Why is this generation of young people feeling more pain than the previous generation?

Recently, a quote from Li Jian at the Taihuwan Music Festival was on the hot search, he said: "I hope that all people can live a simple and easy life, and they can live a good life without great effort." Especially those friends who have just graduated, it is better to experience less setbacks and tribulations, and it is better not to be setbacks and tribulations. ”

The reason why young people are moved when they hear this may be because in a relatively low era, life has never lacked setbacks and tribulations, coupled with the fact that they are always indoctrinated that "it is good to suffer more while they are young", and suddenly hearing "it is better not to suffer setbacks and tribulations", it is difficult to hold back and not cry.

I still remember that not long ago, Wu Bai asked fans at a concert in Zhengzhou: "You are only 25 years old, why did you come to listen to my songs, you were not born when I wrote these songs." ”

Yes, how can a 25-year-old feel that life is so painful? This question may not be understood by middle-aged people.

Recalling that when I just graduated from college ten years ago, as a young man with a monthly income of 3,000 in Beipiao, he was also positive and optimistic, at most occasionally suffering from love, and his perception of the "pain" of life was far less than that of today's young people.

Some people also attribute the problem to the fact that this generation of young people generally grew up in a family environment with sufficient material conditions and is a generation of only children, so it is inevitable that they cannot suffer and cannot bear responsibility.

But if you look deeper and understand young people, you will find that they begin to perceive pain and burnout prematurely, and there are deeper reasons beyond housing prices, classes, and equity imbalances; And behind the young people's unmarried and infertile life, it is not an escape imagined by the "people who come over".

On the contrary, they seem to love life more than any other generation of young people, understand the meaning of life better, and live exceptionally soberly and transparently in the face of this complicated world

The pain comes from early wisdom

Why do the post-90s and post-00s feel more pain than the post-70s and post-80s when they are younger?

In addition to the well-known macro factors such as the era, social environment, too high housing prices, and too few opportunities for ordinary people, there may be another important factor, that is, young people understand more and more things, and understand the truth such as the universe, the world, and society very early.

And a person who knows the truth is often more unhappy than a person who is deceived. As Dostoevsky said in "The Brothers Karamazov":

"Although the pastor fooled the masses, he also bore great suffering for humanity."

Now, many people have mentioned a point of view from the perspective of psychology and philosophy, called "the harder you work, the less happy you are." ”

Why do you try harder and become less happy? In fact, it is because the harder people work, the more they know, so that the closer they are to the truth, the farther away they are from fantasy.

The so-called fantasy can be understood as a kind of spiritual sustenance of people, and when it is falsified and destroyed by the truth little by little, people will become miserable.

Some people may also say, then if I don't work hard. In fact, effort is a survival instinct of man, and the ultimate purpose of human effort is essentially to fight death anxiety. For example: we are afraid of not working, because without work, we will not be able to eat enough and starve to death, unable to pay rent and have no place to live and freeze to death, which is essentially an anxiety about death; Why did the ancients tirelessly pursue immortality and write books? It is also an anxiety about death, wanting to "live" forever.

It's just that before the development of the Internet, the car and horse were very slow, the letters were far away, and people saw these truths, and they needed to slowly explore them through a lot of reading and life experience accumulation, which had a huge cost of time and money.

In the past, material things were relatively scarce, so those who could eventually understand were very few, and they had to wait until a certain age to become enlightened.

So Confucius said: "Forty is not confused, fifty is the destiny of heaven." ”

Now, the information of the Internet is too developed, want to understand the core point of a book, the operation logic of a thing, a period of historical development, open the phone, find a few articles, watch a few questions and answers, flip through a few videos to understand the approximate, and this process requires less time and money than in the past.

Especially for those young people who have received higher education and live in cities, they have both the ability to learn and the ability to screen information, and it can be said that they comprehend very quickly, and when they see the "truth", it is difficult for them to immerse themselves in a kind of foolish happiness

Therefore, a very important part of the reason for the pain of young people now comes from "early wisdom", which should have been "forty not confused", but now it is "not confused" when it is less than thirty, but when people are young, they have not yet been blunted, so the feedback in the face of this pain is naturally much more sensitive than that of middle-aged people

Lying flat is wisdom

It is precisely because of a deeper understanding and understanding of the world that some young people have also begun to re-examine their lives and find that in this era, it may not be suitable to continue to use "brute force".

So the result that society sees is that some young people choose to "lie flat", and many people feel that there must be a problem with this person or society.

I remember that when teacher Yu Hua was asked in an interview how he thought of the "Buddhist" state of young people, he replied: "Times have changed, when I was young, to be honest, as long as you work hard, as long as you always be motivated, basically most people can get rewarded, but now it's not like that." ”

When Mr. Yu Hua was young, it was in the eighties and nineties of the last century, when we were in a period of rapid economic development and ruins, the society at this time was vibrant, everywhere was wind, everywhere was opportunities, whether you were a college student or not, as long as you are willing to work hard, there is a possibility of success.

But now the times are different, and the set of problem-solving ideas in the past is probably not feasible in today's era.

The current relaxed state of young people is like the "mastery" advocated in Zhuangzi's thought - to be a layman and live well

As a thinker, Zhuangzi was different from other sons and hundreds of families, he did not think about traversing the world, admiring the appearance of the six kingdoms, and stabilizing the world, nor did he think about loving people and saving all people from fire and water, but thinking about how to live well.

Zhuangzi lived in the middle of the Warring States period, which was a turbulent and war-torn period in Chinese history, and the people's life was very difficult, not to mention life, maybe even survival was a problem.

Therefore, in his opinion, it is most important that people can live freely. What princes and generals, glory and wealth, but a floating cloud, far less free than swimming around with their tails dragged in the mud.

We are now living in a very peaceful era, both in material conditions and entertainment living standards have reached an unprecedented height, but it is undeniable that the dividends of the era of opening up for forty years are slowly exhausting, and ordinary people have much less opportunity to rise

The vast majority of young people grew up under the influence of Confucius's Confucianism, and they must be proactive, take the imperial examination, and then go to high school in one fell swoop, and then realize "the rule of the Qi state and the family";

But when they enter society, they find that the roll is endless, and if they continue to "roll" according to Confucian thought, life is too bitter.

Since Su Xian also said, sending mayflies to heaven and earth, a drop in the sea. It is better to learn Zhuangzi to "lie flat", go home and dream of butterflies, and wake up with a good road in all directions.

Moreover, our country has developed to this day, even if you are an ordinary person, you can live well

Thinking about it, isn't this the life that many scholars in ancient and modern China and abroad yearn for? Thoreau said in "Walden": It is very peaceful to live with the flow, and you should not bear the stigma of laziness.

The law of biological evolution in nature is also natural selection, survival of the fittest, not survival of the strong

And in the "Library of Babel" there is also this sentence: "Excessive hope naturally produces extreme disappointment." ”

Therefore, young people choose Zhuangzi's thoughts to face life and make themselves comfortable, which is actually a good state, which is also a kind of accessible wisdom.

Infertility is self-examination

Often see comments such as "he really understands marriage", "she was born to be a mother", "this kind of person does not deserve children" in the comment area of social media, in fact, it is not difficult to see that in the hearts of young people, whether it is marriage or having children, there is a threshold, and not everyone is qualified to enter such a role.

Professor Liang Yongan of Fudan University also said that one-third of people are not suitable for marriage

This may sound a bit absurd at first, because in everyone's mind, there is no suitability for marriage, only the unsuitability of the marriage partner.

But if you think about it, you will find that Professor Liang is right, because in reality, many people lack the ability to manage love and marriage, and such an ability cannot be established unilaterally in a relationship

Now many young people are also aware of this, so they would rather endure loneliness than forcibly pull another person into their own lives

Professor Liang Yongan also said: "The post-90s and post-00s generations are the most unsuitable generation for marriage, because this generation lacks a certain consensus spirit and cognition, so it is more suitable for living freely and alone." ”

Since this is the commonality of an entire generation, and people cannot exist independently of the era, the problem of the so-called "generation" may often be the problem of the "era" itself.

It's just that in this high-speed modern society, the public is impetuous and indifferent in the face of emotional life, we seem to really deeply realize that "the essence of people-to-people communication is the exchange of interests," so everyone has no patience, feelings are also according to education, appearance, household registration, income, social status in the matching exchange, no one disdains to operate a real intimate relationship, unwilling to pay sincerely, everything has to look at the return, for fear that they will lose, despise "licking dogs" and "love brain".

Therefore, under the video of Professor Liang Yongan's love class, many netizens commented that they were the "post-90s generation who is not suitable for marriage".

In fact, each of us longs for love as much as we desire sunshine.

But the reason why this generation of young people chose not to marry and have no children is to understand their own powerlessness and forgive the superficiality of this era; It is an examination of one's own life and a responsibility for the lives of others.

And when he judges that he has the corresponding ability and conditions, he will naturally enter into marriage and nurture the next generation.

After all, love is instinct, and continuing genes is also a human instinct

While suffering, while loving

When faced with the problem of life, this generation of young people is soberly painful and deeply in love at the same time.

Because I recognized the world earlier, and knew that in the long river of history, it has never been easy for ordinary people to maintain a decent life at any time in the past, and those small victories in life should be celebrated; Understand that "between the world and the earth, like a white horse passing through the gap, suddenly it is over", we should strive to live to the fullest.

As a result, the joy in their lives no longer copies the social standard of happiness, and they are obsessed with achieving a grand goal and life value.

Instead, to perceive the small luck hidden in the crevices of daily life, such as the stray cat on the way home at night, a concert after work on Friday, a family dinner with friends during the holidays, a blaze of incense in the temple on the fifteenth day of the first year...

If you were to ask young people, what does the future look like this?

I think of the story of the British writer Woolf's book "To the Lighthouse", which tells the story of Professor Ramsay's family and several close friends "going to the lighthouse".

In the story, "going to the lighthouse" is not a big deal, but people's plans are always stranded again and again in accidents. And everyone has struggled with great regret, called for help, and even sunk and destroyed. But the small boat of life finally managed to break out of the rapids and reach the lighthouse safely.

Therefore, as long as the light on the lighthouse in the heart does not go out, then the road of life is always bright.

Perhaps this generation of young people is really practicing Milan Kundera's understanding of life:

"Pointless, my friend, this is the essence of survival.

It is everywhere and forever inseparable from us. This often requires the courage to recognize it and call it by its first name under tragic conditions.

But we should not only recognize it, but also love it. ”