Introduction: It is never too late for us to learn to live.
I have just begun to learn to live
——Spirit Escaper
If I can live to be 90 years old, then I have already gone through three thirds of my life. one journey. In fact, I have been weak since I was a child, and I have done pretty well with exercise. However, 90 years old is still an unattainable mountain for me.
Besides, I don’t think living a long life is a good thing. But human beings do feel that in the long universe, we are just a tiny moment. But for many of us, we don’t know the exact meaning and value of such a small moment.
That’s true. Ask a random person on the street: "What is the meaning and value of life?" Most people will not be able to answer. They will laugh and say nothing. Or make a contribution to society and other words that often appear on TV.
Whether it is a thinker or a person who is unaware, the destination is of course the same. So I sometimes say that people who are unaware of it are very happy to be alive.
After walking one-third of the way, I can only say today that I have just begun to learn how to live. Just yesterday, I cleaned the range hood by myself. The range hood has not been cleaned in almost 3 years.
You can imagine how lazy the person living there is. Yes, I have always been known as lazy at home.
I was born in the countryside and stayed in the countryside for 12 years. I farmed with my parents, cut firewood, raised sheep and other livestock, and even helped the family clean the toilet several times. Logically speaking, I should not be a spoiled child. I have always thought so. Even when I arrived in the city, I was disgusted with those pampered classmates at first.
At that time, it was the first time I met my fourth-grade elementary school classmates. I found it incredible that my family members came to pick them up after school. Because in rural areas, after we passed kindergarten, we had to register by ourselves. Very few parents go to school; all the parents are busy in the fields.
And whose parents will be laughed at when they go to school. It seems like it hasn't been weaned. I am like this myself. Once I had a fight with a classmate and was beaten into a cat with a painted face. My mother had to go to school to find the teacher. I refused to let go because I felt embarrassed.
My face is also thicker and I look older than my actual age. So I must not be spoiled. But I left the county town, went to university, then left university, and entered the society. It was not until today when I was cleaning the range hood that I discovered that I was actually spoiled and that I didn't know how to live.
Looking at the instructions, I took off the range hood and washed it one by one. It was very dirty. This is the dirtiest range hood I have ever seen. In fact, our house didn’t use a range hood before, it was all a chimney.
The oil stain is so thick that it cannot be removed with dish soap, nor can steel wool. In the end, you can only use a knife to scrape. I kept scraping and got a lot of scratches on my arms.
Finally, the chimney was replaced. It was yellow and I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I removed the ceiling again, installed the chimney, and then installed the ceiling alone.
The whole process took about 3 hours. Finally, I looked at the clean smoking hood and sat on a stool to rest. Needless to say, I am tired. After being tired, I didn’t want to eat, so I sat alone.
I thought about how I don’t cook much, but there are so many grease stains on my hood from smoking. Apparently it was caused when the ex-girlfriend was around. From this, I thought that before I met my ex-girlfriend, I had never washed dishes or cooked.
She taught me how to wash dishes through hard work. Now I take the initiative to wash the dishes after eating. But before, we had many quarrels over washing dishes. Putting away shoes, turning off lights and other trivial things in life are like this.
Because I was in a rural area before, in a county town. There is only one light bulb in the house. There is no special shoe cabinet for shoes. This is a living habit.
Looking back, after I moved from the countryside to the city, my parents hardly asked me to do any housework. Mother cooks, washes dishes, and cleans the house all by herself. They just ask us to study, study, and study again.
At that time, most of the quarrels at home were due to study. So gradually I felt that I was learning for the sake of learning. Rebellion is inevitable.
That’s not all. For example, there is such a situation. After I studied chemistry, I became interested. My brother and I used waste wires at home, connected them to electricity, and inserted them into the water. Of course, we wanted to decompose oxygen and hydrogen.
When my brother and I were having fun, my mother came.
Open your mouth to criticize. First she said you don't want your life, electricity is an electric tiger. We said it was okay, we had insulated gloves and were doing research.
She said again, don’t be embarrassed or something like that. They have specialized personnel doing research, but you two bastards are still messing around here. After saying that, he was going to pick up the guy and beat him up. We can only flee. While running, he would retort loudly: "You are illiterate! Long hair makes short of knowledge! If Chinese people think this way, is there any research?" and so on.
Looking back now, I just laughed it off. Neither my mother nor I was wrong. It's just that we didn't understand each other.
Because of poverty, my mother always said: "If you are not a family, you don't know how expensive tea, rice, oil and salt are. When you become parents, you will understand our current feelings."
< p>I sat on the stool and kept thinking, and then remembered the first time I ran a business, when I saw a female client who stuttered to the point of being speechless. The whole day was full of rush and turmoil.Later, and later, and later, until today. I seem to have learned a lot. Washing dishes, simple cooking, buying clothes, talking about customers, making plans... The stuttering has gotten better, it is easier to understand others, it is easier to understand my parents, I am no longer willing to argue with others, and I am no longer willing to be so... Urgent.
Just like today, I can be patient and clean the range hood myself without spending any money. Usually I want to eat and cook by myself. If the house is dirty, clean it yourself. When something happens at home, I would advise my parents not to worry. I seem to have learned to live. real life.
In this process, I met many people. They taught me this. That’s why I say that poetry is not life, but life is poetry, which is real feelings.
The difference between rural areas and cities is the environment. But a person can adapt quickly to an environment. This is a person who understands life.
People who really know how to live are approachable wherever they go. When you go to the city, you become a city citizen; when you go to the village, you become a villager. It’s not about high and low either. Just like some rural people don't flush the toilet when they go to the city. In fact, it's not a matter of moral character, it's really a matter of forgetfulness. A matter of habit. Just like the spoiled classmates I hated at first. Think they are too pretentious. But from the perspective of a city dweller, I feel envious and jealous.
I myself am an example of someone who moved from rural to urban areas. I fell in love with a girl from the city, and there was a lot of friction, and of course a lot of happiness. Now the urbanization process is still continuing, and there are more than 100 million farmers in metropolitan areas.
So times are developing rapidly, and we are here. But he didn't adapt in time. Therefore, city people should be treated with tolerance. They will learn a lot, such as flushing the toilet, watching red lights, saying thank you... What I cannot accept the most is that they used to be rural people, but now they are city people. Seeing the rural people making mistakes in their living habits, the city man laughed. Such people will never learn to live.
So you can make mistakes in life, but you must learn to forgive; you can be tired in life, but you must learn to laugh; you must take care of yourself and self-respect in life, but you must feel that you are in a group.
So it is not until today that I have learned how to live. But that doesn’t mean you have learned to live a meaningful and valuable life.
Perhaps as Mr. Ji Xianlin said: "The value and significance of human beings lies in the sense of responsibility for the development of mankind, and the connection between the past and the future."
So this is something from the inside out, People with a narrow heart will definitely not be able to do it. He won't even have any clues. The money and power we are talking about are naturally not the meaning and value mentioned by Mr. Ji.
As for life, we all come from kindergarten. To put it simply, don’t be too willful or resentful, and embrace life. This is the attitude towards life, this is the first step to learn to live.
Excerpted from the prose works of Ling Dun, an independent scholar, poet, writer, and famous Chinese scholar.