On the afternoon of April 21, 2024, writer and senior media person Zhuang Yating held the first sharing session of her new book "Hard Heart" in Beijing. The event was initiated by the producer Guomai Culture and the "Temple of Earth" café, and Zhuang Yating was invited to talk about this collection of essays that she had not seen for seven years, as well as her mental journey of precipitating herself.
At the sharing meeting, talking about the original intention of the creation of the new book, Zhuang Yating proposed: "We always have to make a spiritual break from time to time. Some of them are that you need to harden your heart, give up those unwillingness, make some cuts with the past, clear a little redundancy for life, and find some outlets for obsession. She added, "For others, you need to have a hard shell to protect yourself, know how to see the tricks, and understand the joys and sorrows of the world, so that you can keep your soft heart full of compassion." ”
In Zhuang Yating's view, these demands can be summed up as: how we ordinary people can make a "spiritual disconnection" for ourselves in a complicated life, how to find and become ourselves, and live an ideal state and life. Faced with the constant difficulties in life, and in the face of thoughts that are often carried by anxiety, she spent seven years to find her own self-consistent path.
In the 54 articles in the book, Zhuang Yating uses sharp and straightforward writing to present all the thoughts of an ordinary person in the ups and downs of life, starting from "daily philosophy", "interpersonal relationships" and "self-improvement", with the path of insight, change and solution, providing readers with a guide to contemporary life to relieve daily anxiety. Zhuang Yating hopes that by reading this book, readers can find a grip and become an independent and sober self.
The book talks about the challenges and troubles that many young people will face, such as: how to avoid losing and losing for the trivial things of life, how to not consume oneself in the middle of not getting and losing? being tired physically and mentally by the routine of family care, how to effectively get rid of it? how to spend those days in life that are low to the dust, how to spend them reasonably and freely? life is too short, living in the present, how can people with hoarding disorder effectively break away? how should ordinary people bloom their energetic selves? Emerging technologies have been endless, and they are always worried about falling behind, and when the mid-life crisis hits, can't they go ashore without rolling? Wait a minute. In response, Zhuang Yating used precise sentences to tell how to do the disconnection of life, how to conform to the cycle of life, live in your own rhythm, not afraid of not being loved, not afraid of being different from others, not afraid of being hated, and not afraid of leaking any flaws.
Zhuang Yating believes that she has given up the so-called "perfection" and has lived her ideal state and life. She doesn't use herself as a tool, doesn't rationalize herself about things that her values don't accept, isn't afraid of being different from others, isn't afraid of being hated, and isn't afraid of being messed with. She hopes to give readers a sense of hope that "I can slowly solve the uncertainties in life".
By sharing her solutions and attitudes with readers, Zhuang hopes that readers can go from being an excellent reference in the eyes of others to striving to become themselves. Life is in the world, ups and downs. Give up delusions and escape from internal friction. As Zhuang Yating said, if the heart is hard, life will be soft.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Enjie
Editor/Gong Lifang