#1#
Everything has an expiration date.
The shelf life of canned pineapple is 30 days, Coca-Cola has a shelf life of 12 months, and it will be consumed within 10 minutes after being chilled; the shelf life of a grassy park lawn is 2 months, and if no one comes for a longer time, weeds will grow; "real estate" also has a shelf life, the decoration of a house is also over after seven or eight years, with proper maintenance, it may last longer, but it can't withstand the disinfectant of epidemic enthusiasts no matter how carefully it is maintained.
People also have an expiration date, 72 hours in Beijing, seems shorter in Shanghai, and only 24 hours in Shenzhen, please bear with it.
It's also fair, whether you are a top student from a prestigious university or a child of a privileged family, a refined egoist or a master of harmony, the expiration date is the same, only related to the signal base station connected to your phone.
#2#
Mayday sings in their song:
"Why does life end up like a piece of paper, once vibrant like a petal"
People are far worse than flowers. In May, I visited a botanical garden. The roses were blooming beautifully, and I couldn't help but imagine myself as an old master, dreaming of owning a garden when I grow old, planting flowers, working from sunrise to sunset, observing the changes of seasons and moon phases; then I can only eat "leaves picked by a virgin under the moonlight", and die in my own garden at the age of 64 while playing with my granddaughter.
The so-called "I have no regrets in this life, and I will be born into a family of flower growers in the next life", this is probably the self-cultivation of an old Chinese person like me.
However, what many old Chinese people fail to understand is that when it comes to growing beautiful flowers, farming skills are only sufficient conditions, and solid soil is the necessary condition; a piece of land, today it is transferred here and tomorrow it is sealed off there, running around all day without doing anything, how can it develop?
#3#
The way of the people lies in having constant possessions and constant hearts. Those without constant possessions will not have constant hearts. If they do not have constant hearts, they will be abandoned to extravagance and dissipation.
——Mencius, Teng Wen Gong I
Old Chinese people always like to look at things dialectically, and the concept of constant possessions is also relative. For example, a house with a 70-year property right is called real estate; a touching in-depth report, a silent black and white video, can leave an indelible memory in countless people's hearts, but it won't last long on the Chinese internet. Your praises, joys, angers, and anxieties, among the 404 emotions and expressions, will be swallowed by the abyss and disappear without a trace. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss invites you for tea.
What should we do then? An elder once gave us life experience: "Run faster than them" and "make a fortune quietly", never "make a big news"; Mr. Zhao, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Rites, has also given us similar advice, "enjoy secretly". The so-called "moistening things silently" is the reason.
#4#
Being swallowed by the abyss too many times, one cannot help but fall into a nihilism.
Borges wrote a story called "The Circular Ruins": a magician exhausted all his efforts to create his own son through dreams, teaching him all his experiences and carefully avoiding letting his son know that he originated from a dream. However, in a big fire, he was engulfed by flames but remained unharmed, finally "comfortably, shamefully, and fearfully knowing that he himself is also an illusion, a dream within another person's dream."
Perhaps the world is really like what Borges described, ultimately it is nothingness, and the whole world is just a dream. All the past, present, and future, all the ones you have loved and loved you, all the ones you have hated and hated you, all the warriors and little pink in parallel universes, the public intellectuals and the middle-grounders, are all dreams of one person. The taste of a person who can dream of such a world must be unique.
So each of us old Chinese people is the illusion of another old Chinese person, and at the same time, we are also dreaming, creating new illusions of old Chinese people. Thus, life and the universe achieve the great harmony of life.
Countless dreams of old Chinese people spread out like ripples from each old Chinese person's own center, and then there are "hierarchical patterns" and "harmony and peace" and other difficult-to-understand words, which make the Trisolarans laugh, and the universe is filled with a joyful atmosphere.
#5#
For some old Chinese people, the world really feels like a dream: joining the WTO in 2001, the grand feast of the 2008 Olympics, free travel to Taiwan... At that time, we had dreams, dreams about literature, dreams about love, dreams about traveling around the world. Now we drink late at night, covering our ears with the quilt, but we can't cover up the sound of someone calling you downstairs to do a nucleic acid test.
Lu Sheng, in the Kaiyuan era, sighed after waking up from a dream, "Twenty years in a dream." I wonder if it's our turn to wake up from a forty-year dream? The world we have seen, the achievements we have made, is it just a dream?
My friend Yang once summed it up: planting flowers on quicksand.
Policies change overnight, personal rights come and go, feelings are uncertain, how can they last? Isn't it just planting flowers on quicksand? In a certain slice of time, flowers can be beautiful, but what's the meaning?
Heraclitus said: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Everything is in flux, everything will flow. Ha, everything flows, it's all planting flowers on quicksand, and I fall into nihilism again.
The universe is composed of space and time. Time is a one-way, uniform, forward-moving coordinate axis. Time never stops for anyone. In the face of time, everyone is rapidly decaying. I work 996 in my business, and he has been working for the country's health for fifty years. We both have a bright future. Several years later, we will sit on a high stack of quilts in a nursing home and tell the caregivers about the things that happened before COVID.
COVID has been going on for three years, and this period of time feels like it has been stolen. Maybe if we shout a few more times, our whole life will pass, that is called "time flies like an arrow, the sun and the moon are like a shuttle." Ryunosuke Akutagawa said: Life is not as good as a line of Paul Valéry; I say: Life is just ten thousand cotton swabs. (30,000 days ~ 82 years, do a throat swab every 3 days).
Life is so short, so fleeting, life itself is also like quicksand, as for policies, personal rights, love... forget it, they are all quicksand, who looks down on whom?
#6#
I apologize for showing you the truth, I will come back to the circle immediately.
Heraclitus also said: The origin of all things is fire. Fire leaves traces when it burns. Even though we decay quickly, we can always leave something behind.
Articles may be 404, but the ripples they stir will spread; accounts may be banned, but the influence they have generated remains; our bodies may be isolated, but the love we have created will not be in vain.
Go and create, create works to spread ideas, create connections to fight against separation, create love to inspire more love.
Be an existentialist, bravely create the future you want, always believe that the desired future can be created.
The universe will collapse, Orion will become a black hole, the sea will dry up, and rocks will decay. What we have read, written, loved, and hated will all disappear into the wind. We will eventually die, our attempts are most likely to fail, and they are meaningless. Even the most beautiful flowers have their blooming period.
But it doesn't matter. Even though everything has an expiration date, if parting happens before the expiration, then it can be considered a good parting.
Before it expires, we can create as much as possible.
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2022/10/15 @Beijing