There is a book that, every time I read it, I have a deep understanding of human nature.
The name of the book is "Skin".
Bai Yansong said at the book launch of "Skin":
It's a book that goes back to the heart.
The author, Tsai Chongda, cried on the spot.
He is a person with a subtle sense of life, those hardships and difficulties in the past life, those declarations of war and compromise with fate that happened to the people around him, are all part of his creation.
After reading this book, you will understand:
Maybe sometimes, life will give us a fierce blow, but to be alive means to have infinite vitality.
Facing death
Optimism is the only way out
Tsai started writing the book when he was 29 years old.
The year the book was written, his father died.
When he heard the news, he ran to the rooftop and said to the sky with his middle finger up, "Why are you?"
At that time, he was not so contemplative, he was full of anger, and after he pointed to the sky and cursed, he cursed all the way.
He doesn't understand why his father is such a strong and optimistic person, why can't life treat him a little more?
His father, who was diagnosed with a stroke while working outside the home, was discharged from the hospital, his tongue was half paralyzed and he couldn't speak clearly.
The lack of self-care ability has made it a big problem for him to go to the toilet. It took two people to carry him to the toilet each time.
It's like carrying a huge piece of furniture.
No one knows how long such a day will pass.
But my father has always been optimistic, and although his hair was cut short and his body was shriveled like a balloon that had been deflated, he kept cheering himself up.
He said that he would be able to do the same as before in a month, and even thought that when he got better, he would buy a motorcycle and take the whole family for a ride along the beach.
Everyone around him knows that he can't get better.
He had a cerebral embolism caused by a prolapsed heart valve, and the family asked all the doctors, and the answer was that the embolism could not be dissolved, and it could not be treated with medication.
If the embolism is washed away elsewhere in the body, it can cause new paralysis.
In other words, my father's body can't go back to what it used to be.
But his father never admits defeat, he believes that as long as he keeps moving, he uses live blood to rush to death, and in the end, the other half of the broken will come back to life.
In order to "come alive", he practiced walking with crutches every day, even if he could only walk one kilometer in four or five hours, and practiced standing at home and training to lift his left foot.
And made a plan for his daily training.
During that time, the whole family supported and accompanied him in various trainings, and his mother specially added eggs and meat to his three meals, saying that this would give his father strength.
During that time, although the family was in a state of despair, their father's strength and optimism also ignited their inner thirst for life.
Even if such strength failed to heal his body, at least, he struggled, worked hard, and paid.
In the face of the blow of fate, his life is worth it.
In fact, in this life, most of the things we do are useless, and even we know that some diseases are invincible, and some difficulties are insurmountable.
But the only thing we can control is our own mentality and state.
When encountering difficulties in life, be more optimistic, complain less, take action, and sit back and wait for death, perhaps, those tasteless lives will become vivid.
How to find the strength to survive in the face of adversity happens to be a lesson that everyone must learn.
Face the unknown
Exertion is the only way out
Speaking of skin, Cai Chongda has a 99-year-old wife, who is the mother of his grandmother, and she has a very open view of life.
When my grandmother died suddenly in her fifties, Ah Tai's white-haired person sent a black-haired person, and everyone around her was afraid that she wouldn't be able to think about it.
But at that funeral, she didn't cry a word, even when she watched her daughter being pushed into the crematorium, she was still very calm.
At that time, Cai Chongda, who was only in the first grade, was puzzled, and when he walked over several times, he would ask her: "Auntie, why aren't you sad?" ”
Ah Tai replied, "Because I am willing." ”
The phrase "I am very willing" has appeared in Ah Tai's life countless times.
She once threw her young son, who couldn't swim, into the sea and let him learn to swim.
Watching the little boy struggle in the sea and almost drown, the people around him couldn't look past him and rescued him.
Unexpectedly, a few days later, Ah Tai threw him into the sea again.
People around her said that she had no conscience and was so cruel to her children.
She said coldly, "The flesh is not just for use, and it is not for service. ”
Her values were always inconsistent with the situation at the time, and in her cognition, if she thought about how to serve her skin every day, she would not be productive, and only those who could use the flesh could become successful.
Therefore, she is willing to let herself suffer.
Even though she is over 90 years old, she still insists on walking from the village to her hometown in the town, completely ignoring the idea that the people around her want to hire a car for her.
Even when he was ninety-two years old, he had to climb to the roof to make up a hole.
As a result, I accidentally fell down and couldn't move while lying on the bed.
I thought that I would have to rest for a while this time, but who knew that it was only the second week that she walked stubbornly and couldn't walk by herself, so she held on to the chair and slowly moved to the door.
No matter how old she is, she is as strong as a young flurry boy.
She seems to have understood the meaning of life, the meaning of the body, before we do.
She knew that human appearance was nothing but skin.
In the torrent of time, the skin will eventually grow old, and all the aura of life will eventually be swallowed.
Only the road you have walked, the things you have experienced, and the insights you have had will always remain in your soul.
It becomes a torrent of time, and in the end it cannot be drowned.
Face obsession
Reconciliation is the only way out
Dong Yuhui said a sentence when interpreting "Skin":
The city can't accommodate the body, but it seems that the countryside can't accommodate the soul.
When you go to the countryside, you want to be far away, and when you go to the city, you want your hometown.
Such pain also troubled Cai Chongda when he was young.
Having left home to study in other places, he understands that our life will eventually become an end where we can't go back home and can't go far.
Even, this will become a spiritual anxiety point for our generation.
Therefore, his heart is often tormented.
In the first few years of work, he ran home whenever he had time, went to see his grandmother, and walked on the path of his hometown, as if it was the time when he felt the most secure.
His mother, at some point, suddenly had an obsession and had to build a house of her own.
Even at that time, the family's economic conditions were relatively poor, and his father needed money for medical treatment, and he and his sister also needed money to study.
But the mother, who has not graduated from primary school, is stubborn to do this thing, and even draws the design by herself, and the whole family eats bran to raise money to do it.
Later, my mother finally did it.
The obsession in my heart has settled.
Cai Chongda didn't understand his mother at first, but later realized that the most difficult thing for people to cross in this life is the inner "self-grasping".
"Ego is the root of suffering."
It was the four-story building that my mother would have built anyway, even if it was later uninhabited.
It is the sense of security and belonging that I have been looking for all my life, even if I know that I can't find it.
But there seems to be no way, it seems that people always have to be a little rushed and obsessed in this life.
It was only later that I found out that when I often couldn't stay up, I also wanted to find a backer.
But no matter how you look for it, you will find that some mountains are full of thorns, and some mountains are full of wild beasts, so you should be your own mountain, something that is out of place, and if you are weak, you will eventually become the object of ridicule.
But if you have the strength, or persist for a long time, perhaps, you can become the charm and personality sought after by everyone.
Therefore, in this life, it is not so much to seek outward, but to explore inward.
In the process, we continue to enrich our inner world, and when the inner world is rich, we no longer place our hopes on happiness in others.
What can really support a person is never the fanatical chase, but the stability and steadfastness in the heart.
There is a sentence in "Skin":
Life has never been a very good viewer, it is like a harsh director, pointing fingers at us with reality, and even adding a lot of dramas, as if trying to help us find our own state.
I think this is true, whether it is us who are struggling in a foreign land, or those who are struggling with illness, or those who do not succumb to fate.
To put it bluntly, we are nothing more than spinning in the circle of our own obsessions and fate.
It is a process of finding life, but also a process of reinventing oneself.
In this process, only by quitting the mentality of the weak, the challenge of the challenge, and the look of the open, can we find a suitable way for ourselves in life.
I hope that after such a tempering of life, we can all get along with ourselves in a relatively comfortable attitude, find a way to accept it, and laugh at life.