Text: Zhu Guangqian
I have two ways of looking at life.
In the first method, I put myself in the foreground, playing tricks with all the people and things in the world;
In the second approach, I put myself in the background, standing by and watching others pretend.
When I stood at the front desk, I saw myself like others, not only like others, but also like birds, animals, insects and fish. Human beings suffer more than other species because they value themselves more than others.
Some people in humanity suffer more than the rest of the human race because this part of the human race values themselves more than the rest of the people.
For example, how simple it is to dress and eat, but in this world it has become an extremely important problem, because some people have to lose money to enrich themselves.
For example, life and death, how simple this is, countless people and countless things have been born and died. A small worm crushes the wheel, or a flower blows off the wind, in the worm and the flower themselves are by no means worth thinking or nostalgia, and after human beings are born, old, sick, and dead, a bitter word must be added.
This is simply because people want the Creator to treat themselves more favorably than the grass and wood worm fish.
For this reason, I see myself as the nephew of the grass and wood worm fish, which live like that in the wind and nectar, and still live like that in the hot summer and cold winter. From the life of grass and wood insects fish, I feel an experience.
I don't seek ways to live outside of life, I don't seek purpose outside of life.
There is one less me in the world, one more me, or I am sometimes lucky, sometimes I am persecuted by calamities, and I think that this does not hurt the sum of heaven and earth. If you ask me, how should people live? I said, just live according to the nature given by nature, like grass, wood, insects and fish.
If you ask me, what do people live in this fickle world? I say that life is for life, and there is no other purpose.
If you complain to me about Tiangong, how distressing life is! I said that people are not born into this world to be happy, so that's not surprising.
The above is my attitude towards life from the front desk. But I usually enjoy standing in the background and watching life. Many people see life as only good and evil, so their attitude is either nostalgia or disgust.
When I stand in the background, I look at people and things equally, I look at Xi Shi, my mother-in-law, Qin Juniper, Yue Fei the same as I watch starlings, parrots, licorice, and huanglian, I watch craftsmen building houses the same as I watch birds nesting and ants making holes, I watch war the same as I watch cockfighting, and I watch love the same as I watch male dragonflies chasing female dragonflies.
Therefore, right and wrong mean nothing to me, I only find it interesting to look at these troubled people and things, like looking at pictures, like reading novels.
I sometimes see the comedy of life, and I also watch the tragedy of life.
Tragedy in particular thrills me. Many people are pessimistic and tired of the world because of the tragedy of life, but I think that life is valuable precisely because it has tragedy.
The world we live in is the most perfect because it is the least perfect.
If the world were perfect, the life of mankind would be a life of the gods, for the better; At worst, it's the life of a pig—it's dull and monotonous, because if everything is perfect, there is no hope of happening, let alone the need to work hard.
The most enjoyable thing in life is the feeling generated by activities, that is, the happiness obtained by striving for success. The world is perfect, how can we taste the thrill of creating success? The reason why this world is happy is that there are flaws, there are opportunities for hope, there are fields of imagination. In other words, the world is flawed, and the possibilities are great.
Tragedy is also a defect in life. It is like a great wave, making people see solemnity in the ordinary and brilliance in the dark.
If Jing Ke really stabbed Qin Shi Huang, and Lin Daiyu really married Jia Baoyu, it would just end up ordinary, how could it be said that people in a thousand years later would be amazed?
Life originally has to have tragedy to be considered life, you want to write it off, not to say that you can't write it off, or write it off, life is even more boring.
Therefore, whether I stand in the foreground or stand in the background, I look at failure, sin, and blame with a cold eye, and I praise it with a warm heart.