"The career line is high and low, and the values are blurred", where is Su Dongpo talking about, and it is the inner state of most of us.
In the past two days, there has been a survey report, saying that more than half of college students believe that they will earn an annual salary of one million in 10 years. Of course there will be, but most of them are also destined to become Su Dongpo who drives high and goes low.
Especially for people like me who are middle-aged, when they were young, they "changed mankind and contributed to the world", how many people are slipping away more and more, and now the biggest ideal is not to work overtime on National Day.
It's the same with when we have children, when I first give birth, I have to train well, what kind of genius I have to be. When it came to junior high school, it was good that the teacher didn't call the parents this week.
The loss of meaning and the frustration that leads to our lives are with us all this life. Our generation is not like the ancient Chinese in the traditional agrarian society, the older I get, the more knowledgeable, the higher the social status, and now the older I get, the more slippery I have, and Su Dongpo encountered the same problem.
To add insult to injury, we are living in an era of unstable values.
Traditional societies often have a big narrative, the big meaning is that I have parents, children and grandchildren, the wind and rain are smooth, the grains are abundant, I want a city hukou, I want to buy a house, and so on, can support a person to go far forward.
In the future, China just crossed the threshold of $10,000 per capita GDP last year, and if our generation goes well, we will enter an era of separate search for meaning. There will be relatively few apparent systems of meaning that everyone can agree on.
This is a particularly alarming thing for a person who has reached middle age: the deeper you go into life, the greater the danger that the meaning system will collapse.
It's not just a middle-aged annoyance. Taking it a step further, it's everyone's problem.
The poet Eliot had a quote in the 30s of the last century: "The system is so perfect that no one needs to strive to be a better person." ”
Think about our system today. If you want to have any good life, there will be a bunch of people standing up next to you saying, as long as you pay, I can provide a system solution. If you want to eat well, there is takeout, you don't have to make it yourself. If you want to have a nice place to live and a mansion, you don't have to do it yourself. If you want to live in the countryside, watch Li Ziqi's video, it's almost enjoyable. Think poetry and faraway places, there are Maldives and suburban B&Bs. If you want to fantasize, bring VR glasses. If you want to fight in blood, the glory of kings and the elite of peace, please pick one?
You see, it's not that young people are unproductive, it's that they live in an era of "virtue outsourcing". If you outsource, there will be no effort, and if you don't make effort, there will be no point.
Even for such a thing as love, there are now so many blind date services. Isn't there a saying? It is said that the blind date service market is very weird: "A group of men who can't handle anyone want to meet women who can't handle anyone." "Outsourcing is there, but the effort becomes awkward.
Therefore, the collapse of the system of meaning is a risk that our generation as a whole is facing. That's the benefit of reading. Let's go back to Su Dongpo.
Su Dongpo's life is like a mirror, demonstrating for us a life with great risk of meaning collapse. Do you still remember the two major bugs in his life that we just talked about? So how did Su Dongpo solve this problem?
When I read this book, in fact, the biggest shock was that I suddenly saw the two big passwords of Su Dongpo's life.
In the past, we always talked about his expansive side, but in fact, Su Dongpo had a rare affection.
Do you still remember the song "Jiang Chengzi"?
Ten years of life and death, without thinking, unforgettable. Thousands of miles of lonely graves, nowhere to talk about desolation. Even if you don't know each other, your face is dusty, and your temples are like frost. At night, I suddenly returned to my hometown, and I was dressing up in the small window. There are no words for each other, only a thousand tears. It is expected that the intestines will be broken every year, the bright moon night, and the short Matsuoka.
I myself also like a mourning poem by Pu Songling very much: "If you want to call the people in the tomb, Ban Jing complains about grievances; "With such an affectionate person, the meaning of life will not collapse.
If you look at Su Shi's life, you say that he has no principles, but in fact, his attention is focused on the people in front of him and the things around him.
"People are not ashamed of the old hairpins, and the flowers should be ashamed of the old man's head. Drunk people should laugh, and the ten-mile bead curtain is half hooked. ”
I don't care if I say that I, an old man, unconsciously pinched a flower on the side of the road and put it on my head, but I think the flower will be a little shy. I just walked away, I was still drinking, and when I got drunk, someone helped me. Someone on the road saw me laughing and said that Su Dongpo was drunk and still wearing flowers on his head. As a result, the people on the road ten miles ahead rolled up the bead curtains and ran out to see my appearance.
Such a poem, wow, what a beautiful picture of the world. An old man, the delicacy of his heart, the ability to sense. He can sense the flower, he can also sense the mood of the flower, his drunken state can be seen in the eyes of others, he can also sense the feelings of others, and even the reaction of people ten miles away, he can also sense it, this is Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo's ability to connect with people, the local area, and the neighborhood is amazing, and he can do this everywhere.
You see, this is the general perspective of Su Shi's poetry. I'm here, I'm on earth, I start from caring for the close, I go all the way forward, and then I see all the people along the way.
When you get to one place, you merge there. Su Dongpo is on Hainan Island, lives in a mud house, and gets along well with the local Li people. Writing poems, those locals can't understand it, so they cook, dig wells, heal diseases, and give lectures. He said: "Who did the public opinion in his year, Hainan Wanli Zhenwu Township." ”
Before Hainan had Su Dongpo, there had never been a Jinshi. After Su Dongpo went, Hainan Island produced 12 jinshi in the Song generation. The first Jinshi was a student taught by Su Dongpo in the local area. It's really good, it's really good for the locals.
In ancient China, there was such a degrading culture. The most brilliant thing about derogatory culture is not that you write a few crooked poems, why are you bullying me again, no. The most splendid place of degraded culture is when a person goes to such a poor country and lights up that place. The relationship between Han Yu and Chaozhou, the relationship between Liu Zongyuan and Liuzhou, is all like this. The same is true of the relationship between Su Dongpo and Hainan. Because of Su Dongpo's trip, this place was ignited.
After he left Hainan, someone asked him, "How is Hainan?" He said, "The climate is extremely good, and the people are not evil." Ask yourself, can a Russian intellectual, after being exiled in Siberia, finally return to Moscow say this?
When we are looking for meaning, we tend to aim high. Look down on where you are now. But you find that Su Dongpo is different, he has the ability to integrate with wherever he goes, and use the spirit of "mouse eyes" to find meaning. He has a poem in the last stage of his life, which is almost a masterpiece poem: the heart is like a gray wood, and the body is like an untied boat. Ask Ru Ping's life achievements, Huangzhou, Huizhou, Danzhou.
In the past, I read the poem and saw it as a whin. But when I read it again this time, the meaning is completely different. The people around us, the people near us, are the best carriers for us to settle our hearts and meanings.
Anthropologist Xiang Biao once said, "Meaning must emerge in one's own dealings with others." ”
The meaning of human life is not like our generation thinking about some distant things, not poetry and distant places, but people in near places.
Yan Shu's sentence is quite appropriate: The mountains and rivers are full of empty thoughts, and the falling flowers and wind and rain hurt the spring even more, so it is better to take pity on the people in front of you.