Chapter 46 My birthday

Written in Paris, December 6, 1908 It was on such a day that my mother gave birth to me. On this day twenty-five years ago, silence brought me into a world full of shouts, disputes, and struggles. Now, I don't know how many times the moon has revolved around me, but I have circled the sun twenty-five times.But I still do not understand the true meaning of light, nor the mystery of darkness. I, together with the earth, the moon, the sun, and the stars, circled the Supreme Lord twenty-five times.But you see, this heart of mine still whispers the name of the Lord like the echo of the sea from a cave--the cave was formed by the impact of the sea, but it knows nothing of the nature of the sea. unclear.The tide of the sea rises and falls, and the caves sing their praises, but it has no way of knowing how wide the sea is.

Twenty-five years ago, Time waved a big pen and wrote a word in this strange big book of the world.Well, I am that incomprehensible word, which symbolizes emptiness at one time, and many things at another time. On this day every year, contemplation, reverie, and remembrance of the past all come to my heart.They bring the days and nights of the past to life before my eyes, and then drive them away. It's like a breeze blowing away the remaining clouds from the sky.As a result, those memories gradually disappeared in every corner of my house, just like a gurgling stream flowing in an empty and far-reaching canyon.Every year on this day, all kinds of souls drawn by my mind come to me from the ends of the earth, they surround me, and sing the sad song of recalling the past.Then they receded slowly and finally disappeared into the darkness.They seemed to be a flock of birds that landed on an abandoned threshing ground. They didn't find any food to peck, so they flapped their wings for a while, and then flew to other places.

On this day, the content of my old life was displayed in front of me again, like a small mirror, and I looked at it for a long time.I only saw the pale face of the years like a dead person, and the features of hopes, ideals and long-cherished wishes were all wrinkled like the faces of the old people; then I closed my eyes and looked in the mirror again, but only saw me my own face; then I gazed at my own face, and in it I saw nothing but melancholy; I examined that melancholy, and found it to be a mute, unable to speak; if melancholy could speak, then It must be sweeter than joyous. Over the past twenty-five years, I've loved a lot.What I love is often what other people hate, and what other people admire is often what I hate.What I loved as a child, I still love now; and what I love now, I will never forget as long as I live.Love is all I can get, no one can make me give it up.

There were times when I loved death.I have summoned it with a beautiful name, and I have praised and praised it openly and secretly.I have never forgotten death, nor been unfaithful to it, but now I love life too.For me, death and life have the same beauty and the same attraction. They both make me long for and miss, and arouse my love and emotion. I have loved freedom.The more I see men enslaved and downtrodden, the more my love for liberty grows; the more I realize that men obey but frightening idols, the more my love of liberty grows.It was the age of darkness that sculpted those idols, it was the continual ignorance that erected them, and it was the lips of slaves that polished them to brilliance.But I love these slaves as much as liberty, and pity them.Because they are a group of blind people, they can't see that they are kissing the blood of tigers and wolves, they don't feel that they are sucking the venom of poisonous snakes, and they don't know that they are digging their own graves with kisses: I love freedom It was more than anything, because I felt that freedom was like an orphan girl, alone and helpless; she was so worn out that she became like a transparent phantom, passing through the houses and wandering the streets. Moe, she greeted passers-by, but they ignored her.

For twenty-five years I, like all men, have loved happiness.Waking up every day, I searched for happiness with the people, but I never found her in their way.I have seen no footprints of happiness in the desert around people's palaces; nor have I heard the echo of happiness from the windows of people's monasteries.When I was looking for happiness alone, I heard my heart whispering to me: "Happiness is a girl who lives in the depths of the heart, so deep that you can only stay away." I opened my heart Heart, to pursue happiness.I saw her mirror there, her bed, her dress, but not happiness itself.

I have loved people, loved them very much.In my mind, these people can be divided into three types: one kind of people curse people for being bad, one kind of people bless people for their good life, and the other kind of people think deeply about life.I love the first type of people because they have a bad life; I love the second type of people because they are tolerant and kind; I love the third type of people more because they have brains. Twenty-five years have passed in this way, my days and nights have flown by in such a continuous manner.Just like the autumn wind blows the fallen leaves, one after another, my days and nights fell from the tree of my life.

Today, I stop to meditate and reminisce, like a pedestrian who is exhausted after a long journey and stops halfway to rest.I look around and see no vestige of my life's path that I can point to before the sun and say, "This is mine." I've found nothing in my years but a heap The paper is speckled with black ink, and there are some paintings, which are messy and novel, with various lines and colors piled together harmoniously.In these scattered papers and messy frames, I buried my feelings, thoughts, and dreams, just like a farmer burying seeds in the ground.But the farmer goes to the field, spreads the seed in the ground, and comes home at night full of hope and anticipation of a good harvest, while I cast the seed of my heart without hope and without expectation.

I have now come to a time in life when through the fog of lamentation I have seen the past; and through the veil of the past I have seen, indistinctly, the future.Through my glass windows, I peer into reality.I saw people's faces, heard their voices ascending to the sky, heard their footsteps, touched their souls, felt their passion and the beating of their hearts.I looked around, so I saw children playing, chasing me and running, throwing sand on each other's faces, and laughing happily; I saw young people with their heads held high and their chests high, striding forward, as if they were reading poems of youth , the poem was written on the clouds against the sun; I saw the girls are graceful and graceful, like willow branches blowing in the wind, they smiled, like charming flowers, and looked at the young men; I saw the old people walking Walking slowly, leaning on crutches and hunched over like a bow, they stared at the ground, as if they were looking for their lost jewels in the dirt.I stood in front of the window and carefully observed all kinds of figures and ever-changing pictures in the streets and alleys.Then, I looked out of the city, and I saw a solemn beauty in the wilderness.There was silence, but it was worth a thousand words.There, the mountains are high and the valleys are deep, the grass is dense, and the trees are shaded; there, the birds are singing and the flowers are fragrant, and the river is flowing into the distance.Then I looked beyond the wilderness, and I saw the sea.I have seen countless rare treasures hidden in the embrace of the sea; in the deep seabed, there are countless unsolved mysteries; I have seen foam and waves churning on the surface of the sea; Sometimes it is calm; sometimes it looks like clouds and clouds; sometimes it looks like scattered emeralds.Then, I stared out of the sea again, so I saw the boundless space and the shining stars.I saw the sun, the moons, the planets, and the stars; I saw them both repel and attract each other, live together and fight against each other; The forces of all are interconnected in space and obey a law that is all-encompassing and has no beginning or end.Through the glass window, I stared at all this, and couldn't help daydreaming and thinking deeply, so I forgot those twenty-five years, and I no longer thought about the past years before that and the future century after that.I felt that I and everything around me, light or dark, were but the sigh of a trembling child in an eternal space, boundless, unfathomable, and bottomless.But I feel that there is indeed this sigh, this heart, this self that I call "me".I felt his movement, I heard his cry.Now he is flapping his wings into the sky; his hands are stretched out in every direction.Trembling and swaying all over, on this day of proclaiming his presence, he cried out, with the voice of the holiest of hearts:

"Hello, life! Hello, wakefulness! Hello, sleep! Hello, day!—you are the one who with your light drives away the darkness of the earth. Hello, night:—it is you With your own darkness set off the starry sky. Hello, all seasons! Hello, spring;—you make the earth young again! Hello, summer;—it is you who proclaim the glory of the sun .Hello, autumn;——it is you who give the fruits of hard work and the harvest of labor. Hello, winter:—it is your anger that reproduces the firmness of nature. Hello, years—it is you who put Everything covered by the years unfolds again. Hello, generations,——you restore everything that has been destroyed by the ages. Hello, the time that makes us perfect day by day, hello, hold the reins of life, and bring sunshine Soul that veils so that we cannot see your truth, I greet you, heart, because you are soaked in tears and cannot laugh at this greeting. I greet you, lip, because in saying hello, you are trying With a bitter taste."