Author | Fan Deng Reading · Qianhe
Anchor | Fan Deng Reading · Enjoy the new sunshine
Many people know Shi Tiesheng from the essay in the high school Chinese textbook , "I and the Temple of Earth."
On January 4, 1951, in a courtyard in Beijing, a baby boy fell to the ground.
Love to read, love sports, win the first place in the composition competition, be a proper athlete in school, and fate presents a beautiful scene in this child's initial life.
However, fate was so impermanent that it caused the child to "live to the most arrogant age and suddenly cripple his legs."
After experiencing frustration, pain, and despair, this young man named Stetson had to accept the arrangement of fate.
But even in a wheelchair, he did not succumb to fate.
He found the outlet of life in writing, and constantly asked life with a pen:
Why do people live? What is the meaning of life?
This ultimate question about the fate of mankind has puzzled but persistently pursued countless people for thousands of years.
Some people say that people live for dreams; some people say that people can't live without goals; others say that people live only to live itself...
And Stetson's answer is hidden in this novel called "Fate Like Strings".
Ever since his legs were paralyzed around the age of 20, Stetson has spent the rest of his life battling various diseases, and in his words, his profession is to get sick and write in his spare time.
In his limited literary career, Stetson wrote a total of 20 short stories, 2 novellas, 6 novellas, 18 essays, and 2 film scripts.
Among these many works, "Fate like Strings" is not only a well-known work of Shi Tiesheng, but also a turning point in his writing.
Shi Tiesheng once said that it is from this work that his thinking has shifted from disabled people to people's disabilities, and he has a deeper excavation in writing.
The novel was adapted by Chen Kaige into the film "Singing While Walking", starring Huang Lei and Xu Qing, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Shi Tiesheng uses easy-to-understand language narration and interesting storyline to tell a unique and profound philosophy of life:
A person cannot live without goals, but he cannot live without goals.
The meaning of goals and dreams is not whether they can be achieved, but the hope they bring to make us live every day of our lives.
In the midst of the reckless mountains, two blind men, one old and one young, were hurrying.
They make a living as storytellers, wandering through the villages of the mountains thousands of miles around.
Endless and boring roads, dry loess in summer, rain and snow and muddy in winter.
Due to the sparse population, old blind people and young blind people often walk for a day to see an open field.
But the lonely journey, the monotonous life in the heart of the old blind man, does not think bitter.
Wild grass is often infested with cute little beasts, and there is always a cool spring at the foot of the shady mountain, and hurry to settle down in the village where someone is willing to ask them to talk.
An abandoned small temple can be slightly sheltered from the wind and rain, and a coarse tea and light meal is hurriedly filled with belly.
When the old blind man sat in front of the villagers full of expectations and leisurely plucked the strings, the fatigue in his body and the loneliness in his heart were all forgotten.
This was the moment when the old blind man was most content.
The old blind man is 70 years old and has been telling books for 50 years.
In the past fifty years, how many mountains he has climbed, how many miles he has walked, how many times he has been hit by the sun, how many times he has been frozen, and how many grievances he has suffered in his heart.
But as long as he touched the trichord and played it with a clanging sound, the sadness in his heart could be calmed, and the past in his ears would dissipate.
Because in the sound of the piano was his lifelong dream, the hope that he could see the light again—to break a thousand strings and get a cure for his eyes.
Because of this dream, the old blind man's heart was tightly held, and he rushed and rushed over the mountains, rushed to the road, played the piano, and lived every day full and nervously.
Socrates said, "There is no happier thing in the world than to strive for a dream." ”
In this world, how many ordinary, even difficult and difficult lives shine because of dreams.
In the classroom, in order to enter the high school of the famous school, the senior students do boring exercises day after day, but their faces are full of smiles;
In order to win the competition, the ninjas insisted on practicing hard, but their eyes were full of perseverance.
In the journey of chasing dreams, every goal is achieved, and every little progress will bring us infinite surprises.
It's like how beautiful the nervousness and excitement of the old blind man is every time he breaks a string.
Doesn't the taste of life come from the sorrow and joy that dreams bring us?
Sanmao said:
"A person has at least one dream and a reason to be strong."
Because of the dream, no matter how long the road will have a clear direction; because of the dream, even the most difficult days will be full of hope.
On the day of the wild sheep pass, the old blind man was getting closer and closer to the target, and the strings were broken one after another, and he could immediately go to catch the medicine.
At this time, the little blind man is immersed in the original sweetness of love with a little girl named Lan Xiu.
After all, the little blind man was only 17 years old, and at this age he was full of curiosity about the world.
On the way to boredom, he learns to bark dogs, fights snakes, and fantasizes about the colorful world outside the mountains;
Following the master in the village to talk, his mind was also all on flirting with Lan Xiu in a confused way.
The little blind man's laid-back attitude toward life is in stark contrast to the old blind man's single-minded efforts to achieve his goals.
The old blind man asked the little blind man to practice hard and not to think about the mess every day:
"There are so many good things under the sky, what does it have to do with us?"
The little blind man felt that the master was bored: "I haven't heard you say anything that has anything to do with us." ”
In fact, the old blind man looked at the little blind man like he saw his young self, and how much he had expectations for life at that time.
The mountains in the distance, the roads under your feet, the blazing sun, the bright blue sky, and the stars and the moon, and the hazy love.
These old blind men had also experienced it, but in the days that followed, the desire to see the light again grew and grew stronger and stronger in his heart.
For this goal, he can endure boredom and loneliness, and endure all hardships and sufferings.
But when the goal was in front of him, he suddenly felt for a moment that he was so old, he had not lived for a few years, and what he had lost had been lost forever.
Just to get one last glimpse of the world, is it worth it? He asked himself.
This reminds me of a movie I once watched, Journey of the Mind.
The protagonist, Joey, is a music teacher who harbors a jazz dream and complains about himself every day in an unpleasant life.
In order to realize his dream of playing on the same stage with his idol, his soul desperately fought between life and death, trying to achieve his goals in various ways.
But when the dream finally came true, he found that the long-awaited moment was not as beautiful as he imagined, but some emptiness and loss.
In the film, the spiritual mentor says to Joey:
"A dream is not to achieve a goal, not a desire, but a passion to do something."
It's true to set goals for your life, but if you take goals as the whole meaning of your life, you will eventually lose yourself.
Like the fund manager in the movie, who is full of transactions, he is overly obsessed with his goals, attaches the meaning of living to a single purpose, detaches from the essence of life, and eventually becomes a monster full of darkness and blurred faces.
Finally, one night, the old blind bullet broke the last two strings.
He sped toward the drugstore, thinking victory was at hand.
But a thousand strings were exchanged for a wordless prescription, and the old blind man felt as if his soul had been sucked out, and felt that everything in his body was extinguished.
If he hadn't been thinking about his apprentice, the old blind man might have left this world, because he really couldn't find a reason to live.
The old blind man found the little blind man who had fallen into the snow in the deep mountains, and he was waiting motionlessly for death.
If that wordless prescription made the old blind man's life completely desperate, then Lan Xiu's marriage also took away all the hope of the little blind man's life.
In order to make the little blind man pluck up the courage to live, the old blind man weaves a lie for the little blind man that can be restored by breaking twelve hundred strings.
He also finally understood the words that Master had said to himself on his deathbed:
"Human life is like this string, it can only be played well if it is tightened, and it is enough to play it well."
Although that goal and dream are illusory, they cannot be without.
Because even if it can't be achieved, it will tighten our lives and inject good hope into those long and hopeless days.
Some people say that a life without hope is more terrible than death.
We need goals and dreams, but the most important thing is to create for ourselves all the time that something called "hope."
The famous psychologist Frankl wrote a very influential book, "Living the Meaning of Life".
The book tells the real story of Frankl's imprisonment at Auschwitz.
In the days of purgatory, his family died one after another, but the strong hope of reuniting with his wife supported him to survive.
After regaining his freedom, he combined his life experience with academics to pioneer meaning therapy in psychology.
Frankl greatly admired Nietzsche's saying that "he who knows what he lives for will survive".
He was full of great enthusiasm for life throughout his life, learning to fly an airplane at the age of 67 and climbing the Alps at the age of 80.
In Frankl I saw the miracle of a man who constantly created hope for himself and tried to find the meaning of life.
Zhou Guoping once said:
"Man is the only animal in the world who can question the meaning of his existence."
In fact, we can not only ask about meaning, but also create meaning for ourselves.
In life, even in difficulties, you can still redeem yourself, although the purpose of life is nothing but the process is full.
How to live this life well, please don't forget to create something called "hope" for yourself.
Click "Watching" and encourage your friends.
Author | Qianhe, a passionate life home, a calm thinker. With you, read yourself, read life.
Editor-in-Chief | A doctor
Typography | Zheng to the north
Music | The Light of the Empty Roof