"I was born to be useful, and I will come back when my daughter is gone." Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, is the most prestigious poet in the history of the mainland, talented, casually reciting is a famous sentence through the ages, known as the "poet saint". But in Li Bai's view, his life was boring, and he did not realize his ambitions throughout his life, and passed away in regret. So why is Li Bai, who is unrestrained and chic in the eyes of people, like this?
Li Bai's poems have the artistic charm of "the pen falls into a storm, and the poem becomes a weeping ghost and god", and people say that he is an immortal who has been demoted to the mortal. But immortals are not eating the fireworks of the world, and they are arrogant, and Li Bai is naturally the same, and he is more proud and self-conscious. Li Bai, who has such a talent, does not just want to be a poet, but wants to be a politician who helps the world and the people. "Ranking above the court, sharing worries for our emperor, and being in the same dynasty with the three dukes" was his original vision, and it was also his final pain, because Li Bai spent his life pursuing this goal, but he couldn't ask for it.
The first step to achieving this goal is to become an official. But this step was as difficult as heaven for Li Bai, because he was not qualified to participate in the imperial examination. As for why you can't participate in the imperial examination, there are several theories in history, and there are two speculations that are closer to the facts. The first is that Li Bai was born in a merchant family, and the Tang Dynasty at that time did not allow the sons of merchants to participate in the imperial examination; the other is speculation about Li Bai's life experience, because there are very few records about Li Bai's parents in history, and they are full of mysterious figures. Therefore, it is said that Li Bai is the son of a clan who went to the people because of his ancestors' mistakes, and the scientific examination will investigate the identity of the students, and he does not dare to go to the exam, for fear of exposing his identity. No matter which way you put it, in short, Li Bai's way to get an official position through the exam is impassable.
However, at that time, in addition to the exam, there was also a way to be recommended, if an official valued Li Bai's talent, he could be recommended to be an official, so Li Bai began to submit poems everywhere, hoping that Bole would find him, but they all failed. During the journey of job hunting, Li Bai made many like-minded people and wrote more poems. Because of several failures, Li Bai also had the idea of living in seclusion in the mountains several times, but he couldn't match his ambition, and went out of the mountains again and again to seek opportunities. In the end, under the recommendation of Princess Yuzhen and He Zhizhang, Tang Xuanzong saw Li Bai's poem, praised it greatly, and gave him a position in Hanlin. Forty-two-year-old Li Bai finally got a chance.
Although it took a long time to complete the first step, after all, he had an official body and was still by the side of the Son of Heaven. So why did Li Bai still leave the scene lonely?
First of all, the timing of Li Bai's official was wrong, the Tang Dynasty at that time was already at the end of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, Tang Xuanzong had already lost his enthusiasm for court politics, in the emperor's heart, there was only the idea of whether this song was good or not, whether this dance was good or not, he was interested in Li Bai's poems, but Tang Xuanzong didn't care about Li Bai's other ideas.
The second is the character of Li Bai who was proud of his talent as mentioned earlier, during his time as an official, he could make Gao Lishi take off his boots, Yang Guifei danced, and even ignored Tang Xuanzong's summons. This is what a person in charge of an official should do, Li Bai's character offended many people, and later Tang Xuanzong was also estranged from him, so when Li Bai resigned, Tang Xuanzong did not keep him, so he let him leave.
In the end, does Li Bai really want to be an official? Does he know how to be an official? What Li Bai wants to do is only those famous figures in history, he only sees the brilliance of those figures, and ignores the judgment of the situation that a politician must have, and endures humiliation. In fact, Li Bai has no political talent, he is a natural poet, and all his talents are in poetry, but he doesn't admit it. Li Bai has been seeking officials all his life, in fact, he has also been a small official a long time ago, although the official position is not in the stream, but who said that only big officials can do things for the people, but in that experience, I have not heard of Li Bai has any hard work.
Let's talk about the official position of Hanlin given to Li Bai by Tang Xuanzong, which is a civilian job in itself, but Li Bai felt that it was different from what he thought, so he resigned and left, giving up the official position he had so hard to get. He didn't think about a different way and waited for the right time to realize his ambitions. And Li Bai's political vision is not good, it can be seen in the later involvement in the Yongwang rebellion case, Yongwang recruited Li Bai to his command, he couldn't be happy, he didn't analyze what kind of person Yongwang was, as a result, the people rebelled, and he also wrote poems to encourage him, and he was involved in the rebellion case in a daze, and was exiled to Yelang. So looking at Li Bai, he wants to be an official, but he doesn't understand officialdom at all.
Li Bai has been in exile and hardship for most of his life, and he is not only materially lacking, but also psychologically suffering that he has never encountered. Obviously, you can be a poet, love the landscape, and live a chic life, but you have to devote yourself to officialdom and do things that do not match your character. Li Bai has been fighting against himself all his life, he refuses to give up the obsession in his heart, no matter what the result is, he must go on firmly, he is a very persistent person! But I think it is this persistence that is worthy of his courage of "Dapeng rises with the wind one day and sways up to 90,000 miles"!
By taking people as a mirror, we can know the gains and losses, and by taking history as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall.