The leisurely life of rebirth

Chapter 18 Seven years of life
How a society looks is not just about one class, but multiple classes, and the development of each class over decades.

There is a documentary in the UK called "Seven Years in the Life", which is Zhou You's favorite documentary.

This documentary was directed by a British director. A total of 14 children were selected from three classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. They were filmed starting from when they were about 7 years old, and were interviewed every seven years until they were 63 years old.

When I first watched this documentary, Zhou You was still in college.After watching this documentary, Zhou You's entire worldview changed.

A person's life is condensed into a few hours. After reading it, a sense of sadness arose in my heart: the passing geese leave their voices, and the passing people leave their names. No matter what, they have an image that can preserve the world, so what about me in the future? What will be left in this world?

This documentary, no matter how long it takes, will be passed down in the history of video, or in society.

Think about it, if you don’t have wealth and live like an ant every day, what’s the point?Where's the fun?
Now that I have such an opportunity, can I waste my time?

If you have nothing to do today, reward yourself by reliving seven years of your life.

A dragon begets a dragon, a phoenix begets a phoenix, and a mouse's son can make holes.This is an ancient Chinese saying that is also universal in the world.

The class a person comes from determines his future and the class he will be in in the future.

Because this documentary is filmed every seven years, Zhou You only watches it once every few years. Each time I watch it, my feelings are different.

As you grow older and experience more, your understanding becomes deeper and deeper. In life, there is always an invisible rope controlling you.

That rope is called destiny.

The Chinese say: Accept your fate.

I used to travel around and not believe in fate, but then I have been working hard in society and struggling. How many times have I tried to change my fate against the will of nature, but how many times have I failed, and in the end I have been riddled with holes.

Later, I had to reconcile with society and myself. The way to reconcile was to accept my fate.

Everything is destined, no one can help.

When he saw Neil, he thought of himself. The middle class is the most anxious and pitiful. It has a very low risk-taking ability. If you make one wrong step, the class will slip. It looks like the backbone, but it is actually a sandwich cookie.

The upper class will basically not slide down, and the lower class will basically not rise, so there is almost no anxiety and uneasiness.

"The Fanatic" mentions frustrated people. What are frustrated people? They are people who cannot be satisfied in real life. Our first reaction is the people living at the bottom.

In fact, those who feel the strongest sense of frustration are those who once had something but lost it again.

If the bottom class doesn’t own anything, there will be no loss.

For example, in that joke, two farmers imagined that the emperor would farm with golden hoes, eat with golden rice bowls, and eat two steamed buns at a meal.

sad?
In seven years of life, they dropped out of school and made the same mistakes. People in the upper class had strong trial-and-error abilities and various resources to patch things up, and finally got on the right track, while those in the middle class simply slipped down and fell to the bottom of society.

Reading and education are still the way out for ordinary people. Nick is the only one who has achieved a class leap, from the bottom to the middle class, and finally immigrated to the United States to become a university professor.

Nick has been thinking since he was a child, and he speaks very maturely after watching the documentary. When it comes to outings, he said: I think people are ridiculous. They like to come to rural areas full of mud. I am different. I want to go to the city, where it is clean and bright.There are also people with hearts as high as the sky and lives as thin as paper.

Lynn, a lower-level person, can be seen from the video as the kind of person who has strong opinions and a strong self-esteem.My job is in a mobile children's library, responsible for borrowing books for children.

For people in this industry, Zhou You subconsciously expressed his affinity. If Lin En had a good education, he would probably be able to continue completing his studies.It's a pity that her strong self-esteem harmed her. It can be seen that she was depressed throughout her life, but she also wanted to be respected by others. She had been trying to hold on to her life. Her life was a bit awkward, and she died at the age of 58.

Zhou You feels that he is the same kind of person as Lin En. He does not want to gain sympathy from others and has a strong self-esteem.Although I know that there are class differences, I don't think that I am inferior to others, and my life is a bit awkward.

The most free-spirited among them is Tony, who grew up in the East End of London and is a child of the lowest class. He is rude, ill-mannered and loves to fight.When he was a child, he dreamed of becoming a jockey. The most disappointing time in his life was when his dream was shattered. At that time, he looked completely different from his childhood. He was listless and seemed much quieter.

Until after the appointment, Tony was still the same Tony, as free and easy as he was when he was a child, the boy who fell down, got up and kept running.I have lived a colorful life. Although I have been driving a taxi, I am still as free and natural as I was when I was a child.

It makes sense to think that you are old at the age of three and old at the age of seven. In a stable era, it makes sense.

Seeing them grow from children to youth and then to old age, I was reminded of the story of Xu Xiake that Mingyue told at the end of "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty":

From the secular point of view, Xu Hongzu is a weird person. This person does not take the exam for fame, does not seek to be an official, and does not start a family. According to many people, he is ruined.

I know that many people will still say that this kind of life is absurd, that it does not conform to the routine, that it is abnormal, that it is rootless, and that it is mentally problematic.

I think that those who say these things are full and full, people only live for one life, how to live is their own business, and they have not lived well in this life, and they have the cheek to accuse others, how far is it? , just go as far as you want.

I have talked about many things before, many ups and downs, many princes and generals, many helpless replacements, many changes, but this thing, I personally think, is the most important.

Because I want to tell you that the so-called hegemony, eternal glory, and everything else are just dung.First it becomes dung, and then it becomes soil.

If you don’t understand it now, you will understand it in the future. If you don’t understand it in the future, just wait until the future. If you don’t understand it for the rest of your life, that’s okay.

And this last thing, it goes beyond all of the above, at least in my opinion.

But this thing, I have thought about it for a long time, and I can't express it in accurate language or words. In the most embarrassing words, it can only be understood, not expressed in words.

However, I don't deserve to be beaten after all. After reading many books but finding no way to speak, I finally found this suitable sentence from an inconspicuous and worthless book.

This is a desk calendar, a desk calendar that was placed in front of me. I don't know how long it has passed, but I have never turned it over. The desk calendar has long expired.

I know that it was God who placed this desk calendar on my desk. It looked at my daily efforts and persistence over the past few years, and it quietly and patiently waited for the end.

It is waiting, on the day that is about to end, I will open this desk calendar that has been with me all the time, but has never been opened, and there is the final answer on it.

I opened it, and on this desk calendar, there was a famous saying that didn't even explain who the celebrity was.

Yes, this is what I want to say, this is what I want to express through Xu Xiake, enough to despise all princes and generals, the most perfect conclusion:

There is only one success - to live life in your own way.

　New to the book, I’m curious where did all the book friends find this book?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)