Chapter 2 1

The so-called perfect essay does not exist, just as there is no perfect despair. When I was a college student, a writer I met by chance said this to me.Although it took a long time to understand the true meaning, at least it was possible to take it as a kind of comfort.The so-called perfect article does not exist, there is such a thing. But even so, every time I tried to write something, I was always struck by an atmosphere of despair.Because the field I can write is too limited.For example, if I could write something about elephants, I might not be able to write anything about mahouts, that's all.

For eight years, I have been in this dilemma.Eight years, a long time. Of course, old age may not be so painful, so long as one continues to adopt the attitude that one can learn a little from everything.This is a general theory. I've been trying to adopt this lifestyle since I was in my early twenties.Therefore, how many times have I endured major blows, deceptions, and misunderstandings from others, and at the same time I have experienced many incredible experiences.All sorts of people came and told me things, passed me like a bridge, and passed me with a voice, and never came back.During that time, I kept my mouth tightly shut and didn't say anything.It is in this context that I welcome the last year of the twenties.

Now, I want to say. Of course, none of the problems have been resolved, and the situation may still be exactly the same after the talk.As a result, writing articles is not a means of self-medication but only a small attempt at self-medication. But it is very difficult to speak frankly and sincerely, and the more I try to tell the truth, the more correct language sinks into the depths of darkness. I don't want to argue.At least as far as I'm concerned here, I'm at my best right now.Nothing needs to be added.But even so, I still think this way: maybe a long time later, years or decades later, I can find my saved self.And then the elephant went back to the plains and began to talk about the world in a language more beautiful than mine.

◇ Most of the articles I talked to Dalek.Hadfield learned.Perhaps it should be said all.Unfortunately Hadfield himself was by all accounts a poor writer.It's hard to read, messy, clumsy and childish in subject matter, but he's one of the rare writers who uses writing as a fighting weapon.I think that even with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and other contemporary writers, Hadfield's fighting posture is by no means behind.The only regret is that Hadfield could not clearly grasp the image of his opponent in the end.As a result, the so-called barren refers to this. For eight years and two months, he continued the barren fight, and then died.On a sunny Sunday morning in June 1938, holding a portrait of Hitler in his right hand and an umbrella in his left, he jumped off the roof of the Empire State Building.As in his life, his death caused no serious discussion.

◇ I got the first Hadefell's out-of-print book by chance during the summer vacation of the third year of junior high when I got a very serious skin disease between my thighs.The uncle who gave me that book got bowel cancer three years later, and his whole body became shattered. The entrance and exit of his body were filled with plastic tubes, and he suffered like that until he died.The last time I saw him, he was scorched and shrunk into a small ball like a cunning monkey. ◇ I have three uncles in total, one died in the suburbs of Shanghai, two days after the end of the war, he stepped on a landmine he had planted.Only the third uncle survived, working as a magician and touring hot springs across the country.

◇ Hadfield wrote about good articles. The homework of writing an article is to confirm the distance between the unchangeable self and the things that surround you.What is necessary is not sensibility, but scale. ("What's so bad about being in a good mood?" 1936) I started to hold a ruler in one hand and look around with trepidation. It really started in the year when President Kennedy died.Fifteen years have passed since then.After fifteen years of work, I really gave up all kinds of things.It's like an airplane with an engine failure, in order to save weight, throwing away the luggage one by one, throwing away the seats, and finally even the poor flight attendant. In fifteen years, I abandoned everything, and on the other hand Learned almost nothing.

Is this right?I can't be sure either.It's true that he has become more relaxed, but when he is about to die, when he thinks about what he has left behind, he feels extremely terrifying.After burning himself, there is not even a bone left. A person with a dark heart dreams only of dark dreams.Darker hearts don't even dream.That's what my dead grandmother always said. The night my grandmother died, the first thing I did was reach out and quietly close her eyelids.As I closed her eyelids, the dream she had continued to embrace for seventy-nine years passed quietly like a summer shower on an asphalt road, leaving nothing behind.

◇ Write about the article again.this is the last time. For me, writing articles is a very painful homework.Sometimes it takes a month to write a single line, and sometimes it takes three days and three nights to write non-stop, and what I write is not what I expected at all. Even so, writing articles is also a happy thing, because compared with the difficulty of living itself, it is too simple to add meaning to it. When I was probably a teenager, I was so surprised that I couldn't speak for a week after I discovered this fact.If you are a little smarter, maybe the world can become whatever you want, all values ​​can be converted, and time can be redirected. I once had this feeling.

It was a long, long time, unfortunately, when I found out that it was just a trap.I draw a line in the middle of the notebook, write down what I gained during that period on the left, and write down what I lost on the right.Things that were lost, things that were wasted, especially things that were discarded, sacrificed, or lost, I couldn't remember them all in the end. Between what we try to know and what we actually know, lies an abyss.No matter how long a ruler you take, you cannot measure the depth.What I can write here is just a list.It is neither fiction nor literature nor art.It is a simple notebook with only one line drawn in the center.There may be a lesson.

◇ If art or literature is what you want to pursue, just read what the Greeks wrote.For to produce true art, slavery is necessary and indispensable.The ancient Greeks seemed to be like that.Slaves plowed the fields and rowed the boats, while the townspeople devoted themselves to poetry and mathematics in the Mediterranean sun.That's what art is all about. People who go to the kitchen to open the refrigerator to find something to eat when the night is quieter than three o'clock in the middle of the night can only write such articles. And, that's me.