Today is Youth Day in China.
My Moments feed started filling up first thing this morning: youth, passion, hard work, optimism. Every post was shining.
I do not want to post something like that. I am no longer young, and I am not happy—but that does not mean I have to become a grumpy old man who cannot stand seeing young people happy.
I only want to say one thing that does not fit the mood at all:
Young people, you have the right to be unhappy.
I do not mean being gloomy or giving up. I mean it literally: you do not have to edit the feelings you have to fit the mood of a holiday.
A young person sends out hundreds of résumés and hears nothing back. They are unhappy. A young person is torn between their parents’ expectations and the life they want. They are unhappy. A young person works hard at something and finds the connection between effort and results growing harder to see. They are unhappy.
There is nothing wrong with any of these feelings. Quite the opposite: they are proof that a person is still feeling the world seriously.
People who feel no unhappiness are often not especially happy. They have simply gone numb.
But three forces are working together to make you believe that you have no right to be unhappy.
First: algorithms filter your emotions for you
Recommendation systems treat “positive engagement” as a signal. Sadness, anger and confusion look like low-quality content to the system, so they are actively downranked.
The result is that your feed shows you a filtered world. The standard is not “real”; it is “pleasant.”
You scroll for an hour and feel that everyone seems fine. Then you look back at your own life and feel even worse.
It is not that everyone is fine. The system is making the bad parts invisible to you. Your unhappiness is real, but the information environment around you systematically denies that it exists.
Second: old-timers define right and wrong for you
Everyone has a few people like this in their life. They speak as if there can be no disagreement: your confusion is childish, your objections are immature and your unhappiness is melodrama.
They are not bad people. Often, they really have lived through a lot and carry the survival wisdom of their generation.
The problem is this: they equate “I have been through it” with “I am right,” and “you are young” with “you should stop thinking for now.”
Experience can be a reference point, but it cannot be a verdict. The road you walked is not necessarily the one I have to take. Besides, the world is no longer the one you knew when you walked that road.
Third: AI does your thinking for you
AI content tools naturally tend to produce positive, constructive material. Tell one you are in pain, and it gives you five ways forward. It does not really understand you; it has been designed to make you feel that there is light ahead.
Use it often enough, and you may start to feel that if a problem has no solution, it is not worth feeling seriously. If unhappiness cannot be turned into an action list, it is a waste.
There is a deeper issue: the longer many people use AI, the less willing they are to form their own judgment first. They ask AI, then decide what to think. It is fine to let AI find information, generate a draft and organize an argument. But if you outsource “What do I think about this?”, all that remains is a forwarding node, not a person.
Lu Xun wrote:
I hope that young people in China will rid themselves of the chill and keep moving upward, without listening to those who have given up on themselves. Those who can act should act; those who can speak should speak. Give whatever warmth you have, let whatever light you have shine. Even like a firefly, you can cast a little light in the darkness; you need not wait for a torch.
Algorithms filter your emotions. Old-timers define right and wrong for you. AI does your thinking for you.
Different methods, same logic: “You do not need to do it yourself. I will take care of it for you.” Together, these three voices can make someone truly believe they have no right to their own judgment.
That is what the chill is.
The chill is not a negative emotion. It is numbness, the complete coldness of “Nothing I do will matter anyway.”
Unhappiness is warm. When you feel pain, anger or hurt over something, it means you still have hope for it. You still believe it could have been different. That is warmth, not coldness.
Why does a firefly glow? Because it is burning. To burn, you have to still be here. Judgment requires you to still be here. So does unhappiness.
Having the right to be unhappy is a starting point, not a destination.
First admit that the feeling is real. Then you can truly deal with it. People who are not allowed to feel unhappy have only two paths: suppress it and keep performing, or collapse completely at some point.
There is a third path: feel it, understand it, see what it is pointing to, then decide what to do. Those who can act should act; those who can speak should speak. Both require you to know what your real situation is first.
Romain Rolland wrote:
To spread sunlight into the hearts of others, you must first have sunlight in your own heart.
That is warmth!
Today is Youth Day. Happy holiday.
But if you are not happy, that is all right too.
You are still whole when you are unhappy. That whole person deserves to be taken seriously.
Including by you.