On his deathbed, Franz Kafka called his best friend to his side, and told him to burn all his unpublished manuscripts. Thanks to that friend who refused the wish, the world gets to preserve one of its most fascinating minds.

If I were Kafka, I would have asked for the same thing. Franz Kafka was a master at demonstrating life’s misery. He paints beautiful pictures out of great pain and self-pity. To have such talent must be shameful: if my creation is so contagiously pessimistic that my readers shall all wallow in life’s darkness, I wouldn’t want that to be my legacy either. Burning it all is better than leaving the world with this negative image.

There are infinite directions a creation can take. It could be beautiful, ugly, provoking, soothing, uncomfortable, awe-inspiring, sad, happy. You just need to make a choice, of which we call personal taste. To be blessed with creativity is genuinely a Godlike power, you can make anything the mind desires. Why not make something beautiful, hopeful; something that reminds people they are lovable?

If I could distill my taste down to one line, it is to inspire. I believe all creators, at their core, want to show people something “larger than life”. I am no different. I want to show people greatness and provoke their thought, but at the same time, I’d hate to make them feel bad about themselves. Too many intellectuals confuse cynicism with enlightenment; no matter what you tell these people, their first instinct is always to dissect, to disenchant, to linger in the safety of skepticism until they can proudly declare their disbelief. Such positions are rarely helpful, often not even true. They feed an ego that preens on “knowing” instead of “creating.” “Knowing” is the deconstructive force to break things down, it requires cognitive skill but no courage. “Creating” is the hard labor of designing a better structure and building it up. It is the truly honorable intellectual act.

Whenever I feel the urge to ramble and lecture, I remember that people don’t need be told how difficult life gets, or how everything is an illusion. The world has that lesson prepared for us all, sooner or later. Simply revealing the absurdity and flaunting how much “I know” is not my job. My job is to remind people of the light. We all are born with light in our eyes, and I would be happy if through my art, people are reminded that beautiful things do exist in the world. This is the biggest and most neglected truth of all.

Wonder Tales

I call a certain type of work “Wonder Tales.” They reveal the world's complexity, while inspiring even greater hope. That’s a very hard thing to do. The great works of philosophy, literature, and academia dig deep into the complexity, and most philosophers are miserable. In human culture, hope is often confined to pure fairy tales, self-help, and rom-coms, and you would rarely think of those as intellectual.

Bringing the two together creates “Wonder Tales.” Naturally, they are scarce and sacred resources of this world. To give some examples I personally like: The Lord of The Rings, The Odyssey, The Alchemist; MJ’s “Thriller”, Kanye’s “The College Dropout”; etc. The Bible is one of the greatest Wonder Tales of all time.

It is an incredibly high bar, but only high bars are worth reaching for. I look at some of my unfinished drafts, and think of Kafka's deathbed. If I were to die tomorrow, would I proudly publish them as part of my legacy, or say burn them all? That is a very interesting question. Yet, as I look back on all things I’ve made, I found the ones that stay with me are most often born from hope and joy.

I realize now I can never run away from the Wonder Tales. Every time I try to deviate from this path, I somehow find myself pulled back to it. God asks me to sing, to love, to inspire. It is a decision settled long ago, and it cannot be changed.

July 6, 2025

Haoji Wang