Author: Insight Allergy
To be alone is to be unique and to be precious.
I once read a question on the Internet: "What is the loneliest thing you have ever done?" ”
The answers at the bottom are varied.
It is said that when a person goes to dinner, he does not dare to leave the position, for fear that the waiter will collect the meal;
Some people also say that when a person lives alone, he sees a cockroach crawling in front of his eyes and is reluctant to shoot it to death.
But one of the answers that impressed me the most was: force yourself to fit in.
Yan Rujing once said in "Strange Story":
"Not being gregarious is only a superficial loneliness, and being gregarious is the loneliness of the heart."
Each of us may, to a greater or lesser extent, avoid loneliness and force ourselves to fit in.
But after experiencing a lot of things, you will find that sometimes, the more you try to fit in, the more lonely you feel.
01
In the movie "The Piano Boy Who Wants to Fly", the protagonist Werther once lived in the shackles of sociality and could not extricate himself.
He grew up with a superior IQ and a great talent for piano.
But this made him an outlier in the eyes of his peers, and he was ostracized.
In order to be able to integrate into the group and mingle with everyone, he pretended to break his brain, became an ordinary person, and lost the ability to play the piano.
In this way, he was finally accepted by everyone and became a gregarious teenager.
But such a disguise did not bring him happiness.
He loves the piano, and in order to cater to his classmates, he has to listen to rock music;
Obviously very smart, in order to appear sociable, he must try to pretend to be stupid.
The days go by like this.
Until one day, Witt found a piano performance album in the CD store.
After going home to play it, he cried.
He suddenly realized that his disguise had always been a repression of his true thoughts.
Only by chasing your musical dreams can you make yourself truly happy.
I once saw such a sentence: "True loneliness is not a person's loneliness, but the loss of self in endless noise." ”
Force yourself to fit in, like Tetris, you fit in and disappear.
The process of trying to make yourself social is actually a process of desperately denying yourself.
Nothing will change except embarrassing yourself.
02
Sanmao once wrote in an essay:
"We refuse to explore our own value, we value the participation of others in our own lives, and we care too much about what others say."
Growing up is supposed to be a lonely adventure, but too many people fit into groups to gain a sense of belonging and identity.
My cousin just got a new job this year.
Before, after work, he would either exercise or learn some photography that he liked.
Now, when I get off work, I play games with my colleagues.
I asked him, "Why didn't you come back and study?" ”
Who knows, he said helplessly:
"It's not just a new job, my colleagues call me to play games, rejection is not good, it seems that I am not social."
In fact, many people in life are like this, because they are afraid of being lonely, and desperately squeeze into the lively circle.
Douban netizen @Sea Cat Jun posted a post that resonated with many people.
She said she used to be afraid of being labeled "out of place."
Go to dinner or watch a movie alone, afraid of meeting acquaintances.
Whenever this happened, she would pretend not to see it, or make up a lie that she was waiting for someone.
It seems like it's a shame to do this alone.
Therefore, she is often inseparable from her 3 roommates, taking classes, eating, brushing dramas, and watching movies.
They echoed almost everything, trying to hide their thoughts.
After a long time, she felt that she was very tired from living.
So she tried to get away from them, no longer hollowing out her mind to speculate on other people's thoughts, no longer adapting to other people's tastes, preferences, and schedules.
She found that "unsociable" was not as bad as she thought:
"When I watch a movie alone, I can no longer tangle, go anytime, and choose the movie I like to watch."
"When I travel alone, I don't have to force myself to take photos at tourist attractions."
Gradually, in her time alone, she cultivated the ability to think independently, and could accept that others had different three views and different ways of living.
Mr. Yang Dai once said: "The beautiful scenery of life is not the affirmation of outsiders, but the calm and calm in the heart." ”
Learning to not fit in and get along well with yourself is the beginning of a person's inner strength and richness.
Because in this process, you can calm down and reflect on your thinking, see the truth of life, and understand your own life.
When you learn to be out of place, you live freely.
03
Zhuangzi has said: To go alone is to be unique. The unique person is the most precious.
Many times, we are afraid to be alone and yearn to be gregarious.
But groups of three or five people are not necessarily happy; people who like to be alone are not necessarily lonely.
Dou Wentao, the host of "Round Table", has been in the industry for more than 30 years and has contacted countless celebrities from all walks of life, but he hardly participates in social interactions.
His circle is small, with only a few good friends.
Someone said: "Don't watch Dou Wentao talk and laugh in the show, in fact, he is a person who does not like socializing, and would rather read at home than go out to participate in the dinner." ”
Lu Yu once asked him, "What are you doing at home alone?" ”
He replied:
"I was so busy when I was alone. I'm going to have breakfast, I'm going to look at this painting, I'm going to read that book. There are still hundreds of episodes of British and American dramas to watch, and you have to insist on walking a treadmill every day..."
No matter how noisy and noisy the outside world is, Dou Wentao lives in his own world without moving.
Feng Jicai said: "Mediocre people fill the emptiness with hilarity, and excellent people achieve themselves by being alone." ”
The better people are, the more they enjoy being alone, the more alone they are, the calmer and fuller their hearts are.
Mr. Qian Zhongshu, a literary master, is also an unsociable strange person, and at a certain age, he even closed the door and immersed himself in writing.
This created the "Siege of the City", which is known as the "History of neo-Rulin".
The same is true of his wife, Yang Dai, who rarely participates in the social circles of the cultural circle, and hides in the study hall to read and write every day.
Later, her translation of Don Quixote was distributed in millions of copies, and at the age of 102, she also published the Collected Works of Yang Dai.
I have seen a sentence: "Some people are doomed to be unsociable, otherwise you will not see his dazzling light." ”
When a person gets rid of the useless circle, he can see a broader world and become a better self.
▽
Tu Youyou once said a very thought-provoking sentence in her acceptance speech:
"Don't chase a horse, use the time you chase the horse to plant grass, and when the spring is warm, you will have a batch of horses for you to choose."
Give it a thumbs up, instead of deliberately being sociable, it is better to let the mind calm down, not to please, not to cater, and to spend time on self-improvement.
At that time, you don't have to take the initiative to join the group, excellent friends, suitable circles for you, will take the initiative to come to you.