01
Last summer vacation, I was boredly scrolling through the WeChat public account push notifications that I had saved for a long time, when I received a text message from Jingwen. I don’t remember the specific content. I just thought the title and writing style were interesting. That was the first time I heard about "Give You a Bullet."
Half a year later, classmate Dali shared a piece of text on WeChat Moments that made me very excited. After searching on Baidu, I found that it was a fragment from Liu Yu's "Proposal", and "Proposal" is exactly an article from "Send You a Bullet":
Perhaps this little word hits the nail on the head, just right. It captured my emotions at the time, so much so that I have never felt that any expression could be more contagious than it. The desire to read has never been stronger, so I quickly went online and ordered a copy.
Later I learned that Liu Yu is a professor at Tsinghua University, and her book has a Douban score of 8.6.
I bought "Send You a Bullet" for "The Proposal", but unfortunately I didn't do enough work before purchasing the book. As a result, the book I got was a reprint, and the article "The Proposal" was deleted. Fortunately, I could still find the article on the Internet, so I read it many times as I wished.
In fact, every one of her articles is worth reading. After reading it, I discovered that some of the insightful and insightful comments I had seen on Zhihu were actually quotes from Liu Yu’s articles. This unexpected discovery reflects the subtlety of her language.
02
Liu Yu wrote in the postscript:
Yes, I am that person who can hardly get even two points by filling in the blanks in ancient Chinese poems in the college entrance examination. , the person who couldn't even memorize a complete ancient poem in the postgraduate entrance exam re-examination, and the person who was so bad at math that he was nakedly ridiculed by his 68-point college entrance examination score.
Just imagine that at such a critical node and in such a high-pressure state, I am unable to write an ancient poem or solve an arithmetic problem. In what other situation can I do it? It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I really can’t remember it, and I really can’t learn it. Such people really exist in the world, and she didn't lie.
People keep questioning: "Then how did you get into college?" I can only say lightly, "It all depends on luck." In fact, my love for calligraphy and my knowledge of literature and history Interest has supported my entire liberal arts career. In other words, I'm just better at taking exams.
After all, the subjective knowledge in the liberal arts test paper is worth a lot, and it allows me to make up random things and talk freely. In addition, my pretty handwriting added a lot of points to my score, so I was lucky enough to pass the exam.
Perhaps it was her unsatisfactory memory that contributed to her writing and verbal abilities. The biggest similarity between us is probably the same insensitivity to memory symbols, and Zhongai records fleeting inspiration and mixed feelings of life through words.
I have kept a diary for many years. Maybe it has something to do with my mild autism, and I still have very few close friends. The doors of my heart that I didn't want to open, the thoughts that I didn't want to talk about were all opened to the book with the password, and they were all handed over to the thick diary.
Or writing, which is a substitute for a diary to some extent. I'm glad that I don't have too many acquaintances here, and I'm also glad that those close friends didn't leave me after they discovered clues of emotions in my words.
Facing the vast ocean of life, writing is like a shell on the beach. After several tides, people still have the opportunity to pick up the past and find the traces left by life. It was writing that enabled Liu Yu to have such a "small personal history museum", which allowed her to become well known to everyone as a writer in addition to a university professor.
Of course, wanting to be a writer was not her original intention, but an additional effect brought about by her habit of recording life and expressing emotions in words over the years. Maybe she doesn't like the title "writer". After all, with one more identity comes one more fetter.
In any case, I believe that those words with personal imprint and full of personality were originally written for myself and have nothing to do with utilitarianism.
Moreover, I venture to speculate that she also has many "diaries" in addition to this.
Because a woman with a deep soul cannot control her desire for expression at all. Those things that are inconvenient to be made public due to public opinion and privacy may be hidden in her little world.
03
Like Liu Yu, we all have deep or shallow "mental illness". Life is always unsatisfactory, and most people indulge in their own pessimistic emotions, either depressed or frustrated, or moaning without illness. Liu Yu was able to turn it into huge productivity, which in turn inspired herself and answered questions for those around her.
Perhaps this is the reason why her "Send You a Bullet" is highly praised by students who are in trouble and confusion.
Since "Bullet" was published, she has never opened the book and read it once, Liu Yu said frankly. The enthusiasm of readers is completely inversely proportional to the degree of confidence she has in her words: "Every book of my own so far seems to have only deepened my shame, as if every publication was a blasphemy against something sacred. . ”
I can really feel her feelings when she said this. Yes, although I have never been a writer, I love writing. For me, I don’t want to read the words I have written. After reading them, I will be disappointed, ashamed, and can’t help but laugh at my ignorant self.
Liu Yu’s frankness lies in her ability to look directly at her own growth, as well as the deviations and fallacies in her growth. She bluntly stated that she would not write another book such as "Bullet" in the future. Perhaps as she said, if she writes again, she will not use the same writing style, the things she focuses on, and the content and themes she writes will be different from those at the time.
It’s just a temporary feeling.
As an older young woman, I actually feel the same way as she did back then. Therefore, sometimes I can even feel the sadness flowing under her cheerful writing. This feeling is heartbreaking, because when you see her, you also see yourself.
It is said to be a collection of essays, but "Bullet" is filled with discussions that are not small in length but are by no means boring. Liu Yu's comments may be long or short, some may be eloquent, or some may take a turn for the worse. This writing style is particularly evident at the end of many chapters:
The long endings all reflect her journey of self-rescue after conflict and confusion. It was as short as a sudden brake, making a harsh and terrifying sound. This kind of suppression of self-emotion actually made people feel a little distressed.
It was precisely because of that certain degree of empathy that I was able to sort out her emotions in a fairly coherent manner. Liu Yu always has endless topics and new things to talk about, and can always use the most insightful analysis to explain these phenomena and existence. Her doubts gave birth to her thirst for knowledge, which in turn enriched herself.
After all, Liu Yu is a social scientist. Some of her political arguments are fully integrated with life, mixed with some personal thoughts, humorous, philosophical, and highly literary. In her writing, politics becomes alive and sexy.
My interest and enthusiasm for politics have long since disappeared along with different forms of political examinations at all ages. But when I read her "political essays", I found them unexpectedly interesting. In addition, they were mostly related to movies, and the visuals were simply wonderful.
04
Many times we lack the courage to face our hearts, but Liu Yu did it. She didn't know and couldn't believe that it was the words she wrote casually that comforted people and made them face their own anxiety, mania, depression, delusions, and pessimism... those "unwritten" articles that she considered, The confidence and encouragement it brings to people are difficult to measure in value.
At the very least, after reading "Bullet" you will think: no matter how high your education level is or how superior your conditions are, you will always have low self-esteem, you will be lonely, and you will all have emotions and desires. Therefore, in the vanity fair of youth, you are no longer alone.
The breadth of life and the depth of thought are vividly reflected in this thirty-year-old unmarried female postdoctoral fellow.
I think that if she can turn these inner thoughts and unpredictable emotions into precise text descriptions and present them to readers, she must have read an astonishing number of books, and she must have brought about the birth of human beings. When exploring with ignorance and fearlessness, he must be tearing everything apart to find the answer.
Sometimes I wonder if God secretly gave her a microscope that she could carry around when she was born.
Her words are just like the old photo on the last page, clean, beautiful, wise and profound. I appreciate this knowledgeable and talented woman, and at the same time I can more or less understand her loneliness of living in a foreign country for many years and her loneliness and bravery in facing the whole world alone.
The nostalgia of studying abroad is transformed into the mouth-watering 2 taels of pig head meat in the window, which is her most simple and natural expression of emotion. The pastime of five older female doctors in a nightclub was a kind of cuddle to keep warm. "May You Grow Up Slowly" written to her daughter Little Cuckoo is actually written to herself...
From Liu Yu's article, I saw a colorful and unknown other side. On one side of the ocean country, I saw a person who threw away the aura of labels and honors and lived an ordinary and genuine life.
Perhaps what moved me the most was her attitude of walking independently as a person and in her own way in the vastness of the universe and the reincarnation of time and space.
A person who never thinks too highly of his qualifications and faces the world arrogantly;
A person who never stops bringing people goodwill, joy and touching;
A person who always maintains a humble attitude and searches tirelessly;
A person who constantly examines himself and turns his doubts, criticisms and growth pains about self and society into words on the page. .
Teach me how not to like her?