Chapter 76 on nonsense

on nonsense "Nonsense!" "Don't waste your words!" "Stop talking and wasting your words!" These are all impolite sentences used to criticize or stop other people's words.This can range from a harsh reprimand to just an intimate banter, depending on who is involved, what is being said, and the tone in which the words are used. The two different words "waste" and "fee" generally seem to mean the same thing, but they are actually different.It seems that "nonsense" is often used in old novels, but "nonsense" is often used in modern times.The former focuses on chattering, which makes it useless; the latter focuses on being useless, and it feels chattery when it is useless.Usually speaking of "trash" and "waste" is condemned as useless, and "nonsense" is just one category. "Fei" means "waste" and "waste". Although it is criticized, it is still for the original speaker's own sake, as if he is still planning for him. "Waste" is directly criticized by obedient people, and if you don't turn that corner, it should be even more impolite when you take a closer look.However, as a convention, we still use "waste" as the orthographic character.

Taoism teaches people to "forget words when you are proud." If words should be forgotten, isn't it nonsense in the end?Buddhism tells people that "it is impossible to speak", and Zen Buddhism even pointed out that "it is wrong to speak out": all words are in the end all nonsense.They don't speak enough to express their meaning, and they doubt language at all, so there are such words.Although I am temporarily beyond the human tongue when I say this kind of thing, I still have to have this kind of thing, and I have to use words to "forget the words" and say what is "unspeakable".Although this may not be regarded as a contradiction, it is an unsolvable chain.All words are nonsense in the end, but people have to talk nonsense in their lives, and in the end nonsense cannot be discarded.Taoists teach people to write less poetry and prose, saying that it is "playing with things and losing one's ambition" and "harming the Tao". Then poetry and prose become nonsense. The so-called poetry and prose refers to works of expression.But is poetry really nonsense?

If we follow Taoism and Buddhism from a higher level, all the words of Taoists will be nonsense; let us look at it from the inside of human words, and poetry and prose are not really nonsense.Human beings have emotions and reason, and generally speaking, reason lies in emotion, so the common saying goes, "Be reasonable."As the saying goes, you can also say "reasonable", "reasonable", but in fact it is still "reasonable"; otherwise, how can it be called "unreasonable"?Taoists only look at reason and want to obliterate emotion, so poetry and prose become nonsense.But who can be ruthless?Who doesn't live in love?People live most of their lives expressive; they seem to be always reasoning and narrating throughout their lives, but in fact it is rare that they are not unconsciously expressing at the same time. "The weather is good!" "Have you eaten?" Aren't they all nonsense?But it's always in people's mouths.When I see a friend discussing something, sometimes I have to talk about it casually, and get down to business, and this is often the case when writing letters.The diplomatic rhetoric is even more far-fetched. ——During the Warring States Period, when the Empress Dowager Zhao was slandered, he was also relying on that nonsense.Besides, life is an action, deeds are actions, and words are also actions; half of a person's life is actions and half is words.If you talk and write all your life, if you talk about reason, then there are so many reasons?Besides, who can always be so reserved?In fact, most of life is talking nonsense.Poetry is such nonsense.We have to be a little nonsense so that we can live a meaningful life.

There are but poems, that is, nursery rhymes, folk songs, stories, jokes, even meaningless word songs, tongue twisters, etc., which also comfort people and make people live interestingly.So children and the common people love these nonsense, not only children and the common people, literati and scholars also gradually fell in love with it.British Guisterton once advocated "meaningless words" and recommended the "meaningless book", which is an anthology of nursery rhymes and other files.These can actually be translated as "nonsense" and "nonsense book", but these nonsense are meaningless.Guiserton probably felt that those meaningful nonsense were not enough "crap", so he went one step further.In the turbulent modern life, this kind of meaningless nonsense can comfort us, give us a rest, and let us forget everything for a while.This is beneficial, that is, it makes our life interesting. ——That is to say, sometimes nonsense is needed, such as the meaningless example sentences of logicians "Zhang San is greater than", "human beings are black", etc.These nonsense are the most useful for the so-called useless; those meaningful, in fact, are also useful for useless.Someone once called some scholars "useful rubbish", and we might as well do the same, calling these meaningful and meaningless nonsense "useful nonsense".Abandonment is useless, but in the end it cannot be abolished, and it will be useful again.

Having said that, is nonsense useful?Nor is it true.Shen Gong of the Han Dynasty said, "Government is not about talking too much, but doing what you can do is as good as your ears." "Too much talking" is nonsense.Governance should be manifested in deeds, and empty words cannot be believed; no matter how nice it sounds or how reasonable it is, a check that cannot be cashed is always rubbish, and empty words that cannot be practiced are always rubbish.This kind of rhetoric only makes people feel deceitful and resentful in the end. We don't need to "talk too much". Everyone knows that this kind of nonsense is really nonsense.Some people like to run wild horses when they talk, and they make a lot of trouble "riding without return".Some people write "a thousand words in the pen, but a thousand miles away from the topic".But it would be very interesting to digress and run wild horses for thousands of miles.I'm afraid that if you always go around in circles outside the circle, and go around and always stay outside the circle, then thousands of words are useless, and they will only make people feel bored and anxious.This is the kind of "knowledge of difficulties"; it is precisely because of not knowing, so you can't always talk about the urgent point.This is really nonsense.Some people like to repeat what others say.When others make speeches, he outlines them; when others talk, he also outlines them.If the speech is complex or messy enough, we would be happy for someone to do it.But when others make it clear, he will still come, even if you talk to him yourself, he will also come to you-the wonderful thing is that he doesn't notice it at all, and he always enjoys it so much that it makes people laugh and cry.In fact, who can not repeat other people's words, ancient people's words, modern people's words?But it has to change, adding the color of the times, the color of the situation, or the color of oneself, it always makes people feel a little something new.Otherwise it is nonsense, useless nonsense!

Made on April 10-12, 1944. (Originally published in "Life Literature and Art" No. 2 on May 28, 1944)