Figure | Rainbow Choir
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"When I was 5 years old, my mother told me that the key to life is to be happy. After school, people asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, and I wrote "happy." They told me that I had misunderstood the subject, and I told them that they had misunderstood life. ”
—John Lennon
It seems that each of us has a different childhood, with different ages, different environments, and different experiences.
But it seems that the childhoods we have had are very similar.
Because if you really have to choose a word to describe the time when you were a child.
I think the vast majority of people will say, "Happy." ”
Figure | Originated from the "Hello Little Friend" Ryoji Akiyama photo album
Some people say that we miss our childhood, but in fact, we are just nostalgic for that time of pure joy.
From another point of view, the equivalent begins to acquiesce:
When we grow up, it is difficult for us to have the same happiness again.
But why?
Until I saw a book written by the Swedish writer Buckman called "Grandma's Apology Letter", which may be able to tell us the answer
Maybe it's because we've never been taught how to be interesting adults.
The protagonists in the book are a pair of grandchildren.
Aisha is a little girl who is about to turn 8 years old. There is an "old age" that is not commensurate with her age.
Aisha's grandmother, who is about to turn 78, has a "liveliness" that is not equal to her age.
An old child with a little old child.
There should be some ridiculous stories.
No, at the beginning, Grandma and Aisha were caught in the police station.
Because in the middle of the night, Grandma was restless even being a patient.
He sneaked out of the hospital and took Aisha over the zoo wall to see if the monkeys would sleep standing up as they argued.
When he was discovered, he also threw balls at the police.
Figure | Happy Planet Thirty-Six movie
Finally, the police informed Grandma's daughter, Aisha's mother, to come to solve the chaotic situation, and also caused Grandma to protest: "Why do you call her crazy?" She's going to blow up. ”
At 2 a.m., Aisha and her grandmother stood on the sidewalk waiting for their parents, using their fingers to fiddle with the hole in their scarf.
She tried to hold back the tears, but without success.
"Oh, okay, your mother can make it up." Grandma gently pounded Aisha's shoulder. "Tell her that you broke the scarf when you tried to stop me from climbing the wall." Grandma tried to show cheerfulness.
Aisha wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and whispered, "Grandma, I'm not stupid. ”
Yes, little Aisha is not stupid.
She knew that her scarf was not torn when she climbed over the wall in the middle of the night, but was torn when she was bullied by several upper-grade girls at school.
She knew that grandma had escaped from the hospital and broken into the zoo, and it wasn't really to see the monkeys. Rather, it was to make Aisha forget the unpleasantness that happened at school today.
Aisha is sad about her own suffering, and she is touched by her grandmother's good intentions.
Grandma told Aisha:
If you can't get rid of bad things, you have to cover it with more "good material".
In the eyes of others, Grandma is a "big trouble".
It seems that she creates all kinds of things every day, provoking her daughter and neighbors.
Figure | Derived from the movie "Flying Over the Nursing Home"
Saying that she has a 6-nation driver's license, it just so happens that none of them belong to the country where she currently lives. Usually with his knees against the steering wheel, he began to "drive without a license" on the street.
See organized door-to-door banging on doors, proclaiming God, Christ, and Heaven. She would stand on the balcony, open her nightgown and shoot at them with a paintball gun.
On a snowy day, i built a snowman downstairs and dressed it. In order to make it look like a living person who had fallen from the roof, it scared the neighbor half to death.
……
But it was such a seemingly crazy grandmother who gave Aisha the deepest love and protection.
Because Aisha is also a "small trouble" in the eyes of others.
She is precocious, clever, but also sensitive.
When she hears unfamiliar terms from the major population, she goes online to Wikipedia and can't be fooled.
After being bullied at school, the principal advised her to behave "normally" in order to "integrate with other children." Aisha understood that this was to calm people down.
The parents divorced and remarried, and the mother was pregnant and about to have a new child. All this made Aisha feel uncomfortable, but she could only be silent.
Except in front of Grandma.
Aisha can show her vulnerability, isolation and authenticity to the fullest.
Figure | Movie "The Fall"
Every night when she was too scared to sleep, Aisha could transform into the bravest knight to swim freely in the fairy tale world that her grandmother had built for her, a place called the Sleepless Continent.
Every 7-year-old should have a superhero. All those who disagree need to check their heads for anything wrong.
Grandma is Aisha's superhero.
Until one day, the superhero solemnly gave Aisha a task.
She wrote several apology letters, asking Aisha to help deliver them to the neighbors in the building.
It was a complete adventure for a 7-year-old, but she had to finish it.
No one knows that grandma has prepared the nutrients that can make Aisha thrive and grow into an adult in this arranged journey. Constantly nourishing Aisha's present and future.
Grandma poured the first growing fertilizer on Aisha
- Refusal of authority.
Aisha was bruised by the boys in the same class, but the headmaster calmly explained that it was just a typical boyish prank.
Grandma was so angry that she smashed the headmaster's computer screen with her globe.
Indignantly said, "This boy is not because he hit the girl is a little bastard, because he hit someone, anyone!" ”
The headmaster's authority was useless to Grandma.
Figure | Movie "The Executioner"
After all, when my grandmother was young, she also fought against the strange eyes of the whole society and chose to become a female surgeon.
This is Aisha's grandmother's past that she gradually learned in the process of delivering the letter.
Grandma's presence, and everything she does that seems crazy.
It's all about telling Aisha:
We must have the courage to break unreasonable conventions and resist rigid traditional constraints.
A friend once told me that as a transfer student, he also tried to be isolated by the whole class for no reason, but was advised by parents and teachers to actively and friendly integrate into the group.
Under the dual "authority" of peers and elders, it is difficult to walk.
I realized that there have always been many "useless authorities" in life.
When authority does not emerge to advance toward justice, but to create and facilitate others, we should be vigilant.
The second fertilizer grandma prepared was: learn to understand.
In the apartment building where they live, there is a strange group of neighbors.
The fussy Mary, the burly man who never goes out during the day, the drunken woman in the black dress, the maud couple who are old and good...
Originally, these neighbors were just familiar strangers to Aisha.
Aisha even hated and feared them.
But the letters handed down by Grandma are like pieces of a puzzle, piecing together the past of neighbors and grandma, and the secrets behind them.
It turned out that Grandma's story about the Sleepless Continent was true.
The characters in it are all miniatures of the neighbors.
Figure | Movie "Flying Over the Nursing Home"
They were rescued by their grandmothers from disaster after disaster or battlefield, and each of them hid deep pain.
A tsunami has taken away the beloved husband and son of a woman in a black dress, Mary has lived in the shadow of abandonment since childhood, the burly man is a wounded soldier on the battlefield, and the son of a good old couple is actually a murderer...
Grandma said:
Not all monsters start out as monsters. Some have become monsters because of sadness.
Accept yourself and forgive others, and life is never just one truth.
I remember Zhang Guimei, a teacher in the mountainous area, who was criticized the most at that time, for not respecting the status of housewives and having a narrow vision. And most of them have never really experienced the fate of women in backward mountain areas.
The snow that falls on a person's life, we can't see it all.
Trying to understand is actually broadening the breadth and breadth of your life.
Grandma's last lesson for Aisha is: Face Death.
Grandma left the most precious letter to Aisha.
In this apology letter, she wrote:
Sorry I have to die. Sorry I dyed. Sorry I got old.
The translation is: Forgive me for having to leave.
Forgive me for leaving, forgive me for being old.
Aisha's superhero, because of cancer, left her forever.
The bystander told Aisha that grandma was old and that this was a necessary process.
Aisha retorted, "Not for me, I've only known her for seven years. ”
Seven years is too short for a grandson and grandson who have a deep friendship.
It's hard to reason with death. It's also hard to let go of the people you love.
But it just so happens that death and parting are problems that everyone cannot avoid.
Figure | In "Grandma's Apology Letter", Grandma's handwritten letter to Aisha
Grandma didn't want Aisha to live in the haze that came with her death.
So he arranged the task of delivering letters to Aisha, which hid the growth problems that were too late to teach her, and helped Aisha rebuild the pillar of her life and become her own superhero.
Because the love and courage that Grandma left to Aisha will not fade with it and her departure.
It is human nature to fear death.
Especially now that the epidemic is sweeping, we understand the fragility of life.
The laws of life and death must be followed, but death is never the end.
Because the more important meaning of life is in the mutual influence of each other.
Although parting is sometimes, the spirit is still alive. This is the medicine for us to calmly face life and death.
Figure | Movie "Grandma's House"
There was an interesting question on the Internet before: If today is the last day of your life, what are the truths and revelations that you want to tell others?
One of the most highly liked answers was:
There is no reason for you to live this life well, except to find yourself.
"Grandma's Apology Letter" tells a very simple story indeed.
It is even similar to the book "The Little Prince", which presents their views and thoughts on the world through the perspective of a child.
Then it is dedicated to all adults who have become rough and blunt in real life.
If "The Little Prince" is to hope that every adult who has been a child will find his own childlike heart.
Then the book "Grandma's Apology Letter" hopes that every adult will return to the identity of the child;
Look at how many unnecessary box limits each person has set for their adult roles.
So as to find those shackles and loosen the shackles of your own life.
Here, I would also like to talk about the author of this book, Frederick Buckman.
Figure | Writer: Frederick Buckman
Sometimes, when we can take the time to better understand the purpose of the author's creation, the closer we can get to the truth that the literary work wants to convey.
As a Swedish writer, Buckman is also better known for his work than "Grandma's Apology Letter" called "A Man Named Ovie Decides to Die."
The Ovie in the book is a 59-year-old man with a very obedient and eccentric temperament.
After the death of his beloved wife, the order of life is disturbed and he cannot find the meaning of living, and he is ready to die to reunite with his wife.
But he was repeatedly interrupted by "unconventional" things to commit suicide, and regained his enthusiasm for life.
Figure | Movie "A Man Named Ovie Decides to Die"
Buckman is adept at using warm brushwork to construct a whole new world through stories of old people and children.
He once said in an interview: "The most attractive to me are the middle-aged and elderly people over 55 years old and children under 10 years old, because they are the least concerned about the established laws of society." ”
"After reaching a certain age, people's values will gradually become like this: 'You know what other people fucking think, it's about my ass.'" And then the little ones have not yet learned how to adapt to this society.
I am very interested in these people, they will not follow others, but only choose their own path, but not in the eyes of others. They're just caught in the crowd, at a different pace than others. ”
Buckman felt that in a person's life, it is more useful to find the pace of self than to listen to the big truth.
Don't please the world, just please yourself.
Be a fun grown-up.
Don't let anyone tell you it shouldn't be different.
Live well, laugh well, dream well. Life is a great adventure.
The text is a polar original, please contact the author for reprinting
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Author: Xuan Yi