This article is from: Cao Erzai, the original title of the article: "Where is the meaning of life - the thoughts of a migrant worker in the system", the title picture comes from: Visual China
What is the meaning of life? When I write these words, my heart is full of powerlessness and lack of confidence. This proposition is so big that I don't think I can think it clearly, and it will most likely be difficult to figure it out completely for the rest of my life. But it has been bothering me for 4 years, I used to be anxious, hesitant, insomnia, depressed, unable to find the direction of life, countless times I woke up in the middle of the night, palpitations.
Now, after several years of repeated friction and ravages between reality and spirit, I finally saw a glimmer of light in the cracks of my life, and seemed to have found an exit out of this abyss of thought, and I decided to summon up the courage to write it down. Why do you say courage?
Because like most of you, I usually think more and do less, my life is full of inertia, and I usually think that I am quite powerful, but to really put my ideas into practice, for me, it is as difficult as getting you to quit your mobile phone, and it takes a lot of courage. In addition, I am a pure science and engineering man, many of the views in the article are derived from their own thinking, lack of scientific research, purely personal opinions, not guaranteed to be completely correct (this question itself is not absolutely correct), in the eyes of experts, it is inevitable that it will be a class axe, please bear with me, do not like it.
For the sake of understanding, let's introduce myself. I was born around 90 years ago in a poor village in a poor county in a poor city in the north, the whole village of men, women and children combined is less than 100 people, I am the first key undergraduate 985 master's student in the village nearly 100 years since the establishment of the village, a proper town to do the problem. Now working in a first-tier city system, a small leader at the grassroots level, with an annual salary of 40W+, is considered to be well-off.
The first time I fell into deep thinking about the meaning of life was when I was 32 years old. At that time, my work was not going well, my family was constantly conflicting, my body was suffering from severe allergies, and one night I suddenly woke up, and I suddenly felt that time was passing quickly, I was aging all the time, and I seemed to have achieved nothing.
Since then, I have always felt a deep sense of depression and constraints, feeling that the current life is not what I want, that life is so short, I am not willing to spend it like this, but I don't have the courage to break free, or I don't have a clear understanding of the life I want. I began to think, why do people live, and how should I spend this life?
Having received nearly 20 years of science and engineering education, I naturally thought that these problems would have a definite general solution, just like solving differential equations. Or at least there will be a clear answer to the current era, telling me what is right, but in fact it is not. For Chinese, the mainstream way of life seems to be to strive to get promoted and make a fortune, of course, you can also put it another way - serve the people and realize personal value.
But why should I be promoted and make a fortune? What is personal value? No one seems to be able to give a reasonable explanation. The key is that many people are rolling up in life and death under such a track, and they don't seem to experience happiness, and they don't feel infinite regret until the moment of death. We seem to have been instilled with the concept of being a human being since we were young, but in fact, we don't really understand why, we just think that this life is the right thing.
But this kind of life doesn't make me happy, at least for now, I don't feel satisfied if I spend my life like this. But when I stopped and plucked up the courage to think about another way of life, I realized that no philosopher had ever given a standard answer to this question. Not only now, but also 5,000 years back, no. Not only no, but history is full of various points of view, some of which are even completely opposed to each other.
This discovery made me, a straight man in science and engineering, suddenly at a loss, it turned out that I had been walking the road of standard answers for the first 30 years of my life, and once I found that there was no standard answer, I didn't know how to go. Loneliness, confusion, and panic overwhelmed me for a moment, what is the meaning of life, and how should I choose?
1. What is a human being?
In order to understand the meaning of life, we must first understand what human beings are. Or rather, what is the essence of our existence? A cow, a horse, an ant, we probably know the meaning of its existence, because their meaning is given by us.
But we can never know the original nature of human existence, because human beings have not yet been able to break through the limitations of the species itself on intelligence. At present, we can only describe the characteristics of the phenomenon closest to the essence, that is, "man is a living organism with both natural and social attributes".
In this sense, man is still an animal, and the vast majority of people are driven by the natural attributes of animals, that is, instincts, throughout their lives. For animals, the meaning of life is nothing more than survival and reproduction. When there is no food and water, they migrate, fight, fight for the chance to survive, and after eating and drinking, they are stimulated by hormones to estrus, mate, reproduce, and finally die. The ultimate goal of their life's activities is nothing more than passing on their genes, which is the basic way for organisms to fight death.
The same is true of people, people learn, work, and forge ahead to the higher levels of society, and even do not hesitate to drill to the detriment of others, because they have mastered more social resources to obtain more mating rights, resist more environmental risks, and even hope that future generations will be able to avoid risks and enjoy eternal wealth in the shadow of their own grace, all in order to better pass on their genes in order to fight against death. In fact, not only animals, but also plants, which seems to be the behavioral paradigm engraved in the genes of every living organism.
But people are different, and people also have social attributes. The most direct example is that animals don't kill themselves, while people do. Human suicidal behavior is by no means given by nature, but comes from the influence of acquired society. In the long process of historical development, mankind has established a glorious civilization. For example, political system, culture and art, natural science, social organization model, etc., these are all social attributes of human beings.
But if we think about it, how did these civilizations come to be, or why did we build them? In general, it can be summed up in four words -- demand-oriented. Here we will first throw out the following viewpoint: The social attributes of human beings essentially serve the natural attributes, and the social attributes are just one of the manifestations of the civilization of the natural attributes.
Human civilization began with the use and creation of tools, but the social organization of human beings preceded the use of tools. It seems that as long as they live in groups, there will be social organizations and division of labor, such as wolves, wildebeests, and even ants. This primitive group organization and division of labor, engraved in the genes of social animals, is the best way to ensure the genetic continuity of social animals after a long struggle with the natural environment, which is particularly important for understanding human behavior.
This organizational model has its positive side, that is, it can maximize the efficiency of this group, and those who are good at command can be leaders, those who are good at fighting to be warriors, and those who are good at reproduction are reproductive, which is equivalent to the most primitive professional division of labor.
But there is also a negative side, that is, those who are not good at fighting and have no leadership skills can often only be eliminated or even die, which is the cruel side of the primitive division of labor. However, with the continuous advancement and development of the historical process, human beings have learned to use tools, and the rapid increase in productivity has led to the explosive growth of the population. Driven by the primitive of genetic continuity, a group must do two things well:
The first is to do a good job in the organization and optimization of productive forces, so as to obtain more production benefits and feed more people, and natural science comes from this. The second is to do a good job in the distribution of production income, otherwise it is easy to cause group chaos and eventually disappear.
At this time, the primitive mode of organization and division of labor was no longer sufficient to meet the requirements, so people established a more complex mode of social organization on this basis, that is, the political system. From the initial monarchical dictatorship to the later collective leadership system, including the multi-party system and the one-party system, as well as the concept of right and wrong, morality, and law derived from it, they are all just the products of the continuous optimization of the division of labor in social organizations.
The above discussion of the political system and the original driving force of the natural sciences, but the social attributes of human beings include not only the political system, but also many other contents. If the emergence of the political system can promote the development of the productive forces, and then make human beings better resist death, then the absence of culture and art will not affect the progress of the productive forces in the slightest, nor will it affect the transmission of genes, then why do we still want to create art? This does not seem to conform to the law that human social attributes serve natural attributes, in fact, many philosophers in history have thought about the causes of art.
The first is the doctrine of imitation: Democritus believed that art is an imitation of nature, and he said that from spiders we learned to weave and sew, from swallows to build houses, and from singing birds such as swans and warblers to sing. Aristotle further believed that imitation is human instinct, and he pointed out that all literature and art are imitations, with only three differences, that is, the medium used for imitation, the objects taken differently, and the methods used.
These statements affirm that art comes from objective natural and social realities, contains a naïve materialist viewpoint, and has a progressive and rational content, but this statement only touches the surface of things, but does not reveal the essence of things. This argument also attributes imitation to human nature, and fails to find the creative intention behind imitation, so it fails to explain the fundamental reason for the emergence of art.
The second is the theory of games: the 18th-century German philosopher Schiller and the 19th-century British philosopher Spencer proposed that artistic activities or aesthetic activities originate from the game instinct of human beings, which is manifested in two aspects, on the one hand, because human beings have excess energy, and on the other hand, people apply this excess energy to activities that have no practical utility and no utilitarian purpose, which is embodied as a kind of free game.
This statement affirms that only when people are not forced by life, that is, only when they meet the basic material needs of food, clothing, shelter and transportation, can they have excess energy to engage in games, that is, artistic activities and aesthetic activities. However, the theory that art originated from games is only from the perspective of biology or psychology and is divorced from human social practice, so it still cannot uncover the true mystery of the birth of art.
The third is the theory of "expression": its main theoretical basis is to emphasize that art should express itself. The core of Croce's aesthetic thought is "intuition is expression", Croce believes that the essence of art is intuition, the source of intuition is emotion, intuition is performance, so art is the expression of emotion in the final analysis.
The famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy believed that art originated from the need to convey feelings. He said that in order to convey the feelings he has experienced to others, a person reawakens these feelings in his heart and expresses them with some kind of external sign, which is the origin of art.
In addition, there is also the theory of "witchcraft", which believes that art originated from witchcraft, represented by the famous British anthropologist Edward Taylor, the famous American aesthete Thomas Monroe, and the Finnish art historian Hillne;
However, the author believes that all the above-mentioned thoughts of the so-called sages on art are pure nonsense! After talking for a long time, I have not explained where art comes from.
Since ancient times, there have been three immortals of traditional scholars in China - virtue, meritorious service, and speech. The earliest originated from "Zuo Biography": "There is virtue in the Tai, followed by meritorious service, followed by speech, although it has not been abandoned for a long time, this is called immortal." "Art is no different from literature, or literature is a part of art, and the essence of art is still derived from the primitive drive of gene transmission.
It's just that this gene is not the so-called gene in biology, but similar to Lao Tzu's "life expectancy of those who die without dying", which is a kind of spiritual transmission and continuation, and another way for human beings to fight death. The reason why all these saints, including Confucius, Hegel, Wang Yangming, etc., wrote books and preached and taught was ostensibly to solve the difficulties of the current situation, or to establish a heart for heaven and earth and a life for the people, but in essence, it was to perpetuate the genes of individuals or ethnic groups to fight against the needs of death.
Seeing this, some people feel that the above discussion is too pessimistic and negative, attributing all human activities to the primitive drive of gene transmission, and the natural and social attributes of human beings, and even literature and art are all ways to fight against death, or that people live to fight against death. If we say that, can we still call ourselves human beings, or are we still human beings in the popular sense? If we are just a driven tool person with no ego at all, isn't life a nothingness? Is there a way for us to find ourselves, or to get rid of the primitive drive to "fight against death"?
2. The Reflections of the Sages
Life is meaningless, and the essence of our existence is to fight against death, consciously or unconsciously, which is a sad discovery. Countless philosophers throughout history have speculated from different angles and at different levels, and have given their own solutions to find the meaning of life, and thus fight against this nihilism.
The most direct answer given by the Danish philosopher Kolkegard is to deny that the world is rational, that is, there is no phenomenal world and essential world in the world, and there is no universal truth. Men or all living beings like the one mentioned above exist to fight death, and Kolkegaard does not admit it. He believes that each of us is a lonely individual, so the so-called truth is only subjective truth. In Kolkegaard's view, to find the meaning of life, you need to have faith, and this belief is also irrational and unreasonable, and he opposes the kind of faith based on rational trade-offs, which are all false beliefs, but to face faith and jump into it.
Unlike Kolkegaard, the German philosopher Schopenhauer, after reading Schopenhauer's worldview, the author was surprised to find that his understanding of the world was almost completely consistent with the author, and this discovery made me almost cry with excitement. Schopenhauer believed that the world is nothing, because people are driven by desire, and the source of this desire is the will to live, which coincides with the author's belief that the fight against death.
So what is Schopenhauer's method of getting rid of nihilism? There are two main aspects, one is abstinence, and the other is aesthetics. To be honest, seeing these two prescriptions of Schopenhauer, the author was quite disappointed, I thought I could find the answer from this sage, but I didn't expect the answer he gave to be so weak and pale.
First of all, abstinence, abstinence is actually a rejection of genetic continuity, as a way to counter the original drive to "fight death", which is actually no different from suicide in essence, abstinence is nothing more than a delayed version of suicide. But Schopenhauer did not approve of suicide, believing that suicide was a surrender to the primitive drive to "fight death", and that if we committed suicide, we would lose. But he didn't understand it, so what about abstinence? Maybe he had figured it out, but he didn't have the courage to admit it.
Speaking of aesthetics, he believes that when aesthetics are applied to works of art, people will temporarily forget themselves, so that people can achieve a state of detachment and inner peace. However, according to the author's point of view, the essence of art is to seek emotional identity and emotional transmission, and in essence, to seek a spiritual continuity, which is no different from genetic transmission, and the driving force is still the "death confrontation".
Let's take a look at Nietzsche, who was originally a fan of Schopenhauer, but later parted ways because of different philosophical ideas. First of all, Nietzsche does not think that life is nihilistic, but his denial of nihilism is not based on the perspective of rational analysis, he feels that the reason why people fall into nihilism is because human beings always fantasize about a world on the other side, and all human behavior and activities in the current world are temporary and illusory, and all the merits and demerits can only be determined when they reach the other world, and the other world is the real world.
Nietzsche denied this statement, he felt that there was no other world, so man was not nothing. And, in order to combat this nihilism, he believes that human beings should unleash their life force, bloom themselves to the fullest, live themselves as superhumans, and control their own life in this life. Obviously, Nietzsche's view of nihilism is not the same thing as the nihilism discussed in this article, and he does not essentially deal with the primitive drive of nothingness, which is used here as a reference.
There was also a French philosopher named Sartre. First of all, Sartre acknowledged that human existence is nothing, but people do not need to overcome this nothingness, because this is the fundamental survival situation of human beings, and we must constantly act to actively shape the possibility of our lives.
After looking around again, the author found that in the face of the meaning of life, these great philosophers could not give logical and self-consistent standard answers, and their thinking could only be stopped at a certain corner, or avoid the main contradictions, and the answers given seemed to be strong, but in fact they were stubborn, and behind the stubbornness was a full sense of powerlessness.
Moreover, philosophers may not have discovered it themselves, that their fight against nihilism is itself nihilistic. Why do you say that, because falling into nihilism is negative for human beings, not conducive to the transmission of ethnic genes, that is, not resisting death, so philosophers want to fight nihilism, fundamentally to fight against death, and human beings who fight against death are passive and nihilistic.
Such a conclusion makes people feel hopeless, there seems to be a high-dimensional being, at the very beginning of the creation of life, in the genes of the living organism set a fundamental command, all the behavior of disobeying this instruction, in the end, will return to this instruction, all the struggles made by human beings, can not jump out of the norm of this fundamental command. For hundreds of thousands of years, this high-dimensional creature has been quietly watching human beings, like a machine, living and dying along this behavioral paradigm in a daze, obediently, and may occasionally jump up to a few old men who claim to be smart, scratch their ears and cheeks and think for a while, and finally sigh and join the army of human beings advancing in a daze.
So, life has no meaning. So what am I going to do? How am I going to live this life if I fully conform to the original drive of "death resistance"? Is this really what I want?
3. Conform to the primitive driven life
If you completely give up your self and conform to the primitive drive, or according to the definition of "success" in our mainstream value evaluation system, then your life will most likely be spent like this: first, strive to earn the most money and build a more solid material foundation, second, strive to forge ahead to the top of the society and master more social resources, and third, try to mate with different people as much as possible and have many, many children.
Specific to the operational level of real life, in order to achieve the above three points, it is necessary to master two skills, one is to do things, and the other is to be a person. The better these two things are done, the more "successful" they will be. There is nothing new in this, it is all a cliché, but the author still has some experience that I want to state.
First of all, about doing things, doing things can directly affect the development of the productive forces, and to put it bluntly, it is necessary to master a skill that contributes to the continuation of this ethnic group. This was a very high threshold 50 years ago, because at that time the cost of information transmission was very high, the more scarce the skill, the higher the cost of transmission, and the opportunity to obtain information often requires the right time and place, and only a very small number of lucky people have the opportunity, so mastering a skill at that time is enough for you to "succeed", and the more scarce the skill, the more "successful" you are.
But now with the advent of the era of information explosion, the cost of information transmission is getting lower and lower, and the value of skills is getting lower and lower, if you want to rely on skills to open up the gap with others, people need to pay far more effort than 50 years ago, not that you can't create value, but you create more value than others The difficulty has become greater, because the base of participation in the involution has become larger, so the society has progressed, but people are more tired, and they can't find a sense of happiness in the "blessing" of 996 and 007 every day.
To be a human being is to deal with interpersonal relationships, and to put it bluntly, to make the people around you accept you and like you. This thing does not directly affect the productive forces, but it is particularly open in the top-down social system, and for some people with average levels of work, this is almost the only magic weapon for their upward progress. Many people who have the ability to do things are disdainful of people who are good at being people, but in fact, it is not easy to think about being a good person.
There are many ways to handle interpersonal relationships well, but in China, it takes a lot of time, energy, and even dignity to get along.
Having said that, most of us can only focus on one side in both doing things and being people, and we can only do so-so. People who can really take these two points into account and give full play to them can basically compete to a higher level in this group. This kind of life is like raising Gu, an ethnic group is like a laboratory, and the living bodies in it are like raising Gu worms, constantly breaking through in the involution, so that people who can better adapt to this value evaluation system will be kings. Then, we should formulate subdivision rules that are more suitable for this value evaluation system, so as to continuously improve, consolidate and optimize this gene transmission model.
Some people say, can I escape from this race? Can I jump out of this mainstream value evaluation system? I can only say that what you can think of, high-dimensional beings have already thought of it, and in addition to the fundamental instruction of "death resistance", high-dimensional beings also derive another instruction on this basis, that is, the insecurity of acting alone. An individual, whether actively or passively leaving the social organization, instinctively develops feelings of anxiety and insecurity.
In the current system where I live, for example, people say that there is a stable job in the system, and there is no need to worry about losing a job. But what you don't know is that there is a punishment within the system that is more painful for you than layoffs, and that is being marginalized. In the system, if a person is marginalized, it is undoubtedly judged that the person is a failure, and this judgment will make people feel insecure about being abandoned by the group, and the deeper you participate in the mainstream value evaluation system, the more serious this insecurity will be, which is an instinct.
It seems that all roads are blocked, and this is the principle that the high-dimensional creature has given us death, the original drive of "death confrontation". In this sense, the more populous the ethnic group, the better the ethnic group that conforms to the primitive drive, and the most self-conscious tool human group, such as the Confucian cultural circle, is far ahead in terms of "being a man, being promoted, making a fortune, and reproducing".
However, this principle, which is beneficial to the whole ethnic group, is extremely difficult for individual individuals, and the process is even painful. And because the primitive drive always exists, human desires are almost unlimited, and our lives will be limited to constant pursuit and involution, which is hard for the vast majority of people.
It's that you don't even know why you need to participate in the involution, but under this primitive drive, you have to take the initiative to participate, otherwise in the mainstream evaluation system derived from the primitive drive, you will be a loser and a loser. The Sutra of Amitayus says that people are born to suffer, and the Bible says that everyone is born with original sin, and the process of life is the process of atonement. Therefore, suffering seems to be an inescapable spell for every Gu worm.
However, can I ask: Why was I born to suffer? Why was I born to atone for my sins? This life is so short, I don't want to be just a tool man, and I don't want to feel that this life is not worth living until the moment I die!
Fourth, how to get rid of the original drive
The French writer Romain Rolland said that there is only one kind of heroism in the world, that is, after recognizing the truth of life, he still loves life. We acknowledge that life's activity stems from primitive drives, but we must not despair, but strive to find ourselves. No matter what measures I take, there is only one principle for me, to be happy! If I'm happy at the same time, the high-dimensional creature is also happy, then congratulations, if he's not happy, then let him go to his mother to play!
Thinking about this principle, the meaning of life seems to be somewhat clear. Let's go back and consider the methods given by the philosophers mentioned earlier: Corkegel said to have a pious faith, Schopenhauer said to be ascetic and aesthetic, Nietzsche said to bloom vitality, and Sartre said to go with the flow. Are these methods feasible? Different people can choose one or the other according to their actual situation, or choose a combination of them. Here, the author combines his own experience and briefly analyzes the situation.
First of all, we must live and have our basic needs comfortably met, such as safety and health. This requires us to have a certain economic foundation, and for this we need to appropriately participate in the social competition under the mainstream value evaluation system. But this kind of competition shouldn't be infinite, and of course, if you are born with a love of competition and can get pleasure from it, that's a different story.
But I think for most people, participating in competition is a painful process, and you can know it when you think about the process of Gu worms biting each other. Therefore, if your current basic needs have been satisfied, then you have to think about whether it is the result you want if you continue to bite other Gu worms until you die. If not, then stop accepting the influence of the primordial drive, slowly move away from the center of the bite, find a relatively safe place, and watch them bite, so that you can get pleasure more easily.
Second, is it necessary for us to have children? People's demand for reproduction stems from the primitive drive of "death confrontation" and is reflected in the strong sexual needs of human beings; second, it stems from insecurity, which is embodied in the concept of raising children to prevent old age; and third, they are born with children. The first point is not to be worried, intelligent humans have invented all kinds of contraceptive methods that allow people to enjoy the pleasure of sex without having to bear the consequences of pregnancy.
The second point is, does raising children have the effect of preventing old age? It can be said that there is still a large extent, but in today's professional division of labor is so developed, there are many ways to prevent old age, and raising children is only one of the options. And if you only look at the role of anti-aging, it is enough for a person to have one child in his life, and if it is for insurance purposes, at most two, it is enough to meet your pension needs.
The third point is that if you are born with a love for children, then you can reproduce indefinitely, provided that you can bear the consequences. So, if you don't have children at the moment, or if you already have one, then you need to think about whether it is necessary to continue having children. If not, then stop accepting the effects of the original drive and practice contraception. As for the cliché of having many sons and blessings, and having to have a son, let it go to hell, this is all a deceptive nonsense made up by the filial son and grandson of that high-dimensional creature! Lao Tzu's happiness is the most important thing!
If you weren't born to like competition, and you weren't born to have children, then congratulations, you'll have a lot of time to enjoy life! Some people say that it takes a lot of money to enjoy life, so I still have to bite other Gu worms. I can only say, brother, you are not enlightened yet. Your idea is still based on the mainstream value evaluation system, for example, you think that there are yachts, luxury cars, villas, and private jets, which is called enjoying life, but in fact, this is the smoke bomb created for us by the bastard of high-dimensional creatures.
There are many ways to be happy, and the kind of happiness you are talking about is called comparative happiness, that is, you have happiness that others do not have, but you can never be the best in the world, so if you are used to getting happiness from comparison, then it is difficult for you to get real happiness.
We can put it another way, for example, the world is so big, don't you want to see it? So many beautiful music, don't you feel comfortable listening to it? Don't you have some hobbies of your own? Immersed in hobbies, aren't you happy? You mobilize all your senses to feel the world, feel the world that others can't feel, aren't you happy? If you can find some like-minded friends and share happiness with you while doing these things, won't your happiness be doubled?
This is the meaning of life! When you die, you don't regret it! To sum up, it's actually similar to the way Schopenhauer and Nietzsche gave them, but we don't have to be completely abstinent. We have to be happy and enjoy life by satisfying the instinctive desires set for us by high-dimensional beings, but we don't have to completely follow his principles to keep reproducing and achieving gene transmission, focusing on a non-violent non-cooperation!
Some people say that if this is the case, there will be fewer and fewer such people who pursue themselves, and they will eventually be eliminated, and the group of tool people who conform to the primitive drive will be swept away forever. I want to say, they are willing to roll you and let him roll up, as for whether he will be eliminated in the end, is it very important? By then you have been dead for 800 years, and you care so much about him!
This article is from: Cao Erzai
This content is the author's independent view and does not represent the position of Tiger Sniff. May not be reproduced without permission, please contact [email protected] for authorization
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