“You are a composite of all the things that happened to you, all of which you have no knowledge of.
I think this way, not because I want to write something down. I’m here thinking because my hand is holding a pen that is easy to use.
You close your only exit. From this moment you have no intention of leaving.
Now you begin to worry whether or not someone else will inadvertently open the door.
Writing like this, I could write a lifetime, because I obey the will of an invisible hand. Now, it makes me stop, stop immediately.
You are powerless to build a mansion, you will never know who will live there in the future.
You can build a dam, to resist an inundation of waters.
The floods of years past are merely the dried up burial grounds of today.
You cannot stop the tears of the tomb-sweeping masses.
One half is garbage; the other half is garbage too.
When you do use all your force, you can throw something very far, but it will inevitably come back.”
from Ai Weiwei’s Blog, posted on May 22, 2006
Ai Weiwei has an asteroid named after him, was taken to a Maoist re-education camp with his family when he was a newborn, wrote an (almost) daily blog from 2006 to 2009, designed the bird’s nest stadium in Beijing, and also posted pictures of his cats.