A person stands on two legs upon the earth.
That is all the character 人 was ever meant to be.
Look at its oldest form, carved into bone three thousand years ago, and you find no two figures embracing. You find one body, seen from the side, standing on its own.
We were taught otherwise. That 人 is two people leaning on each other; that no one stands alone; that to be a person is to be held up by another. It is a beautiful idea. It is also not where the character comes from.
I have long felt a small unease
at a world that calls leaning
by the name of support.
The rest of this essay
is for members.
From here, the body begins to speak — what it truly means to stand, why dependence distorts and tension upholds, and the prayer a later people folded into a single standing figure. Members read every essay in full.
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