Modern life is fast-paced, and many people are busy for work, neglecting themselves and their loved ones. There are also people who pay attention to life and never treat themselves badly, but often give up their efforts under various pretexts.
When we are faced with the balance of career and life, we can learn from this scholar, who is not only high in eight buckets and works, but also enjoys life, and lives an ordinary little life with sound and color, and his prose is full of fireworks, which is vivid and interesting to read.
He is Liang Shiqiu.
01
A long academic career has laid a lifelong foundation for learning
Liang Shiqiu was born into a family of scholars, and his grandfather once took the imperial examination and later became a Sipin official. His father was Xiucai, deeply influenced by Western civilization, open-minded, and a progressive.
After Liang Shiqiu graduated from elementary school, his father accepted the advice of his friends to let him apply for Tsinghua University, and eight years later he crossed the ocean to the United States to study.
In the book, Liang Shiqiu writes about Tsinghua's study experience with great interest.
When he applied for the examination, he accepted the examination of the provincial governor and wrote an article entitled "Filial Piety is the Foundation of Man", because he had done it before, so he did not hesitate to help the pen, and soon after issuing the list, he found that there was a name on the list.
He described leaving his parents to study at Tsinghua as the "second weaning", the first time he left his warm home and went to a new environment, and he did not know what it was like.
He was a secondary science student when he first entered the school. The students, from all provinces, recorded an interesting story when they first went to school: a Classmate in Guangdong saw the snow, came out to tell him, took out a sheepskin robe and put it on, but wore single cloth pants inside.
He underwent strict life management in the middle department, and had been confiscated for reading novels in his dormitory, but he believed that this management method had many advantages and disadvantages, and many of the principles of doing things should be known when they were young.
He recorded the curriculum arrangement of Tsinghua at that time, in the morning english, composition, mathematics, physics, politics and other courses taught in English, and in the afternoon, chinese language, history, geography and other courses taught in Chinese. This division obviously strengthened the teaching of English, which made him always think of the reality of the weakness of the foreign countries at that time, and he felt ashamed and angry.
But he learned lifelong methods from English classes, such as the "parliamentary law" of how to preside over meetings and the "outline law" of writing with a logical level.
The Chinese language teacher who benefited him the most was Mr. Xu Jingcheng, who wrote thousands of words of articles that were often cut out by the teacher, but finally accepted the teacher's "love cutting doctrine", straight to the point, less nonsense.
Students should be fully prepared before the class at Tsinghua University, and must have read the designated reading materials in advance, because there is more practice and discussion during the class, and there is less explanation. When Professors at Tsinghua University designate reading materials, students line up in long queues before the library opens to read the materials on the reference shelves.
He joined the Tsinghua Literary and Art Society as an editor of Tsinghua Weekly, where he received initial practice in writing and editing publications, and became close friends with Wen Yiduo and others. In the name of the editor, he also interviewed celebrities such as Hu Shi and Zhou Zuoren, hoping that they would publish articles in the weekly magazine or speak at schools.
What impressed him the most was a speech by Mr. Liang Qichao, whose voice was sometimes calm and powerful, sometimes loud and exciting, knowledgeable and knowledgeable, ready to introduce works, and when it came to tension, it became a performance, dancing with his hands. After listening to the performance, he was not only deeply moved, but also developed a strong love for Chinese literature.
He was also impressed with the physical education class. When he graduated, he had to take the athletics, rope climbing, swimming and other projects, and he usually did not practice swimming, and as a result, he sank into the water and was picked up. During the make-up exam, he crawled and swam at the bottom of the pool, drank a few sips of water, his head was exposed to the water, and finally the teacher smiled and reluctantly passed, which was a very dishonorable episode when he graduated.
02
Love to read and make life full and meaningful
Liang Shiqiu said:
"Life is short, and there are too many books to read.
Life has reached a realm, reading is not to cope with external needs, not for people, for oneself, in order to enrich themselves, to make themselves a person who understands things, to make their lives full and meaningful. ”
Liang Shiqiu received private school and primary school education when he was a child, and he once took advantage of the teacher's inattention to set the clock forward by half an hour to leave school early, but in general he was a hard-working child.
When he was in college, he liked to read and write, but he also felt that Shakespeare's books were too old to read. When he began to teach at the age of thirty, he found that he was illiterate and read too little, and began to automatically read books to make up for it.
Liang Shiqiu used his own personal experience to warn young people to study according to the school's curriculum and not to be biased.
He believes that learning must have a foundation, and the foundation should be played smoothly and solidly, and it will always be used in the future.
The most important subjects in the initial stage are Chinese and Mathematics. Other subjects also have their own uses and cannot be forced.
In the era of study, it is necessary to be patient with the discipline of education, to temper yourself into solid materials, to leave the interest of learning for an older age, and then slowly enjoy it when you choose a field to continue your research.
Liang Shiqiu respects the attitude of hard work, he believes, "All walks of life, all those who are diligent and not sluggish will certainly achieve something and get ahead." People are not diligent, and there are no different grasses and trees. The positive meaning of diligence is to enter the cultivation of virtue, which is not only different from grass and trees, but also different from animals and animals, and becomes a veritable spirit of all things. ”
Liang Shiqiu lasted for nearly 40 years, completing the translation of 40 books in the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
In his later years, he spent 7 years to complete the million-word book "History of English Literature", and also wrote 4 volumes of essays on "Yashe Sketches", which was his literary achievements.
03
People who love good food never slack off in life
Liang Shiqiu loves food and has also studied food.
He said, "The most hungry time for man is the period when he wants to eat something and cannot get it."
"The sin of hunger is to look at, recall or talk about a delicacy in the middle of a full warmth, and the throat seems to be scratched and itched by a hungry insect, so it has to dry up and spit." Once you get what you want, enjoy it freely and be full of thainess. ”
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he had been obsessed with the flavor of Peking sheep's head meat in the rear for seven or eight years.
After the victory, one winter night, I heard the shouts of the sheep's head meat vendors in the deep alleys, and immediately crawled out of the bed and called the vendors into the doorway. He sat on a lazy stool and watched him under the dim illumination of the oil lamp, drew a thin knife with a shiny snow, slashed the face of the sheep across the blade, and then took out a gauze-covered horn and sprinkled it with some pretzels.
He carried a plate of sheep's head meat, repeatedly drilled into the bed, put the sheep's head meat into his mouth piece by piece on the pillow, and unconsciously entered the sleep, very satisfied to relieve his addiction. But he said that although the taste was good, it was not as good as the incense imagined when he was thinking about it.
Liang Shiqiu has an ability to discover happiness from ordinary life, even if it is a very ordinary thing, in his eyes there is a different kind of fun.
He likes to write letters, and he thinks the most satisfying thing to do in the morning is to find a bunch of letters on the case.
"Family and friends gather and disperse in a hurry, after the violation, there are some sees, some smells, some memories, some feelings, do not want to be alone, willing to share, then take the excitement pen, borrow empathy." The letter writer did not ask for anything, but the believer felt that the friendship was like a lot, full of fun, and could not help but be fascinated. ”
He also enjoys his free time, thinking:
"The highest ideal of mankind should be that everyone can have leisure, and in addition to the necessary work, there can be leisure to do people, have leisure to do people's work, and enjoy people's lives.
When a person is idle, he is most like a person, his hands and feet are quite idle, and his mind can be quite busy. There should be a limit to diligent work, and labor is necessary, but it should not be the ultimate goal. ”
Liang Shiqiu's article seems to be laughing and scolding, but in fact it reflects his idyllic and open-minded attitude towards life.
In the face of money, he can see plainly, thinking that "accumulating tens of millions of dollars is not as good as thin skills." "Instead of being burdened with money, do something beneficial."
In the face of the situation, he can maintain a calm mind, do not do unnecessary emotional catharsis, but use a more effective way to make the enemy feel the real blow.
In the face of age, he does not shy away from lamenting, and regards old age as a natural phenomenon of "flowers bloom and are thankful, trees have glory and withering", do not seek trouble for themselves, at least do not hinder people's affairs, do not be disliked.
We all need Liang Shiqiu's art of work-life balance, life is short, make life full and meaningful, and be a fun person.
Author: Onion, a member of the Intensive Reading Club. An insightful and humanly trained woman wants to think deeply with you and change her life