Author | Ah peep
Original debut | Blue Word Plan
At three o'clock in the morning, a sharp alarm broke through the dream.
As if falling rapidly from a high altitude, Berry Lin's body shook violently, and she subconsciously touched under the pillow. Very well, the knife is still there. Scanning the surroundings with the light of the mobile phone, the doors and windows are tightly closed, and everything is as usual. She breathed a brief sigh of relief.
This is the second year that Berry Lin has become a squat. Three days ago, when her intolerable parents threatened to send her to the rehab center, Berry Felt Her Heart Skip Half Beat.
She remembered that many of the parties in Yuzhang Academy in the past were confused in their sleep and were dragged out of the bed by a few big men and stuffed into the car, "The gates of hell are opened." Afraid that a similar plot would happen to her, Berry Lin did not dare to sleep all night, the alarm clock was set to ring once an hour, and a fruit knife was hidden at the head of the bed, ready to die at any time.
It does seem that it is better to be alive than to die. The family has been squatting for a long time, and the radius of life is so small that only the palm-sized place of the bedroom remains. Because of the antidepressant pills and overeating to induce vomiting, she gained a lot of weight, and her flesh swelled up like fermented dough. The clothes in the closet have long been stuffed, and I am too lazy to buy new ones. Dressed in a wide male T, he let himself stick to the bed like mud.
She didn't dare to look in the mirror, and she hated to see the awards posted on the wall. Past honors will only make the status quo worse.
In China, there are more and more young people like Berry Lin. Graduated from 985 and 211 colleges and universities, holding a good hand of cards, but after entering the workplace, they can't play a single one, and the learned helplessness after frustration makes them retreat and hide at home. Lived a contemporary "invisible" life without income and social networking.
In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the dividends of the times have been shrinking. Society's low fault tolerance rate leads to the fact that once an individual takes a wrong step, he will be ruthlessly abandoned by the high-speed train of the times and will no longer be able to catch up.
How easy is it to get a young man who has nothing but a diploma off track?
When the news of the explosion of the long-term rental apartment that has lived for half a year came out, Berry Lin was overwhelmed by the company's newly implemented last-place elimination system. Unlike what was originally envisaged, a postgraduate degree not only did not increase her competitiveness in the workplace, but because of the high dislocation of academic training and market demand, it was more difficult for her to adapt to the transformation of her identity.
The copywriting conversion rate is not up, and when it comes to user insight and dimensionality reduction, interns seem to be more skilled than her. What to do, from the experience of being a problem writer in a small town, it seems that the only thing she can do is to pour more effort than others.
On a rare holiday that can be used to catch up on sleep, the landlord came uninvited, claiming that he had not received rent for two months. Caught off guard by the eviction order, Berry Lin looked confused, the housekeeper could not be contacted, called the customer service phone, and responded to her only monotonous busy tone. The brand side that achieved rapid expansion with the help of rental loans fell on the blindfolded road and knocked down countless young people who were not deeply involved in the world.
Stills from "Classmate Meñas"
After half a month of stalemate with the landlord, on the coldest day of December, she still lost her job in the wave of structural optimization.
The lost soul returned to the residence and received another fatal blow. The landlord removed the water meter valve, cut off the meter wires, and forced her to pack her bags and leave overnight. Because the working period is too short, the resignation has not received much compensation, but the rent loan in the second half of the year must be repaid correctly, otherwise it will affect the credit report.
When I tried to defend my rights and ran to the headquarters of Haoyuan Hengye Enterprise with other victims, I had already gone to the empty building, and the ground was littered with broken glass, office supplies and contract materials, and the two big characters of repayment were painted outside the glass door. A multitude of anxious faces gathered around each other, exchanging their respective collapses of helplessness.
Berry Lin remembered Yu Hua's "Eighteen-year-old going out for a long trip", they ran to the outside world like happy foals, but in exchange for the world's first drink. The expectations of a highly idealized human society and following a simple moral outlook in the past have all collapsed in the shock of reality.
The worst time was when the boyfriend of the long-distance relationship accepted her. In the one-bedroom, one-room rental house, she curled herself up temporarily. Replace the bedroom with new curtains and wallpaper, buy groceries and cook, wait for the boyfriend to come home, and rebuild the order of life in the subtleties to cover up the confusion and fatigue of falling behind from the mainstream competition.
Becoming a squatter seems to have changed suddenly, but behind this there is a multi-party synergy from society, family, and school.
Luo Qiguang, who graduated in 985, was one of the few college students in the village, due to the lack of information blockage, there was no professional opinion for reference when filling in the volunteers, and under the brainwashing of the elders' "365 lines, lines out of the yuan", he chose biological engineering according to his feelings.
Later, surfing the Internet learned that this major belonged to one of the four sinkholes that buried countless science students. If you don't stick to a high degree, it's hard to find the right employment opportunity. Moreover, he was not interested in the content of the course, and the teacher was very divergent and very difficult to keep up. Luo Qiguang, who has been regarded as a bully since childhood, has no achievement advantage here, and other aspects are even more bleak. Not good at words, and without any talent to hand, the difference in insight and vision, like an invisible barrier, separated him from other classmates.
Stills from "One Thought without Understanding"
The first semester of the final exam, review for a long time or hang two subjects. An unprecedented sense of frustration rose. He couldn't find a reason to continue to work hard, and his studies were broken, and his interpersonal communication became more and more marginal. Later, he simply skipped class to play games in Internet cafes, hiding from reality at the same time, but also seemed to retain the last bit of pride. "You can blame all the bad grades on the lack of effort."
After a few years of confusion, what awaited him was the re-cultivation of Yan bi without suspense.
Miss the school recruitment of fresh graduates, and most of the social recruitment has work experience requirements. In the end, I could only keep lowering expectations, and I went ashore to a start-up company at the beginning of my life, and I started the operation and customer service work that could not be beaten by professional eight rods.
In order to save money, Luo Qiguang rented a remote suburb. The subway during rush hour is like a giant monster, with thousands of people colliding and squeezing inside the monster. After holding his face viciously for tens of minutes, the spirit was sucked away, the sweat gradually fermented, and the body odor was cross-infected.
The subway doors opened and people poured out like their excrement. Out of the station, sunburned by the sun, I feel that the whole person is about to melt away.
In startups, one person is the norm for two people. Entering the office, my ass was just on the chair, and I was about to have a morning meeting. After reviewing and planning, the soldiers carried out their work in a chaotic manner. During this period, you also have to deal with temporary tasks falling from the sky, fake group activities...
Work swallows up life like a bottomless pit, Luo Qiguang suffers from geriatric disease in advance, and the money earned is used to repair the body, and as soon as it is repaired, it is urged to hurry into production. But something in the body seemed to die permanently, and it could no longer hit any chicken blood.
Later, he changed two jobs, but he couldn't work for two months, and after being fed up with the experience of "only getting out of the wolf's den and entering the tiger's den", Luo Qiguang decided to go back to the rental house and squat.
"Crouching down is for a better jump." After being violently crushed by the giant gears of reality, each squat initially thinks that they just need a buffer period for a shallow squat.
Out of the psychology of compensation for past hard work, when he first entered the squat, Luo Qiguang planned to completely relax for half a month first, and then reinvigorate his strength, optimize his resume, and look for job opportunities.
Day and night are turned upside down, and the life of takeaways begins. Time other than eating and sleeping is playing games, a strong willingness to pass the level drives him to constantly kryptonite gold, watching the invincible characters he manipulates, god blocking the killing of god Buddha blocking the killing of Buddha, Luo Qiguang feels that the adrenaline is soaring, and when he plays to the end, people are like being emptied, and they have to quickly find new games to fill.
Desire is always easy to let go, the gradually paralyzed willpower can not be mobilized at any time, after a certain critical point, there will be a "ding" sudden break, and then people are dragged forward by strong inertia.
He constantly escalates in the virtual world, and in the real world, he abandons his martial arts. Avoiding deep thinking, I feel tired when I get out of bed and take a shower. The deposit was in a hurry, and he could not get rid of this decadent state, Luo Qiguang began to borrow online loans, first a single small loan of several thousand yuan, divided into installments ranging from half a year to a year. After overdue, he embarked on the road of raising loans with loans, and at most he used seven or eight loan software at the same time, demolishing the eastern wall every month to make up for the western wall, and the debt was getting bigger and bigger like a snowball. Later, I didn't dare to calculate how much money I owed in total.
When he was so anxious that he couldn't sleep at night, he always relied on "flying" to hypnotize. Only by indulging more frantically in instant happiness can we drive out worries about the future.
Platforms with low interest have been borrowed over and over again, and high interest rates dare not touch, and new online lending channels are becoming more and more difficult to find. Seeing that the pit is about to be filled, we can only hope to find a job and escape the quagmire of insolvency.
The resume that can be cast is always in the sea, it is difficult to receive an interview call, and when asked what he has been doing for several months of unemployment, he is nervous and his tongue is knotted.
In the days when her boyfriend was squatting at home, Berry Lin briefly returned to the workplace. Going to a landscape design company to do copywriting planning, the KPI's survey indicators shifted from user feedback to leadership preferences, and the situation did not get better. She often needs to pinch her nose to create something that she is ashamed to share and completely does not conform to her own aesthetic.
What is more troublesome is office politics, more than a dozen people in the department, but divided into three or four factions, from these factions breed hundreds of entangled topics, in the middle of it, step by step, afraid of accidentally standing in the wrong line and being isolated and excluded. But in the end, she still failed to survive for three months, and when she refused to participate in the team-building activities held on the rest day for the second time, she was criticized by her superiors for lacking team awareness, and she simply tore her face: "Did I sign a deed of sale with the company, and my private time could not be freely disposed of?" ”
After squatting back this time, Berry Lin's imagination for the future seemed to be completely hammered out.
Through Douban, she joined a group of squatting friends, in which many literary and artistic young people with the same disease share a similar life trajectory: taking a wrong step, or taking a break in the middle, it is difficult to get back on track. In a highly closed life, courage and fighting spirit are gradually worn away.
They laugh at themselves, they squat B, but because they are well educated, they usually watch humanistic documentaries and independent films, listen to soul blues, psychedelic rock, talk about various poets, writers, philosophical genres, and sometimes argue because of different political spectrums... All of the above made them always retain a part of their metaphysical superiority and refuse to be confused with the sanhe gods.
Japanese NHK "Miwa Daijin" documentary
Online they are delicately decadent together, offline, Berry Lin resists the process of socialization, hoping to live in a small world with lovers as the axis for a long time. There is no complicated information and interpersonal relationships in that world, and naturally there is no need to be strong and efficient.
But at the same time, she can't help but put herself in the evaluation system of mainstream values. During the university's return visit, students who had not been in contact for a long time chatted about their situation in the group. She was surprised to find that people who had never looked at her before had already led the team to start a business, or mixed in a large factory to a position she could not reach. Looking at myself, in the industry of rapid blood change, it seems that it can be replaced by cheaper and more energetic young people at any time.
As the person with the highest score in the class that year, Berry Lin's dynamics naturally attracted much attention. She lied and filled in a well-known Internet company, some people who had not spoken much before also came to join her friends, in order to have a place in the steaming dynamics, she forced the spirit to buy a line, participate in various screenings, go to high-end restaurants to punch in... The experience process is not much enjoyment, the real climax always occurs when pushing the circle of friends, likes and comments are increasing.
Berry Lin is looking for a boyfriend more and more times to ask for money. Although it is nominally borrowed, they both know that the repayment of the money is far from being expected. She regarded the other party as the only driftwood she could grasp, but the other party was not selfless enough to take all this for granted.
After several fruitless knocks on the side, the boyfriend couldn't help but taunt in a strange way: "When I asked for money, I didn't see you mentioning feminism." "How can I bear to be angry outside every day?" ”
Berry Lin, whose self-esteem collapsed, exploded in an instant, not so much angry with the other party as disappointment in herself.
On the third night after the fight, she lay in bed and her boyfriend leaned over, seemingly hoping to reconcile through physical interaction. Berry Lin coldly squeezed out a sentence: "Give money, 1000 once." ”
I don't know whether to abuse him or to abuse myself. The boyfriend immediately changed his face, and a sense of revenge surged in Berry Lin's heart.
Without foreplay, he entered her roughly. Afterwards, the other party transferred 5,000 yuan.
"Don't look for it, just break up the fee."
The last bit of security dissipated. Like a kite with a broken line, in this strange city, Berry Lin does not belong to the school, does not belong to the family, does not belong to any company, goes to the bank to do business, fills in the identity occupation column, she does not know where to put it.
Free from all systems, she wondered if she was still a sociological person. Sometimes even the cockroaches that see the fleeing in a hurry give birth to a kind of feeling.
This sense of powerlessness that drifts away from the mainstream track is incomprehensible to parents. Most of their imaginations of the world that young people face are still stuck in TV dramas or their own experiences.
For example, Luo Qiguang's parents, after receiving a debt collection call from the online lending platform, it took a long time to ease up from the shock. They don't understand how a graduate of a prestigious school could end up in this position. Think about yourself at that time, before I finished junior high school, I could rely on myself, and I still had to support a large family, so why didn't I work for my son?
After half a day of entanglement, the final conclusion is often "you are too lazy" and "irresponsible".
Berry Lin, who returned to her hometown in the name of Kao Gong, was nagged by her parents every day, why didn't she prepare for the iron rice bowl earlier? People who entered the system as soon as they graduated from college are now living old and moist. She was speechless, she could only try to avoid conversation, and when she ate, she hurried back to the room after a few bites.
I don't know exactly from what day, the emotional adjustment button seems to have failed. What used to be infinitely fascinated and had no time to do now is not interested in doing, the list of books and movie lists are eating ash in the favorites, switching back and forth between several apps all day, sometimes playing mentally handicapped games such as even watching and eliminating music, and inexplicably crying. review? inexistent.
She didn't know how to fish herself up. Binge eating becomes the only way to alleviate anxiety and gain a sense of security, but afterwards it is swallowed up by guilt, so it enters the dead cycle of overeating and vomiting. Colorful food turned into slag, mixed with stomach acid flowing out of the esophagus, and at the worst, she spit out the blood vessels in her pupils.
Berry Lin complained about her loss of control in the squatting friends group, and many people advised her to go to the doctor to prescribe antidepressant drugs. Because it is difficult to establish a highly self-consistent value system and the lack of benign interpersonal interaction in a closed state, depression is quite high in the squatting group. Their clocks are disordered and their reactions to the outside world are sometimes numb and sometimes particularly full. Every night everyone exchanges all kinds of world-weary quotations, reports prescriptions like newspaper menus, and hopes that tomorrow is the end of the world, and all mankind is hurrying to finish playing, and everything is zero.
Parents know very little about depression, they only know that they have made the leap from the countryside to the third-tier towns from scratch. In the state-owned enterprises and factories, they have enjoyed all kinds of benefits of enterprises and society, and although they cannot be brought to high standards, they can be properly resolved.
Standing on their shoulders, Berry Lin attended such a good school, which should be far better than their development. Instead of holding your phone and computer all day like now, it is getting more and more depressed. In the past, their daughters were the ones who added luster to them, but now acquaintances look at them with a hint of sympathy in their eyes. Together, it seems that it is not necessarily a good thing for girls to read too many books, and it is better to spend more time on lifelong events. But a glance at Berry Lin, the four bodies are not diligent and grainless, because the body of the medicine is seriously out of shape, and the marriage market is really not dominant.
Some enthusiastic people have the idea that in this case, they should be sent to the net ring center, no matter how naughty they are, and they are obedient like kittens. Berry Lin's parents were moved, and after telephone consultation with several companies, they announced this decision at the dinner table, but Berry Lin's resistance was far beyond their imagination.
In the Douban "Home Squat Self-Help Alliance", the mourning speeches of squatting friends who are "not worth it in the world" are often mixed with helpless parents' help posts. Both are trapped in their respective positions, tug-of-war with each other, unable to find a smooth communication mechanism.
The times have changed, the social development of the national high education, and the social labor market for the digestion of highly educated talents is insufficient, under the conflict of the two large-scale phenomena, resulting in high turbulence after the graduates first out of the workplace do not adapt. Fathers thought that moving around according to the prescribed path would usher in an ideal middle-class life. But in fact, the rate of appreciation of labor can never keep up with the rate of capital appreciation.
Squatters who have been beaten up in the workplace have this consensus: "It is too difficult to find a job that does not exhaust energy and has stable welfare protection." "The thought of having to endure such a long mindfuck all my life really doesn't understand what it means to be alive."
Bereavement culture knows no borders. In neighboring Japan, the family has another name, the Higashi clan. In 2019, according to The Japanese Cabinet, the number of Ethnic Groups in Japan has grown to more than 1.15 million, and the age level can cross from 15 to 64 years old.
The bursting of the bubble economy cut off the "conveyor belt" of "high scores - good universities - good jobs", and Young Japanese people lost the "lifelong" jobs owned by their parents and ushered in short-term employment situations of short-term and casual work. The wave of unemployment brought about by economic austerity has thrown slow-paced people to the margins of society, and they live with shame and retreat again and again. From a room, to a house, and finally to a bed. What followed was a tense intergenerational relationship.
In order not to cause trouble to those around him, in 2019, 76-year-old Hideaki Kumazawa stabbed his 44-year-old son to death. His son, Hideichiro Kumazawa, has been staying at home all these years, addicted to games, and living by nibbling on old age. And repeatedly showed violent tendencies.
On the morning of June 1, Eiichiro was upset by the sound of the elementary school sports meeting next door, and he shouted at the window to kill them. This makes Hideaki worried that his son will hurt the innocent like the murderers of the Kawasaki murders.
The father and son quarreled, and when Eiichiro returned to himself with a fist, Hideaki Kumazawa picked up a souvenir prop from the Ministry of Agriculture and Water and stabbed Eiichiro in the chest.
Fearing Eiichiro's revenge on society and his own sense of fear, Hideaki left 37 knife wounds on his son.
"I didn't kill chickens as hard as Hideaki Kumazawa in the New Year."
Fortunately, the conflict between Berry Lin and her parents did not further intensify.
After committing suicide once, my parents did not dare to mention going to the Internet rehabilitation center again. But can we continue to squat like this in the future?
As they get older, squatters can't avoid a question: what if their parents get old?
"I hope I die in front of my parents." Our parents have pensions when they are old, we have no pension and no security, and we really have to fend for ourselves in our old age. The answer of a squatting friend was echoed by many.
And for those who have not yet seen through life and death, being waste does require talent. The noise of information from the real world disturbs their inner order all the time, and then they sadly discover that after puncturing their illusory freedom, they are nothing more than an urban moth that sucks their parents.
There is no squat who does not want to take off the squat. They are all trying to find a balance that neither needs to be squeezed dry nor completely rusted and scrapped.
Under the introduction of group friends, Berry Lin became an online virtual girlfriend, accepting the loneliness from the north and south of the world. She often thinks of a clear night when her boyfriend rode her across the riverbank on a bicycle, when the world was still highly saturated for her, and she felt that she still had the strength to bottom out and one day stand side by side with her boyfriend. But in the end she screwed it all up.
"He also pointed out that you were pensioned, and as a result, the coffin was supposed to accompany you."
Relying on his parents' savings, Luo Qiguang barely paid off his debts. He attributed the "degeneration" of the past to disappointment with the existing order, but he also understood that in addition to lying, kneeling, and squatting, people should have other survival postures, such as creeping forward. As a left-wing up master of Station B said, "The heart and emotions identify with the downwards, and the hardest parts, the spine, the self-esteem, are pointed upwards." I'd rather land my hands on the ground than on my head. ”
The flame that had been extinguished for a long time seemed to rekindle, albeit faintly. Luo Qiguang began to try low-threshold work that had never been considered before, going to a hotel that packed food and accommodation as a night shift front desk, and being a welcome to the sales office...
Once I met an old classmate, and the other party was surprised.
"Why are you here?"
"Where else should I be?"
When he said this, his expression was not very natural, and his hands and feet did not know where to put them
But at least, he didn't hide anymore.