Text/Wenjing

There are several versions of Interview with Mr. He. I remember Mr. Ge's class when I was a graduate student in Tsinghua. He said with emotion more than once that to find a group of graduate students and record them for the older generation of experts and scholars, at least a precious historical material should be left behind. Soon after, Jin Kemu passed away, and everyone was deeply sorry. In 2004, I was in a bad mood and always had an impulse to escape. Thinking of Mr. Ge's words, I think at least there is such a specific job worth doing. I can find a reason to fill my time without looking straight into my eyes, let alone make sense to others. Benefiting "others" has been a crown and an effective reason since ancient times, so "myself" has to do it, but I soon found that the motivation and purpose of this matter are constantly being revised.

Needless to say, Mr. He's knowledge, and you don't have to pretend in front of him. Just come with your curiosity, just like when you were a child, you moved a Mazar to the neighbor's radio, poked the switch and pulled the knob. Grandpa Sun Jingxiu began to tell stories. Mr. He's speech is very interesting. He is still as full of whimsy as a child in his eighties. It's really funny that an ordinary thing is compared with him. Speaking of rising, he couldn't help giggling at first. Even a butterfly that jumps over will catch his happiness. How happy are the desks and chairs in the study with such an old man every day?

I am a good listener, but I am by no means a competent interviewer. Can't grasp the progress, can't guide the train of thought. The plan drawn up in advance has never come true. I think it may be influenced by He Laoshi, so why be so utilitarian? Before you know it, at noon, there was a beeping sound of cooking in the kitchen, and fragrance wafted from upstairs and downstairs. The students attached to the primary school in Tsinghua chattered under the window, only to find that the topic was not in the middle and they were leaving again. An experienced interviewer can finish the same topic in a few months, but I have been using it intermittently for nearly two years, looking forward to the day of meeting every week, thinking that year after year will never end.

In fact, life is unfair to Mr. He's generation. As far as he is concerned, all three sisters are from Tsinghua, Peking University. When they were students, one was an underground party, one was arrested and locked up by the Kuomintang for a year, and the other went to Yan' an after the Anti-Japanese War. A few years later, one committed suicide, one was crazy, one was wandering outside, and there was no news for twenty or thirty years. For his family, Mr. He rarely talks about it, and occasionally refuses to say more when he asks and answers. A few words can't hide his helpless regret. When I was a child, my father used to say, "Politics is a very dark, complicated and dirty thing. We must stay away from politics." This sentence deeply touched him, so he stayed away from various political factions all his life and pursued a higher and more mysterious spiritual realm. Nevertheless, in the era when intellectuals generally suffered, they were "carried" into the bullpen. Their generation, in Mr. He's words, was born and raised under the white flag. They have been educated by the so-called bourgeois old democracy since childhood. By the age of 30, their thoughts are basically stereotyped, but the society has undergone earth-shaking changes. Freedom and democracy were denied when they were labeled as bourgeois, and they were required to completely deny the past and themselves and accept the double transformation from spirit to body. The movement is getting more and more intense. During this period, some people choose to betray their conscience, and some people can't bear this spiritual reversal and choose to die. More people have experienced spiritual disillusionment with their half lives.

In 2004, I personally fell into a similar disillusionment. Although it can't be compared with the hardships of my predecessors-it is best not to have the opportunity to "talk together", it is this experience that has made me feel confused and sad about the lack of faith. Just like the land under your feet, you don't have to understand it deliberately, and you may not really believe or worship it. But from the moment you were born, you felt a belief with your body: there is no doubt about the existence of the earth. You don't have to add a point for love, but you don't have to hate it. This is a part of life. However, suddenly one day, the solid land collapsed and Aladdin's magic lamp could perform magic tricks. It hollowed out the soles of my feet, leaving me and my confusion, hanging in the air like nameless dust, looking up, surrounded by similar people, unable to fly or sink, and seemingly indifferent. At that moment, my soul began to wander, and I heard my own shadow crying.

It is said that our generation is happy, but I am not. In contrast, Mr. He's generation is unfortunate. However, under the conditions of war, chaos and disorder, he can live with peace of mind. What he picked up in sadness was hope, but what he found in helplessness was interesting. Why? Where is our gap? Some people attribute this to time, experience or reading, but I think this is just an excuse to comfort myself: time can dilute everything, but it can't be a reason to explain everything. After experience and reading, it still comes down to personal judgment and choice. Fifty years ago, Mr. He was as ignorant as I was. Fifty years later, even if I go through more things and read more books, I'm afraid I'm drifting away from this way of thinking, and it's hard to reach his level. Our gap must lie in some more fundamental reasons. After each visit, I will spend more time sorting out, reviewing sentence by sentence and recalling word by word. Because I am so familiar with it, his voice is all between the lines. Gradually, I can even think in his voice. I've been trying to think in his voice and see my world from his perspective. In his story, I am looking for my own answer and my own spiritual home.

I have always liked Milan Kundera's novels, and some of them are worth reading several times. One day, I took out Laughter and Forgetting Records from the bookshelf, and saw an article Mom in the catalog with a pencil triangle on it, which was a sign of "grand recommendation", so I read it again. One paragraph describes: My mother's eyesight is getting weaker and weaker. Others see big things, and she feels very small. Others think that it is a boundary pillar, but in her view, it is some houses, and this is by no means the first time that something similar has happened. One night, tanks from neighboring countries invaded their country (1In August 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Prague, the capital of Czech Republic). "It's so shocking and scary that no one can think about other things for a long time," but my mother is thinking about pears in their garden. The pharmacist who invited me to pick pears didn't come or even apologize. Mother can't forgive him. This made her son Carlisle and daughter-in-law Macheta very angry and accused them of saying, "Everyone thinks of tanks, but you, you think of pears." Later, they moved away, and in their memory, their mother was narrow-minded. ...... A few years later, Carlisle began to ask himself: "Is the tank really more important than the pear?" The answer doesn't seem to be as obvious as he always thought, so he secretly took a liking to his mother's eyes:

"In my mother's vision, the foreground is a big pear, and the background is a tank not much bigger than a ladybug, ready to fly away and disappear from sight. Oh, yes, mother is right: tanks will rot, but pears are eternal. "

Maybe it's my mood. When I read this passage again, I felt a feeling of tears. Yes, in life, what is important, what is not important and what is the most important is a choice. Why is "tank" more important than "pear"? The wisdom of nature is far superior to the cunning of human beings. In her view, the struggle between people is no different from that between two crickets for mating rights. Although sometimes, the struggle between people will achieve a noble and almost perfect symbol, pure ideals cannot escape the dark, dirty and complicated pattern under the control of "people" who are physically tired. Maybe "people" are not qualified to be messengers of faith. In ancient mythology, man's position was between god and beast, and human nature wavered between divinity and greedy and selfish beast. It is always an impossible mission to carry "eternal and perfect ideal" with "limited and changeable life".

Maybe this is the difference between me and He Laoshi. The choice of weight depends on a person's attitude towards life, which determines a person's life trajectory to some extent. When Mr. He worked in the Institute of History, he had a very good friend, who was knowledgeable, upright and had both ability and political integrity. He is a protege of his predecessor, Mr. Hou Wailu. 1968, when "May 16th" was arrested, nearly one third of the history was found out, and almost no one denied it, but Yang Chao refused to admit it, and wrote a note: "I am not" May 16th "and I don't know who" May 16th "is. Suicide, only 39 years old. This incident touched Mr. He very much. He told me more than five or six times, or more. Every time, he used a very slow and sorry tone. " He is too serious. Everyone else is acting, but he is serious. ..... a very clever man, don't you just see? "I have heard this story too many times, but I have never told him. We can say what we have said and listen to what we have heard. If we could learn even a little lesson from history, I'm afraid there wouldn't be so much trouble today. Can't you see through it? Since I met Kundera, every time I heard He Laoshi say this sentence, I thought it was meant for me. Did the earth really drift away? Stand on tiptoe and jump twice. Oh, the real earth is under your feet, and what floats is only the illusion in your heart. I thought it was, but it wasn't. Why does the land in illusion become the "weight" of life?

So what does Mr. He value in his life? Believe what? -this "belief" is a non-religious belief and a non-religious belief. Perhaps it can be understood as "what do you believe in your heart?"

In my opinion, first of all, he believes in nature. Mr. He always laughs that he doesn't understand natural science. In fact, he has received very good scientific training since he was a child. At that time, the middle school attached to Normal University and Central University were the best schools in China. Mr. Min Sihe, Chen Jingrun's teacher and mathematician, taught his class mathematics, and Wang Hao, who later became a world-class Chinese mathematical logician, was his best friend and influenced his life. 65438-0939 He Laoshi was admitted to The National SouthWest Associated University with the second place in Guiyang Examination Area, ranking fourth among the civil engineering departments. It can be said that before he went to college, he developed a very good habit of scientific thinking and had a deep understanding of the mysteries of nature. The more he learns, the more he realizes the limitations of human beings. He can't say "man can conquer nature". For example, in junior high school, two books opened his eyes: james Jones's The Mysterious Universe and A.Eddington's The Nature of the Physical World (published by the Commercial Press and translated into Chinese as The Truth of the World). Jones and Eddington are great British physicists. They mixed their philosophical thoughts about epistemology in some popular popular science works, which was a great inspiration to young He Zhaowu. After decades of ideological transformation, he could not erase this idealistic view of science until he was old.

"At that time, we didn't understand science and thought that science was a nail, but in their view, science had no objective standards and knowledge was formed subjectively. The material world is just a structure in your mind. What is the material world like? There are many mysterious things in it that we can't understand now. ..... I don't understand science, but because the author himself is a scientist, what I think may be reasonable, at least opening up my own ideas. "

During the conversation, I can clearly feel the uniqueness of He Laoshi language. He likes to use mathematics, logic and universal laws of the universe as a reference to compare with human behavior. In this big frame of reference, people's arrogance and self-righteousness are no different from frogs in the well and competitive male peacocks. They are all small vanity and careful machines, confined to the vast world. It is no wonder that "human beings laugh when they think about God" and set their sights higher, even human beings are embarrassed to laugh. After the second year of high school, He Laoshi turned to liberal arts, so the understanding of science basically stayed in classical physics and relatively shallow high mathematics. Among his classmates and friends, Wang Hao, a mathematical logician, can engage in "real philosophy" and Zheng, a high-energy physicist, can "look at the magic of the world with surprise and awe". His understanding of modern science directly affects his understanding of the world, which is He Laoshi's limitation.

Second, Mr. He values beauty. Although his major is the history of thought and he is also very interested in history, it seems to me that what really touches his heart and fascinates him all his life is the pursuit of beauty. Looking through He Laoshi's middle school books list, we can find that aesthetic works are his consistent preference, such as Zhu Guangqian's Twelfth Letter to Youth and Talking about Beauty, Feng Zikai's Children's Music, Stories of Ten Modern Western Musicians, and Random Talk on Western Architecture. Finally, this introductory book on architecture made him "very satisfied" and "very interested" and even entered the university. When he was in college, Keats and Tennyson's poems fascinated him. On his deathbed, he read Crossing the Bar. "I think that's what I like." From 1947 to 1949, Mr. He was in a bad mood. "I thought it would be a peaceful and happy world after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and the result was still a mess." I don't have any close friends in Hunan, and I can't go back to Beijing. Although I have the opportunity to study abroad, I can't go because of traffic jams and physical illness. In this bored state of mind, the books I have at hand have become his greatest comfort and spiritual sustenance. One is Goethe's Faust, and the other is Li Yishan's poem:

"I didn't understand the German version of Faust at that time, but I collected several English versions and would buy one whenever I met them. Usually everyone only watches his first film, and only shows the first film, the so-called Gretchen tragedy. In fact, the second film brings readers from the small world of love into the big world of life, and truly integrates Goethe's mature thoughts. In the world, "everything is dead, it is just a symbol". In the boredom of being sick in bed, it is this spirit of "being a gentleman and striving for self-improvement" that has injected me with a ray of inspiration and courage in life. Li Yishan's poems are vague and dreamy, sometimes full of emotion, sometimes infatuated, and even gone forever. ..... Ji Xiaolan's comments on his poems are often ruthless, such as saying something "glib" and saying something "not authentic". I admit that not every word of Shili is good, but some of the best ones are really the pinnacle, as if bringing people to another world, which others can't reach. "

"Believe in nature" makes him tolerant and indisputable, and "believe in beauty" embodies the appreciation of personal spiritual world and endless roaming. Maybe you will accuse me of using the wrong word, which should be "pursuit" instead of "appreciation", "intoxication" and "roaming", but I think the word "pursuit" is too grand, too nervous and even smacks of "revolution", which is far from Mr. He's style. Say a few words here. When chatting with He Laoshi, I found that his (or his generation's) understanding of many words is different from ours now. For example, "making a living" is an embarrassing word to me, but it is realistic and ridiculous to him. In his language environment, the word is not given more moral meaning, but more relaxed. There are many similar situations. Similarly, the word "pursuit" is also serious to him, which will probably make him feel at a loss and think that he is talking about others. When I was a child, Mr. He liked Zhu Guangqian's Twelfth Letter to Young People with the title "Walk slowly and enjoy slowly", which was in line with his outlook on life. Living on him is like watching the scenery, seeing a flower in the distance, which is very beautiful, so I can't help but walk over, not "chasing" or "begging" hard, but naturally approaching. This is the realm, right? It's not the same as the 100-meter sprint.

He Laoshi always said that he was used to being free and rambling, reading aimlessly from childhood to old age, and he didn't achieve much in the end. Maybe others take this as a courtesy, but I think he is sincere. Because he knows where the higher realm is and where his limitations are, these are not compensated by hard work and sweat. What he has done in his spare time is nothing special except his inner satisfaction. A few years ago, Tsinghua and Peking University built a new building in Lanqiying and gave Mr. He a house with three bedrooms and two halls, which was much better than his existing conditions, but he politely refused and said with a smile, "It's too much trouble to be old." Not everyone can be indifferent to work and fame. Of course, we can't ask everyone to be independent of the world. Living standards can be self-imposed, and forcing others is almost a cult. But seeing an old man who has worked all his life will still move me.

Kant's epitaph reads: "There are two things. The more we think about them regularly and persistently, the more they fill our hearts with admiration and awe: the starry sky above my head and the moral law that lives in my heart." At this point, I finally realized the meaning of this sentence, and gradually understood why Mr. He can cross the disillusionment of life. If you want to believe, believe in something more eternal and infinite: the universe really exists and your heart can be infinitely far-reaching. Take a swim. As for the perfect world of human reverie, let it stay at the spiritual level completely. Pandora's box, it's time to close it.

Procrastination, coupled with my selfishness, has delayed this oral autobiography for too long. The first two books have been used for nearly two years. During this period, Mr. He's second sister died, and so did his wife. He himself was hospitalized twice because of femoral head necrosis and heart disease, and has been accompanying his granddaughter to go abroad. Mr. He said, "From now on, I will get used to living alone." As usual, he still smiled when he said this, as if he were happy, but his heart was not a taste.

God knows I can't let such a respectable and lovely person get old, but he said, "I've just written my name on the water all my life." No matter how hard you work, how hard you care and how careless you are, the result is the same. When you write down your name, it disappears with the running water.

Epitaph of poet Keats: Here lies a man whose name is written on the water. Here lies a man whose name is written on the water. )