That similar sentence is the logo of a fellow traveler

When I saw the phrase "always honest, always tearful", my heart twitched. At that time, I was flipping through Shen Hao's "Ten Thousand Waters and Thousand Mountains". This familiar sentence instantly evokes dusty memories, but for a moment I can't remember its origin.

So I began to look for Kerouac on the shelves, and in my obsession, this kind of divinely inspired sentence would only come "on the road." Sure enough, at the end of Dharma Wanderer, "I" shouted to Jaffe, who was traveling as far away as Japan, at Desolate Peak: "... Forever young, always in tears. ”

In this way, even if I wishful thinking, I want to touch a kind of distant and intimate spiritual resonance between "A Thousand Waters and a Thousand Mountains" and Kerouac. At that time, when I bought Shen Hao's book, I originally just intended to simply turn it over, but more out of a weak sigh of a peer encounter. And now, I decided to read it slowly and carefully.

One day in July 2019, when I "realized that I might face a depression attack in the near future, I decided to do a thorough examination and treatment of myself as soon as possible, instead of waiting for it to come." Like animals, I have a hunch that I have to go to an isolated place and spend some time with myself. ”

The author came to the source of the Yangtze River, at an altitude of nearly 5,000 meters, in a container, as a volunteer at the Yangtze River source protection station.

According to the author, the book is first and foremost a book of psychological healing in nature. The vast and desolate source of the Yangtze River accepted this scarred and tired man. "The frost melts particularly slowly, and in the newborn daylight there is something in the frost that also shines, sharper, more frequently, and more finely broken than the shining of the dewdrops. The light of the dewdrops is complete, 'oh', 'ah' and so on; and the flashes in the frost are temporary, trivial, like a closed question, 'what's up,' 'uh,' and so on. Seeing such words, there is no doubt about the effect of psychotherapy. The magic of nature is that once immersed in it, it quickly "lets go". I am afraid that the reason is that you have entered another world, another time and space, and your thoughts and actions, your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body, and your color, sound, and fragrance have all begun again.

Therefore, what the eye sees, the heart moves is fresh and sharp. "Coming down from the grassy slope and seeing a few Daisheng birds, I felt very kind. I hadn't seen them fluttering by the glass house for days, and there was a joy of being extra close to each other after a long absence, and I don't know if they thought the same thing. Perhaps they simply cannot understand the joy or sadness on human faces, and all expressions are the same to them, just as we think that all their dance gestures are expressions of joy. We simply don't know how to look into the eyes of birds and look into them. ”

Something like the one above is the most intimate text in the book. They show a soul that has been hit hard, stretched and relaxed in nature. However, there is always a kind of bitterness that emerges from time to time in reading - compared to not knowing how to look at birds, do you understand it with humans? How many people can read the human eye?

This is where I get sad the more I read. The more intimate nature is, the more nervous and disgusting people's society becomes. It is also here that I feel that it is biased to simply treat this book as a book of natural healing.

"You need to go to a place where you're completely free and completely free of dealing with people, stay for a while, and get along with yourself." Is this a yearning for nature, or an escape from the world?

I can't possibly guess the author's heart. If I think about it from another position, I think that the most urgent thing we faced at that time may be to escape, even if it is only temporary, to avoid those who are psychologically and physically disgusted and even feared.

Habitually understood, avoidance is not a positive word. In this world, there are some things that you really can't hide from. However, after all, escape is a kind of human right, and objectively, it can also squeeze out a breathing space for the tense spirit. Finding a place where no one is, spending a few days with yourself, listening carefully to the sound of your own heartbeat, using your long-dull intuition as an animal, feeling the temperature of the earth and the sky, and listening to the cries of flowers and insects are not only the healing of the mind, but also the repair of the broken self, the reconstruction of the self.

In the vast nature of the Yangtze River, in the words written in nature in the book, you can truly appreciate the relaxation and briskness of "people", and the faint sadness that appears from time to time. Far from the hustle and bustle of the vast land, on the contrary, it is full and healthy to the character of man. In nature, the once broken people are rejoined and completed.

It's about another kind of "on the road," where someone sees a deserted escape, while I see a run towards the self. Kerouac's "on the road" awakened countless people's awareness of freedom and self, allowed countless people to find the feeling of being human, and thus understood the true meaning of "eternal tears". I believe that the author is mentally connected with Kerouac, and that similar sentence is the logo of a fellow traveler.

"Go to an isolated place and stay with yourself for a while", if you have such an idea, the body is not moving, and the heart is already "on the road". (Xu Bing)

Source: China Youth Daily