Let the beauty of struggle illuminate our lives

Let the beauty of struggle illuminate our lives

"Establishing a Correct View of Beauty and Ugliness" series of commentaries

Author: Guan Mingwen

In the book "On Beauty" written by Chinese aesthetician Zhu Guanglu to young people, it is said that only with aesthetic eyes can we see beauty.

With the eyes that discover beauty, we will find beauty in our lives. Some beauty, beauty in the instantaneous presentation; some beauty, beauty in the health and strength of the prominence; there is beauty, beauty in the process of blooming, beauty in the pursuit of the road, beauty in the practice of transforming the world - this kind of beauty, may not be as good as "summer flowers blooming", but more breathtaking, more lasting and eternal.

The beauty of labor, the beauty of struggle, is such a beauty.

One

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, after extensive national recommendation and selection, 278 individuals and 22 collectives were awarded the title of "Most Beautiful Strivers".

These "most beautiful strivers" are all workers we are familiar with.

Chen Jingrun, the "most beautiful strivers", is also a "pioneer of reform". This emaciated young man found beauty in algebraic equations that others found boring, and also created beauty in solving the world-famous mathematical problem "Goldbach Conjecture". The 6 m2 cottage, dim kerosene lamp, and sack full of scratch paper bear witness to his legend of picking up the "jewel in the crown of mathematics". Nowadays, people may not remember the handsome appearance of mathematician Chen Jingrun when he was young, but his spirit of unremitting struggle has inspired generations of young people to be angry and brave to climb the peak of science. From him, people tasted a different kind of beauty.

Yuan Longping, the "most beautiful strivers", is also a recipient of the "Order of the Republic". All his life, he has been chasing "two dreams": "the dream of cooling under the grass" and "the dream of hybrid rice covering the world". With a straw hat and two feet of soil, he has greatly increased the yield of hybrid rice per mu in decades, making great contributions to China and the world. "Three meals a day, the aroma of rice is pervasive, and those who are full of food should often remember Yuan Gong." "I have never met, but I am in tears." This is what people say about him after his death. All his life he has been working in the fields, only for the sake of rice for the people. Yuan Longping's life was incredibly beautiful.

Zhang Guimei, the "most beautiful strivers", is also a recipient of the "July 1st Medal". Ten years ago, Guangming Daily took the lead in launching the "Looking for the Most Beautiful Rural Teacher" activity, and she was awarded the title of "The Most Beautiful", which is simple and kind and revered. She has been rooted in the mountains for more than 40 years, without fear of illness and pain, she has lived up to her life, sending the girls in the mountains one stubble after another to the outside world, so that they can bloom beautiful youth and have a beautiful future. Zhang Guimei's staggered steps, carved faces full of vicissitudes, plastered hands, and the bright smiling faces of those girls, who said it was not the most beautiful symbol?

Two

Labor creates beauty, which is the basic view of Marxist aesthetics.

Diligence, a virtue revered by Chinese, is considered the source of all happiness. There are many poems about labor in the Book of Verses. For example, "Qianqi", "Picking Amaranth, Thin Words", is a song describing rural women picking plantain, which is both vivid and cheerful, can it be said that it is not beautiful?

Tao Yuanming's "Returning to the Garden and Rural Residence": "Planting beans down the mountain, grass is full of bean seedlings." Morning Xingli is desolate, with the moon lotus hoe return. "In the plain and natural white painting, the joy of pastoral labor is expressed, and it is not a rural beauty!"

Fan Chengda's "Four Hours of Pastoral Miscellaneous" has clouds, "The day out of the field and the night are hemp, and the sons and daughters of the village are in charge." Tong Sun did not solve the cultivation and weaving, and also learned to plant melons in The Sang Yin", and Xin Abandoned Disease's "Qing Ping Le Village Residence" "The eldest child hoes bean Xidong, and the middle child is weaving a chicken coop." The most joyful children are dead, and the creek head lies on the lotus canopy", all of which describe the scenes of daily labor in the countryside, which is full of fun. Exhibition reading, what a beautiful word!

Labor is not only expressed as the spiritual pleasure of the poets, but more importantly, it creates countless material wealth. From the ingenious Dujiangyan and the Grand Canal that runs through the north and south, to movable type printing, mortise and mortise structure, Jili drum car, plain yarn [~symbol~] clothing... These treasures of civilization that have been washed over time and have shone brightly to the present day all reflect the light of the labor wisdom of our ancestors.

After the founding of New China, the Chinese people inherited the strong industrious genes of their predecessors, made unremitting efforts, worked hard, and wrote a brilliant chapter in the history of human development, from the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, the "two bombs and one satellite", the Daqing Oilfield, to the construction of special zones, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, manned spaceflight, and then to the poverty alleviation in the new era, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the China Sky Eye, and so on.

All of this vividly explains a truth: happiness is a struggle, and a good life is achieved through hard work.

"It's not difficult to work hard." If you look at China's development achievements today, which one is not created by all the Chinese people by hard work and wisdom? As the song goes, "Sweat waters the happiness flower" and "the most beautiful is our home".

Labor has created the Chinese nation, created the glorious history of the Chinese nation, and will certainly create a beautiful future for the Chinese nation.

Three

Chinese understood very early on that there is no good thing in the world to sit back and enjoy, and to be happy, you have to struggle.

In today's China, taking pride in labor has become a social trend, and striving for beauty has become a daily scenery:

In the early morning of countless misty days, in the noon of countless steaming summers, in the twilight of every lantern, there are sanitation workers leaning over to clean up, construction workers working hard, medical staff eager to catch up with life, and scientific researchers devoting themselves to experimenting...

In every labor position, there is a blazing heart that fights for the homeland and dreams. Every figure is so beautiful!

At the same time, we must also see that at some times and in some aspects, there are also some noises that are out of tune and disharmony with the social trend of striving for beauty.

At present, the internet word "lying flat" is not decreasing. Such as "you work hard to achieve your dreams, I lie flat to achieve my ease", "lying flat for a while, always lying flat has been cool", "being a salted fish, what is not good" and other "lying flat" quotations are widely circulated. Willing to "lie flat", the reason is either because it cannot keep up with the pace of the times and chooses to stop, or because life is frustrated and chooses to escape, or because it is disturbed by a certain atmosphere and chooses to go with the flow...

Isn't this laziness and what is it?

Another hot word, "nibbling on the old", has always been a topic of online and offline. Adult children fancy "nibbling on the old" and showing a variety of manifestations: one is "psychological dependence" and "swaddling youth"; the other is "housework dependence" and "throwing hands and treasurers"; one is "economic dependence", eating and wearing all rely on parents; there is also "property dependence", trying to forcibly "nibble on the old"...

Isn't this a rogue and what is it?

Influenced by the trend of money worship and hedonism in the entertainment industry, there are not a few teenagers who fantasize about getting rich overnight and becoming famous overnight. Some brokers join hands with the platform to package dots and create momentum on topics; some top-notch Internet celebrities open live broadcasts, scratch their heads and make eyeballs, and hype "gossip" to earn tips; some traffic stars love to get rich, chase wealth, show off their wealth, privately sign "yin and yang contracts", and earn sky-high film remuneration. They go out to open the road, surrounded by bodyguards, fans gathered, weddings, birthdays, pomp and pageantry, extravagant, and compared with each other...

Isn't that shameless and what is it?

Whether it is yearning for "lying flat", fancy "nibbling on the old", fantasizing about getting rich overnight, in the final analysis, it is all the problem of beauty and ugliness. Not to struggle, not to create, but to be proud of doing nothing, not being diligent, and being bored; not to struggle, not to be filial piety, but to blindly take, to enjoy their success, to squeeze out their parents for pleasure; not to struggle, not to take the right path, but to love vanity, opportunism, and focus on the evil path as fun.

These phenomena of indiscriminate beauty and ugliness and misplaced beauty and ugliness are contrary to the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation and incompatible with the mainstream values of positive and upward mobility and hard work and dedication in today's society.

It is often said that there is no pie in the sky, there is no free lunch in the world, and there is no shortcut to success and prosperity.

Without struggle, where will there be success?!

Without creation, how can there be a future?!

Without hard work, there is no colorful life!

Do not feel the grace of parents, only want to be good, blindly sit and enjoy its success, it is inevitable to sit and eat the mountain sky; drunkenly get rich overnight, pursue overnight fame, in the end, must be bamboo basket water, nothing!

Four

The hit drama "The Most Beautiful Youth" has touched many people. A group of Saihan Dam builders have created a human miracle of "turning the wasteland into a forest and sea" with youthful enthusiasm and passion of struggle.

Not long ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping came here and warmly praised the history of the construction of the Saihanba forest farm as a history of hard struggle that can be sung and wept. With practical actions, saihanba people have forged the spirit of Saihanba that bears in mind the mission, hard work and green development.

"Struggle" is a high-frequency word in General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech.

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed, "Looking forward to the future, we are striving for the historical aspiration of comprehensively building a modern socialist country." The journey is long, but there is only struggle."

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed, "As long as there are firm ideals and beliefs, unremitting spirit of struggle, and down-to-earth to do every ordinary thing well, all ordinary people can obtain an extraordinary life, and all ordinary work can create extraordinary achievements."

General Secretary Xi Jinping sent a heartfelt message to young people, "Struggle is the brightest background of youth" "The road of struggle will not be smooth, often thorny and full of bumps." The strong always rise from setbacks and never get discouraged."

General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the spirit of struggle of labor models, saying many times: "Labor is the most glorious, labor is the most noble, labor is the greatest, and labor is the most beautiful." ”

These words, every time we read them, we are deeply moved and inspired.

Recently, Guangming Daily launched a column on the front page of "Striving for Youth without Regrets" column, and has published more than a dozen reports on typical figures of intellectuals rooted in the grassroots and frontiers, recording their youth and struggle, and showing their dreams and harvests.

In "Harvesting Dreams at the Edge of the Sky", Liu Shouren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, resolutely went to the frontier when he was young and used his life's efforts to make China have high-quality fine wool sheep. He made a regretless choice between big and small, bitter and sweet, and the world remembered his legendary life.

In "Ma Lanhua, Ma Lanhua...", the "general husband and wife" Zhang Lixing and Zhu Fengrong gave half their lives to the vast desert, unremittingly trekked on the road of science, witnessed and participated in the development of the "two bombs and one star" cause in New China, and forged an extraordinary life in the common endeavor with the republic.

In "53 Degrees North Latitude, There Are My Poems and Distant Places", Wen Zhu, a post-90s female college student, gave up the opportunity to work in a well-known enterprise in the south and returned to her hometown of 53 degrees north latitude - Arctic Town, Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province, to lead the villagers on the road to prosperity.

……

In them, they all embody the beauty of struggle, the beauty of creation, and the beauty of dedication.

How to have happiness? How should life be spent? What kind of beauty should we pursue? It is becoming a topic of deep thinking for more and more people.

"Go west! I am willing to ride the youth on the wilderness of life, let him wind and rain thunder and lightning", "no struggle is not youth", "the youth that is needed is the most precious, and the youth of struggle is the most beautiful"... Letters from readers full of struggle and pride explain the value pursuit of young people in the new era.

"Feelings of home and country, serving the people, any era needs" "The fire in the heart, light the lamp of dreams" "Where the motherland needs, it is my hometown"... It is not only young people, but people from all walks of life and different ages who are correcting their own life positioning.

See Xian Siqi! We expect that all friends will be like them, on the second centenary journey to the great rejuvenation of the nation, with the background of youth and the color pen of struggle, they will paint the latest and most beautiful pictures for the motherland, and also paint a colorful and beautiful life for themselves!

Guangming Daily ( 2021-09-25 01 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily