A person's character can determine his whole life.
You may think this is too absolute. But if you've seen the 56 years of growth of these 14 children and seen how they have changed over time, you'll be amazed at the correctness of this statement.
It's a bit cruel to completely dissect a person's life in front of people to be honest. But it is in this cold to the bone reality that we can find out what the inexplicable "fate" is. In the final analysis, the biggest enemy of man's life is himself, and everything has traces to follow, but some people have never investigated deeply.
Source: Elitestalk
In the evolution of human history, there is such a breathtaking and great documentary. It took half a century to materialize, shoot, and produce, and the value of this documentary has far exceeded the significance of shooting each character.
The documentary series, titled "Seven Years of Life," has eight so far. By recording the life trajectory of 14 children, the historical changes of British society for half a century are presented.
The 14 children in the film
Among these children from different classes
Some of them came from well-off families, and some came from poor backgrounds
Starting in 1965, 7 years old, 14 years old, 28 years old ...
Until the age of 56
We glimpsed on screen the epitome of half their lives
When the years pass and the vicissitudes change
Reality is harsher than any fictional work
Rich or poor
Everyone who is young is full of energy
But when the original bright color memory
Replaced by black and white tones in the image
There was no more in their eyes
As a child, I envisioned the stars of the future
Only one by one remains exposed to the river of time
There are old people who have never returned
Class barriers do exist
Vision and field of vision will determine the pattern
The 14 selected children come from different classes in the UK, and the director prejudges at the beginning of the show: the social class of each child will determine their future.
"We brought these kids together because we wanted to see a microcosm of England in 2000, when the workers and supervisors were now only seven years old."
At the beginning of the documentary, the three rich brothers of the upper class have been impressive.
The three of them, who studied in private schools, had a clear plan for their future, and they had a regular daily routine, knowing exactly which secondary school they would attend, entering Oxbridge and then becoming the social elite.
Charles, Andrew, John, 7 years old
While the three rich brothers read The Finance, the Observer, and The Times every day, the three working-class sisters in London's East End were much freer.
The three girls attend the same primary school in London, and although they need to take dance lessons, they are actually just a different form of free activity, and the teacher does not care about them.
7-year-old girls would get together and talk about the boys they liked, happily discussing how many children they would have in the future, and fantasizing about the future of life.
Jackie, 7, Sue, Lynn
At the same time, children who grew up in slums in poor areas,
Not even a dream,
Some people want to make money as a horse trainer,
Someone wants to have the opportunity to meet their dad,
There are also people who hope to be able to eat enough, punish less, stand less and be beaten less.
Nicholas as a child was naïve
Orphanage big Paul
Simon is the only minority in the film, his father is black, and his mother is white, growing up in an orphanage
In Britain, class culture is considered an indispensable element of society, just as the British love of tea and cake is integrated into the blood.
Although most 7-year-olds are naïve and romantic, from the first documentary, they have felt deep differences between different classes.
After the first episode of the documentary, people have realized the differential influence of the original family, which is influencing these children's imagination of the future and continuing to influence their choices afterwards.
The existence of class boundaries is beyond doubt, and then one wishes to know whether social mobility will really increase and change in the coming decades as educational levels and social welfare change.
Jackie, 7, Sue, Lynn
Jackie, 14, Sue, Lynn
Education is the best gift a family can give to a child
However, the reality is more brutal than people think, and to break the class divide to achieve equality for all is nothing more than a utopian imagination. Of these 14 people, most of the children's life trajectories developed as expected as the director assumed.
Paul ranged from 7 to 56 years old
The families of the upper class have given their children more guidance in life, and the parents' vision, pattern, ability and connections directly affect the life trajectory of these children.
Under the guidance of parents, although money helps children have more opportunities to understand the world, the spiritual level is more profound than material.
Since childhood, the three rich brothers have understood social competition and know how to plan rationally. These children have mastered the skills of excellence earlier, and they have been on the road to school, some have become lawyers, some have become television producers, living a good life at the top, respected, and happy families.
Middle- and lower-class children do not understand the meaning of education, fighting is their biggest entertainment, they have no plans for the future, and their dream is to be beaten less and not to starve. They drop out of school at will, enter society early, and experience the fate of dropping out of school, marrying early, having more children, unemployment, and so on.
Entering middle age, most of the interviewers who give up studying for various reasons will feel that if they study hard when they go to school, they will not be forced by life, prolong retirement, and rely on government relief funds to make a living, and there will be a better way out.
Andrew, one of the three rich brothers,
Say in front of the camera:
"Man cannot be sure what wealth will be left to the next generation.
But at least it can be determined,
Once given a good education to them,
They can be used for the rest of their lives."
In the face of the growth barriers created by class differences, one of the 14 people is a lucky man named Nick, as the only case of all the characters to achieve class leapfrogging from the bottom, he is both a special case of breaking down class barriers and the best example of education changing lives.
Nick in front of the camera is not as noticeable as other children, he was born in the countryside, needs to walk 3 miles a day to school, and is very shy from a lack of interaction with society.
At the age of 14, he buried his head to avoid the camera, and under the thick glass glasses, he was still full of sorrow and confusion about the future.
However, education is gradually changing him.
In the beginning, in an illustrated picture book about planets, rich colors and interesting stories evoked Neck's interest in science.
One day, the students were enthusiastically discussing aerospace knowledge, and the teacher enthusiastically encouraged Neck to say: "You usually love to read so much, you must know a lot about airplanes."
The teacher's casual words made Neck feel trust and encouragement, and since then he has become more and more obsessed with various scientific and technological books, focusing on scientific knowledge. He said it was the teacher's guidance that brought him into the door of science.
At the age of 21, Nick was admitted to oxford university to study physics. At the age of 28, because the United Kingdom tightened school funding, he immigrated to the United States to do nuclear power research and came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to teach.
We watched as Nick, once shy and unconfident, walked out of Oxford to become a confident, spring-like scholar, witnessing his transformation from a country boy to a university professor.
When a person has knowledge, his vision becomes wider, he has more opportunities, he can easily find that the ceiling that limits him is only square inches, and if he goes forward for a while, the sky is wide above his head.
The key to happiness: character determines destiny
In addition to education and class, another topic that must be mentioned is personality.
Remember Sue, one of the three working-class sisters, who, like her other two friends, suffered as adults from poverty, divorce and single parenthood.
But unlike the other two Jackie and Lynn, who have a serious and complaining face, Sue always has an optimistic mindset, cherishes her time with her children, and actively looks for opportunities to improve herself.
Sue was with the kids
When she was young, she sacrificed her dreams and gave up job opportunities for the growth of her children, but the children also gave her a lot of hope when she was in difficulty.
Family reasons led her not to go to college, but through hard work Sue found a position as a college administrator and worked on campus. As an adult, she regained her hobbies of stage plays and singing. Loving life, loving work, confident and optimistic personality makes her ordinary life shine with dazzling brilliance.
Finally, we see that Sue is more and more beautiful the more she lives, and the career love double harvest.
Sue was from 7 to 56 years old
And Sue's East Side friend Lynn,
At the age of 7, he can be said to be the naïve one of several girls.
Lynn, 7 years old
But when she was 14, she didn't want to face the camera.
At the age of 19, Lynn got married, but married life didn't change her much. At the age of 21, Lynn worked as a mobile librarian, but the books did not maintain her calm and elegant temperament, and she was dissatisfied with many things, believing that the country's education was a failure and her face was getting worse and worse.
After that, you'll find that Lynn is the fastest of all the characters, and at 35 she has a completely old face.
Lynn, 35
And then she began to be plagued by disease,
She accepted her fate early and did not fight more.
Further back, with the misery of his face,
She had more diseases,
In 2014, she left due to illness at the age of 58.
Lynn, 56
The cultivation of personality lies entirely in the acquired factors,
It has nothing to do with class.
Neil, who was born in the middle class, is a personality problem.
And the counterexample that leads to the tragedy of life.
Born in a teacher's family, he was lively and cute when he was a child, which is simply the face value of the episode of "7UP".
At the age of 21, due to the abnormal performance of the exam, he entered a university that neither he nor his parents could look up to, and after less than a year, he dropped out of school to work at the construction site for a short time.
In the interview, he recalled that his parents, who were teachers, had planned his career early on — becoming a university lecturer or bank manager, believing that his life had to follow this mold, but in addition to studying, his parents never taught him any social and interpersonal knowledge.
This kind of strength and rigidity has created his inferiority, depression and anxiety personality, and his parents' excessive expectations have also made him become high-minded, and he and his parents cannot face the gap between reality and ideals after academic failure.
He has been overprotected by his parents for a long time, and after entering a cruel and complex society, he has no ability to cope, and the disappointment and anger of his parents make him feel extremely lonely and self-blamed, and become cynical.
He even felt unworthy of having children because children would inherit his failures.
Eventually he suffered from mental illness, unemployed and unwilling to let his parents know, and at the age of 28, he became a homeless man who lived on low insurance, never married, and a middle class fell into the bottom.
In the face of career bottlenecks and emotional setbacks, some people have learned to stand up on their own and go forward, while some people have been depressed in self-hatred and self-pity.
And here's the story goes.
The lives of 14 children are still not over.
But we can see that
Education is more profound than material influence,
Sound personality is the best antidote to suffering.
Any success or failure,
It's never been a miracle that came out of nowhere,
There are traces of everything.