True freedom is being hated.
——- Adler
01Self-awakening is the line of defense against tragedy
In recent years, it has been rumored that too many young people have encountered setbacks, middle-aged people have encountered mid-life crises, and they have committed suicide because they cannot bear the hardships of life, for many reasons.
I am very saddened, I myself have been trapped in such extreme darkness and pain, after more than ten years of blood struggle, finally came out.
I hope my feelings can help people somewhat.
In fact, many people will experience light or heavy pain in their lives, only when they truly awaken and clearly and firmly understand their pursuits, beliefs, and emotions can they enter the bright place of life.
In this case, you can unswervingly move towards your goal, and will not be annoyed by the evaluation and non-acceptance of others, because you no longer care about others.
Man's true awakening is the last line of defense in suffering.
With a clear self, you will not be swallowed by the brokenness of reality.
02 Establishment of self-identity
In the sense of psychology, it is called the establishment of self-identity.
A person knows himself, there is a process.
In the beginning, we know ourselves from the eyes of others, and the attitudes, reactions, and evaluations of others to us make us feel that we are what others say we are.
This is also what psychologist Meade said, and I agree with it.
Later, as I grew up, I slowly realized that what others said may not be true.
For some purpose, some people may be deliberately belittling you, and some people may be deliberately praising you.
So, we know ourselves according to our own understanding of the reactions of others.
But these understandings are all based on others, not on ourselves.
This is also related to the cultural environment in which we live.
The environment we live in, the world we have been exposed to since childhood, is a world that requires you to satisfy others, and it is also a world that requires you to imitate others.
In school, what is learned is the knowledge that is indoctrinated, and what is eventually learned is decided by the teacher.
If you are unfortunate enough to be born into a less intelligent family, your caregiver will often tell you, "You can only be liked if you do what I say." ”
Yes, our environment, so that people know from an early age, the common criteria for evaluating their behavior and choosing are:
Make people feel cute,
Popular,
Make people like,
Make people respectful,
Make people happy.
In short, what you want to form is based on the outside.
Any consciousness of a person is cultivated, and under such long-term cultivation, it is impossible to notice one's own feelings, one's own inner desires, one's own will, and completely unaware of one's own heart.
The understanding of self is constantly evolving, and everyone gradually experiences more and more things as they grow.
In the gradually rich experience, slowly experienced their own feelings, established their own beliefs, and discovered their own personality traits.
To truly establish a clear identity of the self is to combine the past and the present and ask, "Who am I?" Why am I me, and not someone else? ”
After a full understanding of oneself, and after careful consideration of major issues such as ideals, occupations, values, and outlook on life, he finally established his ideals and the goal direction and value concept of life.
Although specific life goals will change.
However, they know that this is me, that it is me after and before the change of goals, and that the "me" itself has not changed.
Once people clearly understand themselves and see themselves, they are not easily influenced by the outside world and shake their confidence in life and themselves.
But how people know themselves is a process of development.
In early childhood, people begin to have self-awareness, and this self-awareness flourishes in adolescence.
In the end, whether or not a clear self-identity can be successfully formed is affected by many factors.
Does the whole social atmosphere encourage individualism? Or encourage collectivism?
The social atmosphere will determine that a person can feel that he is an independent and complete person, and is not afraid of conflict with others;
Or is it decided that he is part of a collective, without individual will, to be consistent with the collective?
Did you grow up in a liberal democratic family as a child and adolescence, and have the right to decide your own affairs?
Is your own decision respected?
If you are lucky, it is easier to form self-identity.
If a person is a child, his own affairs are all decided by the parents, even if he tries once or twice, he is rejected by the parents.
Soon, I stopped trying, because I was afraid of my parents' rejection, and I didn't have the opportunity to experience the process of thinking about my own choice. The ability to make voluntary choices will soon be lost.
Self-identity will no longer develop.
In the process of finding themselves, people explore the inner world alone, with no one to accompany, and are often lonely. If you don't have love and respect around you, it will be difficult.
Finding oneself requires a huge cognitive cost, far less comfortable than listening to others, following others, and being pushed by things.
However, without going through this process, people will never be able to recognize who they are and where they are going.
In our society, the vast majority of people do not develop a clear self-identity throughout their lives.
Often have no opinions, care about the evaluation of others, obey the opinions of others, and live with the flow of life.
Unwilling and unable to think deeply.
They tend to worship authority, but they also cater to the universal moral norms in society, and strive to live as a person that everyone recognizes.
But it was clear that the crowd was too complex for anyone to meet everyone's expectations.
At the same time, once there are certain setbacks in life, people who have not formed self-identity, like a leaf that follows the flow, once a vortex comes, it is easy to be overwhelmed by setbacks.
Liu Xuezhou, who committed suicide after being devoured by online violence, was like this.
Any child who commits suicide in depression through a midlife crisis, or who commits suicide because of pain in adolescence, has this problem.
Liu Xuezhou was still young, and with his tortuous adolescent experience, no one guided him to form a clear sense of self.
When his parents rejected him, he felt a sense of engulfment in his heart and could not find himself.
A person who is not accepted by his parents will live in pain all his life if he has not experienced painful self-awakening.
Liu Xuezhou could not see his own origin and could not determine his existence. Like a small boat, floating on the dark sea.
I can't see my coordinates, I can't figure out where I'm going, I don't know where I'm going.
The various attacks of netizens made him shake even more, directly forming a big wave that swallowed his life.
If he is a child of a happy family, there is a beacon to illuminate him;
Or an adult who has established self-identity and is himself a beacon of solid foundations.
Let it be monstrous, and it cannot be destroyed.
Lucky and intelligent people may have established a good self-identity around the age of thirty, consolidated their personality foundation, and every next step is full of confidence and unwavering.
And the author himself, between the ages of 34 and 36, constantly asked "who am I and how did I form", experienced severe depression, after continuous thinking, and finally thought clearly.
Some friends say they were established in their 40s.
Yes, we live in times and societies where education in our early years is not conducive to our development of self-identity.
Only after adulthood, with certain life experience, began to examine their own environment, reflect on their own growth process, and gradually analyzed and identified those concepts instilled in their brains.
Little by little, spit out the wrong ideas and thinking habits, reverse them, and finally build a cognitive system on their own.
When this cognitive system is established, people will be more confident than ever and strong to resist external shocks.
in order to concentrate on living according to your own wishes.
03 Maugham's exploration of self-identity
Maugham mentions many times in my essays that he is a philosophical writer who has spent his life exploring the ultimate care of life.
His thinking is reflected in many works.
There are some works that I couldn't understand before the age of 34, but when I found out who I was after several years of difficult exploration, I finally understood the meaning of the works.
1
In the preface to the book, it says:
"Youth is so beautiful, so confused, young you are like a boat on the sea, I really don't know which direction it will drift;
Another traveler, who will encounter countless intersections on the way, accidentally go the wrong way, regret for life.
Because of their different living environments, people's education levels are different from low and low, and their life goals are also varied, some pursue promotion and wealth, and some pursue "truth", there is nothing wrong with it.
The question is, are we wandering in confusion?
Larry, the owner of "Blade", has experienced the process of finding the truth, in fact, he has also found himself.
Larry had a great future, and he and his girlfriend Isabelle loved each other.
The girlfriend is very beautiful, the families of the two families are very wealthy, and there is no factor that can prevent them from getting married and living a happy life.
Originally, Larry didn't think much about life, but after returning from going to France to participate in the war, he changed, became confused, and gradually delayed the marriage until it was dissolved, and he did not want to be arranged to live as before.
When he was in the Air Force, he saw his good friend and died heroically to save him.
He said to his fiancée:
"It's hard to put this feeling into words. I ask myself, isn't it better to follow the path of others and follow the flow?
At this moment, a person appeared in my mind, who was just alive and alive, and in a blink of an eye, he went to Hades.
Life is so cruel and meaningless.
You can't help but ask, what is the meaning of life? What is the value of life? Is life a stupid, blind, miserable process? ”
This is the first time Larry has looked at life, looking for his own values and outlook on life.
At this time, he was like a sleepwalker, suddenly waking up in a strange place, not knowing where he was. So he was looking for something, but he couldn't tell what it was.
His heart was full of blockages and confusion, and he thought, maybe he could solve it in Paris.
So he went alone.
When Isabel found Larry in Paris, she found him staying in a small hotel with a Greek dictionary on his desk.
Larry said he spends a lot of time a day reading books, eight to ten hours, and attending lectures at the University of Paris. I read all the important works in French literature.
His girlfriend asked him what was the use of learning these?
He said: "I have been reading Spinoza's book for the past month or two, and I dare not say how thorough I understand it, but my heart is full of joy, as if I have flown to a vast plain on the top of a high mountain, surrounded by no people, the air is as fresh as fragrant wine, and I feel like an extremely rich person." ”
The girlfriend asked him to go back, he refused, saying:
"I can't go back now, I just crossed a threshold and saw the endless spiritual kingdom unfolding in front of me, he was waving to me, and I was eager to go in and see."
In this way, Larry is constantly searching for his own answers through reading and life experiences.
After two years of hard study, he went to work as a miner in a coal mine, and he asked to go down the mine and choose dangerous jobs that others avoided.
He then spent time in Germany, Spain, Italy and finally in India for five years.
I learned about Eastern philosophy and lived in the ascetic forest for two years.
Years passed, and Larry was completely different at this time, he was no longer compatible with his original fiancée, and the beautiful Isabel could not even understand what he was saying and could no longer understand all his actions.
Larry travels everywhere, reads thousands of books, witnesses the thousands of changes in the world, and has been moving forward for his own goal.
Until the end, he became determined, and when his friends saw him again and chatted with him, they found that he basically did not make any gestures and was unusually quiet.
He said that he wanted to be in the midst of the world and appreciate all things in the world, not the appearance, but the infinity contained within.
When his former family and girlfriend thought that Larry had completely depraved, his friends advised him not to give up his rich family and money. All he wanted was a taxi.
He hoped that he would eventually settle in New York, for nothing else, but that there were many libraries there.
He doesn't need much to live on, so he doesn't care about spending the night there, and he can feed himself with one meal a day.
After having visited all the places he wants to see, he will buy a taxi and become a taxi driver.
Of course, friends thought he was crazy, and this was really not the work of people from his class.
But Larry said resolutely: "I'm not crazy at all, and it's very sensible, my taxi is just my labor tool, the equivalent of a dervishe's dog beating stick and a flesh." ”
So, after some persuasion, Larry was unmoved, and his friend couldn't help but scold him: You are a stinking and hard stubborn rock.
Larry didn't care, either.
He has no ambition, has no intention of chasing fame and profit, and has become a celebrity, he lives according to the path he chooses, feels at ease, and is at ease with encounters.
He is selfless and selfless, strict with himself, and follows a path of continuous self-improvement, rather than creating illusions and masks for others to see, and he does not care about social image.
He doesn't care about what others say, and he doesn't need their approval.
The years have not left any marks on him, he has always been a teenager.
2
In "The Moon and Sixpence", the protagonist is also such a character.
Painter Gauguin's submasterpiece Where Does the World Come From? Who are we? Where are we going? 》
The protagonist of the novel "The Moon and Sixpence" is actually explaining this painting.
Originally, the protagonist was an ordinary man like you and me, forty years old, with a stable job, a wife, and children.
Like every ordinary person, going to school, working, marrying and having children step by step, if there is no subsequent behavior, he may have lived his life like this.
But this man, named Strickland, gave up a good and stable life, suddenly ran away from home, lived in Paris, and lived in a cheap hotel, living simply, in a harsh environment, and in poverty.
People thought he had been abducted and smuggled away by young women, but in fact he was painting.
When a person has a firm goal and sees the world in which he lives, how strong is the world of the self?
There's no better book than The Moon and Sixpence.
When a friend was asked to find this runaway man, he wanted to persuade him to go home, but was shocked by the other party's answer and had nothing to say.
From their conversations, Strickland had made it clear in his heart that he could clearly distinguish between his own business and someone else's.
He can also accept all the facts, do not defend himself in the slightest, and do not care what others say of him.
In his heart, what he has been thinking about is his exceptionally clear values and pursuits.
When a friend asks: Do you have any grudges against her for not being able to get by? “
He replied, "No." ”
The friend asked: "Then it is strange, seventeen years of marriage, impeccable to her, just leave her like this, isn't it strange?" ”
He replied, "Something strange." ”
He also bluntly admitted that his actions were not universal and that people must not understand them. But he doesn't care either.
A friend reproached him: "You don't have any human touch." ”
"I said too," he said. ”
Completely do not care about the reproach of friends.
The friend was angry: "You look shameless." ”
"I don't think," he said. ”
He has his own set of morals, and does not evaluate himself according to the morality of others.
The friend couldn't help it, and found that the moral judgment against him didn't work, so he borrowed his friends and relatives to put pressure on him.
"Everyone will think you're a complete badass."
"Whatever they want," he said. ”
"You know that people hate you and despise you, and you don't care?"
He said, "Don't care. ”
This is the reaction of a person who has become completely indifferent to the evaluation of others, and has no interest in explaining.
Friends still try to persuade him to go home, feeling that his youth has died, he was originally a securities broker, he wanted to have an identity, a status to have a status, a wife and children, which seemed to him to be a natural thing, but why did the other party feel very ridiculous?
Strickland repeatedly emphasized himself and just wanted to draw.
A friend said: "If you are also a third-rate painter, after all, it is too late, will you still think that painting is worth giving up everything?" “
Strickland said, "You fool. I'm telling you I've got to draw. It doesn't matter in what position a person falls into the water, in what position he uses me, it doesn't matter if he swims well or badly, he has to struggle out, don't let himself drown is the big thing. ”
Yes, the people who came to persuade him are still measuring his behavior by secular, external social standards.
And Strickland has long transcended this level, he just knows clearly in his heart that his beliefs and feelings, what he wants to do is to paint.
In the face of one's own will and beliefs, all the influences of the outside world, the evaluation of others, and whether or not to obtain ultimate fame and fortune are not important.
In this book, he wantonly hurts others for the sake of his own inner pursuit.
But he understands the psychological strength of not caring about the evaluation of others when he awakens himself.
When a person is no longer afraid of misunderstanding, despising, disgust, and no longer seeking the praise of others, he can truly be free.
This is, the courage to be hated.
04 Conclusion
Man is born twice, once in the body and once in the self.
And only when a person realizes the true awakening of the self does he begin his own life.
Unfortunately, most of us, throughout our lives, try to meet external standards, and others recognize us, but do not find ourselves.
Sartre said: The other is hell.
If one's attention is always on the other, not on one's own heart, then suffering ensues and one's life is wasted.
And in this world, all social status, moral norms, people rush to compare, show off, praise and deny each other, all are other.
Someone once said, how can we not care about what others say? Is a truly mature mindset one that is not swayed by other people's opinions?
In fact, not caring about what others say is not our real purpose. It's just the external manifestation of having a clear and clear self.
And not the essence of the matter.
Just like a car driving in the wilderness, when it has no direction, it will inevitably follow the trajectory of others.
Blindly following, not knowing where the future is, not understanding what you want, once you think that you may be dumped by the team, you will be at a loss, fall into fear and pain.
At this time, it makes no sense to force yourself not to blindly follow others.
If you don't follow the trajectory in front of you, where else can you go? The heart will be more panicked.
The real way is to clearly understand yourself, and through continuous thinking and exploration, find a bright path for yourself.
Only by building a true and complete self will we have the courage to embark on the road.
At this time, the direction is clear and the future is bright, the trajectory of others can really not matter, and the evaluation of others does not matter.
People are truly free.
People will always encounter pain in their lives, this is the truth of life. But when you encounter pain and setbacks, can you carry it and come out as soon as possible?
Relying on self-anesthesia and self-comfort can only temporarily cover up the wound and escape reality.
Only by building a beacon on your own navigation and shining in your direction at all times, can you not lose your way and fall into the darkness of death even if you encounter stormy waves and miserable life.
And this lighthouse is a clear and solid self-knowledge in the soul.
The article was first published on the public account, read more good articles, welcome to follow: Sun Juan's study.