Two anxieties are countless possibilities

News playback

The "proud son of heaven" in the ivory tower is an excellent representative in the eyes of others, "someone else's child", but on the Internet, some famous school students laugh at themselves as "waste". Recently, the topic of the "985 Waste Introduction Plan" group on social media has been hotly discussed. Some outstanding students who stand out in the college entrance examination and examination and research institute lack clear planning for personal development after entering the university, and their employment concentration flocks to the Internet factories, state civil servants and other occupations, the "track" is single, the competitive pressure is increasing, and objectively it is easy to fall into anxiety.

Moderator's language

As peers and people in similar circumstances of "985 Waste", the three authors chose to treat the small propositions of this big era with different attitudes. Yang Yufei told readers that the anxiety of "waste" is an escape from the true state of life, and to face and reflect on the more essential nothingness of life in order to appreciate the meaning of life. Li Zhangfan called on young people to be more "inwardly aware", reposition the coordinate system and judging criteria, and return from the "life that should be" to the original intention of "the real me". Hou Guodi gives understanding and respect to the anxieties of young people through his care for the fierce living environment of the present. Three essays confront the same question and provide innovative answers.

Why are we anxious? The crowd rushed to the top and went forward. The mountain roads are crowded and dangerous. If you lose your footing, you will be crushed to pieces; if you fall behind one step, it will be difficult to catch up. We finally got into a good university, but the higher we went, the more dangerous the road became.

Is this our anxiety? Is this the life we should have? The philosopher Heidegger may have had the answer, and he showed us another state of existence and anxiety—he brought us back to the "true" and the very existence that underpins and defines us. For every authentic me, life is only a hundred years, and after that, there is endless nothingness and eternal darkness. In this sense, anxiety about "nothingness" is our most authentic emotion. We are all lonely beings, all facing the end of our lives alone. Everyone's life is like an island on the sea of nothingness, and we can't escape it, so we have to be alone.

It is at such a decisive moment that we suddenly realize that the freedom and infinity that have been pursued by countless people throughout the ages stem precisely from the nothingness that we face alone. "Nothing" and "infinity" are two sides of the same coin. Beyond the inescapable fate of death, there are countless possibilities that unfold. We face the infinite possibilities alone, make choices alone, this decision can be small, can be insignificant, but it can also be immediately picked up the long-shelved book at the table, reopened, and slowly read.

After all, what we call anxiety in ordinary days may be just an excuse for a moment of comfort. We live in order and in an orderly manner in someone else's orbit. Nothingness is obscured by it, and countless possibilities are obscured by it. We cede the right to choose; we forget that fate is ourselves.

Let's get out of the so-called "anxiety" of the crowd and face our own real anxiety. Life has never been a lonely peak, but a boundless green field. It has countless peaks, countless meadows, countless flowers blooming, and the four seasons are always new. No matter where you are, no matter how you live, the only thing that matters is that it is your choice, a choice worthy of your own life.

China Education News, October 26, 2021, 2nd edition

Author: Yang Yufei (2020 master's student, School of Television, Communication University of China)