Chapter 9 9. Changes in outlook on life under the "sympathy between man and nature"

I studied philosophy in my first year as a postgraduate student, but soon I got lung disease, and I vomited blood when I committed a crime, and my body was very weak.Lung disease was very common at that time, and probably many people had it, but it was not detected because it was the same as normal people when they were not sick.If I hadn’t vomited blood, I wouldn’t have known that I had lung disease. Maybe someone else had infected me, maybe I’d infected someone else. I don’t know. There is no isolation and no medicine. I found out later that vomiting blood didn't seem to be that serious.Bacteria bite through blood vessels, so they vomit blood. If a person does not lose a lot of blood, it is not so serious. Death from vomiting blood is often not due to blood loss, but usually due to suffocation. When the blood comes out, the trachea is blocked. It was very sad at times, and I understand it very well.And I have a special experience with lung disease. Whenever the weather changes, such as a sudden wind and thunder, I will feel oppressed and start to vomit blood.A classmate joked with me, saying: "You are a 'sympathy between heaven and man'." There is a story in the book, when Wu Zetian was in prison, he used torture when he was arrested.There was a man who was severely punished in prison, and he was able to predict the weather after he came out.Someone asked him, "How could he be so spiritual?" He said that it was not his spirit, but that he had a premonition as soon as his injury changed, so the prophecy was very accurate.I think this is right, I also had this kind of experience at the time, and I can feel it when the weather changes.

I had a good time and finally got through it, but not everyone is so lucky.A classmate in the Department of Physics is Zhang Chongyu, who has the best idea of ​​physics, and later became a graduate student.I believe that if he had survived, he would be a master of physics by now, and he would be a Nobel Prize winner. Unfortunately, he got lung disease and died shortly after graduation, which is a pity.There was a little fat man named Lu Zhongrong in the Department of Chemistry, who was also very good at reading. We studied German together, and got lung disease when we graduated. Seeing him lose weight day by day, he was really skinny. It was a pity that he died later. up.They are so young and talented, if given a condition to survive, I think they must have made great achievements, but it is a pity that they passed away very early.

After graduating, I studied as a graduate student for three years. At first, I was influenced by Wang Hao to study philosophy together, but I did not finish my studies. One was because I was ill and hadn’t attended classes for half a year, and the other was that I was influenced by Wang Hao and gave up philosophy.Wang Hao studied mathematics as an undergraduate, and he read philosophy very well. He believes that there are only two ways to study philosophy. One way is to start with natural science, especially mathematics and physics. Otherwise, you can only take the road of ethics and preaching. For example, the way of Confucius and Mencius, the benevolent loves others, but these are not philosophy. To truly talk about philosophy, one must start with natural science.The other way is to get a little bit of philosophical influence and switch to literature from a philosophical background.What he said is very reasonable. Most of the great Western philosophers are scientists, such as Descartes and Leibniz in modern times, Whitehead and Russell in contemporary times, and Mach and Poincare who were criticized by Lenin. Is a top-notch scientist.Wang Hao studies mathematics, so of course he can engage in "real philosophy". I don't have a foundation in natural science, and a year of engineering is far from enough.I was seriously ill at that time, so I found some literary books for entertainment, especially the English Romantics. The poetry of Shelley, Byron, and Keats had a great influence on me.

The biggest difference between Western poetry and Chinese poetry is that they are often long speeches. A poem is a small book, and a complete set of philosophy of life is developed, which is rare in Chinese poetry.There were two important British poets in the 19th century, Browning (Browning) and Tennyson (Tennyson). The general evaluation was that Browning was better than Tennyson, but my feeling at the time was that although Browning's poems were powerful, they lacked The depth of the realm of life, at this point, Tennyson seems to be superior, but also more fascinated me. When Tennyson was middle-aged, he wrote a long poem "In Memoriam", in memory of his dead friend. The writing was very touching, and he systematically developed his own philosophy of life and religious beliefs. What moved me more It is a kind of spiritual sustenance, in the words of Mr. Chen Yinke, it is "talking freely about the time between heaven and man".For another example, Tennyson died at the age of eighty-three. His last poem, Crossing the Bar, can be found in almost every anthology. The general idea of ​​the poem is that when he left the port that morning, he caught up with the fog and the boat could not get out until noon. When the fog cleared and we sailed away from the port, Tennyson imagined that he was in his 80s and his life was coming to an end. When he sailed away from the harbor on this shore and crossed the boundary of life, he could meet "my helmsman" (that is, God ), "I hope to see my pilot face to face when I have crost the bar".After reading these poems, I was very moved, and I admired this outlook on life very much. I felt that this was in line with my appetite, so I transferred to the Department of Foreign Languages ​​to study literature in the second year.

My first tutor in the Department of Foreign Languages ​​was Mr. Wu Mi, who later went to Sichuan, and the American Robert Winter was my tutor.But I didn't read it well, because my main interest is not literary research, but those poems have inspired my thoughts, and I feel very understanding.I have always believed that spiritual pursuit and enjoyment are goals in themselves and should not be too utilitarian. For example, studying this course is not of much use to me. If I can’t get a doctorate or find a good job, then I will quit.It's not wrong to think so, of course, but that's a different style.Since middle school, I haven't worked very hard for many years. This probably has something to do with my free and undisciplined habits, or it can also be said to have something to do with my outlook on life.In my opinion, the greatest joy of reading lies in one's own spiritual satisfaction, which is more important than anything else, not in whether one gets a worldly honor.If you are not very interested and you have to make a lot of sacrifices, I don't think it is worthwhile. In other words, if you lose your life if you are too utilitarian, the gain outweighs the loss.

From 1945 to 1946, which was my third year as a graduate student, the "December 1st" democratic movement was very enthusiastic, classes were suspended, and the school was chaotic, so I couldn't calm down to read and write papers. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly came to an end, and Tsinghua University and Peking University returned to Beijing. Originally, I should have followed back to Beijing to write another paper. I wanted to write a paper on Schopenhauer, because although Schopenhauer was a philosopher, his career was in literature. The road, I am very touched.But my sister wrote to say that my mother was seriously ill with her in Taiwan, and I thought she was going to die, so I went to see her, and when I could come back, the civil war broke out again, and there was no hope of going north, so I studied for three years as a graduate student, but in the end I didn’t get any. to degree.