Metaphor of the Stone
People make stones into monuments and carve inscriptions on them to send their lasting condolences to the deceased. In Chinese culture there are various legends of spirits born from stone, such as the Monkey King being born from it; Jia Baoyu being reincarnated as a human being also from an abandoned stone. The symbolic connotation of the stone is innocence, naturalness, and originality, which is closely related to the spiritual power of nature. The literates wrote various poems and proverbs about the stone: "When sincerity is attained, gold and stone will blossom", "A righteous heart is like a stone that does not turn, and a reputation that does not change when it dies”, "A sole broken-hearted stone, buried in the moon”.
In Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel Three Bodies, facing extinction, mankind exhausts all technological means to preserve the fires of human civilization, which in the end carving on a stone is the last choice, and waiting for some intelligent being to read someday in the future. This novel inspired me to ponder the meaning of human life and civilisation and gave me the courage to face the inevitable vanity.