Current location - Education and Training Encyclopedia - Resume - The Stone in Sisyphus? Revealing the Significance of Life Weight ~ Excerpts from Chen Guo
The Stone in Sisyphus? Revealing the Significance of Life Weight ~ Excerpts from Chen Guo
The Stone in Sisyphus.

In ancient Greek mythology, there was a man named Sisyphus. In order to jump out of the natural law of life and escape the disaster of death, he risked his life to play tricks on Hades, the god of death in charge of the underworld. Although I fooled Hades for a while, I was finally found out. Therefore, Sisyphus received the most severe punishment. Both belong to the underworld, but they are divided into three different levels. One of the most terrible levels is the land that can never be reborn, which is equivalent to what we now call "eighteen layers of hell". There, Sisyphus was punished for pushing a round boulder, which had to be pushed from the foot of the mountain to the steep top with all his strength. The burning flames of hell are burning everywhere. As soon as Sisyphus slacked off, the boulder kept rolling back to the foot of the mountain, and everything had to start again. When he tried his best to push the boulder to the top of the mountain, he thought he could get a break, but he didn't expect the ruthless boulder to rumble back to its original place. This cycle is endless.

I have seen this fairy tale more than once. When I was a child, I just regarded it as an exotic legend that has nothing to do with real life, without any special feelings. But later, with the passage of time, every time I reread it, I would read an "I" more or less. The picture of Sisyphus pushing the boulder hard year after year is deeply engraved in my impression and I can't get rid of it for a long time. Sometimes, there is a kind of sadness that I can't help but sigh.

Isn't each of us that Sisyphus? Aren't we carrying a boulder doomed to failure like him?

When we were young, we competed with each other and finally entered the key primary school through fierce competition. We were happy and thought we were relieved. But the good times don't last long, we must make more efforts, and we still can't feel at ease, because the next higher "mountain top" is just around the corner-key junior high schools. Since then, the height of the "mountain top" has never stopped increasing rapidly: we should go all out to be admitted to a "key high school" and then try our best to be admitted to a first-class university ... Our young college students, including me at that time, were very excited when they learned that they were admitted to their favorite university, and many people were so excited that they couldn't sleep all night. In our eyes, this is the "peak" of our life that we have dreamed of for more than ten years. To this end, we went through many hardships and battlefields and finally got what we wanted. I think that we can finally put down the "boulder" on our shoulders and give our nerves who have been afraid to relax for so many years a hearty long vacation. But this is not the case. Excitement is fleeting. The mountains are still in front of us. The stone has been hanging over our heads and always in our hearts. After attending a first-class university, you must find a decent job, and then focus on raising your income and promoting your position. Then it's time to find a good partner, get married and have children.

When all this has settled, it seems that we can live calmly and steadily, but we are watching another new "mountain top" slowly shift from the horizon and get closer and closer-our baby, our next generation, must be excellent, because "he can't lose at the starting line", and he must enter key kindergartens, key primary schools, key middle schools and key universities to find a decent job. Just like the mythical Sisyphus, there is no end, no end and no peace.

Everything that has life is doomed to die. At that time, Sisyphus racked his brains in an attempt to escape death, because like most of us, he was afraid of death. Hades gave him a cruel punishment and threw him into hell. What the hell is it? According to the description of the story, "neither birth nor death" is hell. Is this a reminder from Hades to Sisyphus and other people like him: Perhaps death itself contains such an imperceptible gentle beauty endowed by nature-this "boulder" that you can't get rid of all your life, and I'm afraid only death can make you completely put it down; Only when this worrying road of life comes to an end, will you have a chance to sink into a permanent dreamless sleep and enjoy complete reckless peace and peace of mind. No wonder the epitaph of writer Hemingway has only six simple words: forgive me for not getting up! Forgive me for not getting up. The brilliant writer explained his impatience with life and his safety with death in the most concise way.

In the final analysis, it may still stem from the lack of' security'. In the eyes of most of us, the more' fame and fortune', the safer it is. Perhaps the reason why we are tired of running around and chasing fame and fortune is not because we are insatiable by nature, but because we lack security and are uneasy. "

Yes, security! Perhaps it is the ultimate "peak" of life that we really yearn for under the heavy burden.

We are willing to try our best to push the boulder to climb and conquer one oncoming mountain peak after another, perhaps just because whenever we reach a higher mountain peak under the weight of the boulder, we will feel that we are approaching the "security" at the highest point in our hearts step by step. Few people really enjoy intrigue and intrigue, but this seems to be the price we have to pay for "security"; No one wants society to become an "arena" for the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest. We gladiators who live in it must fight each other for a position or a little profit, just as the philosopher Hobbes said-"Man is like a wolf, and wolves are like wolves". We are fiercely hostile to each other for a piece of meat, but we are so helpless and tired, but we still fight in the arena because we have no choice. It seems that "winning" is the only way to feel safe.

It seems that all the burdens in our life can be found in "anxiety". Indeed, what can cause panic and stress more than "anxiety"? It is pervasive and can make people "see the desolation after flowers and the eternal darkness after instant light"; It is so autocratic that it can grab almost all our other senses, make us lose our senses, sink our dreams, and make us voluntarily surrender to slavery. It is the tyrant's "anxiety" that raises an invisible spiritual whip in our hearts, whipping us with tears and blood and stumbling forward against our will.

Many of us are unwilling, want to resist, want to resist, want to stop the boulder on our shoulders, and want to jump out of Sisyphus's fate. Because of this, they do not hesitate to ignore the world as a "sense of security" in life. So there are wandering singers, street performers, modern bards, thinkers who are willing to be poor, philosophers who have been lonely for a hundred years, and ascetic monks who are far away from the world. We call them "idealists" or "romantics". Most of them will eventually be captured by "anxiety" again and dragged back to the ranks of ordinary Sisyphus. Only a few "fish that slip through the net" can escape from the mainstream, because they live a "restless" life in the eyes of the world. The "safe and mediocre happiness" that people yearn for is tantamount to poison to them, and the world's unavoidable state of crisis, endless hidden dangers, bottomless heart and insecurity is precisely the air they rely on most. Such people are always rare in the crowd, even if they are extended to all mankind.

The first two people I think of are poet Sanmao and philosopher Nietzsche. The former is a half-life wandering, and the latter is absolute loneliness. Sanmao wandered in poetry, and finally ended his wandering with mysterious poetry; Nietzsche was so lonely that he was almost crazy that he finally got rid of loneliness in madness.

Life distributes happiness and sadness equally to everyone. Everyone has helpless difficulties and the joy of spring blossoms. It's the same for everyone. Snow White is no different from a dwarf. Children who can't get candy are no different from young people who can't catch love.

"Burden" is the bitterness of life. No matter who it is, it can't be changed, just change the form occasionally. Just as we are born as human beings, "pain" will always exist, but some people suffer in their bodies and some people suffer in their hearts; Some pains are short and severe, while others are weak but lasting. Most of us greedily pray for a better life in Le Duoduo, and almost everyone complains that the suffering of life is endless. As everyone knows, life is life, and bittersweet is her true taste. Anyone who refuses to accept the bitterness of life is doomed to be deprived of the happiness of life; There is often no choice between the two, either all or nothing.

Pain is worth cherishing, but it doesn't mean pain is worth singing. The rich nutrition in pain ultimately encourages "freedom and happiness in life." It is a kind of happiness that is more naive and simple than extravagant enjoyment, a kind of pleasure that is clearer and more lasting than the pleasure when the desire is satisfied, a kind of tranquility that is not easily disturbed by any external stimulus, and a kind of quiet but inclusive self-confidence.

An ancient philosopher once said, "Things of opposite nature always stimulate each other", just like the action and reaction of physics. Tagore has a poem that if people "can't reach the light without experiencing darkness", "freedom and joy of life" may also come from accepting and surpassing "the burden of life". Milan Kundera's most famous book is The Unbearable Lightness of Life. We have to bear the "boulder" of life, such as the mythical Sisyphus. Perhaps it is not the blame of fate, but the test of human nature. Only by being so heavy can we dispel the frivolous and grandiose, fill the bottomless desire and awaken us to cherish the dull life. My good friend once told me that "happiness is without misfortune", and trivial distress is not a kind of happiness!

We can't get rid of Sisyphus's fate, and neither can we. If you can't break free, why break free? One of my favorite French female thinkers, Wei Yi, wrote a book "Burden and Grace"-for a long time, it was a lamp in my inner world. Life is a "heavy burden", a boulder on Sisyphus's shoulders. As we often sigh, "life is nine times out of ten unsatisfactory", but isn't there a "gift" buried under the "heavy burden"?

We often say that love is shoulder to shoulder with responsibility, freedom is shoulder to shoulder with destiny, and humanity is shoulder to shoulder with humanity. If the responsibility is not heavy, how can we see deep love? If fate does not define its own boundaries and there is no death in life, who will care whether our life is wasted or not, and who will care how the soul can gain infinite freedom in a limited life? If there is no "heavy burden" in life, how should we treat the stubbornness of human nature, make it more and more kind and radiate the soft light of human nature? In fact, how many people's fortitude is honed by "setbacks", how many people's maturity is born from deep "suffering", and how many people's innocence is precisely because their feet are stuck in the mud and they don't forget to look up at the stars. A person's "shoulders are burdened with heavy suffering, and his chest is loaded with great emotions."

The "baggage" of life, in retrospect, must be full of "gifts". I think Nietzsche, a philosopher, would agree with this view. Otherwise, what made him say "Whoever can't kill me will make me strong"?