In 1951, the famous United States writer Ernest Hemingway wrote "The Old Man and the Sea", a novel that won the Nobel Prize for Literature, ostensibly about a fight between an old fisherman and a big fish. In fact, the spirit contained in this and the attitude towards life that it wants to express are the real reasons why it can become a literary masterpiece and win numerous awards. Summarizing the book into these five points is what it really wants to tell us:
1. A person can be destroyed, but not defeated. People should have their own dignity and spiritual strength, which can be destroyed, but the spirit cannot be defeated, and this is the essence of power. As long as you are determined enough, you can defeat everyone.
The main character of the book is a fisherman named Santiago, and the story begins when he is almost old. He wandered on the sea for eighty-four days, but he did not catch a single fish. But he persisted, believing that he would be able to catch a big enough fish. Although the time spent adrift at sea was very embarrassing, as long as he thought that he could catch big fish and live up to his reputation as a fisherman, he still chose to persist when there was no water and no food.
It is this determination that dooms him to success in everything he does. What is easy to get is not necessarily cherished, only what you persevere and persevere, whether it is a thing or a dream, will become shining.
2. People are not born to fail. Life has always left us bruised, but in the future, those wounded places will surely become places where we thrive.
After eighty-five days at sea, Santiago finally met his own large marlin, which was 18 feet long and weighed more than 1,500 pounds. It's a super big fish, which also arouses Santiago's desire to win. In a very unhealthy state, he still held on tightly to the line that hooked the fish, and he had no other weapons to assist him, so he could only rely on his own strength to restrain the big marlin, but he did not give up.
If you fall down in any kind of place, you have to get up there, and this is the right attitude towards life.
3. Waiting is also a kind of faith, the love of the sea is too deep, and the time is too shallow. Life has always left us bruised, but in the end, those wounded places will surely become our strongest places. Different youth, the same confusion. However, youth will grow and confusion will dissipate. After dark, the sun rises as usual!
The long wait, every anticipation, comes from the big marlin that the old fisherman wants to catch. Even though his hand has gradually been cut by the fishing line and covered with blood, he still thinks that even if he can't use this hand now, he still has another one, and his leg still has the strength to support it, so he can't give up. He was in a stalemate with Dayu for two days and two nights, and all that accompanied him was the silence of the sea, hunger, exhaustion, and a glimmer of hope in his heart.
In real life, you are living in the judgment of others, living in the eyes of others. But as long as you move towards your goal and persist for the results you want, there will be sunshine after night.
Fourth, superior to others, not noble, the real noble should be better than the past self. This world is so beautiful that it is worth fighting for.
No matter how many times you fail, you will succeed if you persist. Santiago eventually won the battle against the big marlin. This was the result of his persistence, and although his hands were cut, this big marlin was a good ending for his more than eighty days of drifting at sea. He killed the big marlin and hung it by the side of the boat, which was his trophy.
If what you get from comparing with others is a short-term ethereal sense of superiority, then what you work hard to accomplish is true happiness. Constantly satisfying your "desires" in the fulfillment of your dreams, only you know what you really need.
5. If you say a good thing, then that good thing may not happen. Now is not the time to think about what you lack, but what you can do with what you have.
I wanted to bring the big marlin home and let everyone see their trophies, but during the time I was adrift at sea, the bloody smell of the big marlin attracted a lot of sharks; The sharks snatched the meat, and Santiago dragged his body to fight the sharks again, and although he eventually broke the handle of the boat and killed the sharks away, the big marlin was also eaten with little left. Just as his dream was shattered, Santiago only got a skeleton of a fish to prove that he had caught this big fish.
Eventually, he returned home to his bed, and although the fish were gone, the experience became a fond memory of his own.
Focus on everything in front of you, use what you can do to pave a way for your future, many things may not have a particularly perfect ending, but what you experience in the process will become a unique memory.
The whole book of "The Old Man and the Sea" seems to be expressing, just the game story between the old man, the marlin and the shark, but in fact, the book brings us more about the thinking about facing one's own pursuit and insisting on not giving up. Despite this, it is true that he has lived a life without regrets, and even if he doesn't get the big marlin in the end, this experience is a treasure of his own.