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Is Gu Ailing an ordinary person?
Gu Ailing won the second gold! Before the Beijing Winter Olympic Games began, Gu Ailing once said that the dream of participating in the Winter Olympics was to stand on the ground three times to receive the award, she really succeeded, 2 gold and 1 silver, she has become the player with the most medals won by the Chinese team in this Winter Olympics!
Previously, Gu Ailing, along with her mother and grandmother, caused a lot of discussion on the Internet. Some people say that Gu Ailing's success has nothing to do with "ordinary people", she is beautiful and sassy, or a bully. Her mother is a graduate of a famous school in China and the United States, a Wall Street elite, and the cultivation cost of her children has accumulated tens of millions, which is the ceiling of "Haidian Mother". Her father is still a mystery, but it should also be very powerful.
The success of Gu Ailing cannot be copied by us ordinary people.
I agree with some of those words. Gu Ailing is indeed not an "ordinary person", not only is Gu Ailing not an ordinary person, but the champions in all fields are not ordinary people. Competitive competition requires extreme talent and a lot of deliberate practice. Its skills and willpower are completely beyond the reach of ordinary people, which is why the championship is so precious.
Perhaps the cost of her education and training is huge, and our ordinary family cannot reach it, but her success is by no means made up of money and resources. There are more "second generations" with money, resources and backgrounds than her family, why is there no such achievement?
Gu Ailing's success is, first of all, a triumph of talent and hard work. Money and resources are just boosts.
I also disagree with the statement that "it has nothing to do with us ordinary people" - the success of the championship cannot be copied, which does not mean that we ordinary people cannot find ways to learn and inspire from these deeds. According to their methods and will, although they cannot become world champions, they can also become talents.
For example, the "deliberate practice" of the champion is also very suitable for us ordinary people, just like becoming an expert has the law of "ten thousand hours". Repeating a lot of deliberate practice allows ordinary people to become experts in a certain field. Just like some people in the workplace are particularly good at doing PPT, the reason is that without him, it is more practiced, and naturally becomes an expert.
There is also the "environmental field" that has been heard since childhood - Gu Ailing's mother once worked as a ski instructor, Gu Ailing began to contact skiing at the age of 2; Mozart's father himself was also a famous player and composer at that time, Mozart could play music at the age of three, he could compose at the age of five, his father let him practice for a long time every day; Hungarian educational psychologist Lazro Polga trained his daughter to become a chess master, he shaped chess into a fun activity, Children will naturally practice for a long time after becoming interested. His eldest daughter became the first female chess master, while the youngest became a chess master by the age of 15.
These "genius" cases tell us how important the "environmental field" is from an early age. Genius comes in part from genes, from hard work, and from the shaping of the unconscious "environmental field" in the early years. The "unconscious" knows better than our "conscious" learning cognition than our "conscious" thinking—who am I, what do I want, and where am I headed?
The earlier these problems are recognized, the better, which is also what our ancients often said about "determination". Confucius was very particular about "determination". Ambition is not only ambition, but also willpower.
But where do ambitions and wills come from? It comes from knowing deep down "who I am." Gu Ailing's luck lies in the fact that at a very young age, she was able to establish a complete "self" and have a preliminary direction in life.
Zi Yue: "I have five out of ten and am determined to learn, thirty and standing, forty and not confused, fifty and knowing the destiny of heaven, sixty and obedient, seventy and from the heart's desires, not exceeding the rules." This means that a person must aspire to study at the age of fifteen, so that he can achieve something at the age of thirty, and then he can start a rich life of forty, fifty, and sixty.
Under the guidance of her mother, Gu Ailing had already "made up her mind" very early and completed her initial self-exploration very early.
Around the age of fifteen, I decided to study, and by the age of thirty, after fifteen years, I also conformed to the "law of 10,000 hours". You see, the path to success is the same, train yourself like a champion, you can't be a world champion, you can also be your own champion.
But it's easy to talk about, can it be done? Very difficult. This is the gap between us and genius – willpower.
A fragile genius life
There are gains and losses without firm and clear goals, inability to endure a lot of repetitive and boring exercises, the pursuit of short-term interests and timely pleasure, indirect hesitation and long-term mixed eating, etc. These shortcomings let us know that we are just ordinary people.
But are we wrong? There is nothing wrong with that, because that is true human nature.
What about not overcoming the shortcomings of human nature? We're just human!
Here I want to write about the tragedy of a genius, who has unparalleled talent, but in the end he cannot resist the shackles of the times and the shortcomings of human nature. I once wrote about him in the last article "How to Live This Life Without Money and Wealth", in the Ming Dynasty, which is five hundred years away from us, the times are turbulent and changeable, but there are geniuses with dazzling personalities. The intertwined and entangled fate between them is also very exciting and inspiring to today's people.
This genius is Tang Yin. Tang Yin was born a commoner, his family opened a tavern, and he helped to work in the shop from a young age, doing some chicken catching and killing chickens. Mixing among butchers, bartenders, peddlers, and singers was part of Tang Yin's childhood life. However, Tang Yin's father, Tang Guangde, attached great importance to his son's learning and trained him to take the road of the imperial examination, and he entered the academy at the age of 9 to study the imperial examination articles. At the age of sixteen, Tang Yin's literary talent was well-known in the local area, and this year he passed the "child test" and became a student member of Suzhou Province, and the examination was still the first place.
Tang Yin's good friend Zhu Yunming (Zhu Zhishan) wrote about him: Zi Is afraid of being born with a sharp nature and spending thousands of lifetimes. The so-called Ying people in the world, several years old can be written for the imperial examination, and the children's hair is called the middle of the family, and it is called by the world in one day. Zi is afraid of others, young reading, do not know the strange outside the street.
What about Tang Yin's talent? ------------------------
The "children's test" is equivalent to the current middle school entrance examination. Tang Yin is the middle school entrance examination champion of Suzhou Province. Examination students, also commonly known as the examination of "show talent". Fan Jin in "Fan Jin Zhongju" began to take the xiucai at the age of 20, and did not pass the exam until the age of 34. It can be seen that xiucai is also difficult to test.
However, Tang Yin, who was admitted to the first place in the student at the age of sixteen, did not immediately take the township examination, and he lingered in the qinglou of the restaurant and had a good life with his literati friends. Until he was twenty-five years old, the year his family was in turmoil, and he lost his parents, wife, children and sister. Tang Yin had a white head overnight, and his teenage brother Tang Shen was dependent on each other for his life, and his economy was suddenly embarrassed.
At the age of twenty-eight, he decided to take the exam and prepare for only one year. "One year of preparation" can be regarded as a kind of "arrogance", his good friend Zhu Yunming but the township exam five times before the exam to raise people, Wen Zhengming nine times failed.
But Tang Yin won the Nanjing Township Examination again a year later, and he won the first place - Xie Yuan! Previously, the "children's test" was equivalent to the "middle school entrance examination", and the "township examination" was equivalent to the college entrance examination. In the Ming Dynasty, the location of the township examination, in Nanjing, Beijing and the capital cities of the provinces, "Xie Yuan" is equivalent to "the provincial college entrance examination". It only took one year, Tang Yin was the first, how did he prepare for the exam?
Originally, in the Ming Dynasty, the first examination of the township examination and the meeting examination were all examinations of the interpretation of the "Four Books" and the "Five Classics". The "Four Books" must be examined, and the "Five Classics" should be selected for one subject. In this regard, he explored a set of "test-taking" learning methods, and Tang Yin's "Five Classics" should be selected as the "Book of Poetry". Compared with "Zhou Yi" and "Spring and Autumn", the Book of Poetry is more suitable for Tang Yin, who is good at poetry.
He did not drown in a variety of reference books, but concentrated on repeatedly pondering in the "Mao Poems" and "Four Books", using allusions and repeatedly practicing the eight strands deliberately. In fact, for him, the eight-strand examination is nothing more than thinking to converge, put the "brain into the cage", more memory and less play. When he deeply understands the "test-taking", the problem will be solved.
This year's hard reading made him the famous "Tang Xieyuan" in Jiangnan, which was the peak moment of his life. The later Beijing city will try, but he is involved in a huge political storm.
Regarding the "case of cheating in the imperial examination," it involves the political struggle of the imperial court and the intricate relationship between various figures, and all kinds of canonical and wild histories are brilliantly described, from high-ranking officials down to candidates, and the fate of the characters involved in them is very tortuous and lamentable.
Let me start with a brief explanation.
Tang Yin has a friend of the second generation of the rich named Xu Jing, who spends money to make friends with Tang Yin. The two went to Beijing in the same boat, and along the way, they were huge and everywhere was eye-catching. At that time, there was another person named Liang Chu, who was very good at "creating momentum" for Tang Yin, and after Tang Yin entered Beijing, he recommended it to the examiner many times, and the bachelors and chief examiners Li Dongyang and Cheng Minzheng at that time read Tang Yin's previous articles and favored him. Before the exam, Tang Yin was already very famous in the capital, and naturally attracted some jealousy and criticism.
Xu Jing became acquainted with Cheng Minzheng, the chief examiner at the time, and Xu Jing often took Tang Yin to make friends. Later, Cheng Minzheng was impeached and said that he leaked the title to Xu Jing, Tang Yin and other "crazy children and children". After reading it, the emperor asked for a thorough investigation and re-examination of the examination papers taken by Cheng Minzheng, and it turned out that Xu Jing and Tang Yin were not admitted as "gongshi" and there was no strong evidence for "buying questions", so the imperial court blurred it.
The person who denounced Tang Yin was said to be his friend Du Mu. This Dumu is very old, his family is poor, and he has also taken the entrance examination many times. He was close to the officials who impeached Cheng Minzheng and acted as informants, intentionally or unintentionally. He has a conservative personality, is erudite and has the best relationship with Wen Zhengming. After the fraud case, Tang Yin was devastated, and Du Mu's career went smoothly. No one else dared to say anything, only Wen Zhengming "laughed and rebuked Du Mu in public."
So did Tang Yin cheat in the end? In fact, there is no conclusive conclusion, there is a saying that Xu Jing, because he co-opted Cheng Minzheng, had some speculation on the direction of the examination questions, and "guessed the questions" and "imitated" with Tang Yin. Tang Yin also made some friendships and flattery to Cheng Minzheng, and was left behind. But as for the truth, no one knows.
To say that what really caused Tang Yin's tragedy was not just Du Mu's denunciation, but the unpredictable imperial court situation and the "one-word hall" of imperial power. It is the ups and downs of fate and unsure of small people in the big era.
The tragedy is not only in Tang Yin, the chief examiner Cheng Minzheng is even more tragic. He originally had a good reputation for character and knowledge, and after the incident, although there was no ironclad evidence, he was ordered to retire early and return to his hometown. Four days later, Cheng Minzheng suffered a carbuncle on his back and died. Tang Yin and Xu Jing were assigned to Zhejiang as yamen officials. In the Ming Dynasty, the identities of "officials" and "officials" were absolutely different, and "officials" could not serve as officials at or above the imperial history and prefect level, and could not be admitted to the military. The two of them were thus finished.
Being caught in a fraud case, whether it is real or not, has brought great pressure to Tang Yin. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, cheating was a felony, and once the accusation was confirmed, the punishment was very severe. The serious crimes involved in the case, being imprisoned, being shackled, being talked about, and involving Cheng Minzheng's early death, that kind of physical and mental humiliation and full of guilt are enough to make a genius collapse. The most regrettable thing is that according to Tang Yin's talent and fame, he obviously has no need to cheat, nor does he have to make friends with powerful people. It was all his own frivolity that brought misfortune. Tang Yin wrote in the poem: "Through the three woods, the pawns are like tigers; they raise their heads to grab the ground, and the snot is gathered", and the examination has become the nightmare of his life.
When we Suzhou people talk about Tang Yin, we will mostly say that he is "doing" death, making friends carelessly, showing off in a high profile, frivolous and vain, and obviously can rely on strength to finally eat a lawsuit. Is Tang Yin's IQ too high and his emotional intelligence too low? I don't think so. Tang Yin has been wandering between various classes all year round, with elites of the older generation such as Wu Kuan, Wang Ao, and Shen Zhou, literati of the same generation such as Wen Zhengming, Zhu Yunming, and Zhang Ling, and hugely wealthy businessmen from all over Wuxi... He has dealings with people from all walks of life, has many friends, and his emotional intelligence will naturally not be low.
But he is also an ordinary person, with the conceit, arrogance, frivolity, vanity that ordinary people have... Especially in front of friends, it is easier to expose shortcomings. He was simple in heart, and he never thought about how much pressure his talent would bring to others in front of an old, poor, and somewhat mediocre person. His "good" inspires the "evil" of others.
Genius, too, is sometimes fragile, especially in a barren soil. If you haven't become strong that day, you will be dangerous. Some people will appreciate you, some people will help you, some people will use you, some people will exploit you, and some people will oppose you and persecute you. But do you say that Dumu is bad? Not necessarily, he is just an ordinary person, with the jealousy that ordinary people have.
Fragile and powerful
Tang Yin is a fragile genius. Later generations arranged his story into the novel drama, probably out of sympathy and empathy. His genius side is regrettable; the ordinary side of him is understandable and sympathetic. Although Wen Zhengming did not pass the examination, his family lineage and origin gave him the general spiritual temperament of a scholar and doctor. Wen Zhengming had a kind of self-discipline that Tang Yin did not have. Tang Yin's spontaneity is mostly a kind of worldly laissez-faire.
The contradiction between genius and worldliness is very strongly reflected in Tang Yin. Su Shi was a genius, but he transcended the world. Tang Yin was a genius, but he was more worldly. This contradiction is related to Tang Yin's family origin. Although his family was rich in childhood, his family was a commoner, and his father, Tang Guangde, could not give the same connections and cultural support as Wen Zhengming's family. Compared with Wen Zhengming's rigorous family style, Tang Yin's life is more comfortable and uninhibited. In terms of style, it is also inferior to Wen Zhengming, who studied under Shen Zhou, who likes to draw pictures of women, write fragrant poems, and even draw pictures of the Spring Palace. This somewhat "low-level" interest makes him very marketable in the folk, just like the boy next door, with the enthusiasm of the city people, with a little vulgar pleasure. His story seems to be happening all around us, though five hundred years apart.
Tang Yin has the talent of the elite, but also the habits of small citizens, which may be a super idol today, and it is impossible for us to blame the worldliness of a genius today. However, in the Ming Dynasty, a genius Xie Yuan, who should have embarked on the path of the imperial examination and made a steady stride, but was hesitant to enjoy worldly pleasures and cynicism, would naturally be disdained by elite groups such as Wen Zhengming and the class of scholars. Maybe Tang Yin himself could not accept himself. His elite self and the commoner's self have been tugging all their lives and have never reconciled. Contradictions, tears, make him vulnerable.
Acknowledging one's own vulgarity is also a kind of courage. Tang Yin did not really accept himself for the rest of his life, and only spent the rest of his life depressed. Why is it important to accept yourself? Because accepting oneself is not for people to pursue, but for people to give up. Once vital, now the clouds are light and the wind is light.
Compared with Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming has no genius, but he is very strong. After nine township examinations and returning to Suzhou at the age of nearly sixty, it was only then that he truly understood himself and accepted himself, and he was determined to live in seclusion in the daily life of poetry and painting art like his teacher Shen Zhou.
What is strong and what is vulnerable? In my opinion, those who can accept themselves are strong; those who cannot accept themselves are vulnerable.
Back to Gu Ailing, some people use "perfect" to describe Gu Ailing, and the more appropriate adjective than "perfect" is "powerful". She is a "powerful genius" who embraces herself well, has a complete and harmonious self, does what she loves, and is fully committed.
Wen Zhengming did not accept himself at the beginning, and he also lived an awkward life before the age of sixty. Knowing that they are not good at examinations, they have to take exams again and again; they are obviously strict and introverted, and they have to socialize. Tang Yin's contradictions, he also have. Wen Zheng's origin in the class of scholars and doctors, the concept he had established from childhood, made him have to embark on the path of the imperial examination, and he did not like to be inappropriate and hardened on the scalp. After becoming a Beijing official, he saw the situation of the imperial court more realistically, and returned to Su in frustration.
He returned to Suzhou from Beijing, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal froze, all the way south, stop and go, walked for half a year, in this half year he finally reconciled with himself. After returning to Suzhou, Wen Zhengming did not lie flat, but opened the life of calligraphy and painting that he really loved.
So why are some people able to accept themselves and be strong, while others can't? This has a lot to do with the early family. His father, Wen Lin, was the most important person to Wen Zhengming, and when he was eight or nine years old, he could not speak and was discussed, it was Wen Lin who had been encouraging him and comforting him. His selflessness and acceptance gave Wen Zhengming a deep sense of security. Gu Ailing's mother is the same, more important than how much tuition fees they spend and how many resources they give, what is more important is that they all selflessly love their children.
More important than whether we are strong enough is whether we have genius or not? Only if we are strong enough, we will not "sour" others what background is what kind of parents. Although our ordinary parents can't give too much money, resources, and don't have such a high level of cognition to reasonably guide and cultivate, they do their best to give the best support they can. They have given us the most precious gift, and that is love.
Love cannot give us genius, but it can make us strong!
" Picture | Visual China"