Introduction: If you want me to give you advice, I will say this, and I hope I will do the same: "When you said you loved her, she also said I love you. So you Be brave, don't pursue too much material, and be brave enough to get married. As for how far you can go in the future, don't be afraid, because tomorrow will still come when you are together. Be kind when you do, because she may become your bride again, because she is the mother of your child, and because you are a civilized person..."
Single Monologue
——Spirit Escaper
It is rare for a writer or thinker to write an essay about "Single Monologue." First of all, this person must be single and experience the experience of living alone for a long time. Fortunately, I am willing to write such an article today. I was born in 1988 and am single.
I wrote a poem, which is what I want to say at this moment: "You are only one day away from becoming my bride." I am not alone, because there are too many people who are also single. Whenever you think about why you are left, you lower your head inwardly.
Human beings are social animals, but people must be lonely sometimes. It can be said that if you don't enjoy loneliness, you will achieve nothing. What I mean is that you don't complain about loneliness, hate loneliness, and fight loneliness by indulging yourself. Alcohol anesthetizes the body, not the soul. Li Bai, who can write poetry when drunk, and Zhang Xu, who can write when drunk. If you look at their works, you will know that they are very sober and free when they are drunk. Being drunk can't get up, and your thoughts are broken. It's really like being drunk.
I believe that in Chinese history, so far. The number of single and unmarried men and women has reached a historical peak. Take a look at this data I found on Tencent News: "According to the "Research Report on Chinese Men and Women's Views on Marriage and Love from 2012 to 2013" jointly released by the former National Population and Family Planning Commission and a marriage and dating agency, it shows that among those born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Among the unmarried population, there are 23.15 million more men than women. However, in reality, my country’s traditional gradient marriage model of marrying high and marrying low has resulted in far more “leftover women” than “leftover men” in urban areas. "
So conservatively estimated, the total number of unmarried men and women aged 27 to 40 can reach 30 million. Is it sinful to be single? There is no sin in being single, but most Chinese parents will "urge marriage." The reason why marriage is urged is very simple. It is a dishonorable thing for children to be unmarried at an older age, as if they have done something shameful. When my mother was urging me, she said this: "People who dance together always ask, 'Do your children have a family?' I say no. I feel envious of other people's children being in pairs. Besides, men and women are married." Yes, if you are over 30 and you are not married, people will think that you are sick or that your family has bad morals. In short, if you don't get married, it will almost make your mother depressed. In addition, we ourselves are the biggest unfilial piety. I also feel like a failure. I’ve been having trouble with the world for half my life, and my children can’t get married. What’s the point of this? I have no successors. Do you think I’m a failure?”
Do the above words sound familiar to you? I believe your parents said similar things. Have you ever asked yourself a question? Why were you left? The answers are nothing more than these: busy work, narrow social circle, too high standards for mate selection, too high expectations for marriage life and "rather lack than excess", strong personality and lack of tolerance and active singleness, fear of marriage, emphasis on harmony in three views, and first After establishing a career, you get married, and the better you are, the more single you are. These are the reasons for the large number of "leftover men and leftover women". Our hesitation and anxiety have led to the helpless reality of "if we can't achieve high, we can't do low".
As many people said on Douyin: "Are you like me, single, no friends, and stay at home after get off work? Check Moments, check Douyin, and play a few games . "Look at the likes at the end, many of them are tens of thousands.
Historically, there were indeed policies that criminalized older singles. There is this sentence in "Gou Jian's Destroy of Wu" that we have all learned: "If a strong man does not marry an old woman, if a young man does not marry a strong wife, his parents will be guilty; if a husband does not marry at twenty, his parents will be guilty." "Of course, these policies are in the service of war.
History is driven by people in society. Without people, there would be no society. Historical development also changes people’s living environment and status. The large number of leftover men and women nowadays naturally has historical reasons. What is the pursuit of the human soul? It is freedom, the greatest freedom.
So in this way, the emergence of older men and women is inevitable. In other words, this is not only true for China, but also for the United States, France, and Germany. Freedom means more choices. We now call this diversified mate selection criteria. If in the Qing Dynasty or Ming Dynasty, there was absolutely no such vocabulary. 80% of marriages are arranged by parents, who only meet after marriage. Do you care about your concept of "integration of three views" and "integration of five senses"?
Women have no choice. How can they survive if they are not dependent on men? Put it this way, you probably understand why human beings continue to pursue freedom and liberation. Of course, in essence, Marx made it very clear that social productivity needs to be improved.
So the emergence of a large number of older singles is a progress of the times. But it is not yet accepted by the whole society.
why? Isn't this contradictory? Have you ever thought about this question?
Marriage and love relationship is an ethical relationship and a social relationship formed during the production process. It can be said to be very solid even today. That is to say, the emergence of older men and women is stimulating this relationship. In other words, the marriage relationship, as an ethical relationship, is no longer as solid as before. This can be verified by the decrease in marriage rates and the increase in divorce rates.
But all single or married people must understand that there is no logic in any ethical relationship. Circle the word "logic". This is the key point. There is no logic at all, it is philosophical in nature. But that doesn’t mean there are no “facts” to speak of. You can think of "fact" as meaning that an adult, at least on a physical level, has a desire to pursue the opposite sex. It's a driving force, it's a fact.
I was not the first person to raise this point of view. But a philosopher named Wittgenstein. Although he wrote the book "Logic and Philosophy", he did not mention how to view marriage in the book. But we can indeed take his theory and apply it to the marriage relationship to draw the above conclusion.
I have actually mentioned this person in many essays. For example, you ask: "What is the meaning of life?" "What is love?"... These are all ethical topics, and logically speaking, they are illogical. So you can't deduce what love is and what the meaning of life is. But that doesn’t mean the facts don’t have answers. Just like today we are discussing the issue of older singles.
What is also interesting is that Wittgenstein never married. Before he died, he wrote a sentence: "Tell them that I have lived a happy life." He died at the age of 62. Why was he left here? Most historians believe that he was mentally obsessive. This does not mean that he did not love women and had no physiological needs. Mysophobia can be understood as the pursuit of perfection and having special or harsh requirements for the opposite sex. This is essentially the same as the current requirements for older men and women to "have three harmonious views and have straight facial features."
Many unmarried men and women today think in their hearts: "How can we get married without money?" The current pressure makes them fearful of the future. Many people have this fear. If you can't give her a superior life, it's better to let her go. Scenes of "poor and humble couples are miserable" can always be seen on the streets and on Douyin.
But for Wittgenstein, he was not short of money. He came from a super-rich family. If you say that he has high vision, that's not true either. He also loved getting along with farmers the most, never catering to them or flattering them. She is also very cute and writes every time she masturbates in her diary. Let me give you two excerpts. As follows: I masturbated yesterday, the first time in 3 weeks. There are almost no emotional requirements at all. I used to always imagine talking to a friend, but now there's almost no such thing. September 3, 1914
I am already on the road to great discoveries. But will I reach my goal? ! The emotional demands are stronger than before. I masturbated again today. September 6, 1914
Today I wrote the above sentence after a long battle with some kind of depression, and after a long period of masturbation. October 13, 1914
A peaceful night. Now I masturbate about once a week and a half. I did very little physical work, but because of this I did a lot of spiritual work.
Everyone, this is actually a kind of "single monologue", and it is very straightforward. Now we generally think of him as a great philosopher. But if I hadn't told you these things about him, could you imagine how lonely and straightforward his life was? Great people are straightforward, great people are lovable. Nietzsche also suffered a similar fate to Wittgenstein and never achieved success in his life. Nietzsche had an astonishing IQ and zero emotional intelligence. I met a Russian girl named Lo Salomé and proposed to her within a few days of meeting. Of course the girl refused. Typically, it's not even hot yet, so it wants to start burning. After finally being impulsive, the result was the same, so I stopped thinking about getting married.
Since then, like Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer and other philosophical superstars, he has remained unmarried all his life. . So what do you do when you are lonely? Naturally, I started thinking and writing. Only a person who is obsessed with a certain field all day long can think more thoughtfully than someone who doesn't think.
So from this perspective, I say that if you are single, you must learn to enjoy being single and enjoying loneliness. Indulging in singing and dancing, you can only become decadent. Of course, such an occasion may help you get out of singles.
There is another kind of single, called divorced. It's actually the same as being single and unmarried. If you ask me, how to prove that you have been single for a long time. I would say: "Emotional intelligence has declined and communication has become slow." Speaking of myself, I am introverted by nature and afraid of communicating with others. In order to overcome this problem in myself, I went into sales. After doing it for two years, I found it to be extremely helpful. It is not an exaggeration to say that we often do this when handing out flyers on the street and asking for phone numbers. Very good at chatting with people. Even if there is no topic, you can still think of topics and create topics. It’s no longer possible, even if we go on a blind date, it’s just an awkward conversation. So my mother said that I was obsessed with writing when I was sitting at home.
Actually, I contact a lot of people a day, but most of them are through the Internet. Being single is just a state of life. As I said above, the emergence of a large number of single men and women is a sign of social progress and greater freedom.
It’s not that I encourage singlehood. Because I said at the beginning that humans are social animals and relationships with other people are necessary. One person is life, two people are also life. If you want to make life more exciting, the life of two people will definitely be more exciting.
Love is a magical thing that has no logic. You are single to love yourself and you are married to love yourself and love others. Many of us don't know what love is, nor what is suitable for us. Choosing a lover is as confusing as choosing a job.
Not everyone is suitable for being single, so he got married. Not everyone is suitable for marriage, so he is single. Wittgenstein's life was very difficult. But he said: "Tell people that I lived a happy life." Nietzsche was deeply troubled by mental illness. But we still promote the "Superman Theory."
Being single is a way to fight against public opinion and strange perspectives, which requires super strong willpower. Because everyone is married, how weird is it if you don’t get married? Many people cannot stand this environmental factor. If you can't stand it, get married. It's like your mother said: "When you reach a certain age, do what you should do. When you reach the age of marriage, get married." In the past, I would think you had compromised, but now I don't think so. I think it's pretty good and wish you happiness.
Marrying for the sake of getting married is not shameful, it can only be said to be unideal. But in feudal society, this kind of unideal was common. The more extreme a person's pursuit of self-freedom is, the less dependent he is on social relationships. And if your dependence on social relationships decreases, you will be lonely again. This is an irreconcilable contradiction. The old people sum up this sentence to comfort young people: "There is no perfect marriage."
I remembered an interesting thing I had with my cousin when I was a child. There is a small temple in the mountains of our village. Once he and I went in. Then we knelt in the temple and made a sworn vows, and then we made a promise: "I will never marry in this life." The last time we met, he asked me if I remembered this, and I said I did.
When I was a kid, I didn’t know what to think. I always thought girls were troublesome. I guess many little girls also think that boys are bad. So they ignore each other. But as they grew older, they fell in love with each other. The boy thinks that the girl is beautiful and sexy, and no longer thinks that she was a drag when he was a child, but a necessary partner. The girl thinks the boy is handsome and strong, and begins to like his bad side, and is willing to stay with him. Therefore, most first loves that do not talk about material things are beautiful and unforgettable.
When you realize that marriage and love are complicated, the relationship between you will become complicated. No longer as innocent as before. We call this maturity and reality. But every older single man and woman still longs for pure love in their heart. But we ourselves are no longer innocent.
Just like Mr. Qian Zhongshu's "Fortress Besieged". Those who have not entered desire to enter. Those who go in are envious of those outside. So being single is not scary, and getting married is not scary either. This is the conclusion of this article.
If you wanted me to give you advice, I would say this, and I hope I would do the same: "When you said you loved her, she also said I loved you. Then you have to Be brave, don't pursue too much material, and be brave enough to get married. As for how far you can go in the future, don't be afraid, because tomorrow will still come when you are together and when you break up. , be kind. Because she may be your bride again, because she is the mother of your child, because you are a civilized person..."
Finally, use another poem to end this single. Monologue: "When I hear the word leftover woman, I don't panic, because I am a leftover man."
Excerpted from the prose works of Ling Dunzhe, an independent scholar, writer, and famous Chinese scholar.