Chapter 42 one thousand silver needles

A country kid told me an interesting fairy tale, which I had never heard of before, and the kid didn’t know the source, so I’m recording it now: Once upon a time there was a king who had seven daughters, and each of the seven princesses had a thousand pins for arranging their hair, each of which was a very thin silver pin studded with diamonds, and fastened to the combed hair. It's as if the shining Milky Way is studded with stars. One morning, when the eldest princess combed her hair, she found that there were only nine hundred and ninety-nine silver needles, and one was missing.The second princess also stole one from the third princess because she lacked a silver needle. The princess also stole from the Seventh Princess, and it was the Seventh Princess who was implicated in the end.

It happened that the next day the king had a distinguished guest coming from afar. Because the seventh princess was missing a silver needle, she had a long hair that could not be fastened. She was anxiously looking for the silver needle with the maid all day, and even said: If someone finds my silver needle, I will marry him." The twig outside the window heard it, and stretched it in and said, "Use my branch as your silver needle?" But the tree is so strong that the hair will stand on end. The spring in the mountain heard this, and said with the frozen ice, "Use this ice to make silver needles!" But the cold ice melted into water droplets as soon as it was inserted into the hair.

The moon in the sky heard it and said, "Use my silver light as your silver needle!" But the silver thread of the moonlight is too soft to hold your hair. The Seventh Princess sighed helplessly and said, "Ah! A distinguished guest is coming tomorrow!" The next day, the distinguished guest from afar turned out to be a prince. The prince held a silver needle in his hand and said, "The naughty bird has built a nest in my hunting hat, and I found a thorn in it. Does the hair pin with the pattern of Guicheng belong to one of the princesses?" The six princesses became noisy and anxious, knowing that they had lost the silver needle, but their hair was combed with a thousand silver needles as beautiful as the Milky Way.

"Ah! That's the silver needle I dropped!" Seventh Princess who was hiding in the house hurried out and said. But instead of returning the Seventh Princess's silver needle, the prince even kissed her in a trance. The Seventh Princess's uncombed long hair fell down to her heels and glistened... The ending of this story is like all beautiful fairy tales: "The prince and princess lived happily ever after." I heard this story in front of the court in the countryside, from the mouth of a primary school girl. After she finished telling the story, she looked up at the shining stars beyond the distant mountains, imagining that she was the seventh princess who lost a silver needle , she didn't know at all: "Lost" also had sad moments, and finally she fell asleep under the starlight with a smile on her lips.

But after listening to the story, I couldn't fall asleep until midnight. What a simple fairy tale it is!It actually caused my thoughts to drift far away in the sky. "A Thousand Silver Needles" has a distinct symbolic meaning to me. A factor that can change fate like a silver needle is sometimes so small that even the tree outside the window, the spring in the mountain, and the moon in the sky can't help, but it changes a person's life. It turns out that a princess who has a thousand silver needles does not guarantee a better fate than a princess who has lost the silver needles.

The loss of the silver needle and the loss of fate are originally tragic, but because of the shuttle of the fate bird, the tragedy becomes a comedy. I believe everyone has had similar experiences. Thinking about the loss of life, of course, there is no such thing as a great loss in the human world, but a loss as small as a silver needle is always compensated from a large point of view. I have always refused to believe that there is an eternal loss in life. , Eternal loss can only be found in those who give up on themselves. I like what Bacon said very much: "People don't cry, they don't laugh: children are born with the ability to cry, and they learn to laugh later; First understand the sorrow, and then you will not understand happiness.” The same is true for loss. People cannot experience the real happiness without loss. Nietzsche said: “When the fountain of happiness is too full, it often overwhelms the white water that wants to be full. Cup." This is also true.

When thinking in this way, you can be calm about life and love.If everyone has a thousand silver needles, but unfortunately loses one, don't be sad; because we still have nine hundred and ninety-nine silver needles, they can still radiate light, just like thousands of stars in the sky, sometimes rainy days If one is missing, the others still shine for us. — March 20, 1983