Read Zhu Guangqian's two sentences

Mr. Zhu Guangqian

Sitting idly at home on National Day, I picked up a book and saw these two sentences: People's practical activities are all done and are limited by the needs of the environment; people's aesthetic activities are all doing nothing, and they are willing to do things because the environment does not need them. In the activity of doing something, man is a slave to the needs of the environment; in the activity of doing nothing, he is the master of his own mind. (Zhu Guangqian, "The Useless Use of Beauty", see "Talking about Beauty")

After reading Mr. Zhu's sentence, I was in a good mood, almost like a dry lake that had been drinking for three days.

I haven't read a sentence like this in a long time.

Mr. Zhu is a senior scholar I admire, and when I was in college, I read his "History of Western Aesthetics" and "Twelve Letters to Young People". I don't have much of an impression of the History of Western Aesthetics now, I only remember a Croce in it, but his thin Twelve Letters to the Youth still keeps me fresh in my memory thirty years later. Its language is intimate, natural, fluent and easy to understand; its contents, such as the breeze, the moon, and the flowing water, make people read with freshness, intoxication and the thrill of gazing at the stars.

It is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Zhu's "Twelve Letters to Youth" is a collection of American essays that can be called classics.

Throughout the decades of life, how many times have people not been doing something mediocre? We sleep and eat for the honors and merits we have not received, we need to think hard for a real life, we worry about the future of our children, we even worry about our own old age and death.

At the same time, we have learned to downplay the inaction that has no realistic rewards, thinking that it is nothing more than a waste of time and money. Not only that, but we also prevent children from participating in inactive activities that only cultivate aesthetic awareness but are difficult to get realistic rewards, stipulating the off-campus training and learning time they must participate in every weekend.

As a result, too many of us give up reading, giving up music, giving up sports even before we become adults, and work hard just for a certain position.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with working to make a difference, otherwise there may be no efficiency in the functioning of institutions and no economic prosperity in today's world. Taking ten thousand steps back, it is far better to participate in activities that do something than to live inhumanly in a muddy state.

However, everything must be balanced, and going too far at either end will deviate from normal. For activities that do and do nothing, the correct way to deal with it should be not only to participate in practical and meaningful activities, but also to participate in the activities of doing nothing in pursuit of beauty. Only in this way can life be colorful and life can show beauty.