About the researcher
He did not come
to this from academia.
He came from collapse. The research question came from the rubble.
Origin
Zilun Zhang is an independent researcher in New York. Before this work, he ran a market strategy company in Asia for over a decade — peak operations: 500 staff, 6 cities, over $1 billion in annual revenue.
Then, within a single year: the company collapsed. Partners left. Personal bankruptcy. The marriage ended. He arrived in New York with nothing.
He did not try to rebuild what was lost. He did something harder — he let himself re-understand what the loss meant.
That process took years. It led through theology, applied psychology, mathematics, and eventually more than a thousand narrative texts from people who had gone through their own versions of the same question: why do some people emerge stronger from collapse — and others disappear?
The answer, when it came, had a mathematical shape.
This book was written in a basement. The author, 52, deep in debt, spent $600 on a 2013 machine nicknamed ‘the trash can.’ He ran a local language model, waited hours, and analyzed thirty strangers’ narratives. When the number appeared — matching theory to within 0.0007 — he said two words: Thank God. Then he waited for the next batch.
— From the preface of 《意義不是找到的》
Research
The MRD (Meaning Reconstruction Dynamics) framework proposes that psychological capital is not simply the sum of its components — it is their exponential expression through a superordinate variable: Core Meaning Integration.
HERO = Hope + Efficacy + Resilience + Optimism · F = Core Meaning Integration (0–1)
The amplification coefficient k converges to e−1 ≈ 1.718 across faith narrative datasets — independently recovering the mathematical constant e from human story data.
Background
M.S. Applied Psychology, ENAE Business School / Universidad de Murcia. Theology. 15 years in IT and operations.
~1,000 narrative texts across Chinese, English, and Spanish. Local LLM pipeline. Mac Pro (“The Forge”). Fully independent — no institutional funding, no sponsorship.
US Copyright No. 1-15128625091
Contact
admin@meaningisnotfound.com
Collaboration and academic correspondence welcome.
Silver Lining Missions
U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Proceeds from 《意義不是找到的》 donated to orphan care in Myanmar.