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The so-called midlife crisis is not alarmist to say that you are alone in the face of a fragmented and powerless world.
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Text | Sun Xiaofang
At midnight, standing on the balcony, I could hear the wind. During the day, the wind passing through the treetops is inaudible. Looking at the community, the lights are faint, and most of the families have gone to sleep. It's still early to go to bed, so I simply turned on the Bluetooth speaker and let the AI broadcast at will. So, Li Zongsheng's "Song for Myself" slowly sang:
I think about it but I can't get it, what do you want to do in life, you can't give it up, you just care about talking nonsense with the past......
The song was released in 2010. That year, Li Zongsheng was fifty-two years old, he was a proper old Li, and I was barely a little grandson. Now Lao Li is still Lao Li, and the person who listens to the song on the balcony at midnight is also a proper grandson.
Listening to this song, I can't help but think of two friends between Li Zongsheng and me, and their recent situation is worth mentioning.
A few days ago, an old friend suddenly came to my house, asked me for a drink, and spent the night overnight. I wondered in my heart that his house was not far from me, and his wife and children were at home, so there was no need to spend the night with me. But since my friend asked for it, I just thought it was up to me, and I didn't ask much about the reason. Early the next morning, he got up and went straight to Hongqiao Station and took the high-speed train to Nanjing on a business trip. When I got up, the room was empty, and I looked at the bed he slept in, and made it up deliberately, like a Shanghai man living at home.
A few days later, his wife suddenly added me to WeChat and asked about her husband's overnight stay with me. I said he looked good and there was nothing wrong with him. She said that my friend was middle-aged, and suddenly seemed to have depression, very unstable mood, serious mental internal friction, refused to speak at home, and was silent like a load-bearing wall at home.
The friend was unemployed for two years. During this time, he kept telling me that there was a super big project to talk about. That's it, he's the boss. He didn't tell me what was going to happen, but I knew he had been trying to find a job. One day, he called me and said he had done the interview. On the other end of the phone, his tongue was big, and he knew that he had drunk too much as soon as he heard it.
He didn't mention the super project again. We hadn't seen each other for a long time because he had been on a business trip until this time he suddenly came to my house for the night.
What happened between him and his wife, I dare not ask. This family is obviously going through a huge turmoil. Judging from their circle of friends, there are still some beautiful pictures of eating, drinking and having fun, on the surface, the years are quiet and undisturbed, but in fact, there is an undercurrent. I have a faint feeling that their relationship is in a delicate but fragile balance, and as long as there is a slight movement of the head, the balance will be broken, and the seemingly peaceful life will fall apart in an instant.
The second is that I heard from a friend that a well-known big lady in our industry has recently faced a serious financial crisis.
This eldest sister is ten years younger than Li Zongsheng, when Lao Li wrote "Song for Myself", she, as a senior in the IT industry, was experiencing the best years, taking money everywhere and starting a business. At a dinner party a while ago, she drank two more glasses, and when she told me about the grand occasion more than ten years ago, her eyes were still shining. According to her, at that time, the market was full of money, and tickets were flying all over the sky, and her dilemma was which one to invest in the most offending people.
I also went through that period and knew that what she was saying was true. I have a friend who interned under her after graduating from university, and then became a full-time employee, and got a formal salary of 10,000 yuan in the first month - that was 10,000 yuan in 2002! The eldest sister personally handed him cash in a single office with huge floor-to-ceiling windows, one thousand and one stacks, a total of ten stacks. Friends said that at that moment, the eldest sister was the god in his eyes.
Yesterday, a friend chatted and gossip, saying that the eldest sister was unwilling to be lonely recently, borrowed money to start a business, and finally lost everything, and the family's expenses even depended on credit cards. I really didn't think about it, why did she solve her dilemma, and asked how to solve it? The friend replied that the eldest sister knew a lot of rich people, but she couldn't pull her face to borrow money, and was thinking about taking out loans. When she gets the money, I'm afraid that she won't be willing to be lonely, and nine times out of ten she will have to fight again.
Actually, I'm so afraid that she will have to fight. I always feel that it is not necessarily a bad thing for middle-aged people to learn to admit defeat.
Their story is not unique. The middle-aged people around me, those with families, those who are single, and everyone who opens their eyes are full of questions. or career setbacks, or emotional discord, and headaches in order to support parents and educate children. Moreover, these problems often come to them at the same time, and at the same time, they also have to face the "loss" caused by the declining physical function and the decreasing possibilities of life.
The so-called midlife crisis is not alarmist to say that you are alone in the face of a fragmented and powerless world.
Lao Li's song was finished, and the little stories of the two friends were also told, and the wind in the treetops could be heard on the balcony. The building opposite, which was pitch black, suddenly lit up with a certain grid, and I guess which anxious middle-aged man couldn't sleep and simply got up at night.
I don't know what the value of this manuscript is, maybe it's a kind of midnight chicken soup for the soul, using other people's difficulties to comfort the souls of those who always have insomnia in middle age.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to these two friends. Either way, they are persevering to live. Although small, everyone's life is a battle, like those "green and exquisite heroes" in Lu Xun's pen, as Lao Li later sang in "The Hills": "Fight back without your own strength until you die".
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Edited by Gan Qiongfang
Typesetting|Gan Qiongfang
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