The first thing I think of is a branch from childhood.
It was not anything important.
It was not a keepsake that later gained some grand meaning.
It was just a branch I may have picked up, long ago, in a yard in Yanbei. Perhaps it was more accurately called Yanbei Community. It used to feel like a village, and later it was demolished and turned into new apartment blocks. During that time, we were waiting for the relocation housing.
There was a very large tree in that yard. Bricks circled its roots. Nearby were roses, or more accurately, Chinese roses.
I can no longer remember the details of that tree.
But I remember the feeling.
Standing under the tree, with mud and branches in hand, there was a little time without purpose. No exams, no assessments, no waves of records and tasks, and not so many human relations that had to be handled.
Playing was just playing.
It did not need results. It did not need explanation. It did not need to prove its value to anyone.
Childhood Time
Childhood days were plain.
School, home, downstairs, park, yard, tree.
Looking back now, that plainness feels like a kind of freedom.
Because plainness is not the same as emptiness.
Sometimes plainness means the world is not constantly urging you forward. You do not need to keep switching states. You do not need to be ready to answer people at every moment. You do not need to cut your attention into many tiny pieces.
Before primary school, in Yanbei, or in that period around Yanbei Community, I played with mud and branches in the yard. Later, after moving to this neighborhood, I also played in the park downstairs.
It was not that reality did not exist then.
It was just that reality had not yet surrounded a person so tightly.
A person could have a stretch of time without a goal, simply existing. You could squat under a tree, or look at something boring. Boredom itself was not hateful. It was like an open patch of ground, letting something slowly grow inside.
Adulthood Time
After growing up, time no longer feels entirely like my own.
It is not that there is no time at all.
It is that time has been broken apart.
One piece goes to exams. One piece goes to training. One piece goes to assessment. One piece goes to the small, unclear matters of daily life. Each of them may not be huge on its own, but they come in waves. Like the surface of the sea, each wave may not look frightening alone, but together they make it hard to stand still.
Reading has also become difficult.
Attention feels worn thin. Reason tells me that I need a stable anchor, but then I wonder: how many anchors can a ship at sea really have? If one anchor is thrown into the ocean, can it truly be recovered later?
Sometimes the body reacts before language does.
Anger, discomfort, tiredness, delay.
They are not one concrete enemy, but many invisible small things, attacking a person’s sense of order little by little.
The mind may know many truths.
But knowing is not the same as being able to do them immediately.
Communication and Emptiness
I do not like meaningless social dealings.
It is not that I hate people.
If people are sharing life, stories, and thoughts without too much money or practical exchange attached, I actually like it. A real collision of thought makes living feel like more than just completing tasks.
But a lot of communication now feels empty.
Sometimes I cannot say exactly where the emptiness is. I only feel that it has no place to land. A lot of content is lively. Many people keep talking. Many platforms keep pushing. But after listening, nothing truly remains in the heart.
I like it when people seriously share what they are making.
Why they make it, how they make it, where they failed, and how they continue. Such things do not have to be grand, but they have a kind of atmosphere. It is like someone putting a lamp on the table and saying: you can sit here, and we can talk slowly.
This is not the same as entertainment.
Entertainment can exist.
But if the world leaves only entertainment, the inner self slowly loses places to dock.
A Place to Record
So to me, ByteForge Studio is not only a website.
It is more like a recording port.
When I understand something, discover something, or notice a moment, it can be placed here. This way, I do not have to rely completely on one person, one relationship, or one real-world entity to hold these things.
It is like a cyber friend.
It does not possess. It does not rush me. It does not ask me to respond immediately, and it does not turn everything into the pull and friction of a real-world relationship.
It simply remains there.
That matters to me.
A person always needs something to return to.
It does not have to be religion. It does not have to be a fixed organization. It does not have to be a complete theory. It can simply be a small site, a document, a record, a slowly forming order.
Not to fight the world.
More like giving myself guidance.
An anchor.
A Small Island
I want this website to have a little sense of secrecy.
Not because it is deliberately hidden, and not because it refuses visitors.
But because it is quiet and small, like discovering an island in the middle of the Pacific. At first you think there is nothing there. Then you come closer and find books, artifacts, and traces that were carefully left behind.
Maybe some child in the future will find it.
Maybe that child will be a little like me when I was young.
On some night, or on some very ordinary afternoon, he may open this site. He may see some words, some projects, some assets, and some records.
He may think:
So someone else thought this way too.
So someone else also understood the world like this.
Maybe he will also ask: why did the world later become like this?
I do not know whether he will really appear.
But I feel that, at the very least, something should be left behind.
Because the world is not made of isolated continents.
Many people, from very far away, influence one another in very slow ways.
That Branch
A branch from childhood was originally only a casual memory.
But after growing up, a person realizes that many casual things did not disappear. They changed shape, held up the later world, and built part of the inner self.
If everything could grow in its own way, then the large tree of adult life should be something that protects a person.
It should have shade, roots, and a place to lean against.
But reality does not grow entirely according to a person’s wishes.
Some branches are broken. Some roots are moved away. Some time is scattered. Sometimes a person only stands there, and already feels tired.
So I do not want this piece to be very bright.
It should keep a little melancholy.
Because I am not a completely bright person either.
But melancholy is not the same as having no direction.
A branch may be very light.
But if it was once truly held in the hand, it is not empty.
ByteForge Studio is the same.
It may not change anything.
But it can remain.
Like a lamp.
Like a small island.
And like a branch picked up casually under that tree in childhood.
