The Complete Works of Xu Zhimo's Classical Prose

Chapter 34 Laughing at Life's Hibiscus Bird (6)
I am not here to talk about learning, I am not worthy, my book knowledge is really very limited.When I was young, I read a few very ordinary Chinese books. In the past few years, not only did I not know anything new, but I couldn’t say that I had read them. I don’t look down on Chinese studies and scholars who study Chinese studies. I respect them very much, but I can only watch them do this part of the work enviously. I’m afraid I’m not only Today, I may not even hope to participate in this life.What about foreign books?Although there are a few books that I have read, I can really say how many "I have read". A little more, three or two plays, a dozen poems, five or six articles, that's all.

I don't understand science, I have never received formal training, and I can't even explain the simplest physics and chemistry. If I don't prepare, I will go to the middle school. [-] out of [-] will fail. Believe it or not!I only know a few big stars in the sky and a few big trees on the ground; this is not what my husband taught me; I learned it from my husband and taught me in school for more than ten years. I really can’t remember, I can’t say. , all I remember are the ridiculous faces of a few professors and the strong hypnotic atmosphere in the classroom.

My personnel experience and knowledge are similarly limited. I have never had a job, I have never tasted the hardships of life, I have never fought in a war, I have never been in prison, I have never been involved in any secret party, I have never killed anyone, I have never I did business and made a big fortune.

So you see, I'm just a very ordinary person, I don't have outstanding knowledge, let alone very experience.But at the same time, I am confident that I also have my differences from others.I never surrendered to this world.I am not bound by it.

I'm a wild horse without a bridle, and I never stand still.I am living in this society, but I am not a part of this society. It seems that I have a disease of leaving the soul. The movement of my body is one thing, and the destination of my dream soul is another.I am a fool: I once dreamed of finding some unchanging value in this flowing life, and finding some indelible truth in this lying world. The adventure of my soul is the meaning in the core of life; Crawling on the rock of invisible experience.

Adventure, pain, failure, and disappointment follow, and those who intend to take risks must plan for their final disappointment; but disappointment is not despair, and there is a big difference.I have been hit by disappointment. My head is bleeding, but my neck is still stiff; My blood is blackened by the evil.World-weary views and life cannot coexist; I am a believer in life, yes at the beginning, still true today, and I dare say in the future, yes.I will never tolerate the decadence of the spirit, which is the most irremediable degradation, while continuing to exist in the body; for me, the fact that I speak and write with a pen means that there is a basic belief behind me, and there is no truth at all. Flawed faith; otherwise, why should I write any more articles or publish any newspapers?
But this is not to say that I do not feel the pain of life; I am by no means the childish optimist; Evil says it’s good; I don’t deny shadows, clouds, and evil, but I just don’t doubt the reality of sunshine, blue sky, and good; temporary cover and erosion can’t make us despair, which should double our motivation to seek light determination.A few days ago, when I was feeling very depressed, I accidentally turned over a sentence from Nietzsche. The very simple words contain infinite meaning and powerful power, just as the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the stars in the sky and the latitude and longitude of rivers silently suggest you The profound meaning of life, dispelling your confusion, illuminating your thinking, he said "The sufferer has no right to pessimism" (The sufferer has no right to pessimism), I felt a strange shock at that time, a strange Che Wu:

I will suffer because I want to know you, God;

I am willing, willing to be in the flames,

See my truth at the last hour,

See my truth, I've made up my mind, God, don't hesitate!

So I came back from the south this time, determined to change my attitude towards life, and I wrote to my friends saying that I am here to seriously do a little "people's business":

I don't want to become a fairy anymore, Penglai is not my share;

As long as I want this ground, I am willing to live in peace.

For me, "determined to be a human being, determined to do some serious business" is a big change in thinking; because I just didn't agree with this life before, so I don't have any mutual relationship with this world. It is me, it is it, it cannot blame me, and I will not criticize it.But then my declaration of determination to be human puts me in a position of relationality and responsibility where I can no longer dream with my eyes open.From now on, we must treat reality as reality: I want to inspect, I want to inspect, I want to clear, I want to overturn, I want to challenge, I want to destroy.

What is life?I have to give myself a fair answer first.What is life?Why this diverse and confusing phenomenon of religion, politics, society, morality, art, men and women, economics?I’m here, but I still don’t understand, I have to look at antiques slowly, hold each piece in my hand to see clearly before I talk, I can’t guarantee that my words will be good, I dare What I guarantee is the faithfulness of my own thinking; I said before that my knowledge is very shallow, but I am not discouraged by it. Sometimes knowledge is a kind of bondage, and knowledge is a barrier. As long as I can believe it, I can see it. With my eyes and a heart that can feel, I have my own words to say; as for whether my words will be listened to or understood, that is another matter that I have no control over. "Some people are born after they die." Who knows the day when a person is actually born?
Yes, I will go forward from now on!The first message of life is activity, the second message is struggle, and the third message is decision; the same is true for thought, and the aftermath of activity is struggle.Wrestling includes an object of wrestling, which may be a person, may be a problem, may be a phenomenon, and may be the body of thought.The greatest wish of a warrior is to find an equal adversary, and so is a thinker, who also wants an object with which to measure his full strength. "Assault is in my nature," said a philosopher, "to be equal to your adversary. This is the first condition of an honest duel. You cannot fight when you are disdainful. You have the upper hand, and you should not fight when you believe your opponent is incompetent. My strategy can be reduced to four principles. First, I When necessary, I will suspend my attack until he wins. Second, I will only attack the target that no one is attacking. I will not have an assistant on my side. I will stand alone on the side. In this struggle I am only myself. Thirdly, I will never attack people. When necessary, I only use a personality as a microscope, and use it to show some universal, but hidden and difficult to trace. Malignity. Fourth, my motive for attacking something, not involving a relationship of personal vendetta, is a benevolent and, in some cases, a token of gratitude in my attack.”

The philosopher's strategy, which I now arrogate as my own, I hope I will not in the midst of the struggle neglect the predetermined laws, and I beg you to remind me whenever I do.I'm going with my gloves on now!

Originally published as "Morning News Supplement" on April 1925, 10, included in "Self-Dissected Essays"

it's windy

Originally, I wanted to "dissect" it, but the strong wind made people's eyes and eyebrows uneasy, so don't even think about going out, just sit at home and warm up the old love.Today (April 23th) is Mr. Taikool’s birthday. Two years ago tonight at this time, Ajunda’s arms embraced Chila into the center of passionate love amidst the evening bells in the village, so quiet and warm What a scene!But the people on and off the stage were separated that night, and the changes in two years can be counted!That night Lin Zongmeng, an old man of fifty with rouge and powder on his face and wearing a trembling paper gold hat and wearing the "God of Spring", now turned into a wild ghost with no bones to trust and no home to return to; our "Qila" "He lived a heartbroken and embarrassing life thousands of miles away; Zhu Zhendan, with silver beard and purple robe, moaned and aged in his old home hospital bed (he called me on the 12rd of last month to say that his illness was better); Running around desperately, our "Ajunda" seems to have reverted to his [-]-year vow of "celibacy and abstinence", sending out his mysterious dreams to the evening mist in the western sky every night; I am leisurely and contented in this Beijing dust, but on this windy night, I can't help crying when I read the ruthless traces of time!

"It's windy"!The wind blew away the clouds in the sky, messed up the soil on the ground, and rotted the flowers on the trees. How could it not wipe out the traces of time at the same time?Melancholy is life, and life is melancholy.

Ah, and that night at No. [-] at Pender's house four years ago.

"The twenty minutes of immortality!"

Manshufeier, who is as beautiful as a fairy and as wise as a fairy, is also finished; at this moment, her flesh and blood are slowly being eaten by the red-mouthed worms in the forest of Fontaine Polo!Mai Lei, her husband, married another long time ago, can you still remember her?

It's windy!Manshfield grew up in Sydney, Australia. She had a younger brother, her favorite, who died within a week of joining the army in the first year of the European War. This was the saddest thing in her life. .In her diary, there are many painful records in memory of her beloved brother.Most of her novels follow the scenes of her early years in her hometown; the shadow of her younger brother often shakes in her stories.The "Bao Jian" in the "Wind" is, I believe.

The loveliness of Manshufeier’s writing lies in the lightness and lightness of the wind. It’s not the strong wind like today, but the gentle breeze blowing from the forest in the distance, brushing our temples like a butterfly, fluttering our light clothes , landed in Churui’s lilac forest for a rest, took a few bends, flew out of the blooming winter jasmine flowers carelessly, and made a stab at the corner of our mouth, and rested on the eaves with its tail up. The magpie screamed "timidly", and it had disappeared in the wind.No, it's gone, its traces are still there, and will probably remain forever: trembling on the lilac branch, trembling on your heartstrings.

But you have to be careful, it's rare that this idea is light and clever, don't let the wind of this year's life blow away again!

Originally published on August 1926, 4, "Morning News Supplement"

"talk"

Absolutely worth listening words are never spoken; comparatively worth listening words are in occasional whispers; relatively unworthy words are written in a regular and organized structure; Words that are absolutely not worth listening to, spoken in untrained, rough, stupid voices.For example: speeches at formal gatherings, whether they are campaigning for women’s suffrage or advocating bright-coloured doctrines; speeches at schools, whether they are the magic weapon of Mr. The nonsense of the doctor's gown with the red queen and the white robe and square scarf; or the sermons full of smokers who simply opened their mouths and said, "God, Father, shut up, Amen" all belong to the last category I said: they are all unconditional, fundamental, and absolutely unworthy. Listen to the words.The classics handed down through the ages, most of the literature books, and a small number of philosophy books are all the words of the last second category that are relatively unworthy of listening.As for relatively audible words, I would say that they are all in casual whispers: for example, true poets have the deepest dreams Poets have no legitimate occupation except dreams Fragment, what the great British poet Wansworth called the whistling sound of a teapot boiling; it can best symbolize the ecstasy of the poetic scene, such as Li Taibai's "I'm drunk and sleepy, I'm going, the Ming Dynasty intends to hold the qin", or Kaiz's Then I shut her wild, wild eyes with kisses four, you know that most of Wansworth and Shelley's immortal poems are in the fields, by the beach, in the woods, wandering alone, talking to themselves like a ghost Many of their incomparably exquisite and wonderful sentences in Portlea, Verle, France are the result of being affected by the strong narcotic marijuana or opium.This kind of comparison is worth listening to.There are also young men and women who, after being wounded by the naughty Cupid's arrow for the first time, are in the shade of flowers, in the classroom, or in the cemetery with a bag of tears in their mouths, their hearts pounding, their flesh shaking, and their faces flushed. What kind of infragmentation and what kind of violation of grammar are often rare pearls, the crystallization of true feelings and truths.But gentlemen, you have to understand that most of the things I say are worth listening to are in occasional whispers, not that all whispers are worth listening to, or else the whispers behind the screen in the foreign affairs office, the wives at home The little Duo next to the pillow at the end of the month and the beginning of the month has the value of poetry!

Absolutely worth hearing words that have never been said before.The entire universe is just continuous creation; all life is just the expression of individuality.True news, true meaning, are embedded in the essence of all things, like a big river, like a network of tributaries, following the structure of the terrain, in all directions, from big to small, from small to small, from small to hidden, from tangible Intangible, from countable to infinite, but this seemingly extremely complex organization shows only a simple meaning, and what it expresses is only a living spirit; this spirit is complete, whole, and real; only because It is a complete reality and the language and characters that our human mind and intelligence can use are only incomplete, analogous, and symbolic tools. Therefore, the cultural achievements of human beings for thousands of years are just trying to figure out this big mystery. Various attempts that seem plausible.Humans are curious animals; our minds are the expression of curiosity.This curiosity of the mind is the origin of knowledge.A history of knowledge is just a Journey to the West that has gone through 81 disasters but never saw the Paradise and sought the Tripitaka.Let’s say it’s happiness, but it’s clearly the distress that comes from catastrophe; if it’s distress, there’s obviously infinite comfort in the distress.The life of each of us is the shrinking of the entire history of mankind. Although we dare not say that we are all qualified to seek the truth, at least in our hearts, at the beginning of our lives, we should always cultivate a little sincerity in seeking the truth and inspire A bright light to seek the truth will not just grope in the dark on the way of life, and will not blindly go to the end of life without finding anything.

But although the true news and true meaning cannot be fully expressed by the tools that human intelligence can use, that is, language, at the same time, we feel the impulse to seek truth and knowledge in our hearts, want to detect this great secret, and want to understand the truth of the universe and life. , as a big red rose in full bloom, grab it in the center of your palm, squeeze it hard, and combine the color, fragrance, spirit and flesh of the flower with our own passionate love for beauty, sex, and fragrance, to achieve A complete pleasure; those of us who are new to the stage of life and knowledge, who do not have it, may be somewhat different in depth, Faust's great ambition, he wants to "discover the force that binds the world and guides its course", who does not want to be in knowledge In the world, be a Napoleon who sweeps everything?This kind of ambition to be king and hegemony is a sign of the internal force of life, and it is also a harbinger of the final success of all great poets and great artists; our problem is how to replace this lively cavity that is still in a dormant state. The vigorous mental energy and mental energy can open up one or several directions that can be developed as much as possible, so that after this magic lamp of the soul is lit once, it will not only continue to have fuel supply, but also be able to grow stronger in the stormy situation. The brilliance of the gods makes the spring that just came out of the mountain gradually merge into a lively stream, and then merges with the tributaries that come from all directions along the road. Although it is hard to go through the rugged mountain road at first, but once you reach the plain, you can. Let go of the torrent, forming rivers and rivers, with its own infinite future.

Really great news is hidden in the essence of everything. If you want to hear something really worth hearing, you can only ask the two greatest gentlemen.

The two great professors in front of us are nothing but life itself and nature.The phenomenon of life is nothing but a great mystery: the grass orchid in the corner, the moss on the rock, the polar bear otter in the ice and snow of the Arctic Ocean, the water frog screaming at night by the river in the city, the flame on the equator like a reptile in the desert, and even the diffuse The microbes in the atmosphere, the most delicate organisms on the seabed; in short, the areas where the sun's heat shines or can penetrate, there are life phenomena.If we take a deeper look, we don't need the insight of a bodhisattva or the intuition of a mystic poet, but with scientific common sense, we can know that the entire universe is just a living breath, a universal life, a A subtle and dynamic whole.A very thick and ugly stone seems to be meaningless and lifeless, but when you look at it under a microscope, you will find a magical universe in this thick and ugly stone, because what you were then What you see is just a variety of crystals with ever-changing colors and patterns, forming an arrangement that the artist can't imagine; Composed of electrons: Here is another universe, like a brilliant starry sky, countless planets are shining and breathing freely at the same time.

(End of this chapter)