1
"One morning, Gregor Samsa awoke from an uneasy sleep and found himself lying in bed, transformed into a giant beetle." This is the beginning of Kafka's Metamorphosis. This sentence does not know how many people who want to become great writers have awakened the efforts and dreams of trying again in the dilemma of writing. For example, the Márquez who everyone knows, and he succeeded.
But among such a large number of literary lovers who were influenced by the beginning of The Metamorphosis, I was not included. Because I used to think that I would never write in my own article that I would turn into a "big beetle". Even if you dream, you will not dream of becoming something like a big beetle. This beetle is so unhappy.
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Curled up in a small room, hard, with each step he moved, he climbed with a rolling belt and stumbled; although his hard work was the only source of livelihood in the family, once he turned into a beetle, he was immediately rejected by all his relatives, so that in the end, Dad threw an apple at him/it, and the apple was embedded in his/its body, rotting, and his/its wounds were inflamed, inflamed, and finally, dead. Before he died, he was still "thinking of his family with tenderness and love", but his parents and sister "took the tram out of the city to the suburbs." The carriage was filled with warm sunshine... They comfortably leaned back in their chairs and talked about their future prospects..."
Seeing this, the tears couldn't stop flowing. It's so unhappy, I don't want such a life. Don't think of it that way either. Even if I write such a text, I will become a great writer in the world, and I do not want such a life.
I once dreamed that I was a soft little bug, poking my head out in the morning field full of morning glory, when the self, though it was just a small bug, breathed fresh air, envisioned a better future, full of hope that I could be good to people all over the world, so later, as far as I could, I walked through some places, and wherever I went, I would always smile from the bottom of my heart, feeling that I could catch everyone's words, eyes and hearts. I also once dreamed that I had become a big black pig that fell into a puddle. After having this dream of turning black, I analyzed my dream according to the logic provided by the dialect of that place in our hometown: I belong to the pig, so the pig is me; falling into a puddle shows that I have fallen into the vortex of happiness. Such a life, such a life imagination, even if it is a pig, how good it is! After doing this analysis, I continued to practice my outlook on life that life should be "happy".
But things always change. How did this change come about? It seems to have been brought about by the new crown epidemic. After the new crown came, there were two years of spring festival did not return home, parents and fathers for three years of birthdays, because of the epidemic prevention and control reasons, can not go home; other holidays, originally have also had arrangements to go home, most of them have been canceled; in this way, in addition to acquaintances living in a community, people living in other spaces, lost most of the opportunity to meet happily, so that when they see movies produced before 2020 on the Internet, they will be jealous of history: those people on the screen, do not wear masks, walk around , quarreling, fighting, falling in love, too angry. At this point, there is no way not to paraphrase Kafka's sentence:
"One morning, the **** woke up from an uneasy dream and found that he had another notice on his mobile phone, asking everyone, non-essential, not to go out."
Kafka, you're awesome, I've finally quoted you, because I've served you from the inside out, thoroughly.
2
The purpose of staying out of the house for a short time is to cut off the source of infection, which is the most common method used by humans to cope with infectious epidemic diseases throughout the ages. But man is always not allowed to go out, and in my experience it can contribute to the bad habit of doubt. This doubt should not be the doubt of the skeptics at the philosophical level, for all those philosophers who can be called skeptics can always say very clearly what they are doubting, and I cannot.
At best, my doubts can only be said to be suspicious of gods and ghosts. For example, some time ago, our city was always raining heavily continuously, and as a result, our community suddenly stopped the water one day. As soon as I found out that this "emergency" was not good, I quickly called my husband who was sleeping confused: Go quickly, go quickly, go to the supermarket to buy water! He was stunned at first and asked why he bought water? I said stop the water! Stop water and buy water? Yes! Because you don't know when to fix it! You see the rain outside, it's dark, like the town of Macondo, does it mean to stop? The end of the world is coming! But he, calmly, said: I will never go. Then he got up, got dressed, and went to work.
Seeing that he was so determined, and already flashing, I had to go by myself. Of course, there are long queues in the supermarket, and there is no more bottled water, only bottled water. Even so, people still use various ways to bring as much water as possible to their homes. In the community, I saw someone picking up rainwater with a bucket, and the person who received the rainwater met someone he knew, as if he was a little embarrassed, and explained: "We are not rich enough to flush the toilet with bottled water, right?" ”
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For the next three days, every day outdoors, it was heavy rain. Soon after the water stopped, some water trucks came from the community, standing there very mightily, for everyone to take buckets to pick up. In the evening, my husband smiled and greeted me, a frightened person, how the day was. I said, I still think I have to drink as little water as possible, eat as little as possible, and flush the toilet as little as possible. He concluded even happier: "I don't know what to say about people like you." Seeing his appearance, I was also very curious, although the matter was resolved, did this kind of emergency have no impact on his psychological feelings? Isn't the psychological feeling a feeling of continuity? In short, in the small interpersonal circle that we formed, our understanding, evaluation and feelings about things are so different.
Later, as the epidemic prevention policy became more and more sensitive and comprehensive, as soon as I saw a new case of local infection reported in the news, I rushed to the supermarket to buy something to take home. And, surely not wrong, whenever I want to buy something and stock up, there is always a queue in the supermarket, which shows that my neighbors and I are in this matter, and the arrival of the impulse is absolutely the same frequency. Over the past few years, there have been people on the Internet who have spread the footage of a supermarket shelf being bought out, and I have repeatedly committed this panic disease of feeling that the end of the world is coming, and my husband, of course, will not miss the pleasure of being able to taunt me many times without mercy, but my feeling is still impossible to eliminate.
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------------------------ Other people's feelings can't replace my feelings! I can't give my feelings to someone else! Just as a few years ago I did not believe that I would become a skeptic; now, what I doubt is whether the feeling of opening my heart to everything that I had a few years ago would still have a chance to descend into the years to come before in our lives.
In this mood, turning to Kafka's "Judgment", the first sentence of the opening sentence: "Someone must have framed Joseph I. K, because on a clear morning he was arrested for no reason. "-Kafka, you're so annoying!" I used to believe that "there is no unprovoked love, and there is no unprovoked hate", I originally couldn't understand what you said "no reason" is like, now that I understand your words, my originally annoying life is even more annoying. I can't help but think of a question: Does a person have the right to feel annoyed? A person, he feels troubled, is this a natural phenomenon that belongs to man? This seems to be a historical question, and I did not expect that today, I would have to ask again.
3
So, some time ago, because of reading Kafka, I was very irritable when I saw anything.
During this time, I wanted to write something, to write about kafka's feelings in this scene and read kafka. Although reading Kafka is not a good feeling.
It seems better to write it than to put it in my heart, although I can't say why it's better to write it than not to write it.
Writing it out is an option that cannot be said, but can be written in a situation. There are options, which are naturally better than no options.
Writing it out seems to be more satisfied with the possibility of "trying" some kind of solution that is carefully observed and thought hard. Possibility, of course, is better than no possibility.
Writing it out will bring out a Kafka-like experience, which is the opportunity for Kafka's great literary heritage to be revived today. With a worried zeal, he touched on the imagination of another world, and when it came to the relationship of his characters to that imaginary world, at the beginning he wrote:
When K arrived at the village, it was already the middle of the night. The village is deeply sunken in the snow. The hill on which the castle was located was shrouded in mist and night, and even the light that showed that a castle stood there could not be seen. K stood on a wooden bridge leading from the main road to the village, staring for a moment at the empty and empty illusion above his head. (Translated by Tang Yongkuan)
"Night", "Snow", "Castle", "Illusion of Emptiness", "Gaze". Even though the first four keywords had hinted at a scene with a lot of grayscale, this K, he still stared. Yes, though the castle was hollow and empty, he had to see how it was empty and empty; and though he already knew that the castle was an illusion, he must know it. What a mirage it is.
This K was in the village where he was supposed to stop temporarily, and he could be said to have tried his best. His original purpose was to reach the castle and be a "land surveyor" hired by the Count (what a strange profession!). You say it's important, it's important; you say it's not important, how can it be a profession without seeing his hirer), but he only arrives at the village where he rests, as if he were in a quagmire, and it is not easy to take another step forward, it is almost impossible: it needs an unissuable pass, the employment paperwork disappears in the sea of documents, how can he not see the village chief who seems to decide his fate...
Snow, still; night, still; hard to walk, still. However, in the midst of the trivialities and anger of experiencing these "mire-bogged downs", Kafka once again let this K gaze at the castle he had once gazed at:
The outline of the castle had begun to fade, but it still stood quietly there; K could not see a trace of life there—it was impossible to see anything from so far away, but the eyes always wanted to see something, and could not stand its silence. When K looked at the castle, he often felt as if he were looking at a man sitting in front of him staring at him, this person was not out of his mind, nor did he forget everything, but there was no one around, no worries, as if no one was observing him, as if he was alone, but he must have known that someone was observing him, but he was still calm, not a little nervous; really - I don't know whether this is the cause of his calmness or the effect of calming,—— the observer's eyes are often unable to focus on him. It can only be quietly transferred elsewhere. This feeling is reinforced in today's twilight sky; the longer you look at it, the more indistinct you become, and the deeper everything is hidden in the twilight sky. ("The Castle", translated by Tang Yongkuan)
"But the eyes always want to see something," K watched as hard as he could. K looked at it, and the castle that could not be seen clearly seemed to have become a person. This person, if there is no one around, has no worries, even if he knows that someone is watching him, he will be calm and self-assured, and he will also let the person who looks at him, the person who observes him, the person who stares at him, have some fear, so that "the observer's gaze is often unable to focus on him", and also "quietly shift his gaze elsewhere". He pretended not to know that someone was watching him too. Like to pretend not to know, this is a thick-skinned person.
In the face of a person like a castle, always posing as a "no one around" and "calm and self-assured", K, what can he do?
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I really want to Baidu a few more times to see what those world-class literary heroes are doing when they face a world with various specialities. Like Tolstoy, he joined the army, and when he returned from the army, he could become a great literary hero; Kafka, he, just kept his childlike eyes open, looked at his world, thought about his world, and built his world with a determination to reach the peak of literature. The world is changing, and the way people are busy is also changing, from tying thick and thick woven leaves around their waists, running east and west on foot, to running east and west in horse-drawn carriages, to running east and west on green-skinned trains, to running east and west by plane or high-speed rail, to running around on the Internet due to epidemic control, in these changes again and again, literature and art, they are always preserving our hearts, in a proud way, or in an extremely decadent way, preserving our hearts. After reading Tolstoy, he is always so comforting, because he makes you believe that no matter how chaotic the world, the human heart should always be hot; after reading Kafka, you may not feel comforted, because he may make you feel that living is a hard endurance.
So, I really don't want to read Kafka. Because I don't want life to be patient.
But, like to thank Tolstoy, I think I should also thank Kafka, because since I am now, I never have the opportunity to dream of a little bug probing the brain in the flowers, and since I myself, I will never dream that I am a big black pig that has fallen into the vortex of happiness, patience is reality itself. And since it is patience, the process must be very difficult. In this difficult situation, Kafka may tell us: It is better to try to gaze at the "castle" that caused your unpleasant experience again. Although the "castle" may really not care about you at all, you gaze, you take the initiative, you exist, your patience, it is not entirely a tragedy.
Kafka made his K, that's what he did. Because, as quoted above, after he let K gaze at the illusory castle for the second time, the story of the novel went on for a little while, and K, who continued to fight for more than a hundred pages in that village that was like a deep quagmire. What is even more admirable is that the novel does not end until the last page, because K finally does not give up his right to observe and gaze as a weak person. "You are nothing", this is what K's fiancée's mother and all the people in the village said about him.
Author | Tomato | Reading enthusiasts