Chapter 12 Chapter 11 The New Myth of Sisyphus

Anyone who is not satisfied with flipping through newspapers every day, and is used to sitting in meditation and constantly introspecting, will often return to her (his) early stories and pick up the wonderful flashes of each stage of her (his) growth film for philosophical reflection. I do this because I know that there is no better way to experience the mysteries of human existence and to discover the material and spiritual changes in the world we live in today than to look back often at past lives.I was never limited to my childhood, nor was I limited to a family, a courtyard, or even a country.However, everyone's today is undoubtedly walking on the bridge of her (his) past experiences and thoughts, thus understanding himself and the world.

This is exactly what I understand to mean by the saying "If you don't become a child often, you can't get to heaven". Compared with my primary school years, my entire middle school days have undergone tremendous changes.I have personally witnessed and experienced China after the restoration of the college entrance examination system in the late 1970s and early 1980s.All the high school graduates brutally scrambling to get into college.The close classmate relationship in the early years is gone. Of course, the phenomenon that all the classmates unite and isolate a certain person has become a history that will never return.Your higher grades than mine mean that you are threatening my college chances and future prospects.The concept of collectivism is being swallowed up bit by bit by the dead corner of strong individualism.In this brutal competition, scores are everything.School education teaches individuals the answers, not the methods.

And the answer is fixed. Whether you have ideas or creations is not important or meaningful. In the campus life in elementary school, I just hid myself from the joy of the collectivist group that lost my personal value at that time. Although I was lonely, there was an indirect and illusory shadow-like group behind it.Since I entered high school, especially as the college entrance examination approached, I felt trapped in another extreme—a cage where individualism prevailed without collective warmth.The companions are crowded in a classroom, but they are as indifferent as strangers.At this time, this kind of collapsed and fragmented group made me fall into the real inner isolation and emptiness, and felt the fear of alienation from my companions and self-enclosed.

In retrospect today, the collectivism that ignored the individual in our early years is actually the breeding ground for the indifferent and arrogant individualism of today.The extreme of anything always breeds another thing that goes against it. I remember that in the early morning of the last day of the winter vacation in the year I graduated from high school, it snowed heavily again, covering the sky, and the momentum seemed to drop the whole sky.I woke up with the sound of snow rustling outside the window, lying in the warm bed and didn't want to get up. I stretched out my arms from under the quilt and turned the clock on the bedside table towards me. It was not yet eight o'clock.This day is the back-to-school day, and the school requires us to register at ten o'clock in the morning.

I saw that it was still early, so I lay in the quilt and thought about it. At a glance I saw a change in my outstretched arm.Due to the heavy homework and the pressure of the college entrance examination, I haven't talked to myself for a long time. "Miss No" and "Miss Yes" have been neglected by me for a long time. Her legs and legs have become plump without anyone noticing.I touched my body with my hands, and I really felt that my body had changed a lot.I was very surprised at my negligence, why I didn't notice it at all when I took a shower, this body was completely different from the one I was familiar with before.

The chest of this body is bulging and soft, like two peaches sewn into the top pocket of the pajamas; the abdomen and crotch suddenly become a wide and smooth field, as if planted with wheat seedlings, it can grow green, oily and fragrant The buttocks are round and calm, and they are tilted up very confidently, causing a curvature at the waist, which cannot be flat on the bed; the two thighs are like two elastic exclamation marks, long and smooth. I kept touching "Miss No" and "Miss Yes" in the quilt.I clearly feel that, as I grow older, I don't want to talk to them any more.The words in my head have silently grown horns and stretched to other places, such as the Widow He who stretched to the opposite door, and Yiqiu, my only friend among classmates.When I am alone, I often talk to them secretly in my mind, especially He, I often think about what it would be like to be with her man when she was younger?Wonder if she is happy?She is almost the only light and reliance in my soul, which enables me to enjoy the brilliance of this kind of conversation for a while without the oppression of studies and the inexplicable sense of loss after a boring and heavy mouth.This kind of conversation can be transmitted in my mind without meeting, without real language contact.

now.I quietly hid in the quilt, chewing on the conversation like a newly grown cow silently chewing on the grass, as if I was building a language house with great care. At this time, I heard my parents talking in the next room, and they seemed to be "discussing" something.I say the word "discussion" because as a kind of debate, their tone is obviously not sharp and exciting, and it is as calm as discussing which brand of household appliances to buy and other gossip.But I know that my father never had the leisure and enthusiasm to discuss family matters with my mother.I listened carefully, and sure enough, I heard my mother talking about "divorce". I could feel that when she said it, there was no stumbling, it was as smooth as if she had been previewing it in her heart for many years. Long.It's just that her voice lost its former mellowness due to a certain solemnity, and became a little hoarse.

My mood became depressed and heavy, and I wanted to cry very much, but I hated being immersed in a kind of helpless sadness, so I immediately diverted my attention, got up, dressed, quietly ate something in the kitchen, and took my winter vacation Homework, I went to school to register and report. The street looked barren and desolate, and the slightly hissing wind passed through the gray ruins on the side of the road and the door openings on the high stone steps, unimpeded.Snow covered the ruined walls and the withered lawns, as if putting on a coat for the city.A four-wheeled carriage passed by in front of my eyes. The horseshoes were as silent as a cat, but the heavy wheels made a dry and subtle creaking sound, as if the carriage was also covered in an invisible net, muffled, Crawl slowly.The sun shone like shadows on the bare branches and on the rough brown wooden fence beside the road.

I like to walk in the snow, the sky is high and the land is wide, my thoughts are unobstructed, and the thoughts themselves are a smooth street.The soles squeaked and screamed on the snowy ground, tangling with your feet like sparrows.That sound makes you feel that you are walking in the world, and looking back at the footprints, you feel that you are alive in the world.You feel that the Spirit of Creation is with you at that moment.Before leaving home and going out, the depression in my heart was heavy, but also because of the open-minded sky and the vast land, it suddenly became clear.At least at that moment, I felt that any sadness and melancholy in my life was so small.

After a short walk in the snow, I temporarily put aside the morning's divorce and effectively suppressed my sadness. Walking into the gate of the school, the campus is barren, with creamy snow covering courtyards, corridors and all passages.Because of the gloomy weather, I saw that the incandescent lights were on in all the offices.I walked into Mr. T's office.When I entered the room, I found that Mr. T was looking at me with a smile, as if he had been looking outside and waiting for me to walk into his office and come up to him. Sure enough, as soon as I stepped over the threshold, T said. "I watched you walk step by step from the window, as beautiful as a fairy tale." He said, while standing up his tall body from the chair, as if I was not a student, but a visiting guest .

I saw a trace of embarrassment in his sunken eye sockets, as if he had held back the words for a whole winter vacation, and those words crowded into a strong pressure in his chest, eager to find an outlet. At this time, a few more registered students came to the office, and Yi Qiu walked in, swinging her crippled polio leg. I handed in the homework with everyone, and then stamped the student ID card for registration. After finishing all the formalities, I was about to leave with Yi Qiu, when Mr. T suddenly said, "Ni Aoao, don't leave yet, I have something to do with you." Feeling uneasy, I asked, "What's the matter?" T thought for a while and said, "Go and clean the snow in the small yard in front of our classroom first. Then we can talk." He said to me while he was busy taking the student workbooks that came in from behind. I don't think it's fair.Everyone else can go home, but I have to stay and sweep the snow.But I still obeyed his order and took Yi Qiu to accompany me to sweep the snow. I asked Yi Qiu to squat on the steps under the eaves of the classroom to wait, and then I started sweeping alone. While cleaning the snow on the ground, I looked up at the snowballs that were still falling in the sky.Those fluffy cotton battings are being spread down diligently and without interruption.After a while, my hair and shoulders were covered with white flowers. At this time, I straightened up and looked back at the place I had just swept. The black ground had been covered with snow again.I stood there for a while in disappointment.Then go back and scan again. I swept a few times and looked back, constantly seeing that the ground I had just swept was once again occupied by new snow. I scanned and scanned, and a hopeless tiredness suddenly fell on me. I felt that this was simply an endless exam or labor, which could never be finished, and it was completely a conspiracy of Mr. T. , a trap.I suddenly thought of all his arrogance, trickery, oppression and unfairness to me. He not only controlled my grades and moral evaluation, but also controlled my speech, my thinking and even my emotions.It's all so unfair!Why should I endure such humiliation!Why am I always in a position to obey him?Like a fool at the mercy of others? At that moment, I exaggeratedly regarded the endless snow in front of me as a symbol of my future life, a kind of destiny. It wasn't until this time that the depression and bewilderment I felt hearing about the divorce at home early in the morning came back to me and took over me completely. At that time, of course, I had not read the myth of Sisyphus.After I went to university, I learned that there was a legend in the ancient West. In order to punish Sisyphus, the gods asked him to push a boulder to the top of the mountain, then let the boulder roll down, and he pushed the boulder again. Go up to the top of the mountain and do it over and over again, never ending.His life was exhausted in such a futile and hopeless labor.However, Sisyphus found the meaning in this lonely, absurd, and desperate life. He saw the beauty of the boulder exuding a huge dynamic under his push, and the power he collided with the boulder was like The dance is as beautiful, and he is so intoxicated with this happiness that he no longer feels suffering.When the boulder was no longer a misery in his heart, the gods no longer let the boulder roll down from the top of the mountain. Humans are intelligent. Such a wise attitude towards fate was something I only realized later. When I was standing on the snow outside the classroom, I was completely swallowed up by my own boundless and disastrous exaggeration and imagination. I stood there and suddenly burst into tears. Yi Qiu raised his head under the eaves and looked at me inexplicably. I cried and cried, all the new "hatred" and old "hatred" came together. It was noon and I rushed into Mr. T's office and stood in front of him, full of hatred for T and the man my father represented. Seeing my face full of tears, T asked with confusion and concern: "What's the matter, Ni Aoao?" As he spoke, he brushed off my hair, the snow scum on my chest and back with his hands, and his eyes showed a dazed expression. I kept silent and stared at him, as if those gazes were sharp teeth that could crush his sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy. T seemed to be unaware of the small knife shot out of my eye socket, and continued to put his hand on my shoulder, asking with concern, "Did something happen?" I suddenly pushed his big hand away, and finally said loudly, "I'm here to tell you something!" "What's the matter?" He asked me puzzled. I stared angrily at his face, "I just came here to tell you... where is the private department! It's here and there!" I "returned" him where he touched me in the early years. I touched him very hard! At this time, T has a surprised expression and a complicated expression. When I want to calm the inexplicable tension and excitement inside my body.It was only then that I realized that I was actually standing in front of Mr. T without moving a muscle. My hands were tightly clenched and hung on both sides of my thighs, and I never lifted them up or touched his body.My two stiff hands are like two dead stones. And the scene that happened above was just done in my imagination. I saw then that, in my mind, there were two mutually negating beings trying to dominate me at the same time, and I was in a mess.I stood in front of him blankly, at a loss. When I knew I didn't hurt him, I was very sad and angry.How I despise myself!I am a person without any capacity.A man who will not fight back. Then, I turned around sharply and ran out of the office. Run out of the school gate.I didn't go straight home, I walked up and down the street alone, I ignored the people passing by and the shops with beautiful windows, and I was absorbed in my sad and messy thoughts. A whole afternoon, I walked up and down the street, the dim street lights were lit, and the sunset silently retreated behind the roofs of others.All the magnificent buildings and entertainment venues are full of neon lights and colorful lights. I have always felt that the streets and alleys are a kind of home. When your mind has no place to return to, it is your hotel; when your loved ones are far away and lonely, it is your friend.Even in this cold winter weather, my love for it doesn't cool down.I kept walking in the streets, and the inner dialogue kept expanding. Home is not far away, waiting for me to go back, but for the first time in my life, I feel connected and alone.