Ji Xianlin's old age feelings: I have less life

I road life there are less-ji Xianlin old age feelings road is too long, time is too long, shadow too much, memories too heavy. I really feel, I can not afford, can not endure, I want to get rid of all this, I also a free body. Article | Ji Xianlin 80 Birthday I never thought I could live to be 80 years old, and now I'm 80 years old, but I don't feel 80 years old. Not paradox! I have no ambition, including my own living age. Neither of my parents lived to be 50 years old; So my original plan was to live to be 50 years old. This is more than parents, very good. Somehow, like dream, I lived to be 50 years old. At that time, the so-called "three years of natural disasters," I bad, quite a while hungry. However, I was "sailed water", in World War II, I was in Germany, I have withstood the unimaginable hunger test, so that I lost the feeling of fullness. Our little disaster, compared with Germany, really like a pale, and I successfully through the disaster, and my mental outlook is the best period of my life, a little bitter also did not feel, unknowingly broke through my original age plan, through the 50-year-old mark. 50 years old, and as if dream, all of a sudden to the age of the year, not allow me to reflect, do not allow me to hesitated. It spans a "Horon". Of course I was doomed and sent to the barn. I do not know now which way to thank the Gods: Buddha, God, Allah, because of a very accidental opportunity, I did not go to the brink of life. Survived, I not only did not feel particularly happy, but the feeling of remorse is biting my heart. Survived, perhaps some good. The climax of my life's translation is precisely the period. The reason is not mysterious: I got Yu and time. During the Holocaust, I was beaten a Buddha born, Jiffer. Later did not fight not to scold, but I became "not contact". For a long time, I was assigned to dig dung, see the concierge, keep the phone, and send letters. No previous meetings, no previous speeches. No one dared come to me, and few had the courage to speak to me. Within a year or two, no letter was received. I obey no one's dispatch and command, only dare to behave, dare not Langora. But my brain still, my mind still, my feelings still, my sanity still. I'm not willing to be a zombie, I have to do something. The more than 2 million-word Indian epic, "Rama Yan," was translated at this time. "Closed on a snowy night to write forbidden text", since that this music does not reduce XI the emperor. And as if it is a misty dream, all of a sudden live to today, the line of 80 years, is the ancients called Ripe. Back twenty or thirty years, I this ambition in life, occasionally think of the situation of ripe: hand crutches, white to fluttering chest, struggling, senile. Since this kind of thing has nothing to do with oneself, so think not deep also not much. Where knows, oneself today is at this age. Today is New Year's Day, from the night0 o'clock, he has been the 80 old man. However, this Lao is really as the ancient poem said "green mist into see nothing", I do not see any Lao. Take a look at your body, ordinary, as in the past, look at the surrounding environment, flat and often, as in the past. The Golden sun was streaming in from the window, flat and often, as it had been in the past. The poplar in front of the building is really a bit thick, but it looks flat and often, as in the past ... But I never thought, "80" This number of words have such a great power, a mysterious power. "I'm 80 years old!" I thought in amazement. It forced me to look forward, and look back. Look forward, the Gray group, the road is not clear, but not very long. There's really no place to look. Don't look at it. And looking back, then in a gray group, clearly saw a road, the road is very long, I step by step, the top of this road is in the Qing Ping County of the Zhuang. I saw a gray yellow mud, the middle flashing Wei in the water, as well as my big grandmother and mother's face shadow. This road extends out, I see Daming Lake of Quancheng. This road extends again, I saw the water wood Tsinghua, and then saw the German town of Göttingen beautiful autumn, above the fluttering of my mother-like landlady and grandfather of the old professor's face shadow. The road abruptly again from Wanli back to the Earth, I saw the Red mansion, saw the Yan Garden Lake Tower Shadow. Discouraging and blot, I saw the gang Newtor-like 狞恶 face of the barn. Look down again, the road shrinks, has been shrunk to my feet. On this very long road, I walked through the sunlit, also walked through the lone wooden bridge. There are mountains in the side of the road, there is a pleasant slope, there are apricot rain, there are northern autumn wind, there is heavy water, there are precipice, there are also a ledge. The road is too long, the time is too long, the shadow is too many, the recollection is too heavy. I really feel, I can not afford, can not endure, I want to get rid of all this, I also a free body. Looking back, if it's heavy, can you look ahead? As I said above, look ahead, the road is not very long, there is no good looking place. I am now just like Lu Xun's prose poem "Passer-by" in a passer-by. He did not know where to come from, and finally walked to the old man and the little girl in front of the earthen house, get some water to drink. Old man looked at him already exhausted, advised him to have a rest. He said: "From the time I can still remember, I was walking, to go to a place, this place is in front ... Besides, there was a voice urging me in front of me, calling me so that I could not rest. "Over there, where is the West?" The old man said, "front, it's a tomb." The little girl said: No, no, no, there are many wild lilies, wild roses, I often go to play, to see them. "I understand the mood of this traveler, I am also a passer-by, but there has never been a voice urging me to go, but with anyone in the world, I am right and wrong, do not have to rush, but also not to go." Walked toWhere to go? Go to the grave in the West, this is the fate of all people. I remember that in a prose poem of Turgenev, I also said that. I am not afraid of graves, but after such a long journey, I really want to stop to take a break. But I can't, whether you like it or not, it's right or wrong. Consolation is, I and that old man is not the same, and some place quite like that little girl, I saw the grave, but also see wild lilies and Wild rose. How many roads are there before me? I can't say it or think about it. Feng Youlan said, "More than rice?" Phase with tea. "Rice" is 88 years old, "Tea" is 108 years old. I do not have such ambition, I am "phase of rice." Is this an ambition? I am a man of no ambition, I think it is a ambition. I used to have some ideas about poor life. After "Horon", I became a kindred-minded person of Tao Yuanming. One of his poems, I appreciate: vertical waves dahua, neither joy nor fear. Should be done as far as possible, without a relapse. I am now holding this spirit, proudly walked forward. Whenever possible, I must do something that is good for others and never want to be a zombie. I know that the future of the road will not be more straight and more flat than the past. But I'm not afraid. The shadows of wild lilies and wild roses flashed before my eyes. (January 1, 1991) 87 feelings really did not think, a blink of an eye, oneself unexpectedly already to look nine year. A few years ago, at the beginning of the ripe, the time of the stile, the elegant timing, but also quite a little "passes husband" sense. Over the last two or three years, the nerves seem to have been paralyzed by the passage of time, even to the new year or the old, the original feeling that the last day and the first day of the new year, as if there is a very deep gap, as if the sky is not a color, not a state, their own sense of the wake up: To start from scratch, to be "a person" Now feel that although it is "a yuan to start", but "Vientiane" did not "update", today is exactly the same as yesterday, I do not feel the slightest change except a year old. However, by today, the timing is changed from Daniel to Tiger, perhaps because the tiger gave me a special impression, over the past few years the mood of indifference, a change for the attention of the time, "days of increased longevity", I added a deathless. I suddenly felt that the year was really serious, and it told me that I had definitely added a year. The 87 that I lived was short or long? It's long enough for people to live. As the saying goes: "Life is 70 years old rare", I have passed the age of 17-year-old, can it not be long? From another point of view, it's long enough. I have never had this idea, and I have never seen any foreign literati. It was my "spark of genius" that flashed out this "ordinary truth". Now, the history of China's ancient civilization is at best 5,000 years, and I live to reach 5,000 years of One-fiftieth, can you say not long enough? 5,000 years ago, peopleClass may have come down from the tree some time ago, invented the fire, can use tools, play out a lot of tricks, claiming to be "the top of the universe." However, from today's point of view, the pattern is limited after all, when the so-called "Heaven Palace", may refer to the moon, the original is unattainable. But today man has ascended the moon. The mysterious mist that had enveloped the moon was now out of the world. Vicissitudes, not small, and in this long 5,000 years, I have accounted for nearly 100 years, can not say long enough? ...... In recent years, I read Chinese and foreign academic history and literary history, I have not heard other people have a habit: I first regardless of these can be like meteor scholars and poets of the academic attainments, what the people, what artistry, this sex, that sex, I have ignored, I first look at their birth and death date. As a result, I have a startling discovery: most of them live in a small age, usually 40, 50, 60 years old. The few famous dead poets, such as the Li Changji of China, the British Shelley and Keats, are not to talk about. There's really not much to live in. When I was young, I knew that Goethe, the great German poet, lived to be 83 years old, and the great poet of India lived 80 years, and the English Bernard Shaw and Russian Tolstoy lived to more than 80 years of age, and were greatly admired and envied. I did not even have the idea of chasing them and follow their footsteps, almost thinking that it was "impossible". However, as I said above, once upon a time, MO back, the very long and very long with my feet on the road, unexpectedly dragged me to the front. I was surprised: I am already older than them today. I felt a thrill in my soul. My mood is on the one hand feel that I am still young, in Peking University professor's age rankings, I from the champion, runner-up, there is a big cut, I at most ranked 15. Also, I said I would never "stoppering" on the way to Babaoshan. However, on the other hand, I really feel that I live too long, too tired. The Taste of the "dead" is extremely hard to endure for decades of old friends who suddenly leave the world. And the Italian and the unexpected work, as well as the honor of not to be, a throng. Sometimes six or seven visitors and interviewers are received in one day. I seem to be the attending doctor in the hospital, the meal of the big house into the waiting room, the visitors call the name filed for diagnosis. I also became a photographic props, "interrogation" of the object of the interview, scheduling take turns to take photos with me. I am most afraid of the photographer that sound Bo: "Smile!" I smiled heartily at my old friend's photo. But can I laugh at some strangers? This reminds me of the TV series "Look at this family" in the fake smile or wry smile lens, heart su uneasy. Every day there are bundles of letters and newspapers. The letters are almost all over the country, both men and women. The content of the letter is so varied that it is inconceivable that I have become omnipotent, omniscient sage and God-man. An old friend of mine said in his article, "Ji has a letter to reply." "It really makes me suffer, and I don'tWant to let the old friend "reneged", oneself and write not so many letters, only Suling in one of my many years of assistant, and my students, please their substitute, so just barely clearance. I have said to my assistant, henceforth will not accept an interview, do not agree to be what "editor-in-chief", "consultant", do not write again. But the sound had not yet landed, and came again. Come, undermining, which one also refused, had to renege, settling down. This is the source of my contradictory feelings. I am very recollecting "Horon" in the "no Contact" life, at that time in addition to sometimes be denounced outside, really very carefree. Walking on the road, with no one to greet, who also different I greet, who will not blame me, I do not blame anyone. Now I often think of Chuang Tzu's words: "The bulk of the labor I live, I die." "This is the true word of seeing. I sometimes really want to die now. Please do not misunderstand, I will not commit suicide, do not need to be on my guard. Everyone is afraid of death, but I am not afraid of death. In 1967 I was copied home by the "Old Buddha", and the number of hats on my head was frightening. For a moment, I had a plan to commit suicide, filled with sleeping pills and pills. I am "bourgeois Paring", I can only use the bourgeois way of suicide, can not use feudalism suicide way, such as diving, hanging, jumping and so on. I chose to kill the place, that place is in the Summer Palace Reed Cong, easily will not be found. I could not have been found until the reeds were cut, and my body would have rotted away. Think of here, my heart can not shake? But before I died the mood was unusually calm, I gave the only little money to aunt and de Wah, meaning to let them live to survive. Then I was thinking of jumping over the jumps, valiantly's Red Guards kicked the door in and escorted me to the big dining room to criticize. The intervention was not a good thing, but it saved my life. The reason for the early intervention is to hit my prestige, because I to the "Buddha" under the group of staff attitude "bad". In short, I have been to the brink of death, hairbreadth from the distance of death. I know how it feels before I die, and I don't think it's great. Therefore, since then, I think, death is not terrible, and I can live to this day, many live these decades are white pick. One more day to live is to pick up a day. I also have a lesson: to the wicked or bad, attitude must be "bad". Being kind can lead to death, but a bad attitude can save lives. I am an ordinary person. If there is any advantage, it is that I am more diligent. I have never dared to steal laziness in my life. To this day, I still have to work seven or eight hours a day. It happened that one day I did not read or write, I often tossing and turning at night, lambast myself to waste a day. Caocao has a famous poem: "Laojifuli, Costraint." The martyrs of the twilight, as unceasingly. "I am very appreciative of this poem." My fault is to forget my age. What I have done is "Laojifuli".I seem to be teenager as the English say. I do not seem to know how many years of good work, I do not know how many reading plans, how many writing plans to do. An old man who forgets his age can be said to be a good thing. On the other hand, it can only be said to be bad. It was almost a faint head, and a faint head, and dared to do nothing. Two years ago, I jumped from the 1.8-meter high window sill, is a good example, friends for me to pinch a "after" Khan, I can not help but fear unceasingly. In this way, my current mood is often in contradictions, on the one hand feel that they live too long, too tired, on the one hand, and forget their age, on the other hand also often mentioned death, on the one hand feel that they are not afraid of death, death left itself quite far. But contradictory results, the latter often prevailed. In Chinese "Ancient Poets", Su Dongpo is one of my favorite people. I remember when I was a teenager composing a riddle, I used the complete works of Su Dongpo. Although not all understand, but bewildered to turn over again. In the last year or two, I have been able to recite many of the first words of Su Dongpo. I love one of the "Wan Xi Sha". The title is "Swim Qi Water Spring Temple, Temple Pro Lanxi, Stream stream West". The original is: under the mountain Lan Short Dip Brook, pine between the sand road net no mud, Xiaoxiao rain child regulation crow. Who said life is no less? In front of the water can still west, Hugh will white hair singing yellow chicken. Dongpo asked: "Who life is no less?" I said: "I said there is less life." "I now have" less "feeling. This is my own. However, my "less" in my heart seems to be conditional: eat to live, but not live to eat, but to work. If you live just to eat, it's better not to live. (January 27, 1998 Lunar New Year's Eve) excerpt from "Ji Xianlin real Life", Ji Xianlin New World Publishing House October 2012 edition