When I went to the countryside 25 years ago, I took a few books with me, one of which was Ovid's Metamorphosis, and the people on our team turned it over and over, and looked at it so much that it looked like a roll of kelp. Later, the other team borrowed it, and later I saw it in several different places, and it looked worse and worse. I believe that this book was finally read by people, and I still can't forget the tragic situation of that book. The life of the intervening team is hard, there is not enough to eat, the water and soil are not satisfied, and many people are sick; but the greatest pain is that there are no books to read, and if there are many books to read, the Metamorphosis will not disappear so tragically. Beyond that, there is no pleasure in thinking. I'm sure it wasn't my experience alone: in the evening, you sat under the eaves and watched the sky slowly darken, lonely and desolate in your heart, feeling your life deprived. I was a young man at the time, but I was afraid to live like this, to grow old. In my opinion, this is something more terrible than death.
There were military deputies in charge of us where I was in line, and now I think that they are a group of simple good people: but I also think that there is no one in my life who has made me more miserable than them. They believe that the so-called pleasure of thought is to use Mao Zedong Thought to occupy it 24 hours a day, ask for instructions early, report back late, and if they have leisure, they will go to see the songs and dances of their own "Yagudu". I had no problem with the songs and dances themselves, but after watching them 20 times, I got tired of them. If we read a book and they see it, it will be a disaster, and even the book of "Shu Xunlu" will not be successful - the Little Red Book is of course an exception. By the way, there are really people who have brought trouble to themselves because they have brought old versions of Lu Xun's works. One knowledge that may be useful in the future is to replace interesting books with boring skins. I don't think I'm able to get the pleasure of thought in some religious rituals, so I've been depressed. Some authors of stories like this have also written, for example, Zweig wrote a novel on this theme, "Chess", which can be called a modern classic, but I don't think he described this pain enough. The culmination of this pain is not being detained in a hotel without books to read, without qualified conversation partners, but being left outside, feeling the same loneliness between heaven and earth, facing a companion who is as painful as you. Before us, there have been countless great wise men, such as Russell, Newton, Shakespeare, whose thoughts and writings can save us from this suffering, but we are cut off from their thoughts and writings. If a person needs to be happy from his thoughts, then his first desire is to learn. I admit that I am indeed not strong enough to withstand this pain, but I am by no means the worst one. For example, when Russell was 5 years old, he felt lonely and desolate, and he thought: If I could live to be 70 years old, then I would have spent only fourteenth of my unfortunate life! But when he was a little older and came into contact with the spark of the wise man's thoughts, he changed his mind. Suppose he was sent to cut in line, he would probably commit suicide.
When it comes to the joy of thinking, I think of what happened to my father. His father was a professor of philosophy who studied the history of thought in the fifties and sixties. In his old age, he told me that his lifetime of academic experience was like a horror movie. Whenever he tried to make a theory, he always had to find his place in the official ideology of the great unification, just as an old hen would find a place to incubate eggs in a large moving house. As a result, although he loved science and worked hard, he did not get the pleasure of thinking in his life, and only gained countless panics. His lifelong exploration, with only a few broken walls and ruins, was received in a book called "Logical Exploration" and published behind him. As we all know, the scholars of his generation can leave a book in their lifetime. This is precisely because in those days, some people wanted to completely make Chinese ideas completely boring. In our country, only a very small number of people will find it fun to think, but many people have felt the panic caused by thought, so many people now think that the taste of thought should be like this.
After the Cultural Revolution, I read that Mr. Xu Chi wrote the goldbach conjecture of reportage, which was very romantic. It is easy for a person to write about things he does not understand. Personally, I think that for a scholar, being able to communicate with his peers is a minimum pleasure. When Mr. Chen Jingrun was alone in a small house to prove mathematical problems, he needed some foreign mathematical journals to read, and he also needed the opportunity to talk with colleagues in the mathematical community. But he didn't, so he wasn't necessarily happy, and of course he was happier than someone without a theorem. After more than ten years of proof, even if there is great pleasure in the proof, it cannot be balanced. But sitting in loneliness is even more difficult. If I knew number theory when I cut in, there would inevitably be Mr. Chen's actions, and I would not regret it in the end; but that story would certainly be more tragic than mr. Xu's work. However, someone who has been deprived of the three pleasures of learning, communicating, and building still cannot get my greatest sympathy. This sympathy I reserve for those who are deprived of "fun".
After the Cultural Revolution, I also read Mr. Acheng's novel about Zhiqing playing chess, which was also very romantic. Four-fifths of the chess I've played in my life has been in line, and I've gone from being a pretty good player to a hopeless mediocre player. Pulling the words chess and interjection together now can cause me physical disgust. Playing chess because you have nothing to do, the nature and masturbation are not too different. I would never write such a boring thing into a novel.
If a person eats the same meal every day, does the same work, and turns over the eight model plays to see, and sees the degree to which he knows the next sentence after listening to the previous sentence, he deserves my greatest sympathy. I most agree with Russell's quote: "It is necessary to know that variability is the source of happiness." "Most jagged polymorphisms are created with a mind-sensitive approach. Of course, I know that some people disagree with us. They must think that a single machine is the source of happiness. Lao Tzu said that if you want everyone to "humble their hearts and be honest with their stomachs", I don't like it very much when I listen to it: Han Confucianism deposed hundreds of families and exalted Confucianism alone, which in my opinion is a very despicable act. Sir Moore envisioned a well-detailed utopia, but I, like Mr. Russell, would never live in it. At the end of this list are some good-natured representatives of the army who want to drive everything out of my mind, leaving only a 270-page little red book. In other aspects of life, a certain degree of monotony and machinery must be endured, but thought must never be included. It's not fun to think wildly, it's interesting to be funny and novel. The greatest misfortune in the world we live in is that some people reject novelty altogether.
I think the period when I experience my greatest joy is when I first enter college, because science is novel to me, and it is always logically complete and impeccable, which is something rare in this ordinary earthly world. At the same time, it is also possible to understand the outstanding intelligence of the scientists of the previous generations. It's like playing chess with a clever chess player, although you are always defeated, but you also have the opportunity to appreciate the magic tricks. Among my classmates, people of the same age and experience as me have the same experience as me. Certain monotonous mechanical behaviors, such as eating, excretion, and sexual intercourse, can also bring pleasure, but because it is too simple, it cannot be compared with such pleasure. Art can also bring such happiness, but it must come from the real masters, such as Newton, Leibniz, Einstein, and none of the Chinese artists have yet reached such a level. With all due respect, what can bring happiness to the mind can only be the product of the supremacy of human wisdom. Anything lower than this will only bring suffering to people; and this kind of low-grade goods is all kinds of ideas out of utilitarianism.
The idea that it is necessary to "instill" the organs of the human mind (the mind) is in the ascendant. I think the brain is the organ that senses supreme happiness, and it is dubious to have utilitarian ideas imposed on it. Some people say that it is a tool for competition, so people should learn to speak before they are born and recite Tang poems before they are three years old. If it is used in this way, then what happiness it can get is really worrying. Although knowledge can bring happiness, if it is compressed into pills and poured, it loses its pleasure. Of course, if someone is willing to treat their children in this way, it is not something I can manage, I just show sympathy for the children. Others argue that the mind is a tool to show oneself to be a good person, and that for this it is necessary to learn to recite a set of aphorisms, dogmas—in fact, to make oneself look better than it actually is, utterly hypocritical. It made me feel some degree of pain, but it wasn't unbearable yet. There is no greater pain than the fact that there are always people who want all kinds of reasons to eliminate the varied polymorphisms needed to eliminate happiness. The most important reason these people want to do this is morality; more precisely, it is for utilitarian considerations. So they categorize ideas, good and bad, but the criteria used are very dubious. They believe that if people's minds are filled with good things, the world will be peaceful. Therefore, they are ready to treat the young people with the attitude of the military deputies of the past towards us. If thought is the principal aspect of human life, then it is not reasonable to change a man's mind for utilitarian motives as if he were to kill him for his happiness.
Some people believe that people should be filled with noble ideas and get rid of ideas of inferior style. This may sound wonderful, but it scares me. Because the sum of noble and low thoughts is myself, if I remove a part, who I am becomes the question. I admire the idea of a certain gentleman, but if you want to dig out my brain and throw it away and replace it with his, I will never refuse, unless you can prove that I have committed a terrible sin and have more than enough to die. Since man is alive, he has the right to ensure the continuity of his thoughts until he dies. Moreover, the nobility and inferiority are measured entirely by their own standpoint, and if I accept it in its entirety, it would be tantamount to inviting the good-thinking hens to lay eggs in my head, and I always refuse to believe that there is a chicken nest above my neck. I think that in the eyes of the military deputies, I was also a very lowly person, and they wanted to impose their own thinking methods and lifestyles on us, which was also a kind of brain transplantation. Fielding once said that there are very few, even unique, people who are both good and great, so this brain transplant brings me not only kindness, but also stupidity. Here I would reluctantly use a utilitarian statement: in the real world, stupid people can't do anything. I myself certainly want to be kinder, but that kindness should be the result of me getting smarter, not the other way around. Moreover, Heraclitus had long said that good and evil are one, just as uphill and downhill are one way. Don't know what evil is, but know what is good? So what they ask for is nothing more than a cloud of people.
Suppose I believe in God (in fact I do not believe) and am agonizing over the distinction between good and evil, I will ask God to make me wise enough to discern right from wrong, and never ask Him to make me stupid enough to have people instill in me the standards of good and evil. If God were to take on the task of indoctrination, I would ask Him to let me choose between this task and going to hell, and my unwavering determination was to choose the latter.
If I were to cite the kindest moment of my life, I would give it to the time when I was just a young intellectual, when I was bent on liberating all mankind and did not think of myself at all. At the same time, I must also admit that I was very stupid at that time, so instead of doing anything, I fell ill and fled back to the city without my armor. Now I think that stupidity is a great pain: the reduction of human intelligence is the greatest sin. So, teaching people with stupidity is the worst sin that a good person can commit. In this sense, we must not let our guard down against the good. Suppose I am deceived by the great adulterers and the great evildoers, and the psychology can be balanced; and I cannot forgive myself if I am deceived by the good and the lowly intellectuals.
If I had to name my worst moment, it would be now. Maybe it's because I've received some education, or maybe it's because I'm an adult, and if you want me to liberate anyone anyway, I'm sure I'll first ask who these people are and why I need help; second, I'll have to ask if helping them is within my ability; and finally I have to think about whether going straight to Yunnan to dig a pit is going to help. If I think about it like this, I certainly don't want to cut in line. The leaders insisted that I go, and I still had to go, but after this, I was not guilty of digging up the green mountains, causing soil erosion, and so on. The average person thinks that good and low-minded people are innocent. If this low intelligence is innate, I agree. But man can develop his intellect, so the acquired intellect is not innocent—besides, there is nothing more convenient than pretending to be stupid. Of course, this conclusion is by no means to say that the military deputies were foolish and evil people -- I still believe that they are good people. My conclusion is that if good and evil can be judged, then the premise of discerning right from wrong is to develop intelligence and expand knowledge. However, if you persuade a person who thinks he has discerned right from wrong to develop his intellect and broaden his insights, he will always feel that you have made him give up the near and seek the far, not only unwilling, but also resentful. I don't want to offend people for such a small thing.
I certainly have my own standards of good and evil now, and I'm not worse off than others right now. I think that low intelligence, bigotry, and poor thinking are the greatest evils. By this standard, when others say that I am the kindest, I am the most evil; when others say that I am the most evil, it is when I am the kindest. Of course, I don't want to recommend this criterion to others, but I think that smart, insightful, and knowledgeable people are more trustworthy than other people. Based on this belief, I think our country has lost a lot of opportunities after "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone."
Our nation always has many reasons to block knowledge, suppress ideas, and instill goodness, so that many intelligent people have lost the opportunity to learn, communicate, and build in their lives, and have died without the pleasure of thought. The thought of my father being one of them makes me feel gloomy, and I tend to be pessimistic at the thought of the total number of sands in the Ganges. The cause of such tragedies is, of course, the problems that exist in the real world. Great men always think that the world can be saved if all the people in the world are as good as he expects—or rather, as he would expect, "innocent," or "a flash of a flash of words." The people who make these claims are themselves innocent or selfless, and of course they do not know what evil and selfishness are, so these demands are: What I do not have, you do not have. The intelligence of countless people has been snuffed out. Considering that the sum of the sages of the Ganges sand is an unimaginably vast resource, the idea is to put the whole sea in one bottle. What I've seen is that this idea has been in practice, that is, to find a way out of stupid ways for real-world problems. According to this, I believe that our country has been carrying out ideological massacres since the Han Dynasty, and I can think like this only means that I am one of the survivors. I can't think of anything other than sadness about it.
Although I have lived to the age of confusion, I am often puzzled by one thing: why many people are always so hateful and funny. The ancients once said: Heaven does not give birth to Zhongni, and eternity is as long as night; but I have the opposite idea. Suppose there was a great wise man in history who discovered all novelty and all the interestingness, discovered the ultimate truth, and eradicated all possibilities of discovery, I would rather live in the days before the wise man. This is because, if this ultimate truth had been discovered, all humanity could do was make value judgments based on it. From the Han Dynasty to modern times, Chinese lived like this. I don't like this life at all.
I think that in all the intelligent activities of human beings, there is nothing simpler than making value judgments. If you are a male rabbit, you have the ability to make value judgments - the big bad wolf is bad, the female rabbit is good; but the rabbit does not know the nine-nine table. Such facts illustrate why some people who lack other abilities are particularly passionate about the field of value. If you make value judgments about yourself, you have to pay some price; making value judgments about others is too simple and too comfortable. I am indeed ashamed to say such rude things, but I am not sorry. Because this kind of person brings us too much pain.
Of all the value judgments, the worst is that it is a sin to think too much, too deeply, and beyond the comprehension of some. When we experience the joy of thought, we do not hurt anyone; unfortunately, there are always people who feel that they are hurt. Admittedly, this happiness is not something that everyone can experience, but we should not be responsible for it. I see no reason to cancel this pleasure unless despicable jealousy is taken into account—there are people in this world who like abundance, there are people who like simplicity; I have never seen people who like abundance jealous, hurt people who like simplicity, and I have always seen the opposite. If I know a little about science and art, they are gushing rivers which arise from the pleasure of thought, though they do not flow for them, as some people think, just as those who take pleasure in thought are not born for them.
For an intellectual, it is more important to be an elite of thought than to be a moral elite. Man certainly has the freedom not to think and to make himself stupid; I have no opinion on this. The question is whether there should be the freedom to think and make yourself smart. People who like the former kind of freedom think that overly complex thoughts can make people dizzy, which sounds like some truth. If you invite a rustic farmer in the mountains to a chemical factory in the city, he will also feel dizzy from the complicated management, but this cannot be a reason to abolish the chemical industry. Therefore, if simple people can see things that they cannot understand as things that have nothing to do with them, then it is good.
If the world around me is now filled with military representatives and moral teachers during the Cultural Revolution, it can only shock me, not make me afraid. Because I have lived to be forty-two. I met a math teacher in college who spread knowledge as happiness and made learning math a pleasure. I met people who inspired my wisdom. I had the pleasure of reading the books I wanted to read—a very voluminous list, from Russell's History of Western Philosophy to the Victorian underground novels in Britain. This last batch of books was really terrible, but I finally saw the unbearable things. Of course, I am most grateful to those who have written good books, such as George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain, Calvino, Duras, etc., but for those who have written bad books, I have also written a few books, although I have not yet had time to meet with mainland readers, but finally gained a little joy of creation. These insignificant happinesss can make me feel a little gain in my life, happier than my father, happier than the young people who will suffer in the vacuum of thought for the rest of their lives. As someone who has had both happiness and pain, I expect the next generation to have some room for happiness in terms of thought, and that this space is much larger than it was for me. And these appeals, of course, are addressed to those who aspire to be military deputies and moral teachers.