Chapter 7 Inscription on "Those Sorrowful Young Men"

Text/Yu Wei (Chief editor of Sohu Content, one of the founders of One-Way Street Library, editor-in-chief of "Life" and "Oriental Entrepreneur".) For Xu Zhiyuan, silence is like death.He insists on making himself a hero on his way to meaning.Like a child resentful for many but uncertain reasons, he chose the defiant stance. Such a gesture is easy to attract attention, but it is also dangerous.In a structure where order has been established by inertia and experience takes precedence over intellect, it is difficult for an intruder to be welcomed, let alone respected.However, at the age of 25, this young man had to resurrect the idealism that had become a joke in the era of pragmatism.

Xu Zhiyuan's works, like his works, often arouse two opposite emotions: either unconditional liking; or deep loathing.He is often domineering because of his innocence, rude because of his shyness, and arrogant because of his obscurity.He can't tolerate social conversations, if the protagonist of the conversation is not him; he can't understand how complicated the relationship between people is, and he always puts forward the solution he thinks is correct; he likes to ask others about his future ideas and are often confused by lack of clear answers. There are often fierce conflicts between precocious intelligence and youthful mentality. Such conflicts endow Xu Zhiyuan's writings with a unique tension: restraint is hidden in the unquestionable momentum, between actors and bystanders Between the two, he automatically chose the latter, which is even more evident in his second collection, The Nasdaq Generation.However, his book is full of unscrupulous obsession and indulgence of youth.

When it was first published in 2001, it stirred up an indescribable emotion in the hearts of young people that continues to this day. The 1980s was the era of literary youth. Just as today's young people can write blogs online, young people at that time could write poetry as long as they had a pen.At that time, the question to ask each other is: What is your ideal?What kind of person do you want to be?This ideal era was quickly annihilated in the torrent of the commodity economy, and we literary youths had no choice but to lurk at the bottom of the water.Until one day, a friend introduced me to a young man named Xu Zhiyuan.When I was waiting for him on the first floor of the office building and he jumped down the stairs like a big bird, I was almost worried that he was going to fall to the ground.His first sentence, who looks like a student, is: What is your ideal?Are you people in the 1980s really so idealistic?At the time, this must not have been a normal opening line.What an interesting young man.

Together we experimented with serious content in new online formats, like Time magazine.Henry Ruth was our idol, loud rock stars were playing in the office, and we were happily busy in an office that looked like a college dorm.One of those days, he suddenly handed me a stack of college manuscripts and told me, "If it's not well written, don't say anything." These manuscripts eventually became the main text of today's volume.After reading the manuscript, I told Xu Zhiyuan that he is a genius.From then on, I thought he was going to be something extraordinary in the future.He has qualities that are already very rare in this era.

There is no doubt that the ideal of this young man is to give meaning to life and "glory through writing".Such an ideal seems a bit childish in a commercial society where people are generally tense, anxious and eager for quick success. But, this is a civilized child.He firmly believed that when all the goals in life were directed toward practicality, it was an unbearable insult to the man capable of creating life and miracles, a betrayal of the greatness and dignity of man.He said: "We find ourselves so tedious, knowing so little about the field other than work. We are doctors, lawyers, programmers, stock traders, but not a rich and interesting individual .”

In fact, to some people, Xu Zhiyuan cannot be regarded as an interesting person, he is so serious that it is almost boring.He has worked on the website for nearly a year, but he still can't tolerate chatting online.If your jokes aren't smart enough, the look on his face will make you feel like you're bored.He is good at using a variety of concepts, and he has already finished summarizing several times before you have finished speaking.Only when he talked about books and ideas did he glow unexpectedly.It's exhilarating and tiring to listen to him, with so many names you've never heard, so much background you don't know, as if he's been a librarian.His curiosity seems to have no boundaries, from how Henry Luce and the others published "Time" in the old printing factory to figuring out how "cool" came about.He likes to stir up other people's ambitions, telling everyone indiscriminately, "We want to do great things."He played the role of spiritual leader without coyness at all, and he was always surrounded by willing followers.

The yearning for honor was always throbbing fiercely in the young man's heart, and it probably made him uncomfortable as well as others.Conrad once compared creation to "rescue work in the dark". In this sense, the creator must become a hero, because he wants to save people from perishable daily activities and bring them into the glory of immortality. in the world of consciousness.However, human beings have always had a tendency not to believe in things that are a little farther away from our line of sight, and they trust the visible material far more than the invisible spirit.Especially in today's unprecedentedly developed information, people will learn about countless events and their results from various channels every day. TV, newspapers, and the Internet have presented us with so many strange and ridiculous things. , something scary, something nasty and funny, seems to be enough to talk about, and few people notice the absence of meaning.

The new "Time" magazine selected last year's person of the year, what a surprise result - YOU.Not the specific individual who is historic, who has done something brilliant, who has shaken the world, but "you"—all of us.With the rise of the Internet, the emergence of web 2.0, and the construction of new social networks, the mainstream media has been accused of being obsolete, and people no longer need their preaching and preaching. "We" have built a new democratic force. Thomas Carlyle once said that history is made by a few great men.We have always insisted that the elites are the makers of history.Now, Time, which has long held that stance, is beginning to question that claim.It was republished because we still want to know whether the new generation—the post-80s, post-90s, and even the newer generation, really have different things in their minds than the previous generation. Our Has history undergone irreversible changes, and have people's relationships really become different?The hustle and bustle will eventually pass, and we will still go back to asking some essential questions.