Chapter 58 The Hollow Horror——Interpretation of "The Hole"

product of contradiction A strange little animal has built a strange burrow consisting of a large city storeroom and many tunnels.Small animals make burrows to avoid enemies from the outside, to have a hiding place, logically it thinks so.But once the hole-making action starts, the logic is overthrown, and then it is built up and overthrown again and again, every action is in contradiction; it runs back and forth like a pendulum clock, living in terror all the time , It seems that a huge project has been achieved, but in fact it is still in place in old age.If you experience it carefully, you will find that the misfortune of a small animal has nothing to do with external threats; all contradictions and conflicts come from the heart and are determined by its inherent unfortunate character.Such a character creates a burrow in which the functions of all facilities are ambiguous and incomprehensible.

First, it claims that the holes were never built out of fear.At a distance of about a thousand paces from the real entrance, it also left a false hole, which, by some prudence, it deliberately left the shallow hole unblocked.Its behavior makes us suspect that it is just to attract the attention of the outside world to build the burrow.This is an absurd conclusion!Doesn't it claim to make holes for safety and total silence?We should not easily believe its confession, but watch its actions, because this weird little animal has a devil in its heart.Next it set up an answering device at the actual entrance of the hole.This device is infallible, disguised so that no one can see through it, it is the safest measure in the world; at the same time, it is the easiest to break, as long as the intruder has an unusual ability, it can be knocked out with a single kick. Pretend to step on it.This device is the product of its inner contradiction: on the one hand, it needs to be hidden and avoid the attention of the outside world; Jump outside and be completely exposed to broad daylight.This kind of psychology has caused the Achilles' heel of the hole protection device, so that it does not have a real protective effect, but only a symbolic comfort.The strange thing is that it cannot live without this spiritual comfort.By analogy with the bitter alcohol device, every project in the cave has this characteristic-fragile and vulnerable.However, although I had deep doubts in the early stage of building the cave, I almost lost myself in my work: day and night, I only knocked the soil with my forehead until blood flowed, and finally made a hole in the cave. Out of the storage room of the city wall that I thought was perfect at the time; I kept moving for the realization of the food storage plan, and worked more intensely because of the changes in the plan again and again; I kept digging ditches to search for the imaginary enemy, etc. .What is the result of all this?As a result, even greater doubts set in.Doubt leads to the negation of previous labors, from which new, corrective plans are born.The new plan is often not new, it is just the restoration of the previous plan, and it takes a lot of physical strength and energy to go round and round like this.The burrow created in this way is unique in the world: it is infinitely hidden, isolated from the outside world, and inexhaustible; it is also extremely fragile, vulnerable, and almost open to the outside.

Why does this little animal always think of fleeing outwards, even when constructing a secluded burrow as a prerequisite?Could it be that there are far greater dangers in the cave than in the outside world?After many times of practice, it has indeed discovered that the seemingly silent burrow is not actually quiet, but there is always some kind of noise making trouble; this noise is more prominent against the surrounding quietness, implying greater danger than the outside world , making it feel like the possibility of destruction hangs over its head all day long.But it is such a burrow, the original intention (which has not changed) is to avoid and build for safety; in order to achieve this purpose, it has been constantly changing and improving the internal facilities, even though it has no effect at all, it can only keep doing it. go down.Its intense and continuous work reminds us that true peace and security can only come when a complete emptiness is achieved both inside and outside the burrow.For this reason, it also conceived a plan to dig an annular vacuum zone around the storage room. Of course, such a plan can only exist in fantasy.But isn't utter emptiness the greatest danger?That's why there is a need for an exit that can be opened at any time for emergency escape.

As long as the burrow is built in the dirt and there are small animals around, complete peace can never be achieved.It can be seen that the ideal living place it is really pursuing is not such a cave built with secular materials, but an empty space.Reminiscent of the fact that the original intention of making the hole was to attract attention, this pursuit seems unbelievable.Holes without edges and shapes are invisible to anyone, much less a hiding place.We can only say that there is such a hole in the spiritual world of the little animal, which is the source of its permanent terror. All the rushing and toil in the burrow is not only to fill the spiritual hole, but also an attempt to make the world that exists only in the spirit. A futile effort to actualize something in the domain.In reality, the harassment in the burrow can be eliminated through labor; the fear in the soul is eternal, isn't this eternal state of fear just the goal it pursues with hard work?It is filled and hollowed out.Only by understanding in this way can we know why the behavior of small animals is so contradictory and ineffective. It seems that there are grand ideas in their minds, but in fact all actions come from whims, and no plan is implemented. To the end (how can it be to the end?).All the work—the moss installation, the labyrinth, the castle storerooms, the excavation of the trenches, etc.—had been abandoned halfway and left unfinished.On the one hand, it is due to the limitation of physical strength, on the other hand, the more fundamental reason is the inner contradiction.Such a work is impossible and endless; or rather, at the end of the trench is the real void—the strange head that has never met.Therefore, it is determined that its fate can only be permanent excavation and construction without any purpose on the surface.

Is all work a kind of coping, a temporary expedient?Yes and no.At the beginning of every job, it strives for perfection, and never gets things done sloppily; it's just that it can't stick to its original intention and always falters halfway.It is unbelievable that the repeated blows of failures did not destroy its fundamental beliefs. It always placed its hope in new work, and hoped that the efforts of "this time" would have fundamentally different effects.Endless self-doubt did spoil some of its work, but it never changed its attitude toward the burrow.It sometimes leaves the burrow, just to observe it more calmly from the outside to strengthen its confidence; but it never stays outside for a long time, because only the burrow is the place it dreams of and the meaning of its existence.Who can compare with this ideal paradise that has long been integrated with it, a wonderland where you can roll around and sleep soundly?Where else to go but it?It is true that the burrow is not perfect, fatal flaws can be seen everywhere, which often make it ashamed to examine the fruits of its own labor; and thorough improvement can only be carried out in imagination and dreams, and when it comes into contact with reality, it immediately shows its physical strength Incompetence in mentality and way of thinking.If it doesn't want to give up, the only way out is to live with it.It has survived, which does not mean that its serious work attitude of pursuing perfection has changed; what it has changed is only one specific idea after another, and what has been abandoned is only one specific goal after another; its eyes are on the future hope, and the future is always endless.Just looking forward to it, looking forward to it, leaving one piece of incomplete work after another, and every piece of flawed work reflects the yearning for perfection and eternity.It is an unintentional initiative to use incompleteness to embody perfection and expediency to embody eternity.The burrow itself is the largest incomplete building. It cannot be built into a hollow, so it has to make do with realistic materials.In this sense, living and digging are both expedient measures.It can only use this expedient to advance towards the unknown eternity; in this sense, it also renounces death, because death is the termination of the process, the renunciation of the effort towards perfection.All it cares about is life itself; it is not interested in the things beyond, and only wants to experience death in the struggle of life, rather than passively realizing death.

tortuous exchange Wouldn't it be better, we might ask, to leave that void in the realm of the spirit?Since no matter what kind of hole you make, you are not satisfied, and since you always despise yourself in despair, why do you have to start this huge, complicated, and useless work?Although the purpose of digging a hole is to eliminate the fear that comes from within, there is a better way to do it than this.There must be a secret interest in the act of digging a hole, and this interest is the source of its strength, enabling it to continue this painful and tempting work.From the very beginning it tells us that it doesn't make holes out of fear.After we have seen its equipment in the cave and its labor, we can infer that it built the cave to express its inner ideals, and the object of communication can only be the external world—the object of its interest.So no matter whether I admit it or not, the act of making a hole from the very beginning includes the attempt to communicate with the outside world.It tries to convince itself that the burrow is a hiding place, into which absolutely no one can enter; and we see that in its self-contradictory behavior, in its subconscious, it is actually looking forward to someone with a very special character. It was broken in by a guy of unusual skill.Otherwise why leave that fake hole?Otherwise, why would there be a hole in one fell swoop?To make a hole means to leave it behind, and the body will disappear one day, but the hole will not disappear so quickly.For whom?Of course it is left to the outside world to discover.However, the outside world will not understand the mysteries of the hole; this mystery comes from its deeply learned and unspeakable heart; what is expressed by the hands is less than one-tenth of the heart, and all the destruction, reconstruction, modification, etc. are all from the inside. requirements of that model.Despite all this, we still have to say that it is certainly not completely hopeless towards the outside world, it is very ambivalent about the outside world.This glimmer of hope in reality maintained its lifelong interests and efforts.

What a strange little animal!Its tortuous and dark heart contains such a great heat, and it spends a lifetime pursuing and expressing an unrealizable delusion, and the form of expression is actually embodied through closure and isolation.Indeed, it is impossible for any external world to completely revisit its original dream, because the dream of others cannot be relived, because all fantasies are one-off.But having acquainted with its burrowing passion, and the spirit that governs it, shall we not have other phantasies, other dreams?Doesn't our dream world border its dream world at a certain point?

The isolation from the outside world stems from an excessive interest in the outside world, in order to reveal the whole world, and in the final analysis, to reveal the truth of one's own existence; not only to reveal the truth, but also to tell the outside world all this, and I am most afraid of being misunderstood by the outside world .It may seem far-fetched to attach such an opinion to this timid little animal, but it is a fact, a fact obscured by its confession.Otherwise, there would be no such big confession.We can see from its confession that it is a little animal that loves to express itself.The desire to possess, the urge to possess, is a continuation of the previously expressive character in the outside world.If one day the desire to express disappears, the burrow will not continue to be built.It is undeniable that the deep-rooted doubts in construction often lead to the impulse to destroy its own creations, and because of its extreme dissatisfaction with the creations, it is even more afraid of the outside world seeing it, and only wants to appreciate it alone.Once the creation exists, it becomes an object, and itself becomes the outside world, so this appreciation is still a refraction of the act of communicating with the outside world.The burrow, however concealed and ingenious it may be, must have been its secret hope that it would eventually be discovered by the outside world.This kind of hope is constantly active in its mind in the dark depths, so that the mind will not be dead, the limbs will not be decadent, and it will also allow the closed place in the dark to be connected with the vast outside world in imagination.

We also feel from time to time traces of external influences from the harsh view it takes on its own work.Perhaps its measurement standard is a priori, but there is always the invisible existence of the communication partner unconsciously, and it cannot be avoided.For example, its evaluation of the maze built in the early days said that it thinks the maze has its wonderful features, but it is very naive from today's point of view, so it cannot be rebuilt according to the original thinking; because self-awareness is becoming more and more If it is strengthened, rebuilding the labyrinth in today's situation is tantamount to drawing the attention of the entire world to it, which it cannot bear.It can be seen that in all its work, there is always an abstract spectator; this spectator strictly examines its work, urges it, sometimes affirms and sometimes denies it; it gradually matures under the supervision of the spectator. .At the same time, it emphasized that the outside world must never understand the mystery of the burrow.So who is that bystander, that god-like figure aloft?It can only be said that such an outlandish exchange is still relevant to reality.And it is very active in this contradictory communication relationship—constantly confessing, constantly opening up, not hiding anything, and saying everything both plainly and clearly.Of course, the premise of understanding all this is to have the extraordinary ability to break through the seal and enter the cave it painstakingly manages to visit.

negative or positive The purpose of building burrows seems to be negative - to hide and defend against enemies you never meet.Its work in the burrow also seemed passive—always acted upon by some threat, or hastily compelled by danger; The threat never lets go of it for a moment.Who is threatening it?Why has this mysterious enemy never met?Is an enemy who has never met once considered an enemy?Is building a defensive burrow against an uncertain enemy a passive or an active action? If we enter the thinking track of this little animal, we will appreciate how active and active its thinking is, and how its imagination is endless.Its endless imagination of danger often makes us stop and question: Is it performing a reasoning e-entertainment?Isn't the labor of turning over and over again the expression of reasoning in its mind?The ubiquitous "singing" noise, the dissonant sound that almost makes it lose its reason, always reminds us of the invincible opposite of reason, the profoundness that kills it at all times and at the same time gives it infinite vitality. doubt.The burrow device is actually a manifestation of the effort to realize the spiritual device, and all its perfections and defects are the perfections and defects of the spirit itself.No matter what efforts the operator puts in, those eternal contradictions cannot be resolved.What is the enemy?What is the danger?They are the moths in its mind, the transcendental fear of the void, as long as the thinking does not stop and the spirit does not dry up, the enemy will always gather strength there and launch a new round of attacks.And he, the scheming, constructive creature, always devised new ways of dealing with impending disasters; from his little head flowed endlessly all kinds of plans; A brilliant genius of comparison.It is true that the spiritual world cannot be moved to the ground, it can only be felt again and again in the process of construction; and we can also constantly approach that world from its confession.Doubt, pain, constant changes in plans and policies, endless drudgery, all these seem to come from passive efforts, but in fact they are voluntarily prescribed by themselves, and the regulations are determined by the mind. From the transcendental contradiction.Therefore, in the process of implementing the plan, it is impossible to distinguish whether it is active or passive, active or passive.Nevertheless, we can still experience the other side of things from its reasoning that always tends to extremes, from the beating of its restless heart, from its desperate determination.

The defense comes from the constant self-challenge and crisis creation in the heart, so there is labor like a pendulum clock.What we are facing is a personality full of a sense of crisis, and defense is a manifestation of this crisis.The crisis was not eliminated by defense, but deepened.However, is retreating aggressive in another sense?The inward contraction will eventually cause the inner core to become extremely hard-this is the way of burrowing. Several places in the confession revealed its tortuous hints.As mentioned earlier, it does not build burrows out of fear, but because it needs to avoid the dangers and hustle and bustle of the world.It can be seen from this that this move is completely proactive, and it is a clever plan specially designed for itself.The outside world was once the greatest danger to it, and the outside world devoured individuality, making it impossible to pursue tranquility; building a cave means isolating and confronting the outside world, seeking safety and tranquility.Unexpectedly, after the burrow was built, it took on all the characteristics of the outside world, and these characteristics began to oppress it again.The struggle inside the cave evolved from its struggle with the outside world. The cave is built on the ground, and the entrance is actually in a place with heavy traffic. Of course, the relationship with the outside world is cut off.And because of the simplification of the cave, this threat and the struggle against the threat are all the more shocking.When the burrow is full of threats, which almost make it suffocate and go crazy, it will go out of the burrow to the ground from time to time, adjust its mentality, think about some problems more rationally, and make some new decisions.This can be seen as a form of distance therapy.Except for short-term boredom, it never thought of abandoning the burrow at any time.In time it united itself with the burrow; all its joys and pains were embodied in the burrow, and the burrow's pains and needs became its pains and needs. Extraordinary positivity is also shown in the enthusiasm to build.This diabolical passion, inspired by fantasy, comes from a longing for the tranquility of heaven.In order to experience that unattainable ideal, it sinks into hellish drudgery every day, and it believes that this is its only way of life.endless doubts When it contrasts the void in the spiritual world with the burrow, the doubts brought to it by the burrow in reality cannot be eliminated.Whenever it concentrates on a task and operates according to plan, doubts follow it, destroying the fruits of its labor and removing the meaning of its work.Doubt is like a deadly disaster, which constantly strikes from behind in the process of its construction; so it has almost become a rule to build, destroy, and abandon at the same time.The wind from the cave kept blowing, and the sharp whistling sound spread to the depths of the cave, turning into a tenacious "quking" sound, making it uneasy.Hesitating, frustrated, until the willpower is lost, and then the desire to build a new round rises again.This is a long tug of war, and the final winner seems to be the enemy, but who can figure out this kind of thing?Maybe it will win by itself.Ah, it must have persisted because of this hope.Day by day the terror builds up like a black cloud that gathers overhead before a thunderstorm.Lightning can be seen and thunder can be heard, but no one can foresee what a vicious disaster will look like.But there is still time, and we can still compete!Even if he has doubts about the work at hand, even if he has no confidence in the results of the work, he is still working non-stop; after all, the burrow has been made, and its fate is closely linked with it.Build in Doubt - This is also the way of the burrow.In this way it imprisoned itself, a prison of freedom, a prison of whatever it pleases; Obstacles, which often show a tendency to destroy, are brought into orbit in the adjustment.While analyzing its fierce inner struggle, we experience the pain of its inescapable existence.