Weibo | @Visual Chronicles
Reference: The Thirteen Invitations
Author 丨 Yamano
The person I'm going to write about today is a bit "unpopular."
He has no traffic and no topics and is almost in a state of seclusion.
Aside from people in the industry, few people know how to understand.
But what he said was so brave, so deafening.
It still sounds like it's related to me.
Some time ago, he was on a talk show, "Thirteen Invitations".
At the time, I was joking with a friend:
"Xu Zhiyuan dared to interview him?"
Who is he?
Qian Liqun .
He often complains about Peking University, but is regarded as a treasure professor by Peking University students.
Even Tsinghua next door invited him to give a lecture.
He's been credited with —"
An iconic figure of critical intellectuals in contemporary China.
Don't be intimidated by this title.
Critical, intellectual, iconic...
Any word in this place on the Internet is actually not pleasing, and even triggers a scolding war.
truly.
In this life, he has struggled, debated, and been silent.
Today, 82-year-old Qian Liqun has been diagnosed with cancer.
He realized he had "probably five years left."
That's it.
Or at the end of life, leave something for the people in this world.
"I'm a bit with life grabbing meaning now.
It's about doing what I want to do, and I try to do it.
After doing it, it doesn't matter, you can die at any time. ”
01.
Xu Zhiyuan's silence
How did Qian Liqun make Xu Zhiyuan "silent"?
There is such a scene in the interview, Qian Liqun took Xu Zhiyuan for a walk in the garden of the nursing home, saw the lush trees on both sides of the road, and Qian Lao stopped to admire the "new leaves" and "dead leaves" on the trees.
He asked Xu Zhiyuan to observe that there were yellow and red in the leaves.
But the other party did not feel this change, but opened his own "occupational disease-style questioning":
"You are now from the world of history to a world of nature."
Xu Zhiyuan thought that Qian Liqun, like other interviewees, would be in front of the camera.
But Elder Qian did not pay attention to it, but smiled and said:
"You see this tree too, it's all green, but it also has another color, (like yellow)."
Xu Zhiyuan asked, "This is another voice, right?" ”
Elder Qian corrected, "It's another color." ”
This answer is a reminder of Xu Zhiyuan.
Don't always think about rising value in everything, purely feel that the scenery is not fragrant?
Xu Zhiyuan may not have understood the deep meaning.
Since you're not hooked in a guided interview, just ask.
So there is this familiar sentence:
"Which tree most resembles your inner world and spiritual temperament?"
As we all know, the ancients loved to link the characteristics of trees with the character of people.
For example, pine cypress evergreen, plum blossoms are lonely and proud, green bamboo is clear and tall, and poplars are tenacious.
This time, Qian Liqun pointed out bluntly --
"At this point, leave all this alone, you are still accustomed to this kind of thinking.
In fact, I just appreciate it, without any knowledge involved.
I just feel the color and appreciate its color. ”
He hoped that Xu Zhiyuan could let go of the excavation of meaning and feel the present with his heart.
"If you look closely, the wind is coming, and it is drifting slightly there.
Overall it was very peaceful and solidified.
But it's solidified, and you look closely at the leaf, and it's moving quietly, which is very interesting. ”
Anyone who has studied Ma Zhe knows that this is not what we often call "movement and stillness"?
Xu Zhiyuan once again grasped the main point.
Undeterred, he asked the last question —
"Isn't it the same with the changes in our time, that the whole cannot see that they are changing, but (the individual is changing)..."
Qian Liqun couldn't help but interrupt him.
"No, don't think about this, don't think about this, don't think about this.
We think too much about history and culture.
It is (in fact) a feeling in your heart when you are opposed to nature. ”
Finally, Xu Zhiyuan stopped asking questions.
They sat silently on the park bench and fell into a beautiful silence.
One is a person who has studied the meaning deeply, and the other is a person who has experienced it with his heart, quietly admiring the tree in front of him, feeling the wind blowing and the sun falling.
Seeing what Qian Liqun said, he often had a feeling of sudden enlightenment.
This is an era of public noise, we are good at speaking out on the Internet, willing to express, keen to explore meaning, promote universal feelings.
Over time, we neglect to "feel reality."
Those people or things worth caring about in life are out of focus in the great web of meaning.
What is even more frightening is that we often live in mental and emotional friction and cannot extricate ourselves.
What to do?
Qian Liqun gave an answer.
Don't think too much, don't add drama to yourself, feel life, don't let yourself live too tired.
After all, in real life, where is there so much meaning to look for?
Thirteen invitations,
Take a walk with Elder Qian, observe the change of color of the leaves, and steal a hawthorn. Remove the intervention of knowledge and enter into the encounter of pure individual life and nature. #腾讯新闻十三邀 #十三邀
The video number
02.
Qian Liqun's questioning
Why is Qian Liqun a "dare to say" person?
I have seen such a news.
In December 2010, 18 Shanghai donkey friends, mainly students of Fudan University, Huangshan, were in distress, rescued police officer Zhang Ninghai accidentally fell to his death, Fudan students did not talk about mourning the martyrdom of the police after escaping from danger, first discussed how to do a good job in crisis public relations, indifferent to the sacrifice of the police, did not admit mistakes and shirk responsibility.
At the time, many criticized them as "refined egoists."
I was still reading that year, and I couldn't help but sigh, this definition is really accurate.
Later, I learned that in an interview as early as 2008, Qian Liqun said:
"The education of pragmatism, materialism, and nihilism, as I mentioned earlier, is cultivating a group of absolute, refined egoists."
This concept is known as the "worries of qianliqun".
Along with it, there is "Qian Xuesen's Question"——
"Why are our schools always unable to cultivate outstanding talents?"
Imagine the popular atmosphere of that year, which was the worship of money, the uselessness of reading, and the flood of success learning.
Their voices, naturally, were drowned out by the utilitarian clamor.
But Qian Liqun did not give up, but painstakingly studied and proposed the concept of "20th century Chinese literature".
Not a professional may not understand, but it can be said that his combing and excavation of Chinese literature has made the world re-attach importance to and understand China's ideology and cultural spirit.
It is self-evident how important cultural values are in the contemporary world.
Today, we still have to look back at the "worries of Qian Liqun".
More and more academic stars are moving from ivory towers to the Internet.
They are good at paying for knowledge, monetizing resources, and talking about business models.
At the same time, those young people who graduated from 985 claim to be the home of the town.
They have excellent grades and have been admitted to famous schools, but they have lamented that they have missed the outlet and lost their dividends.
Knowledge is increasingly becoming a "tool" in the eyes of these people.
If the purpose is not satisfied, then knowledge is useless.
Perhaps this has become a conventional consensus.
But I still can't help but ask —
In the face of utilitarianism, is knowledge really so useless?
03.
Guizhou 18 years
Qian Liqun grew up in a well-off family and had a golden childhood.
My maternal grandfather was the principal of Zhejiang University, and my mother received an English education from an early age.
His father was the director of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry of the Ministry of Economy of the National Government of Chongqing.
After 1949, his father went to Taiwan, while his mother stayed on the mainland with Qian Liqun.
In the 1960s, Qian Liqun, who had just graduated from Peking University, was assigned to teach Chinese at a health school in an anshun area of Guizhou.
It was a long, lonely time, the first time I went to class, I was obviously teaching Chinese, but there was a specimen of a skull on the table.
At this scene, Qian Liqun refused in his heart, and he was in a dilemma.
Stay, you can't adapt.
I want to go, but I can't go out.
In the face of the dilemma, Qian Liqun thought that there was an allusion in China, the three caves of the cunning rabbit.
"I'm going to make two caves."
One is to be the most popular teacher in this school.
This is a small goal that can be achieved in short-term realities.
Second, continue to study Lu Xun and return to Peking University to talk about Lu Xun in the future.
This is a great ideal, although it is out of reach, but it is the spiritual nourishment that supports oneself to go on.
So there was a small room in Anshun Normal School, where Qian Liqun lectured on Lu Xun to his students every weekend.
For the uneducated people in remote mountainous areas, Lu Xun's writing is obscure.
But Qian Liqun was talking with his eyebrows flying, talking about dry mouth and tongue, and talking about his sweating.
Looking downstairs, the students were already in tears.
In his spare time, Qian Liqun often took students to play football, but because he did not understand football theory, he used Chairman Mao's quotations to guide the techniques and tactics on the stadium.
Sometimes, he would rehearse plays with his students and learn to play mahjong. Qian Liqun loves to play mahjong too much, and when he can't get together, he drags the students to play mahjong for a night.
When the students went to sleep, he returned to the dormitory and began his own lu xun research, as if entering another world.
During the dormant period, he was able to calm down and temper himself, such an order of life, he insisted on 18 years.
Maybe that's down-to-earth, looking up at the stars.
As he said —
"People have no realistic goals at all, only ideal goals are difficult to stick to, you have to have a reality to achieve, and then you have a sense of success, a sense of meaning, you can live." 」
But on the other hand, only the real country has no ideal country, and you may end up being swallowed up by it, engulfed by reality. ”
04.
Generously come out of suffering
In 1978, the national college entrance examination was resumed.
Qian Liqun got his wish and was admitted back to Peking University.
The students he had taught, those who had been farmers, workers, and traders, had also been admitted to college.
Qian Liqun not only insisted on the things he loved, but also helped the people in the mountains realize their dreams.
Later, Qian Liqun returned to Guizhou from Beijing almost every year.
The former students are now more than half a hundred.
Everyone would still discuss Lu Xun, reminisce about the past, and then drink tea and play mahjong.
You see, it doesn't matter whether knowledge is "useful" or not.
In a commercial society, knowledge can be packaged and utilized by capital, and can be monopolized and profited.
But for Qian Liqun and his students, knowledge can connect people with different fates.
Under the infiltration of knowledge, everyone learns to live transparently and frankly, and then comes out of the mountains and sufferings.
If knowledge can make Qian Liqun insist on himself in the dilemma.
The mother and wife brought an inner strength to themselves.
Qian Liqun's mother, who was born in Xiangmendi, learned English from an early age, and from the perspective of outsiders, she could not suffer anything.
But since her father left the mainland, Qian Mu has since made up her mind and said nothing about her father.
Every day is just knitting sweaters and living a life of sewing and mending.
The mother's silence was exchanged for the tranquility of the family's life.
It was not until her death that she said to Qian Liqun:
"I haven't bothered you in my life."
Qian Liqun's wife, Cui Kexin, is a doctor.
When everyone avoided Qian Liqun and did not want to associate with him, out of pure appreciation and love, Cui Kexin did not have half a concern and joined hands with Qian Lao for a lifetime.
In 2018, Cui Kexin was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
As a doctor, she rejected all life-prolonging treatments.
She loves to sing, enjoys life, and the disease is nothing to fear for this doctor.
The moment that moved me the most was at a community party, Cui Kexin took painkillers, dripped a little, dressed in a white dress, and sang a song "My Affection Waits for You" for everyone on stage.
Your love is in my chest
Every dream is so gentle
The years that have passed The years of wind and rain
Put you in my heart
Qian Liqun was sitting in the audience, carefully recording his wife's interpretation with his camera.
His eyebrows furrowed, he stared intently at the display, recording this affectionate waiting.
After Cui Kexin's death, Qian Liqun still ate, read, walked, and studied step by step.
The furnishings of his wife's room never moved, as if she were still here, never leaving.
When his beloved left, Qian Liqun did not have great compassion, but said lightly——
"Our relationship is rare, all questions can be discussed, life and death, what happens after death, all discussed, without scruples.
She finally arranged everything before she was born, and neither of us shed a tear during the whole process, all of which we thought about, thought through, and talked through. ”
05.
Write at the end
There is no doubt that the current network is so torn apart and chaotic.
The exchange between people and people has become more intense and contradictory.
Qian Liqun frankly said:
"After the epidemic, we are in an era without truth, consensus and certainty.
The crisis of this era is not exactly the same as the crisis of other eras, and it is now frightening and unsettling, not knowing what will happen tomorrow. ”
What to do?
He made three demands on himself:
The first "observation", do not jump to conclusions.
The second "waiting", don't be in a hurry, be patient.
The third "perseverance" is not to go with the flow in the chaos.
Qian Liqun said that the epidemic is a historical crisis unprecedented in a century, and the most disturbing thing is that it does not know what will happen tomorrow. He set three rules for himself: observe, do not jump to conclusions easily; wait, many things can not be rushed now; insist, can not follow everyone in a chaos. #腾讯新闻十三邀 #十三邀
This is Qian Liqun's understanding, which is shared with you at this moment.
This is Qian Liqun.
Even if you know that time is short, you still maintain a hot care for the times.
Even if life makes it suffer, it must strive to live brightly.
Even in the commercial society of sound and color dogs and horses, few people will settle down and concentrate on enriching their lives. But Qian Lao still maintained a deep cultivation in the path of literature.
This is probably a star that belongs to only a very small number of people, but it is incomparably brilliant.
If at this moment, you are also in a difficult situation, and you are also lost in the pursuit of fame and profit...
Well, please don't rush to find answers and meaning.
Knowledge and experience are not absolutely "useful."
But it allows us to explore inner strength while discovering our weakness and ignorance.
It can also allow us to follow the heart, transcending utilitarianism and nothingness.
Those who have learned in the past and the insights that have grown will one day turn into strength to help themselves.
May each of us be brave enough to move forward without fear.