---
title: "The White That Will Get Dirty"
book: "Becoming"
book_zh: "《生》"
author: "Wenzi / 文子"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://tongzai.space/en/becoming/the-white-that-will-get-dirty/"
is_primary_text: true
---

# The White That Will Get Dirty

<a id="p001"></a>

This book has chosen a kind of white that will get dirty.

<a id="p002"></a>

The cover and the belly band are neither laminated nor given a stain-resistant coating. I have not tried to shield it from the touch of hands, the friction of page-turning, the air, the light, and time. And so it will leave the traces of hands; it will wear; it will gradually soften; and it may slowly yellow.

<a id="p003"></a>

This is intentional.

<a id="p004"></a>

Because we often think that change only happens afterwards—as if first there is a whole, spotless book, and then time comes upon it; as if first there is a complete “I,” and then the world begins to change me.

<a id="p005"></a>

But if you look a little deeper, this is not so. Whiteness is not its unchanging original, and yellowing is not damage done to that original. Just finished—it is it. Being read through—it is it too. Leaving the traces of hands—it is it. Worn and faded many years later—it is still it.

<a id="p006"></a>

There is no unchanging “it” hiding behind these changes.

<a id="p007"></a>

These changes themselves are this book happening.

<a id="p008"></a>

Life is the same. There is not first an “I” standing outside life, which then goes on to undergo meeting, joy, loss, hurt, aging, and death. Meeting is happening. Joy is happening. Hurt is happening. Aging is happening. Knowing all this is happening too.

<a id="p009"></a>

We think it is “I am changing.” But deeper still within the change, there is no one standing outside the change.

<a id="p010"></a>

It is not that someone is becoming.

<a id="p011"></a>

Becoming itself is what is happening.

<a id="p012"></a>

So the so-called “dirt” is not a betrayal of the white. White never promised to stay white forever. Whiteness is one happening; the traces of hands are another; yellowing and wear are happenings too. No single moment is closer than any other to the book’s true appearance.

<a id="p013"></a>

It does not need to be preserved as its earliest self—because the so-called “earliest self” is only one moment through which happening has passed.

<a id="p014"></a>

Different people will leave different traces; different years will make each copy take on a different appearance. They may differ, yet not one of them has any less of its being for that.

<a id="p015"></a>

White will get dirty.

<a id="p016"></a>

Books will grow old.

<a id="p017"></a>

People will change.

<a id="p018"></a>

Not because there is something eternal and unchanging that is enduring all of this.

<a id="p019"></a>

But rather—

<a id="p020"></a>

change happening itself.


## Citation

Wenzi｜Becoming｜The White That Will Get Dirty (closing piece)｜https://tongzai.space/en/becoming/the-white-that-will-get-dirty/#pNNN