Moderator of the 010 issue | Dong Ziqi
I remembered the topic by a coffee shop calling itself the "third place," which is a place with other possibilities outside the home and office. Later, I thought of milk tea shops from coffee shops, why are city people so fascinated by milk tea? In the vicinity of our home, when several companies (B station, douyin) settled in or will settle in, there were quickly more milk tea shops, some high-end, some low-cost, and the business was just as hot. I didn't interview the mood of the employees who went to the milk tea shop in the workshop, but only speculated that this may not be due to the physiological needs of saccharin obsession, but to have a "happy hometown" destination, a "saccharin church" outside the home and office. For example, there is a sugar church to go to when walking, it doesn't cost much money, you can let people get out of the office, in the current weather in Shanghai, you may still be able to smell the soft fragrance of osmanthus flowers, witness the corolla of Luan trees from golden to bright red, and chat about some relaxing topics, which has nothing to do with what we do and what we specialize in.
Recently, I happened to be reading Thoreau's diary "Song of the Four Seasons", Thoreau is famous for his love of walking in the wilderness, in fact, he is not only concerned about the natural cycle of the four seasons, but also concerned about the growth cycle of human beings, especially how the years change a person's appearance. One of his words also resonated with me in particular— "As an adult, man seems to be given a special and petty use, to carry out a particular plan throughout his life, and thus not to look around, to grasp the various matters of life and life." Isn't it that a happy hometown can free people from the "special and stingy use"? While we can't go into the wilderness like he did, we can create opportunities to wander the streets. This is also similar to the story of Zhu Tianxin, a Taiwanese writer I interviewed a while ago, she said that during the epidemic, her sister Tianyi would drive her and Tang Nuo to "walk" in the afternoon, and they walked in the streets from afternoon to evening, which was a time when they could be liberated from the bookstore, talk leisurely on the street, briefly stay away from the crowd and forget the pressure of the epidemic.
My favorite place since the summer is the small wetland behind the stadium at Nike's China headquarters – which I think is the most beautiful place left in the New Jiangwan wetland, which has become less and less under the siege of real estate developers. Just behind the course, there is a small stream, along the shore is a tall Metasequoia forest, I sometimes go there for the purpose of understanding plants, the wind blows Metasequoia leaves and birdsong is really good, those wild grasses that fill the gaps in the embankment as the pattern of the land have beautiful names - blackberry, spiral flower, duck plant... Much better looking than the neat shrubs in the office area. When I say wetlands, I want to mention multinational companies and real estate development, and I want to say that as a "happy hometown", the wetlands for me are not a suburb for recreation and leisure, but have a deeper connection, if it is only sightseeing, then my visit and the large company will use it as an office background. Similarly, Thoreau's Concord is not a paradise, he is well aware that Concord is in the light of Boston and Paris to highlight his essence, just as Tao Yuanming's rural life is also full of rich and poor wars, ways out and return considerations. On the path of seeking the state of life one desires, one's state may not be so mind-stopping. Sometimes I worry that my happy hometown that I like will be liked by others, and their liking will make it disappear completely.
<h3>Outside of home and office, where is your "happy hometown"? </h3>
Pan Wenjie: It seems that all the happiness is highlighted by the part that is not very happy, the middle-aged man drove home, did not go directly upstairs, but sat in the car to smoke a cigarette, because of the previous work fatigue and the subsequent family trivialities are particularly precious. As Ziqi said in the quotation, drinking milk tea is because you are outside the home and office, so you have to ask what home and office really mean to you.
Chen Jiajing: Speaking of which, in fact, smoking is also a happy hometown for many people. If you pass by an office building in the city on weekdays, you will find that there are always people standing in the doorway smoking, of course, mostly men, and often in groups of three or two. Why do so many people love to smoke? What exactly is there to smoke and be so addictive? I was puzzled for a while, but later realized that many people are not really addicted to smoking, they are just looking for a reason to come out of the office to catch their breath and talk to people outside of work. In a way, smoking is the best reason. In some very inward-looking companies, you should do anything for work, even if you have to race against the clock to go to the toilet, but if you say that you go out to smoke, others will think it is understandable.
Zhao Yunxian: Happiness is highlighted by unhappiness, and for me to go out of Beijing, everywhere is a happy hometown. If a city makes people desperate, the distance to escape means that the distance between you and "happy" and "breathing" means that the farther away from the center, the more you can feel loose, see the tall buildings gradually thinner, the lights are getting less and less, but unfortunately Beijing is not such a city with a clear center. It's like Tetris abandoning itself in the middle of the way, splicing randomly, and finally making a pie that stuffs the picture, you run all the way, it chases and blocks all the way, passes the interchange or the interchange, out of the ring road is still a ring road, only the most suburban subway is passed, taxi to a mountain down to go up, in order to temporarily leave Beijing behind.
But this kind of invigorating generally only happens in my mind, after summer came, I have long given up the plan of physical escape, this year there is a lot of rain in the north, the cooling is fast, and autumn is not a good season to escape. My hometown is a place that I rarely go to and can't go back to, so my happy hometown is just to think about it?
Lin Ziren: I am a Cancer, and I used to be very dismissive of the statement that "Cancer people are very homely", but in the past two years, I think there is some truth, the reason is... I really enjoy researching home! My happy hometown is the home blogger on social media, basically every day will brush up on the content they post, see what kind of sofas, bedding and lamps they choose, how to plan the storage of the wardrobe, how to deal with too many books in the home, what cleaning supplies to recommend, and which home improvement trends to notice. The furniture store is also one of the few brick-and-mortar stores that I still visit regularly today, and I take photos of the furniture I like (but I can't afford to put it) and store them in a folder to imagine how I would arrange my home.
When you think about it, my interest in furniture seems to have been there since childhood. For a long time as a child, our family lived in a one-bedroom unit public house, and when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, I moved to a three-bedroom house, and I had my own room for the first time, and the excitement and anticipation are still unforgettable. My parents also respected my opinion and allowed me to offer my own ideas for the decoration of this small room, such as the walls should be painted pink, there should be a dresser, and a wide desk. Home is a place where we can relax completely, a source of security, and in a way an extension of the self, so I can fully understand why many people are obsessed with buying a house, although buying a house in a big city is increasingly like a distant dream. But perhaps it is precisely because it is a dream, so that people can temporarily detach themselves from reality and get a moment of peace and happiness.
Jiang Yan: The location is the Temple of Heaven Park, where I have often practiced tai chi in recent years. Hobbies are the study of traditional Chinese medicine culture, and of course, the practice of traditional tai chi. I go to the Temple of Heaven early in the morning and leave before a large number of tourists enter the park. Just dealing with these beings in nature on a daily basis is already very fun, recently observing the changes of ginkgo biloba leaves day by day, in addition to the poplar trees from time to time will fall the larvae of the American white moth, the chrysanthemum exhibition has also opened, to find time to see. The nearly 90-year-old grandfather who danced ballroom dancing on time every day not far from the boxing practice has not been seen for two weeks, and to be honest I am a little worried about him, but his dance partner will come two or three days a week, waiting for him there, waiting for him, and can't wait to leave alone. It reminds me of the scene in the movie "Love Before dawn breaks", and this wait is full of classical flavor. The opening of the north second gate has an uncle who plays the flute every day, and the blowing is very intentional, but the big mother who sings revolutionary songs every day in the other door is said to have insisted on it for more than ten years and still does not breathe in the abdomen. The aunt who boxed together brought her own steamed hair cake and let me go home for breakfast; another aunt brought me the mugwort that her lover had planted herself in the mountains, and let me boil water to blisters and accidentally injured my knee when I was practicing boxing recently.
Ye Qing: I am really ashamed to see everyone's happy hometown - there was a time when my happy hometown was on the video website to search for models on the runway (runway) to watch the video. I found that everyone fell into a variety of ways: there were people wearing a long red dress, walking to the pose point, gorgeous turning around and falling into the pool (why build a bridge over the pool?). This in itself is ridiculous enough to be funny enough); there are also those who are too high in high heels, unstable in their center of gravity, and kneel on their knees (so why design high heels so anti-human?). ），ouch。 One of the funniest was lexus Charleston Fashion Week in 2008, when a designer might not have known at the end that the connection between the two overpasses could not bear the load, and disappeared with one foot. It's a great pleasure to see here: Ha! Let you usually be the whole model, now the whole to yourself!
Huang Yue: If there is really a happy hometown, then I may be home from all over the world. Increasingly, I find myself likely to be someone with a low threshold for happiness, a meal, a conversation, a good manuscript, a good book, a good film, a hike, a clean ride are all very happy. Although the threshold for obtaining this feeling is low, happiness is still rare and precious, if happiness is the norm of life, then happiness is probably not happiness, and addictive substances are not enough to attract humans to pursue the euphoria of the brain. Every bit of happiness is a gift. Happiness is like the auspicious light feathers collected one by one in the dark and heavy age, just like the drifting clouds and stars that need to be appreciated little by little on the long long mountain road, and it must be carefully picked up and treated seriously, and perhaps there are enough materials to build a happy hometown.
This happy old home is also not stable, like a bird's nest, it is to be repaired day after day, it is both lucky and hard; even the happy old home may be a mirage at all, just an optimistic narrative and simple conclusion after the memory is condensed, or an emotional relic that may or may not be there after the yin is gone.
<h3>The gist of "Happy Home": Dopamine, No Money and Schadenfreude? </h3>
Ye Qing: Laughing back and laughing, but also reflecting on yourself like this (seeing the video laughing) is it really right? It seems morally unreasonable to base pleasure on the suffering of others. Wen Jie said that this is called schadenfreude, that is, feeling happy when something bad happens to someone else, and when he thinks about it, it seems that this is not always the case. What makes me laugh is not the model's mistakes, but the fashion show often gives me the feeling of being serious and tense, "we are doing a very remarkable thing", and even some pretentious (from my prejudice against fashion), these outbursts immediately burst the bubble: Hey, you are just ordinary people wearing some strange clothes, why do you look serious? What fascinates me is the huge dramatic conflict between the two. There are many unnecessarily serious and solemn things and occasions in life, and everyone feels that when it comes to this week's topic, they can rarely experience pure happiness, and since happiness is so rare, why so serious?
Pan Wenjie: Greedy Dopamine tells us how the happy molecule of dopamine drives human behavior. Dopamine makes us pursue stimulation, and what it likes is "getting", but the "possession" after obtaining makes it boring. Other substances, such as oxytocin, endorphins, etc., are "molecules of the moment" that allow us to enjoy the present. Some people's happiness may be the constant pursuit of excitement, the pursuit of new lovers, new successes. Some people's happy hometown is the relationships they already have around them. There are more "present-day elements" among conservatives and therefore prefer traditional family life. And those crazy genius dopamine systems are more active, so find more happiness in constantly challenging themselves. If there is a defense, maybe this is our biological instinct.
Dong Ziqi: After reading the above answer, I remembered that I still have a happy hometown to go to the old cinema to see cheap movies. I have found two or three such places in Shanghai, and the ticket price is only 19.9 yuan. Once looking at the next door began to decorate, some grumpy audience members went to scold the next door. The budget cinema is a particularly poetic place, and it is even more poetic not to know when it will go out of business. Eh? It seems that our happiness is often related to having money and not having money and spending less money. It feels like it's possible to talk about money and happy relationships.
Zhao Yunxian: In fact, I still have a happy hometown to watch Korean variety shows. Korean artists have a skill called "body funny" in variety shows, which is generally falling, sports mistakes and the like, which is also what Wen Jie and Ye Qing call schadenfreude. Variety shows themselves are not serious, so this point of happiness is not the same as the mistakes of fashion shows. The artists' serious movements with uncoordinated limbs, or deliberately amusing falls, remind me of life, isn't that what life is all about? Sometimes I want to get things done, but I always crumpled, and I look sad and funny. At this time, someone deliberately fell down to show you, but there was a kind of comfort, "Look, it's not a big deal." "This happiness is based on self-deprecation.
Huang Yue: Happiness is invisible, sometimes manifested as a cheek smile, sometimes as a hearty laugh, sometimes as muscle relaxation, and sometimes as empty as just a little wave of the heart, or even just a calm, short-lived, quiet wave. Even if someone shares this happiness with you, your happiness is only your happiness, to a different degree from others, different meanings, different origins, and different memories. Since this is the case, there is no need for any defense, and everyone has their own happiness like having their own crow's feet. People generally don't pursue my happiness, and there is little need to explain, except that my mother always thinks that it will be too hard for me to climb a mountain or read a book for a day, and I tell her that it is very happy.
<h3>Reflecting on the "Happy Hometown": Is Industrial Happiness Also Happy? </h3>
Pan Wenjie: I will reflect on whether I have eaten too much junk food. For a while, I especially loved food like Haojia and Miao crispy horn, and I couldn't stop eating it, which must be a very industrial and artificial happiness. Coca-Cola and milk tea are also artificially created happiness. "Food Linguistics" talks about a funny phenomenon, that is, people like to use drug-related words such as "addiction" to describe cheap food, and will use sex-related words "silky" and "tempting" to describe high-priced foods, especially desserts. The former is to excuse myself from eating foods that are high in oil and sugar – not that I want to eat them, and blame them for being so addictive! The latter describes the physiological pleasures that these foods bring to people. But whether it's cheap potato chips or high-priced desserts, isn't it all guilty pleasure in the end? A joy with a sense of guilt and excitement. There's definitely an escape to that. If there is any excuse, it is that most of the time we are ordinary people with weaknesses, as long as we face life in the moment when we need to be brave.
Huang Yue: It is not easy to reflect on happiness itself, it is difficult for mortals to seek suffering, and if it is not for the happiness of others or the happiness of the future, this behavior seems to be difficult to explain. Nature has natural happiness, and industry has industrial happiness! Of course, it is happy to go up the mountain and spread wilderness in the bright sun, but it is also very happy to exercise on an industrial treadmill with limited time in bad weather. Of course, it is happy to be able to cook from the most primitive ingredients to boil the broth, but it is also very happy to be patient enough to use the industrially made chicken essence to season!
Chen Jiajing: I think that the real happy hometown is not only to bring happiness to people, but also to bring peace and relief. Drinking milk tea, snacking, and smoking can all bring temporary pleasure, but calm is another matter, and it may be difficult to achieve it by material things alone. My own happy hometown is also a bit similar to drinking milk tea or smoking, I have to go out almost every day to buy coffee on the street across the house, drinking coffee will of course make me happier in terms of taste and physical feelings, but I also often use "going to buy coffee" as an excuse, just to go out and catch my breath. Don't think that "going out and taking a breath" is just so easy to step on the door, but more importantly, do you give yourself a little time and mood to do it during the day? Most of the time of modern people is spent in a closed environment, and most of the pressure and anxiety, conflict and tolerance of modern people are also generated in a closed environment, in this sense, "going out to catch your breath" has become particularly precious. I went to the street to buy coffee less than a kilometer round trip, but I was able to empty it for a short time, and by the way, to see what was happening around the community, the wild cats were still good, and the leaves of the trees turned yellow or red, which was equivalent to charging myself.
Lin Ziren: Reflect on the trap you may fall into the trap of consumerism. The temptation of consumerism is to constantly create new needs, constantly exhorting you that your life now "can be better", and that if you have something newer, more, better, you will be happier, happier, and even better and more respected. So with dyson V6, the brand side also has to persuade you to buy Dyson V15, tell you that the latest generation of product motors are more powerful and even have laser functions that can "make hidden dust appear", but do we really want to see every grain of dust on the floor clearly? I doubt it. On consumerism, our editorial board has published many articles before, criticizing it on many levels, and as far as today's topic is concerned, I think the problem with consumption bringing happiness is that it is too short and too fleeting. Compared with "possession", the happiness of "creation" is more concrete, long-term and fulfilling. To attain "natural happiness," I think the key is to find a cause that allows you to exert your subjective initiative and create something—it doesn't really need to be something very lofty and great, and man is a social animal, and the most important way to meet the needs of human nature can be met by others. To be able to find a way to be needed and to create meaning and value accordingly is probably not far from true happiness.
Jiang Yan: Industrial happiness, what I understand is the sometimes addictive "happiness" made by others that is closely related to modern business logic, and the natural happiness is more simple and more spontaneous, closer to the source of happiness in my concept. For example, the industrial happiness I like is computer games, from the xianjian and Jin Yong all the way from childhood, and now sometimes play, but this industrial happiness is mostly exchanged for paying some kind of health price. For example, playing computer games for a long time, causing discomfort in the eyes, arms, shoulders and neck, and other injuries that may be caused to the body if it is longer. Whether it is the happiness brought by the milk tea that Ziqi likes or the junk food that Wenjie likes, there is of course a similar "exchange".
Speaking of "happy," I think of Winterson's autobiography Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Some of the discourse on this word in it. The gist is that the feeling of happiness is fleeting, and this time is wonderful, but such a time will pass because time is passing.
Of course, people pursue happiness, but happiness may not be the norm in life. On the contrary, some bad emotions, such as depression, loss, sadness, anger, but many people will habitually be trapped in it for a long time and cannot leave. For me, especially in these two years, it is not so much the pursuit of happiness as the pursuit of calm. Try to pull the peaks and troughs of the emotional waves closer and closer to the horizontal axis. The Chinese medicine teacher who taught us "The Outline of the Golden Plateau" once said that the good state of life is an old drama, not an American blockbuster. What does that mean? In many modern blockbusters, the audience is attracted by exciting plots, pictures, scenes, and effects, but these are not really long-lasting. The reason why the classic repertoire is enduring is because of the artistry inside, even if people already know the direction of the story, they are still willing to taste it over and over again, just like the old drama. The impact of excessive fluctuations in emotions on health is very large, and everything is too late, even if it is excessively happy, otherwise where will the Fan Jinzhongju.
Recently watched some documentaries and interviews with Chai Songyan, the gynecology of traditional Chinese medicine, her old way of life is to learn to "hide" and "choose", such as bitter love OF TV series, TV shows she does not watch, parents are short of right and wrong as far away as possible, even if it is happy things to be moderately controlled, the joy, anger, worry, thoughts, sorrow, fear, alarm in life, can be handled safely. Of course, these are easier said than done, and I am also slowly groping forward.