Text/Gu Yi
"Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers" is often used as a metaphor for young people who have little concern in their thinking and dare to act boldly. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Bei captured Hanzhong from Cao Cao and proclaimed himself king there, ordering Guan Yu to take Xiangyang north and march into Fancheng. Guan Yu's troops Liao Hua and Guan Ping led an army to attack Xiangyang, and Cao Cao's troops led Cao Ren to resist, resulting in a major defeat and retreat to Fancheng. Cao Cao sent the general Ban as the general of Zhengnan, with the brave general Pound De as the vanguard, to lead the troops to Fancheng to rescue. Pound led the vanguard troops to Fancheng, let the soldiers carry a coffin, walked in front of the line, and vowed to fight Guan Yu to the death.
Pang De flaunted his might and pointed out that Guan Yu should fight him. Guan Yu fought, and the two fought for more than a hundred rounds, regardless of victory or defeat, and the two armies each collected their troops. Guan Yu returned to the camp and said to Guan Ping, "Pound's sword technique is very skilled, and he is really worthy of being a brave general of Cao Ying." Guan Ping said: "As the saying goes: newborn calves are not afraid of tigers. 'Don't despise him!' Pound became famous from this battle.
"Afraid", the shape of the word, from the heart, from the white. "Explanation of Words": "Afraid, do nothing." "It means doing nothing because of fear." The word "afraid", from the heart, indicates that fear has a lot to do with people's psychological activities, when people are afraid, they will often lose their souls, at this time, the heart beats faster, and the face turns white. The word "afraid" describes the state of fear very vividly.
The original meaning of "fear" is fear and fear, such as timidity and fear, greed for life and fear of death, bullying soft and afraid of hard, "once bitten by a snake, afraid of grass rope for three years", newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, and so on. The word "fear" explains the root causes and manifestations of fear and gives us profound enlightenment. Fear is a universal psychological phenomenon of man. The word "fear", from the heart, from the white, refers to a universal psychology of man. Bacon once said, "Fear is the most terrible enemy of crushing human personality." "Everyone has fears and worries. Compared with the fear of darkness, fear of heights, fear of life, old age, illness and death, etc., contemporary people's fear of others, reality, and the future may be more prominent. Sometimes, some people are afraid that they are not beautiful enough, not smart enough, clumsy in speech, worried that others will not be able to accept themselves, afraid of change, afraid of not being able to adapt to the new environment, insecure, afraid of losing everything they have one day... Fear of invading our lives, it can be said that fear is actually everywhere.
The film "Sudden Rise of Fear" (1952).
When we summon up the courage to observe the things that we have feared in the past, we will find that fear always has a double face: because of courage, we actively fight, and fear runs away; because fear is endless, paralyzed and decadent, fear will become more intense. In the face of fear, we have no other way but to face it. Face the things you are afraid of, try to do them, make your heart stronger, and the fear will shrink smaller and smaller. The will not to be easily defeated will always support you in confronting fear. Throughout history, the great men who excelled succeeded not because they had extraordinary wisdom, but because they were people who were not afraid of failure, and they were the ones who experienced failure the most. On the road of life, everyone may encounter failure, if everyone can not be afraid of failure, then everyone may succeed. No matter how hard the blow of failure is, we must not be discouraged, but should face up to our own failure and eliminate this sense of despair. Negativity and pessimism not only do not help, but can also make people gradually fall into a quagmire and cannot extricate themselves. Getting out of the trouble of failure and turning from worry to joy is the best way to face failure. Only by being fearless and fearless, facing up to the fear in the heart, and being calm in the heart, can we have a life full of courage and wisdom.
Fear stems from awe. The word "afraid" comes from the heart, indicating that "fear" is the embodiment of a person's inner emotions, a psychological phenomenon, determined by people's mentality, state of mind, and mood. We say that first of all, people should know their destiny, go with the flow, and do not worry about living a life of fear, and do not worry about the sky. But on the other hand, there must be reverence. The sense of awe refers to a kind of respect and fear that human beings have in the face of natural laws and social laws. This kind of psychology has the effect of warning and self-examination, which helps to regulate and restrain people's words and deeds.
Traditional Chinese culture has always attached great importance to a sense of awe. Confucians have the concept of "fearing the Mandate of Heaven", "fearing the saints", "respecting those who respect themselves", and Taoists have emphasized the reverence for the laws of nature and the harmony between man and nature through "Dao Fa Nature". Both Confucian and Taoist families talk about reverence based on a strong sense of historical mission and social responsibility. Only with a clear sense of mission and responsibility can we "be worthy of the ancestors on the top and worthy of the descendants" in current affairs. In some modern people, the sacredness, vigilance and normativity of this sense of awe are gradually weakening and lacking. Some people are extravagant and lavish, profligate and wasteful; some people recklessly destroy the environment and arbitrarily plunder resources for the sake of immediate interests, completely losing their reverence for nature; what is more, with the mentality of "the sky is not afraid, the earth is not afraid, history is not afraid, and the people are even less afraid", for the sake of their own selfish interests, they do not hesitate to do things that harm nature and reason, and lose their personal reverence for life, their reverence for morality, and their reverence for public opinion. All of this is the result of a lack of reverence.
Statue of Confucius.
The word "fear" tells us that people must have a reverential heart in order to have the ability to introspect and blame themselves. Ji Xiaolan, a qing dynasty university questioner, said: "As a person, you must remember one word: fear." "Afraid of being known, afraid of grasping, afraid of retribution." On the contrary, if a person lives in the world, is not afraid of anything, and is bold, then any bad thing can be done. The Ming Dynasty scholar Fang Xiaoru said: "Whoever is good and afraid will have a correct body, a rule in his words, a stopping in his deeds, and occasionally he will exceed the rules, and he will not be out of the ordinary." "There is reverence in the heart, and there is stopping in deeds." Fear" is self-respect, but also the expression of love for others, only with the heart "fear" can build an inner spiritual court, become a self-vigilant, self-reflective, self-disciplined person.
So, where is this reverence embodied? It can be roughly summarized into two aspects, one is the heart of "fear of the outside", the other is the heart of "fear of the inside", and the combination of inside and outside forms a heart of awe.
Specifically, the first is the fear of heaven, which is the reverence for nature. Heaven has the Heavenly Dao, and the operation of the Heavenly Dao is not subject to human will. If a person goes against heaven, he is bound to be punished by heaven. There is day and night in the sky, and man will work at sunrise and rest at sunset. If you do the other way around, you will get sick. In the past, people took pride in conquering nature and destroying nature as inevitable, and the result must be punished by nature. As the saying goes, "people are doing, the sky is watching" "Skynet is restored, neglect is not leaked", a person destroys nature, does bad things, the heavens see in the eyes, will give revenge. In the past, some feudal gentlemen, who thought they were "God", had no restraints, were arrogant and arrogant, had no scruples, and did many bad things, and the results were sad. The tyrant Xia Jie compared himself to the sun, lived a luxurious life, acted recklessly, and finally ended up with a ruined and discredited end.
The second is the fear of the law. The law uses coercive means to curb man's evil desires. The law is ruthless, the old people are afraid of it, the law is just, and the old people respect it. Fearing the Fa can also make people feel comfortable with the right path. If the people of society are not afraid of the law, then this society will inevitably be lawless, stealing chickens and dogs, smashing and robbing, killing people and setting fires, and doing all kinds of bad things. To respect the law is to abide by discipline, to act according to the law, and even to regard the law as more important than one's own life. Socrates was such a man.
In 399 BC, for offending the powerful, Socrates was charged with two counts—"corrupting the athenian youth" and "disrespecting God," and he was sentenced to death. While waiting for the execution, Socrates actually had many opportunities to escape from prison, and his friends and students, including Plato, had the money ready, and as soon as Socrates nodded, he could abscond immediately. However, Socrates insisted on not escaping from prison, saying: "As a citizen of Athens, I must obey the law." The law has convicted me in an unjust way, but I can't rebel against the law because of it! He thought he had to obey the laws of Athens. On his deathbed, he continued to discuss philosophical issues with his friends. When the time of execution came, he drank the poisoned wine peacefully at the age of 69. After Socrates' death, Plato exclaimed, "He is the most upright, wisest, and kindest man of our time!" ”
Statue of Socrates.
The third is the fear of the people. As a leading cadre and a civil servant of the state, we must always remember that the power in our hands is given by the people, that we are civil servants of the people, that we must supervise every move of the masses, that we will resolutely refrain from doing anything that harms the interests of the masses, and that we must not disregard the interests and feelings of the masses.
The fourth is to fear one's own conscience. Fear of heaven, fear of the law, fear of the people, these are "fear of the outside", and the condemnation from the conscience is "fear of the inside". Conscience shines over the law all the time. Therefore, conscience is also called heavenly conscience, although invisible, but qualitative. "Losing one's conscience" is a condemnation of a person's bad deeds. Fear of the outside is the use of external forced transcendence, and fear of the inside is self-transcendence. Ask your conscience about everything you do, and if you are sorry for your conscience, you must consciously correct it. In real life, physical pain makes people miserable, but the torture of conscience will make people sleep and eat restlessly, and it is better to live than to die. In fact, a reverential heart is a heart that respects oneself by respecting others. Only by having a long-term reverence can modern people regulate their words and deeds, purify their souls and perfect their personality, and ensure the inheritance and endless survival of Chinese civilization.
"Fear" comes from ignorance. The word "afraid" has a "white" word. "White" implies blankness and ignorance. Where does "fear" come from? Ignorance is the root of fear. The more you know, the less fearful you will be. The most understandable examples are the Black Death in the Middle Ages. The panic in society at that time actually came from the lack of understanding of the disease, that is, the lack of knowledge of all the knowledge of the Black Death. Because of this, the fear of the future is greatly increased: whether the disease will be cured, how long will the plague last, what will be the number of deaths, whether I will escape the plague or die from the plague, what will happen in the future... When knowledge and experience cannot be explained, when the future cannot be described, fear arises, and fear spreads through the individual and eventually erupts into a social panic.
There is no shortage of such examples in contemporary times: the "salt grabbing" panic during the SARS period, the doomsday panic in 2012, and so on. Doomsday speech is a panic game for people to amplify themselves, in fact, what we should really do is to seize the moment, activate the instinct and vigilance of life, believe in science, love life, and at the same time love life more to eliminate the fear in the heart, which is the fundamental. Of course, in order to eliminate people's fear, it is necessary to popularize scientific knowledge. Only science can overcome ignorance and eliminate fear.
Sometimes, panic is due to ignorance.
"Fear" also comes from being too clear. "Afraid", there is a "white" word, the meaning of which is too clear to make people afraid. As the saying goes, "ignorance is fearless", and if you know too well, you will be afraid.
The famous American psychologist Fromm did an experiment. One day, a student asked him what kind of effect a mindset can have on a person. He said nothing and led the students through a room where five fingers were out of sight. When he passed the room, he turned on the light, and the students were all scared out of a cold sweat. It turned out that there was a large deep pool on the ground of this house, and there were all kinds of poisonous snakes squirming in the pool. Fromm looked at them and asked, "Now, would you like to walk through this room again?" "Everyone looked at each other, silent, and no one dared to try again, because despite the protection of the safety net, they were still worried about unreliability."
This shows that when people see the danger clearly, they lose their calm state of mind and show different degrees of timidity. In fact, life is the same, in the face of various challenges, failure may not be because of lack of strength, low intelligence, but because the danger is too clear, too thorough analysis, too detailed consideration, so that it is intimidated by difficulties and can not take a step. Therefore, we must not only face up to the difficulties, but also not overestimate the difficulties, and sometimes we should defy the difficulties, so that we can not be afraid and not shrink back.
Photo/ Thinkstock
I am afraid that it is a manifestation without a main heart. "Explanation of Words": "Afraid, do nothing." This means that because of fear, man has no opinion, no heart and bone, and therefore does nothing. Fear is a universal psychological phenomenon of man. Some people are afraid of the dark, some people are afraid of rats, and fear of death may be the same for everyone. The warrior is not afraid of difficulties, the warrior is not afraid of death, that is because he has the main heart bone, this main heart bone, mainly firm faith, the feelings of the people and superb skills, therefore, he can overcome all kinds of fears; and the "afraid" person is without the main heart bone, the heart is empty, before the fear of wolves, after fear of tigers, dare not try, afraid of failure, afraid of people's words, the result is often nothing.
Once upon a time, there was a father who took his child to the market to sell donkeys, and the donkeys walked in front, and the father and son accompanied them, and the people in the village looked at it and thought it was ridiculous. "How stupid! There are donkeys but do not ride. The father suddenly felt that it made sense, so he let the child ride on the donkey and follow him next to him. At this time, an acquaintance came from the opposite side and shouted: "Let the child ride a donkey, but he himself is on foot, so spoil the child will be able to get it in the future!" He should be told to walk. The father then let the child down and rode on the back of a donkey himself. As I walked, I met a passerby and said, "Ouch! It is pitiful to let such a small child walk! The father then asked the child to ride on the back of the donkey and move on. The donkey drove two people at the same time, gradually struggling. When they reached the church, a priest stopped them: "Hey! Please wait, let the weak animal carry two people, the donkey is too pitiful. Where are you going? "Let's go to the market and sell donkeys!" "Oh! I see that before you get to the market, the donkey will be exhausted first. "So what to do?" "Carry the donkey on your back!" The father and son immediately jumped off the donkey's back, tied the donkey's hooves, and carried the donkey with sticks. Soon to cross a bridge, the stick "snapped" and broke, and the donkey fell into the river, instantly engulfed by the rapids. The father and son had to walk home dejected.
"Afraid" sounds "climbing", figuratively describing the state of fear, a person is very scared, often frightened to lie down, can not stand up. In fact, for the sake of truth, for the interests of the country and the people, a person must be fearless and brave to move forward.
This article is selected from Gu Yi's "Chinese Character Code"