In the impression, adults like sensible children. China Youth Daily did a survey on "sensible", and 78.1% of the respondents said that they like sensible children.
In the eyes of the elders, most of the children who understand things early will be very prominent. "Knowing things early" is not an intellectual problem, but means that it is more adaptable to the rules of adults and can be integrated into the adult world earlier.
People mostly like that kind of "age-inappropriate maturity". When evaluating a young man for doing things steadily and reliably, he will praise his "youth and old age"; on the contrary, it may be "less and no more things", revealing some helplessness, disgust and even contempt.
So, the "less" stage, is not the shorter the better? Zhang Ailing said that it is necessary to become famous early. Today, it seems that whatever is going to happen is early. In an era of competing for the starting line, in an era of "childhood fading", more and more children are "sensible early", saying things that do not meet their age, raising their hands and feet to look like adults, but they are talked about by adults.
Children are sensible, not a bad thing. But passive understanding, premature understanding, losing innocence, and suppressing nature are not necessarily good things.
Miyazaki said that growing up is a transaction, and we exchange simple innocence and untouched whiteness for the courage to grow up. To gain here often means to lose somewhere else. Schopenhauer said that if a young man has a very early insight into human affairs and is familiar with the world, it indicates that his nature is mediocre.
For teenagers, is "old age" an achievement, or is it a price?
A few years ago, a tv had a comedy talent show with Guo Degang as the judge's mentor. One of the clips that impresses me to this day.
An 8-year-old boy came to the competition, specially dressed up as Guo Degang, and imitated several of his cross-talk on stage. Originally, I thought that this kind of "flattering" performance was also very flattering, but when deciding whether to advance, Guo Degang, as a mentor, refused.
Seeing that the child was very disappointed, Guo Degang pulled the child to his side, said something to him with a heavy heart, and said something like this:
"What you're learning now is my 35-year-old acting style. An 8-year-old, learning from a person in his 30s, he takes off the cuteness of the child. What age says what age..."
Guo Degang's choice this time is not only a rejection of a contestant, but also like a resistance to an educational method. Those words seemed to be said not only to this child, but also to the parent who stood in the background and looked forward to it.
For the sake of fame, for the sake of success, or for whatever, too many children are guided by adults, moving closer to adults early, abandoning the innocence of children and contaminating adult sophistication that is not commensurate with his age.
Such children do not only appear on the stage. In some popular short videos, we will also see many: the little girl reprimanded the drunken father with the tone of her mother, people think it is very interesting; the three-year-old child learns to cook the spoon, people say that the future may be a kitchen god; the four-year-old child tearfully talks to his father about the heavy topic of life, old age, illness and death, people feel moved; teenage girls speak, from gestures to expressions, are like a mature, well-trained marketing master, many people said:" If only I had such a child"...
One by one, "little adults", beyond their own age, to say the words of adults, to do adult things, behind the acceptance of adults how to hear and see, only to be forced to grow up like this? What's even more frightening is that in the face of these children who are ripe and pretend to grow up, people not only don't feel strange, but even feel great.
What should a child look like? Naïve, willful, rampage in their own world, dare to try their own preferences, dare to express their true thoughts...
And young and old children, have a lot in common: the surface is deep, accustomed to obedience, the true desire to hold in the heart, pay attention to maintaining a good image, everywhere cautious, too concerned about the feelings and evaluations of others...
I once saw a girl complaining on Zhihu. She has been sensible since she was a child. When she was a child, her family was poor, and when she bought new clothes for the New Year, she would say, "Buy them for my brother, I don't want them." Although she also longed for a new dress, even secretly hoped that her mother would buy her one. In the end, however, the clothes were only bought for my brother. When she was in college, she had very little monthly living expenses and reduced her food and clothing, but at the end of each semester, she would bring local specialties to her family, and she was still considered very sensible.
Once, her father was in a car accident, fortunately not very serious, and her mother called her. She asked her mother, "Did you tell your brother?" Mom replied, "No, I'm afraid it will affect his work." She finally couldn't help herself: "Why aren't you afraid of affecting my work?" Mom said, "You're more sensible!" ”
Perhaps, all sensible children, all young adults, have endured responsibilities and pains that are inconsistent with their peers.
Young and old people seem to have maturity beyond their age, and they know how to treat people and things. However, they have also lost the joys and sorrows that should have been there at this age. They prematurely accept the presuppositions given by adults, are good at circumventing the world; sacrifice their own personality and are accustomed to pandering; they are very sensible, but they are less and less self......
A person who often sets limits for himself cannot fully appreciate the beauty of all parts of life.
No child is born old, and those presuppositions and restrictions often come from adults.
The philosopher Fromm said that the opposite of education is manipulation. It is motivated by a lack of confidence in the growth of a child's potential, believing that it is up to adults to guide children on what to do and what not to do.
The juvenile stage is often the most dynamic, but also full of uncertainty. Sometimes adults will overstep their bounds, in order to let the children mature as soon as possible, or take fewer wrong paths, and according to their own understanding and preferences, arrange many routines for them. These children are adults, social, and in the eyes of others, but they are not their own. Is the price of growing up killing youth and nature, and then living like everyone else?
Those sincere, individual teenagers are too early in the rules of the adult world. They pack themselves up, learn to behave like adults, and talk to the world. The face has not grown yet, but the heart has grown wrinkles.
Recently, after winning the Nobel Prize for many years, Mo Yan finally returned with his new work, titled "Late Ripening".
Mo Yan, who is already in his sixties, said that he wanted to be a "late bloomer". He felt that if the artistic life matured and was stereotyped prematurely, the creativity would come to an end.
Art is like this, why not life?
In ancient and modern China and abroad, there are too many artists who, after their skills have reached a certain level, look back and find the value of innocence, which is a precious nature that belongs to the youth and is not immersed in the world.
One always has to live with the world. "Everything is insightful and learned, and human emotions are articles." We do not deny the importance of human sophistication in society, but this is only part of life. On this basis, people must maintain spiritual freedom in order to make a comprehensive reflection on social order and the meaning of life, and to gain insight into higher wisdom, which is undoubtedly a more noble quality.
Most people, as soon as they grow up, become sophisticated, as Jia Baoyu said in "Dream of the Red Chamber", when her daughter was young, she was a priceless jewel, and when she was older, she became a fish-eye bead. In fact, everyone is born a pearl, but to retain the nature of the pearl, it is necessary to maintain a free soul, a pure conscience, and a youthful breath.
Liang Qichao said that young people should be like the rising sun, like the milk tiger, like the grass before spring, like the beginning of the Yangtze River. Teenagers are in the stage of prosperity, with unlimited heaven and earth to explore, rather than accepting the arrangements of adults in advance, to meet the eyes of others, to get used to this established world, to fall into the cage of fame and profit...
Some people, all their lives, are willing to be teenagers, always maintain a simple heart, and do not want to be assimilated by the world.
Forty-seven-year-old musician Park Shu carries many people's imagination of "youthful feeling". The reason why Park Shu's music can touch the hearts of many people and give people strength and warmth is inseparable from his own purity and persistence, and his insistence on self without being worldly.
Park Shu, who became famous at a young age, seems so different and unsociable from the entertainment industry. At that time, facing the carnival, impetuosity and competition for fame and profit around him, Park Shu, who was extremely uncomfortable, did not choose to cater against his will, but chose to leave. Returning after many years, he is older, no longer has so much resistance, but still insists on creating for his own heart, maintaining his own bottom line, knowing the world and not the world.
When someone asked him what he thought of the word "teenager", Park Shu said: It is not that I am too young, but that many people have aged early.
Many people have violated their youthful ambitions, but Park Shu seems to have lived a true and romantic life with the hopes we once had. The boy never grew old, so he was still sincere, still full of enthusiasm, still fearless, and could still ask this absurd society in song: Has it always been so? Your humble life, the boring life that has never made mistakes... （《No Fear In My Heart》）
In a utilitarian society, there will be a utilitarian education, often focusing on rationality and cognition, but ignoring inner growth and character cultivation.
However, we must finally understand that even if the mediocre sheep become a trend, they cannot break through the of the times. The value of a person is not to live as someone else; true happiness can only be obtained from the depths of one's own heart, not from others through worldly means.
Successful people often have their own paranoia, not swayed by others, in a vast world, let their personality play freely, rather than being imprisoned in the "other discipline". Naïve people do not lose themselves, and the curiosity to explore the world is always pulsating, changing the world with their creativity.
Voltaire said that whoever did not have the spirit of his age must have all the misfortunes of this age. Adults also know the preciousness of innocence, but how can they bear to let children lose their innocence prematurely, eager to let them pretend to be old, filled with the world, bound by rules?
Teenagers, why should they grow old? We will all grow old, we will eventually live in the world, but what makes our hearts clear is the teenager in our hearts.