A classmate came to see me from the province. After playing for a day, he still wouldn’t let me go. I am anxious to leave. He is a multi-millionaire and he does not lack money. He does all the entertainment here. The next morning, I decided not to play with him.
He scolded me, what the hell are you going to do without me?
I said, I am going to write. I have two humorous novels in my heart. I must write them quickly, otherwise the inspiration will go away and I may never come back again.
He said, what do you write down?
I said, I have a humorous column on the Chinese Story China website, “The Elephant in the West Shu”, and I often publish humorous novels or humorous stories on it. Thanks to the readers for their kindness. It has been more than half a year since there have been 1.3 million clicks.
He asked, oh, that’s it! How much can you earn?
I said, I only earn popularity, not money.
He asked, what popularity?
I said, in my humorous works in this column, the number of clicks per article ranges from four to five thousand, seven to eight thousand in the middle, and one to 20,000 clicks. My work is seen by so many people, and I feel very fulfilling.
He said, what does this mean?
I said, very interesting. I have a friend who is a very hardworking writer and a genius from Sichuan. I once said that five handsome elephants are not as good as him. His name is Ran Yunfei. This kid has published more than a dozen books. He insists on writing a blog every day. When I come to play, even if I go to bed at three o’clock in the evening, I must wake up at six o’clock. Then I go to the Internet cafe to write his blog and insist on one blog every day. I asked him, why do you blog every day? He said that in order to be worthy of the thousands of readers who read his blog every day. I am very moved. Later I went to read his blog and found out that he was boasting. He has a blog every day, but the readers of each of his articles are only 300 to 400 person-times, and very few have more than 1,000 person-times. He can insist on such a popularity. Why don’t I cherish the popularity of each work in the thousands?
He said, so it is. Although online works are easy to publish, their level is not high. Do you like this thing too? Like BBS, I stopped playing.
I was furious and said, “Damn it.” Do you think I am low? Go and take a look. In this column, the articles I put up first are mostly published in newspapers and periodicals in more than 100 famous cities at home and abroad, with hundreds of articles. But I now feel that the humorous works I write for popularity are higher and more classic than those published in the past.
He asked, why is this?
I said, writing for popularity is a very pure literary writing. I pursue non-utilitarian writing. I pursue high-level humorous writing. I regard this kind of writing as whether there are important classic humorous works in my life, and whether it can be regarded as a masterpiece of my humorous works. This writing is more pure and closer to the essence of literatureThe quality and core are closer to the highest road of humorous creation. Therefore, for the sake of popular writing, I instead wrote classic humorous novels that are many times higher than the published level. I hope that five hundred years or a thousand years from now, five of the thousands of humorous novels I have created will still be circulated and read and happy. Moreover, because of these pursuits, I cannot be lazy, because if I want to grasp any humorous inspiration to create, the classics are inadvertently produced. This is why I want to write instead of playing mahjong with you.
He sighed and said, your spirit is worthy of praise, but it’s a pity that popularity is not worth a damn money.
I patted him on the shoulder and said, the popularity that I respect is like love-the best love is worthless and worthless. This principle is understood only by the big bosses in the United States with assets of more than 10 billion U.S. dollars; brother, as a multimillionaire in China, your level is too low, and poor you may not understand it for a lifetime.