave — they lift the water outright; you can hardly miss them. But if you want to see fear more neutrally, it is harder. You cannot look in the most intense moments. You must look when the surface is relatively calm — when you are neither too excited nor too panicked.

For example: after a run, when you are exhausted; after a shower; when you sit down to write. At those moments, the water slows and the surface quiets, and you can see the small stones you usually miss. So I came to feel that greed is best seen when the waves rise, and fear is best seen when the water is still.

By this point, I no longer see greed and fear as complex. They are too ordinary — so ordinary that everyone has them, so ordinary that they happen every day.

When you see a great opportunity, they appear together. When you love someone, they appear together. When you want to leave, they appear together. When you decide to start a business, they appear together. When you prepare to admit a mistake, they appear together.

They never take turns; they are always together. At any moment, whichever side is heavier, the water flows that way. So the real question is never whether you have greed or fear.

It is whether, when they coexist, you can see which side of the coin is facing up.

When thought is young, our river’s front is full of big stones. As life grows old, the river holds only small stones, even sand. That is why I love this line:

Heaven’s will is hard to ask of; how much more human feelings, old and full of sorrows. This is what the lights of the human world truly look like.

Most people spend their lives discussing the world, destiny, others, and opportunity — yet never bow their heads to see which side of the coin in their own hand is facing up. That is where confusion truly begins. People are lost not because there is no road, but because both sides exist at once and they cannot see them.

And that is the next chapter: “I have a sword to cut through confusion.”

— 姜蓝《人选天选论》 · Chapter 3 The Coin World —

Video edition:《人选天选论》·第三章硬币世界（视频版）全长19分钟

Image edition:《人选天选论》·第三章硬币世界（图片版）

Quoted Passages

Everyone who is torn about a decision already has an answer in their heart. They consult others only to obtain the choice they already lean toward. — Keigo Higashino

Freedom means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. — Sigmund Freud

Be fearful when others are greedy; be greedy when others are fearful. — Warren Buffett

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Many people’s so‑called maturity is merely having their edges ground down by habit, becoming worldly and practical. That is not maturity, but the early decay of the spirit and the death of personality. — Zhou Guoping

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. — Henry David Thoreau

The greatest harm of procrastination is not delay, but that it makes one hesitant and even destroys confidence. — Shi Tiesheng

There is a goal, but no road; what we call the road is nothing but hesitation. — Franz Kafka

Desire gives rise to worry; desire gives rise to fear. — Dhammapada

The mind’s intelligence is cunning; it will find all kinds of crooked logic to justify its own desires. — Yang Jiang

When the heart is calm, perception is refined; when one restrains oneself, governance takes less effort. — Zeng Guofan

Is not love a balance between greed and fear? The more you want to possess, the easier it is to lose. Love is the balance between trying to possess and trying to avoid losing. — Zhang Xiaoxian

The young believe many false things; the old doubt many true things. — German proverb

Those who look outward dream; those who look inward awaken. — Carl Jung

人选天选论: Chapter 3

《人选天选论》 Chapter 3 · The Coin World