At the age of 100, will you still make a flag?

At the beginning of the new year, Vientiane is renewed. It's the solemn moment of the flag again.

Research, save money, fitness, take off orders. Read a hundred books. Learn a foreign language or skill. Even if it's just going to bed early and getting up early, buying choppers... 2022, the flag that was dumped in 2021, not done in 2020, should have been completed in 2019, and set up in 2018, have you set it up again?

Psychologists use the "new starting point effect" to explain the phenomenon that people are keen to flag in the new year. At the beginning of the new year, people will have the feeling of saying goodbye to the old self, transforming into a new self, and entering a new stage of life. This feeling of new beginning can bring a strong motivation to "be confident in the new self of excellence" and have the confidence to "try things that have not been tried in the past, and challenge difficulties that have not been challenged in the past." Therefore, even if we are repeatedly punched in the face at the end of the year, we will still be full of expectations and enthusiasm for a new life and a new self, and set up a flag at the beginning of the new year.

But what if in the new year, you are about to celebrate your 100th birthday? At the age of 100, will you still make a flag?

Courtesy of Visual China

On January 1, the year he was 100 years old, The Korean philosopher Kim Hyung-seok made his New Year's resolution: to continue to publish articles in academic quarterly journals, to write columns in The "three most influential newspapers" in South Korea and to edit them into books, and to schedule invitations to speak until April, all of which must be completed...

At the age of 100, Kim Hyung-seok published his collection of 100-year-old essays, "Living to Be 100 Years Old", which opened the volume with the inscription: "Write today's story, look forward to a new tomorrow". In this collection of essays, he records many interesting things and insights from old age. He started swimming in his sixties and persisted for nearly 40 years. At the age of 93, he was treated as 73 years old, and was chased away by the grandmothers who occupied the pool, and there was no way to complain, and he exclaimed that "the old ladies are terrible". The 99-year-old took the bus to give up his seat to the 92-year-old, and was treated as a junior by the other party, feeling a little aggrieved in his heart, and felt as if he had suffered a loss. Because he could not refuse his wife, he reluctantly bought insurance, and as a result, he was 100 years old, insisting on personally going to the insurance company every year to confirm his identity and receive dividends, and the salesman next to him would always carefully ask: "Will you come next year?" "Began to be forgetful, went out to dinner but went to the bookstore, could not remember the names of acquaintances, and was even surprised to find that he began to forget the language in the order of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, but remembered exactly the year of publication of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and the year of Hegel's death. Relatives, friends, and pets left one by one, and the time spent sitting by the window watching the clouds grew longer, and the distance between the spirit and the body became larger and larger, but he still wrote, "I think I can continue to grow." ”

"I've met centenarians, but it's extremely rare for a centenarian like Kim Hyung-seok to still be working." The South Korean journalist who interviewed him lamented. At the age of 99, Kim Hyung-seok gave 183 speeches to the public, equivalent to one every two days. He writes a weekend column in chosun Ilbo every week, a monthly short review in Dong-A Ilbo, and more than 60 articles a year. That year, he also published four books and two other collections of essays. "The busiest periods of my life were from my 40s to my 60s and from 97 to 100," he said. ”

But near the age of 60, Kim Hyung-seok did not expect to usher in the busiest period of his life at the age of 100 again. He was still teaching at the university at the time, and he thought that his life would be divided into 30 years as a student and 30 years as a professor, and when he retired, he would no longer be able to provide productivity. When he reached the age of 60, he found that he "could still teach and his enthusiasm for learning was also very high." In his 70s, he was also able to complete creative literary works, writing works such as "Philosophy of History" and "Philosophical Understanding of Religion", and his predecessors in their 90s said that he was in the "golden age" of life. By the time he was 90 years old, Kim Hyun-seok revised his old view that life should be divided into 30 years of education, 30 years of working in the workplace, and 30 years of success as a social person. "60 to 90 years old is a precious period for applying what you have learned and serving society."

Can human beings maintain eternal youth? The French philosopher Jean Guitton wrote in My Last Words of Philosophy: "As long as you believe that there is such a thing as eternity in front of you." Those who feel like they're aging, "maybe, they don't believe forever." The so-called belief in eternity is to firmly believe that you have unlimited time. The Japanese philosopher Mori Yuki also wrote in his diary: "Don't panic. Let's assume that you have unlimited time in the future and live calmly. Just by understanding this, you can always work with high quality. Another Japanese philosopher, Ichiro Kishimi, further elaborated in his book The Courage to Grow Old: "Life is not a marathon, but a dance", "Even if you do not reach your destination in the end, every moment in the process is complete and complete." Kishimi Ichiro began learning Korean in his 60s and reads the Latin tome Theological Compendium twice a week. Others said, "If you want to finish this book, it will take two hundred years!" But he said, "It's important to spend time with every line and sentence in front of you." At the age of 93, The Chinese literary translator Bunkeiro translated five novels by Japanese writers such as Osamu Dazai. In her most satisfactory translation, the Japanese novel "The Five-Storied Pagoda", she once expressed the author's exclamation in her own language: "A person's life is not decayed with grass and trees... Even if you regret the nostalgia, in the end it is the spring and spring that still go, drowning in vain and hurting the gods. The solution to this is to "neither look back at one's past nor think about one's future... In this earthly world where chickens and dogs smell each other, the east family is happy, and the west family mourns, they can not be distracted at all, but just work hard. ”

Kim Hyung-seok, 100, did exactly that. He is passionately engaged in the cause he loves, without any distraction, and works efficiently with gratitude. In the 100th new year of his life, he still made a flag and wrote down his biggest wish in the new year: "As long as he can do things, even if it is a small help to his neighbors and relatives, it is good." "As for what I'm going to do for myself, it's all done."

At the end of 2021, at the age of 102, Kim Hyung-seok was awarded the Baek Van Prize, named after Mr. Kim Joo, the "Father of the Nation" of South Korea.

So you see, for the New Year, for life, never lose your imagination. Flags fall, they stand. Even in the year of 100.

Source: China Youth Daily client