The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 30 Laughing at Life's Hibiscus Bird (2)
No, we can't hide from them: Question marks about life in this era, small, big, crooked, and straight, are all around us like butterflies [like].Just as they forced me to declare a firm attitude two years ago, they are still forcing me to express a firm attitude today.Well, I thought, this is my chance to clear my mind again, when we are completely incapable of solving life's problems, we can only admit failure.But what exactly are our current problems?If they have the power to overwhelm us, we must at least raise our heads and see the faces of our enemies.For example, when treating a disease, we must first see what the disease is and then use the medicine, so that we can hope to cure the disease.It is beyond doubt that we are sick.But which part is the disease, what is the most important symptom, we may not be able to answer it.At least, everyone has their own answer, and there will never be the same answer.Let’s just talk about the boredom of this era: boredom can’t just come from nothing, can it?There have to be various reasons for it, and we have to find out exactly what is going on.In other words, we have to identify our problem first, and then try the second step to solve it.Perhaps in the research of analyzing our diseases, some kind of symptomatic medicine will appear unexpectedly.Let's try it out.

Speaking of this, we can imagine a group of optimistic gentlemen looking at us with amused eyes.They laughed at us for being busy with nothing, talking about life and fundamental issues.

There is no problem in life at all, it's all because that metaphysician got into the mind of a lazy person and made irrelevant mysteries there!To be a person is to be a person, and the focus is on writing.You like industry by nature, so you can find engineering work and do it.You like to talk about sorting out the country's heritage, and you can find your country's heritage and get it.Work, and more work, is the only boon.Concentrate your mental energy on the work you are willing to do, and you will not be easily sentimental, and you will not moan about illnesses, as long as you try your best to work, there will be no problems.

At first hearing these words, it sounds spicy and sweet. Originally, if there is any problem, just do your work, why bother yourself!But when you think about it, there are holes in this plain gospel.Although many groans in this era are just lazy people pretending to be in pain, or illusory imaginations, but we can say that this era is originally healthy. Are the so-called illnesses and troubles nothing more than psychological effects?Although there was a great poet in Germany at the time, his great genius made him find interest in all mental activities. When he got tired of working in the scientific laboratory, he ran out and took a woman and became fascinated. Westerners He said "falling in love"; later he was tired or lost in love, and as soon as he felt troubled or oppressed by sadness, he flew into his laboratory again, closed the door, and closed his own The door of emotion, and went to his scientific research with great concentration.For him, the so-called work is indeed a kind of relief, a kind of barrier, a kind of adjustment, but how can we compare?How can we, a group of young people, be able to exercise such great restraint when our emotions and reason cannot be distinguished?So we still have to study our own ailments and think about possible remedies.

And this theory of work is practically impossible.For if society were organized so that each of us could choose our own work according to our own wishes and have the opportunity to continue to do this part of the work, wouldn't it be a golden age? "Everyone enjoys his career and lives in peace." What else is there to talk about?Is modern times such a time?A businessman can do his business with peace of mind, a student can read his books with peace of mind, can a writer write his articles with peace of mind?It is precisely because in this era that everything is upside down and chaotic from the beginning of thinking, this common depressive disease occurs, so there is a problem. Otherwise, if you are serious and have nothing to do when you are full, everyone would rather look for troubles on their own.

Let's look at our ailments.

The first obvious symptom is confusion.The existence and progress of a crowd society are conditional.The condition is a harmonious co-operation of physical and intellectual activities, in which the general thread, the general conductor, is the intangible thought, we might say philosophical thought, which follows the times or leads them. The age defines the aspect of human endeavor and, where possible, gives it an interpretation, an assessment of value and a discovery of meaning.Thought is a mission, it is to guide human beings to evolve from non-conscious or even unconscious activities to conscious activities. The awareness and awareness of this idea is the most glorious victory and the most thorough joy in the history of human culture.Sure enough, it is this part of philosophical thought that can govern the activities of the entire society of this group of people, and the society is on the right track; on the contrary, if this part of thought loses its position as the commander-in-chief, it will be broken. If there is any activity, conflicts may arise anytime and anywhere. This removal of the center of gravity is the main cause of various imbalances.The current China suffers from the lack of this center of gravity, and as a result, everything is left out, and it is not suitable.Our big country can be said to be miserable. In the past hundred years, there has been no thought at all.From ease to relaxation, from relaxation to laziness, from laziness to busyness, from busyness to rushing, from rushing to chaos, I think these few adjectives can summarize the intellectual history of China in the past hundred years. Simply put, it completely abandons Without the position of commander-in-chief, there is no system, no goal, no harmony, and the result is modern China: chaos.

Chaos, chaos, everywhere.Because of the incompetence of thought, all kinds of chaotic phenomena are caused. This is one step.From this kind of confusion, it also affects the body of thought, causing it to be infected with this confusion.It’s like a person who suffers from external influences because of his weakness and suffers from various diseases. The spread of this disease will return to consume the limited energy of the patient and make him weaker. This is the second step.Economics, politics, society, isn't there something strange, isn't there chaos?This affects the individual as an imbalance between reason and emotion. If emotion is not restrained by reason, it is emotional, which is always superficial, shallow, and fruitless; because emotional has the upper hand, the result is wrong activities.For the sake of unidentified goals, our literati have become politicians, those who study science have become non-scientific officials, students have abandoned their pursuit of learning, and workers have made sacrifices for careerists.This kind of confusion affecting our youth is one of the causes of boredom.

This one symptom disorder transitions to the second symptom abnormality.What is the norm in a crowd society?A crowd is a union of feelings.Although there are curious thinkers who tell us that people kill each other, or that human solidarity is based on the instinct of fear, even though we can see malignant manifestations in a society that is orderly and on track, we still I believe that the discipline of society is maintained by positive emotions.This means that in a normal social balance, the weight of love must outweigh the weight of hatred, and the spirit of mutual assistance must outweigh the phenomenon of mutual harm and killing.But when a society has no ideological center with a guiding mission, all kinds of bizarre and perverted phenomena are possible.Severe laws and regulations cannot prevent banditry when a society cannot provide decent employment.A society cannot guarantee safety and reward perseverance in business. As a result, legitimate businessmen have become speculators who use their wives' lives and properties to buy short and sell short.We only need to open our daily newspaper: we can know whether this modern society is normal or abnormal.To put it in a unified way, they now have only two classes to divide, one is the subject of terrorism, robbers, soldiers, bandits, kidnappers, politicians, ambitious politicians, and all speculators who have gained power. Overt and dark, both directly and indirectly are a kind of terrorism.Another one is terrified.The former class is always threatening, oppressing, and demanding the fulfillment of their selfish desires with murderous sharp weapons or similar things, while the latter class is always crawling on the ground, trembling, and calling for help. Isn’t this perverted?This abnormal phenomenon is manifested in various absurd doctrines and bizarre claims in thought.It can be said that the doctrines we can hear now, except for the mediocre and insignificant, are mostly calculated to lead us to a dead end.Isn't this perverted?

All these perverted phenomena affect our youth and are one of the causes of depression.

This chaotic and perverted audience collaborated to cause the third phenomenon to reverse all standards.The living conditions of human beings are not limited to food, clothing and housing: "Human beings are different from beasts." When we talk about humanity, we cannot escape the corresponding moral concepts.This is more than invisible air, its freshness is a necessary condition for our healthy life.We cannot live without ideals and beliefs. The sustenance of our true life is by no means in simple food and clothing.We worship heroes in a broad sense because in the character of their careers, we can feel spiritual satisfaction and inspiration, inspire our nobler nature, and bravely display the greatness of humanity.You adore your lover because she represents feminine virtues.You admire contemporary politicians because they represent selfless endeavors.You worship thinkers because they represent the courage to seek the truth.The implication of this worship is the standard.Although the fashion of the times changes, the moral standards will never waver.These moral maxims, what we demand of the age is to give us a concrete expression of these moral maxims at any time.It seems that there are a few stars hanging on the vague road of life to illuminate the way.But what is given to us now?Why don't we have a warm heart of worship?Haven't we placed our urgent expectations on this one or that thing, or this one character or that character.But, but, need I say it!Is there one thing that does not give us great bewilderment, disappointment, and sorrow?Speaking of the human side, is there anything more lamentable than the bankruptcy of an ordinary personality?In the autumn wind that doesn't know what kind of demonism, we saw all the idols in our hearts fall down one by one like fallen leaves!Seeing every moral standard, the ugly personality is stained with imperishable filth!Standards are gone.This kind of inversion of morality and personality affects our young people, and it is one of the causes of depression.

Along with these symptoms, there is another alarming phenomenon, which is the depression of general creative activities, which is also a natural result.Because the conditions for literary and artistic creation activities are a peaceful and orderly social state, a normal life, and a basis for idealism.We now have nothing but chaos, perversion, and the bankruptcy of our spiritual life.This seems to have been poisoned into the fountain of life, and the thoughts flowing out from here, so what kind of expression is there for truth, goodness and beauty?
The symptoms of the disease of this era are endless, and this is the most complicated disease, but from the points we mentioned above, we seem to be able to get a little information, at least I personally think so.That bit of news is the dryness of life, or the decay of vitality.The reason why we get sick is that the organization of our life lacks the center of gravity of thought, whose mission is to lead and command.But why?My explanation is that our nation has reached a period of embarrassment.The stream of life itself is almost dry: coupled with the fact that the disease we have now is a fatal symptom that directly cuts down on the body of life, how can we bear it?This is a long way to go, but we have to start from the basics.We must first remember that our nation is a very old nation.We know that everything has a limited lifespan; a kind of tree can only be young for so many years, after which it will wither, a kind of flower can only bloom for a few times, after which it is dead (although from another kind They are all immortal, because although they themselves must die, their seeds still have the opportunity to continue to grow).Our tree is considered to have an extremely long lifespan in the human forest.Our ancestry is relatively pure, and even our neighbors, the Manchu and Mongolian peoples in Tibet, do not mix with us.Another characteristic is that as a result of the Four Peoples System, the sons of scholars have always been scholars, and the sons of merchants have always been merchants. The task of thinking is completely the monopoly of the class of scholars and people, and because of the relationship between the economic system, there are almost no peasants with the most vitality. Opportunity to study, because the class of scholars formed a lonely position.We must know that knowledge is a kind of degeneration, especially from the point of view of vitality, the gentry class is a particularly degenerate class, coupled with the narrowness of our old educational concepts, the scope of our thinking and instinctive activities is simply absurd in terms of knowledge theory alone narrow.We have only a few books, a stale set of inanimate writing, our only tools.This situation is like a bay originally connected to the sea, but later because of the swelling of the sand, the water in this bay gradually separated from the sea it came from and became a lake.The lake may have been able to bear the source of some mountains and waters at first, but after the change of Linggu, this part of the source was also cut off. As a result, the lake dried up into a small pool, and even a small pool of stagnant water swelled. Covered with moss and stalks, it is a thing that can be completely dried up when the pure (dull) slow eye can see it.This is the analogous situation of our educated gentry class.Now the so-called intellectual class is nothing more than a puddle of stagnant water where the mud and grass are looser and more or less wind-blown. Don't look at it's self-satisfaction, how much future does it have?How much life is left?

Therefore, although our disease has more than one symptom, although it looks complicated, it is actually a basic disease of the so-called deficiency of Qi and blood in traditional Chinese medicine.The boredom we feel now is the boredom of being immersed in the stinky water that is not far from death. What else can we say?Because the water does not flow, the grass grows, and the expansion of the aquatic plants helps to soak up the limited water.In the same way, because our vitality has been cut off from its source, various original diseases have occurred, and these diseases have come back to erode the original and help to eliminate this remaining vitality.

Since the nature of the disease is so, isn't it completely hopeless?
That can't be that easy.The withering of a big tree and the decline of a nation will never happen overnight.Of course we still die.Just how to obtain the law is our problem.I have said that the root cause of our illness is the loss of the center of gravity of our thoughts, which is also due to the weakness of vitality.In fact, our reading class has formed an extremely lonely situation. First, because of class relations, it is completely isolated from the most vigorous peasant class in the nation. In terms of life, it is extremely urbanized, corrupted, luxurious, and inert. It is completely divorced from the healthy influence of nature and becomes a kind of self-destructive moth. Together with the transformation, there is no expression of creative power, and gradually it completely loses its own dignity and the supreme authority to govern and lead the activities of the whole society.Without the commander-in-chief, all kinds of disordered phenomena followed.

This abnormal development is worth pondering.On the one hand, you have your reading class, which has been poisoned by excessive civilization, and is looking towards corruption and rigidity day by day, but you cannot deny its intellectual development. It is only because of the reversal of moral standards and the lack of idealism that its activities Not at all logical.Nine out of ten young people in this class, especially those from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where the culture is most prosperous, are weak.But the problem is not all weak physical strength, especially the intellectual activity itself is sick, it only has poisonous thorns, no sound source, no natural endowment.Delicate and novel thoughts are not what we need. What we want are pure and sound thoughts that flow from the fullness of life and strong vitality. That is the powerful thought.

(End of this chapter)