Preserve Goodwill, Hug the Thigh

I’m in my forties now. These past couple of years, two things have become clear to me — not just about charity work, but about life. Eight Chinese characters: preserve goodwill, hug the thigh.

1. Preserve Goodwill

When I was young, I believed an old saying: be like water — the highest good is like water, don’t care about reputation, don’t be calculating. Later I learned: that works for sages, not for people trying to get things done.

I’ve spent years doing volunteer work. People call it noble. Honestly? It’s not noble at all. It’s no different from liking card games, fishing, or video games — just a hobby. It just happens that this hobby can help the world. A hobby is a hobby; there’s nothing noble or base about it.

But the path of doing good is genuinely hard. Hard because there’s no timely feedback — you keep giving and see no return. The path of doing harm, by contrast, is cheap, fast, and effective, so people instinctively drift that way. That’s why bad actors always seem to do well, at least in the short term.

That road doesn’t last. Wrongdoing narrows your path until one day you can’t even get a seat at the table. Goodwill is long-termism: precisely because it’s hard, few walk it; because few walk it, those who stay become scarce. Hold on, and people will want to play the next round with you. Trust compounds.

Through goodwill, I’ve made real friends over the years. Not banquet-drinking acquaintances — people who’ll catch you when things fall apart. Money can’t buy those.

2. How Trust Gets Built: The Acquaintance Society

People ask why so many accomplished professionals are drawn to amateur radio. My answer: the ham community rebuilds the traditional Chinese “acquaintance society.”

Most of us entered through technology and equipment. But ham circles are different from other hobbies: daily on-air chats, frequent in-person meetups, nothing off-limits. Gradually you know who lives where, who does what, who’s reliable — like an ancient county town where everyone knows the widow by the river and the butcher at the south gate. Information comes first; risks get anticipated.

When the 2008 Sichuan earthquake hit, ham radio played a widely recognized role. Why could operators mobilize so fast? Because everyday communication had already built the trust. Who you can call on in a crisis depends on who you’ve chatted with in ordinary times. Trust doesn’t appear from nowhere — daily ragchews are the deposits; disaster is the withdrawal.

That’s why hams are obsessed with emergency communications: understanding breeds empathy, empathy breeds trust. What draws accomplished people to this circle is social capital that time alone can build — and no one can take away.

3. Hug the Thigh

“Hug the thigh” is originally a derogatory phrase in Chinese — it means currying favor, clinging to powerful people. Let me redefine it: don’t hug people’s thighs. Hug the thigh of value.

That’s my investing principle too. You don’t need to win every trade or perfectly time bottoms and tops. Find what you believe has value, grip it tight, don’t get shaken off. Time will do the work for you.

Same with fame and money. Many consider it vulgar to talk about them; I think the opposite. Fame brings more help; money buys equipment for the people who need it. Fame and money are tools. Someone who does good silently and unknown — I don’t think that good can grow big. Not because they’re not good enough, but because they can’t mobilize resources.

4. Putting It Together

Charity work is where these two principles meet.

“Charity is just a hobby” is the inner discipline of preserving goodwill — no moral grandstanding, no self-congratulation. That’s how you keep going for twenty-five years without burning out.

“Fame and money are tools” is the method of hugging the thigh — seek recognition when it serves the cause, seek funding without apology.

Goodwill without the thigh: a good person with limited reach. The thigh without goodwill: a bad actor headed for a blowup. Both together: good that scales and lasts.

Twenty-five-plus years in amateur radio, focused on emergency communications — keeping a last-resort lifeline for my hometown. Never took a penny. All passion. But passion needs method, and goodwill needs a thigh to hug.

Preserve goodwill, and people will trust you. Hug the thigh, and time will cash you out. Get both right, and the future won’t be too bad.

— BG7BAG, October 2026