This chapter is not here to give you answers.
It is here to give you a new way of seeing the world — a sharp sword.

《人选天选论》 Chapter 4 · Breaking Attachment, Reading the Trend, Settling the Mind

姜蓝著

Chapter 4 · Confusion State

In this chapter, I only do three things:

First, I tell you that the Confusion State is not your friend — and it cannot truly become your enemy. It is simply a stage, like winter in the seasons.
Second, everything in the world moves through six phases: the Initiation Phase, Development Phase, Confrontation Phase, Stability Phase, Decline Phase, and Collapse Phase. These are the operating laws of the world; all things unfold through them, and I call them the Six Heaven‑Chosen Stages.
Third, within these laws, how to use the Three Swords of Renxuan: Break Attachment, Read the Trend, and Settle the Mind. Find your position. Find your road. Find your center.

“When sprouts are first born, the stems have not yet unfurled.”

I have always liked winter. I even enjoy warming myself by a fire. Without real cold, we can’t truly understand what warmth is. It’s the same with life: when things are going smoothly, we often don’t notice them. Relationships, emotions, choices — they feel weightless, effortless, almost inevitable.

But many things only start to take shape when everything slows down, when cold arrives, when you finally stop. That is when the Confusion State is born. So confusion isn’t an enemy. It isn’t a friend either. It is just a stage. Winter itself is not wrong. Cold is not wrong. What’s wrong is that people always try to jump over it.

People always want only spring, only summer; only growth, only results, only abundance.

But the cycle of seasons is the natural way — the unfolding of the Dao. You cannot pick and choose it. You can only observe it, experience it. And that is what the line “When sprouts are first born, the stems have not yet unfurled” is most telling you: in the normal turning of the seasons, winter is not an ending, and spring is not a gift. They are simply phases.

So “When sprouts are first born…” is an attitude toward life, a worldview — not a method. And because of that, I need to be clear about one more thing:

I cannot solve your problems. I can’t do it — no one can. I can’t choose for you, I can’t bear the cost for you, and I can’t live through the life that belongs to you.

What I can do is this: tell you why you keep manufacturing these problems — and how to turn the force that creates them into the force that resolves them. That is the meaning of my writing this chapter. This is not “from now on, you will never be confused again.” It is for you to see something: that the sky isn’t falling — you are simply repeating the same manufacturing again. And that matters.

Because most human pain does not come from the stage itself. It comes from repeating the same kind of problem — without even realizing how you yourself create it.

So this chapter is not here to give you answers.
It is here to give you a new sword that breaks your old worldview.

Many people’s pain is not that winter arrives. It is that once winter arrives, they refuse to accept it as winter. They insist on treating it as a mistake — and then they begin creating even more problems.

They start panicking, they start churning, they start forcing decisions. After that, they make mistakes. After mistakes come self‑blame. And then — colder still. This is you turning a stage into a problem.

All things in the world cycle through six phases that you cannot fully control. I call them the Six Heaven‑Chosen Stages. Each phase has its most likely pitfalls, and each phase also has what you must stop doing:

Initiation Phase: Stop haste (don’t rush for results).
Development Phase: Stop expansion (don’t grow too quickly, don’t get carried away).
Confrontation Phase: Stop chaos (don’t scatter your mind; make the purpose of the “battle” crystal clear).
Stability Phase: Stop slackness (don’t be lazy; keep being consistent).
Decline Phase: Stop loosening (actions may slow down, but don’t loosen your observation).
Collapse Phase: Stop going against the trend (don’t resist; know where to stop).

An entire life, a company, a nation, a tree, a leaf, one fish eating another fish, a building — all of it passes through this process. In Buddhism they call it impermanence; in Daoism they call it the Dao; in the Book of Changes they call it change. These are not conclusions. Remember them first — you’ll use them later. Finding your place in “seeking the trend” is not the focus of this chapter; there will be dedicated writing on the Six Heaven‑Chosen Stages later.

Why You Keep Creating Problems

Many people think that problems come from the outside. Not all of them. A great many problems are made by you.

It’s not that you create from nothing. It happens within a stage that is already normal. You refuse to accept the stage as it is — and then you add extra layers of problems.

For example: winter is supposed to be cold. But if you force yourself to be warm like summer, you’ll get anxious. Anxiety becomes chaos. Chaos leads you to force decisions. Forced decisions lead to mistakes. Mistakes bring self‑blame. Self‑blame makes you even colder. This is how you turn a stage into a problem — step by step.

So later, I gradually came to see that the real pain is rarely caused by the stage itself. It is caused by refusing the stage:

You refuse to be in the Initiation Phase, yet you demand the outcome of a Mature Phase.
You refuse to accept you’re in the Confrontation Phase, yet you still expect everything to flow like the Development Phase.
You refuse to let a relationship be in Decline, and you drag it back toward Stability.
You refuse the fact that you are in confusion, and you insist on being “clear” immediately.

This is the root of manufacturing problems. You’re not suffering because of confusion itself. You’re suffering because you refuse to accept confusion as a stage — and so you start adding drama, endlessly, inside it. That is why the first step is never “solve it.” The first step is always: if possible, reduce the extra problems you create.

The First Confusion: When You Can’t See the Road, Forcing Clarity

It isn’t that there is no road.

You’re standing there, and ahead it feels like mist. The road may be perfectly fine. You might even have been walking it well. But then you bring out a “telescope.” At the far end, the road doesn’t look like what you want. So you start rushing to switch roads — because you heard that another place is “better.”

Yet your telescope cannot pierce the fog on that road. What you see about the future is only a kind of numb sadness: “It’s certain, and it hurts to feel it.” You start thinking life is short, and you didn’t even fully experience what was right in front of you.

So you keep walking onto a new road — and you ask yourself, “Should I go?” You don’t know. You ask, “Which direction should I choose?” You don’t know.

In this moment, what problem do you create most easily?

Greed. Not the simple kind of wanting — but wanting “everything.” When you refuse to let go of any possible outcome, you can’t take a single step.

So how do the Three Swords work here?

Break Attachment: This is not letting go, and it’s not lying to yourself, “It’s fine.” The core is to shrink yourself and enlarge the world. In Zhuangzi’s Xiaoyao You, there is a line everyone knows: “In the North Sea there is a fish called Kun; its size is thousands of li.” The story is exactly that: you shrink yourself, you expand the world. Your first job is not to find a road. Your first job is to pull yourself out of the oversized problem. Ask yourself: what am I really clinging to? Clinging to an answer that must arrive immediately? Clinging to the fear that I can’t be wrong? Clinging to the worry that others will think I’m useless?

Many people aren’t blocked by a lack of road. They are blocked by fear: fear of admitting, “My new road might be wrong — and my old road was actually better.” That is attachment.

Read the Trend: The road has already changed. Now you must look at which of the six “intersections” you are currently in. If you are still in the Initiation Phase, it is normal that you cannot see clearly. The Initiation Phase is not meant to be clear. It is blurry by nature — the stems haven’t unfurled yet. “When sprouts are first born…” is precisely the state that cannot be made understandable in one glance. Many people aren’t without roads. They are trying to demand Initiation‑Phase clarity using Development‑Phase expectations. That’s reading the trend wrong.
Settle the Mind: What should you stop? Stop haste. Just this one thing. Don’t rush yourself. Don’t force yourself. Don’t run around in the fog. When you can’t see the road, the best move is not to scramble — it is to stop manufacturing yet another wrong route. Choose a safer way to move. Feel your way forward slowly. Explore bit by bit. When you reach the next intersection, look back — the mist will disperse. So for the First Confusion, you’re not trying to “solve” it. You’re only preventing yourself from adding more chaos while you can’t see clearly. That is enough.

The Second Confusion: Too Many Roads

The Second Confusion isn’t “no road.” It’s “too many roads.”

You have a good family. You have a good education. Everywhere invites you: “Come here, you’ll live well.” You accumulate some respectability, some savings that look steady. Roads appear everywhere — dizzying, crowded. A life that should have had limited choices becomes a life that seems like “all roads lead to Rome.”

Every option looks reasonable. Every result is hard to let go of. So you stall right there.

At this point, what problem do you create most easily?

Greed. Not ordinary wanting — wanting “everything.” You refuse to drop any possibility, and so none of the roads can be chosen.

So how do the Three Swords work?

Break Attachment: First, see what you are clinging to. Are you trying to keep all possibilities? Are you refusing to let any path go? Do you want every outcome “a little”? Do you refuse to take responsibility for any cost or risk? Once you admit this, the picture begins to clear.
Read the Trend: Then look at the phase. With so many roads, where am I, for me? What you should experience is the cycle of phases — not a hasty decision. If you are already in the Confrontation Phase but you still insist on charging forward with a Development‑Phase mindset, you’ll only become more tangled. And if the situation is already in Decline, but you treat it like it’s just beginning, you’ll choose even more blindly.
Settle the Mind: What should you stop here? Stop floating. Stop taking too much. When there are too many roads, the most important thing is not to choose the “prettiest” one. It is to let go of a portion first. Not because those roads can never work — but because you simply shouldn’t walk all of them right now. So the focus of the Second Confusion is not “solving.” It is to stop creating additional problems — the “I won’t lose anything; I can keep everything” problem.

The Third Confusion: Want Change, But Don’t Want Change

The Third Confusion runs deepest.

You want your life to get better — and at the same time you want certain things to never change.

You want opportunities. You long for change. Yet you refuse to accept the scenes that change brings — the scenes you didn’t expect. You want growth with time: you want to become stronger, your career better. But you also refuse the other side of time: you don’t want aging, you don’t want wrinkles, you don’t want what time takes.

That is the fundamental contradiction. In this contradiction, what problem do you create?

Fantasy.

In your fantasy, time only delivers the half that benefits you. In your fantasy, time brings only good and never takes anything away. In your fantasy, you can always move forward — and you never have to pay a cost.

And that is why the Third Confusion is the most troublesome. So how do the Three Swords work?

Break Attachment: First, admit what you’re clinging to. You’re not really clinging to “change” itself. You’re clinging to “change that comes only with benefits.” You don’t truly want to accept all four seasons. You only want to stay forever in the season you happen to like.
Read the Trend: Then look at the trend itself. Any relationship, any career, any state of life moves through initiation, development, confrontation, stability, decline, collapse. If you want to lock it forever into one phase, you are going against the wheel of change.
Settle the Mind: What should you stop now? Stop fantasy. Stop unwillingness to let go. Stop the heart that says, “I want change, but I don’t want to accept what change brings.” This step is not about solving the contradiction. It is about acknowledging that the contradiction is already here. Once you admit it, the problem is reduced by half — because you finally stop forcing the world to run according to your preferences.

What This Chapter Is Really About

This chapter is not teaching you how to “solve” confusion. It is telling you: confusion itself is not the problem; the stage itself is not the problem; winter itself is not the problem.

The real problem is that when you’re already in a normal phase, you start manufacturing unnecessary problems: you create haste when you can’t see the road; you create greed when there are too many roads; and you create fantasy when you want change but don’t want change.

What I can do is point out the ways you manufacture these problems. After that, when you enter “winter” again, you can manufacture a little less. That is enough. And that is the original line of Renxuan Tianxuan:

Renxuan does not go against the trend. It also does not pretend it can stop the trend. It only stops exactly where it should stop.
Tianxuan does not grant you what you desire; it grants you what you should let go.

Many people, when reading 《人选天选论》, feel something heavy — or feel a sharp sting. That is normal. Let me give an example, so you can understand what I mean.

“When sprouts are first born, the stems have not yet unfurled.”

In winter, if you reach your hand into the snow, first you feel the piercing cold — it hurts. Then, after a while, you feel like the cold isn’t as intense anymore. Your hand starts to warm up. Many people think this means you’ve adapted. But that isn’t warmth. It is the blood vessels “expanding under cold‑induced guidance.” If you keep going, you’ll quickly lose sensation.

The most dangerous state of a person is not pain. It is “no pain.”

On the other hand, if you sit down somewhere in winter and make a fire — the fire doesn’t have to be big. You move closer slowly. At first, it isn’t warmth yet. It’s a sting. Only after a while does that warmth come out, bit by bit.

These two sensations look similar on the surface. Both go from “uncomfortable” to “less uncomfortable.” But the essence is completely different:

The “warmth” in the snow is you losing sensation.
The “warmth” by the fire is you regaining sensation.
One is shutting down.
One is opening up.
One makes you more dull.
One makes you more clear.

So people are very likely to judge wrongly. Many times, you think you’ve “adapted,” but actually you’ve simply started to feel nothing. True recovery is never comfortable from the beginning. True recovery always starts with a sting — slow, real, and full of sensation. It is you clearly knowing that you are coming back, one step at a time.

So later, I began to care about one question more than anything else: not “Do I feel better or worse right now?” but this — Is my “improvement” making me more able to feel, or making me feel nothing?

Alright. We’re ready to step into the most important bridge on the path of choosing in 《人选天选论》 — the birth of Tian Quan.

—— 姜蓝《人选天选论》・Chapter 4 · Confusion —

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人选天选论: Chapter 4