You have one of those, don’t you?
It’s not pretty. It’s not valuable. You definitely wouldn’t buy it if you saw it in a shop today.
But you keep it.
Maybe it’s a pen. Maybe it’s a little sculpture from years ago. Maybe it’s a stone someone gave you once, and you put it in your pocket, and you just never took it out.
I don’t think it’s about being sentimental. I think it’s something deeper than that.
In China, young people have a word for it — 阿贝贝 (a-bei-bei). I don’t know how to translate it exactly. It’s not just “comfort object” or “favorite thing.” It’s more like the thing that feels like home. The thing you reach for without thinking. The thing that sits in your bed or your pocket or your bag, and you don’t even notice it anymore — until someone picks it up and you feel something.
I think everyone has one. Maybe everyone in the world has one.
I have two boys. Neither of them is what you’d call sentimental.
My older son has this pillow. It’s not a pillow anymore, really — it’s a pile of fabric held together by habit and willpower. The edges are worn through. It’s been washed so many times it’s basically disintegrating.
But he won’t let it go.
He asked his grandmother to sew it back together once. He took it to boarding school. That pillow has been through more than most adults.
My younger son has a blanket. He calls it Dudu.
It’s small — he’s tall now, much too tall for it, it barely covers his feet anymore. But every night, before he sleeps and when he wakes up, he finds the corners. He touches the corners — runs his fingers over the fuzzy, worn edges, over and over. The corners are completely worn through from all that touching.
His word for it is 毛嘟嘟(mao-dudu) — which roughly means brushing the soft, fluffy thing. He probably can’t explain why either. I never asked him to.
When I started DaoEast, I didn’t think about it this way. I thought I was building a business around something beautiful.
But the more I talked to people — really talked, not as a seller but as a person — the more I heard the same thing, over and over.
“My mom gave me this bracelet.”
“I’ve had this for ten years.”
“I don’t really believe in any of this stuff, but I never take it off.”
None of these people were spiritual. None of them used the word “energy.” They just… held onto it.
And I started to realize: maybe what we make isn’t about belief at all. Maybe it’s just about having something real to touch when your brain won’t shut up.
I think that’s why people connect with crystals and small objects like this. Not because of some ancient energy system. Not because of a tradition or a belief.
Just because sometimes you need something solid. Something you can feel. Something that doesn’t ask anything from you.
Something that just sits there, quietly, reminding you that you exist too.
That’s all.
If you’ve got a piece like that — the one you’ve never been able to throw away — you already know what I mean.
And if you don’t yet, you probably will.
Small pauses.Big shifts.Find your piece→
