Zhou Guoping is a scholar who represents the humanistic spirit. He is both a philosopher and a poet. He writes his philosophical thinking in the style of prose and uses philosophical thinking to run through his literary writing. Below is the article on Zhou Guoping’s philosophy of life that I compiled for you. I hope you like it.
Zhou Guoping's life philosophy article: Between Man and Book
After studying Nietzsche for a while, people often ask me: "Did Nietzsche have a great influence on you?" Once I couldn't help but reply: "We influence each other, and I have a greater influence on Nietzsche." In fact, any effective reading is not only absorption and acceptance, but also investment and creation. There is indeed a problem of mutual influence between people and the books they read. My image of Nietzsche is tinged with my own experiences that preceded my exposure to Nietzsche's writings.
In recent years, my efforts in philosophy seem to have a clear direction, which is to break through the academic and conceptual state
and make philosophy care about the fundamentals of life and transform philosophy into Connect with poetry. Nietzsche research provides nothing more than a convenient academic expression for my pursuit. Of course, I do not deny that reading Nietzsche’s works has made some of my ideas clearer, but factors such as my temperament, personality, and experience also play a role, including my past reading experience.
Some books have changed world history, and some books have changed personal destiny. Looking back, books have no such dramatic effect in my life; their effect is cumulative over time. I can't tell you which book has the greatest influence on me, and I don't really believe in the various "best in the world" books. I can only say that there are some books that aroused my strong emotions in different aspects and left traces on my spiritual journey.
When I graduated from high school, I applied for the Philosophy Department of Peking University. At that time, I was quite unpopular in the Shanghai Middle School where I was studying. Because the school had a tradition of emphasizing science and neglecting liberal arts, I was the only one in the class to apply for the liberal arts major. I have always been the math class representative in my class, and my foundation in science is not bad. My classmates and teachers almost looked at me with pity, regretting that I had gone astray. I didn't take it seriously, thinking that I couldn't live in a small professional corner that had nothing to do with life. With the ridiculous greed to encompass all human knowledge, I chose philosophy, the "science above all sciences", which is not a professional major.
However, the philosophy department was not as interesting as I imagined. The rigid and boring philosophy courses quickly bored me. I became one of the least diligent students, "not doing my job properly" and indulged in reading extracurricular books. During class, there were textbooks compiled by Ai Siqi on the desk, and under the desk were Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Ibsen, etc., who were fascinated by them. When the teacher asked me a question in class, I stood up and asked him what he wanted, which made the classmates burst into laughter. I am ashamed to say that after studying philosophy for several years, I did not read many philosophy books, but read more novels and poems. I am also obsessed with writing poems, keeping diaries, and accumulating feelings. Now it seems that the readings and exercises I did in literature were not in vain. They caused a big change in my spiritual tendency. I no longer regard knowledge as the highest goal, but value life itself and the understanding of life more. This understanding was important for my later philosophical pursuits.
I was in adolescence when I went to Peking University. What books a person reads in adolescence is not a trivial matter. Books, friendship, and the natural environment constitute a special atmosphere for spiritual development, and its influence is indelible throughout life. Fortunately, I had good encounters in all three aspects. I was accompanied by outstanding foreign literary classics, talented friends, and the beautiful scenery of Yanyuan, which inspired my pursuit of truth and love of beauty, and made me increasingly disgusted with emptiness and ugliness. philosophical dogma. If I have not been corrupted by philosophy after studying philosophy for so many years, I should thank literature.
My interest in philosophy was probably shaped by the influence of literature. Literature has an indissoluble bond with life and values ??people’s destiny, personality and subjective state of mind, so I looked for something similar in philosophy. The first book that enabled me to understand the true meaning of philosophy was a collection of fragments of works by ancient Greek philosophers, Heraclitus's "I Have Searched for Myself", Protagoras's "Man is the Measure of All Things", Socrates' "The unexamined life is not worth living" is like three lighthouses standing in the fog of abstract concepts, illuminating the ancient channel of philosophy that has been obscured for a long time. I also prefer philosophers with skeptical tendencies, such as Descartes and Hume, because they taught me to be wary of all seemingly objective absolute truth systems. It is a pity that philosophers are often full of skepticism when criticizing philosophical systems that are earlier than their own. Once they build their own system, they easily fall into dogmatism. In contrast, literary and artistic works are more able to maintain ambiguity, uncertainty, and openness, and do not strive to provide a final answer to the mysteries of the universe and life.
Long-term cultural confinement has prevented me, a philosophy student, from reading the works of Nietzsche or other modern Westerners. When I was in school, I only occasionally read "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" translated by Xiao Gan. Because it was translated in classical Chinese, the translation was difficult and did not leave a deep impression. It wasn’t until long after I graduated from college that I had the opportunity to systematically read Nietzsche’s works. I did feel a joy of discovery, because my thinking about life, my love for poetry, and my suspicion of academic philosophy all found echoes in it.
On a whim, I started translating and researching Nietzsche's works, and it has been more than three years now. Now I am preparing to say goodbye to Nietzsche.
Reading is like making friends. No matter how much you like your friends, they will get bored if you stay together for too long. Books are good friends in life, but they only stop there. You have to walk your own path in life. On this road, there will be encounters, separations, reunions, farewells, attachments, antagonisms, conflicts, and misunderstandings between people and books. The relationship between them is as subtle as that between people, adding so much to life. Interesting. Maybe some people fall in love with a book or a writer at first sight, and fall in love so deeply that they even grow old together. I don't have such a loyal and dedicated love when it comes to reading. If the moment of death comes, I believe that it will not only be my relatives and friends who will make me regretful to leave, but also a number of good books by close friends. But despite this, I still don't want to stay with any book or author I like for too long, and be too deeply affected by it, and lose my own influence on people.
Zhou Guoping’s life philosophy article: A life seeking wisdom
Among modern philosophers, Russell is a person with a surprisingly healthy and balanced spirit. He is the originator of logical empiricism, but he is not like other analytical philosophers who tend to be academic and live a boring life. He likes to meditate on life issues, but unlike existential philosophers, he does not sink into the abyss of despair and live in agony. His life is enviable, and it can be said that it has everything: first-class knowledge, outstanding social activities and reputation, rich love experiences, and finally, longevity. It is a wonder that fate actually chose this master of modern logic to serve as the chief defender of the Western "sexual revolution" and made him endure a dramatic torture in the conservative court of the British Empire. Scientific rationality and erotic impulse go hand in hand in him, so much so that a friend of mine who specializes in Russell said jokingly: Russell's wonderful philosophical thoughts must have been conceived in the arms of his five lovers.
Since the second half of the last century, most Western great philosophers have been filled with a tense sense of crisis, which was originally a reflection of the crisis of the times. Russell did not have a good impression of such philosophers. For example, he criticized Nietzsche and Freud. A philosopher can actually maintain a psychological balance in a morbid era, so I can't help but doubt his sincerity. Russell may be an exception, though.
Russell is not indifferent to the diseases of the times. He knows that the biggest illness of modern Westerners comes from the collapse of __ faith, which makes mortal life lose its foundation. In the godless wasteland, modern theologians mourn and call upon the dead soul of God, and existential philosophers curse and praise the absurdity of life. But while Russell firmly declared that he did not believe in God, he did not fall into pathological pessimism or excitement. He believes that all the good things in life will not lose their value because of their ephemerality. Regarding death, he "thought about it calmly and calmly from a stoic point of view, not intending to minimize its importance, but on the contrary felt a sense of pride in being able to transcend it." Russell greatly valued the value of love in life. The love he talks about is not Platonic abstract love, but love "based on the vitality and instinct of animals", especially sexual love. However, he advocated that love should be regulated by reason. His belief is summed up in this sentence: "A noble life is a life inspired by love and guided by knowledge." Love and knowledge, instinct and reason, are indispensable. Sometimes he said that getting along with those you love relies on instinct, and getting along with those you hate relies on reason. Perhaps we can extend this sentence: treat happiness by instinct, and treat misfortune by reason. On the issue of sexual love, Russell was one of the earliest thinkers in the modern West to advocate sexual freedom, but superficial people often misunderstood his views. Although he maintains that marriage, love and sex can be relatively separated, his evaluation of the three is divided into high and low. In his opinion, first, love is higher than simple sex, and sex without love is of no value; second, "a partner life that has experienced many years of trials and many deep feelings" is higher than temporary infatuation. and love, because it contains rich content that the latter does not have. We can theoretically assume that every normal member of the opposite sex is a possible partner for sexual intercourse, but in fact there must be a choice. We can theoretically assume that every person of the opposite sex we like is a possible love object, but in fact there must be some rejection. There are countless precious sexual memories between passionate and long-lasting lovers, so they are unwilling to easily damage them for new love adventures.
Almost all modern great philosophers are critics of modern civilization, and Russell is no exception in this regard. He advocates science, but is not superstitious about science. Love and science, love comes first. Science apart from the goal of love will only make people blindly pursue the increase of material wealth. Russell said that in the modern world, the most dangerous enemies of love are the belief that work is virtue and the greed for success in work and property. This over-expanded "career" exhausts people's activity power and makes the entertainment methods of modern city residents tend to be passive and group-based. Like all sages throughout history, he emphasized the importance of leisure in life. To this end, he advocated "launching a movement to guide youth to do nothing" and encourage people to appreciate the delicacy of non-practical knowledge such as art, history, hero biographies, philosophy, etc. . He believed that wisdom could emerge from the combination of "useless" knowledge and selfless love. Indeed, under the rapid impact of the rush of modern life, the souls that can meditate calmly and love tenderly are becoming increasingly rare.
If sensitive philosophers like Nietzsche once issued a deafening cry of pain in this regard, then Russell, as a mentally healthy philosopher of this era, we have heard wise and thoughtful advice from his mouth. I hope these voices can inspire today's young people who still have spirit to pursue a wise life.
Zhou Guoping's life philosophy article: Beyond righteousness and benefit
"A gentleman is represented by righteousness, and a villain is represented by benefit." Chinese people's philosophy of life always revolves around the two words of righteousness and benefit. But, what if I am neither a gentleman nor a villain?
There was an era when everyone was a gentleman and his word would be justified. At that time, there may have been true gentlemen who sacrificed their own interests for righteousness, but it was more common. He is a hypocrite who pursues profit through righteousness and a devious gentleman who fakes righteousness and true feelings. That era has passed. Once upon a time, world affairs changed dramatically, Yi's reputation plummeted, true gentlemen disappeared, hypocrites were exposed, and crooked gentlemen suddenly realized what they were doing and ran away in a rush to make money.
It is said that the concept has been updated, and the debate between justice and benefit has a new interpretation. It turns out that benefit is not the patent of villains, but the natural principle of being a human being.
"Time is money!" This is a fashionable slogan today. There is nothing wrong with entrepreneurs using it to spur production. But the world regards it as a motto to guide life and replaces the wisdom of life with business spirit. As a result, their life becomes a kind of enterprise and interpersonal relationships become a market.
I once laughed at cheap human touch, but now even human touch has become expensive and rare. Let me ask you, can you buy a smile, a greeting, and a little compassion without spending any money?
However, there is no need to be nostalgic. Trying to correct current ills and save the world and people's hearts by preaching about righteousness in all kinds of ways is actually of no use. Besides righteousness and profit, there is also a different attitude towards life. There is another personality besides the gentleman and villain. To paraphrase Confucius' sentence pattern, you might as well say: "The most perfect person is a metaphor for love."
Righteousness and benefit may seem to be opposites, but in fact they are interlinked. "Righteousness" requires people to devote themselves to abstract social entities, while "profit" drives people to devote themselves to worldly material interests. Both ignore people's spiritual life and cover up people's true "self." "Righteousness" teaches people to contribute, while "profit" tempts people to possess. The former turns life into a fulfillment of obligations, while the latter turns life into a struggle for rights. Little do they know that the true value of life goes beyond obligations and rights. . Righteousness and profit are both inseparable from calculations. Therefore, whether the righteous masters attack rebellious ministers or the desire for profit dominates all living beings, the relationship between people is always tense.
If "righteousness" represents an ethical attitude towards life, and "profit" represents a utilitarian attitude towards life, then what I call "emotion" represents an aesthetic attitude towards life. It advocates acting with spontaneity, stopping when appropriate, and everyone maintaining their true temperament. You are not the doctrines you believe in, nor the objects you possess. You are you only in your true "self". The meaning of life is not dedication or possession, but creation. Creation is the active unfolding of man's true nature and the emotional satisfaction that man obtains when he realizes his essential power. Creation is different from dedication. Dedication is only to fulfill external responsibilities, but creation is to realize the true "self". As for creation and possession, the difference is even more clear. For example, in writing, possession focuses on the fame, wealth and status brought by the work, while creation only focuses on the happiness of creation itself. People with true temperament only seek emotional communication when getting along with others, and they only care about the taste of fun when interacting with things. What is even more valuable is that in an era when people are rushing for profit and driven by it, he has a leisurely manner in dealing with people. I am not referring to the leisurely style of Chinese scholar-bureaucrats, nor to the contentment and conservatism of small farmers, but to an indifferent life sentiment that is not driven by profit or material slavery. Still taking writing as an example, I can't figure out why a person needs to write a lot of books. If you want to be famous throughout the ages, an immortal poem is enough. If you don't have such extravagant requirements, you just need to live comfortably, and writing is just a way to live comfortably.
Bernard Xiao said: "There are two major tragedies in life. One is not getting what you love, and the other is getting what you love." I once believed this deeply, and I admired him for his approach to life. ’s sad plight is expressed so easily and playfully. But if you think about it carefully, you will find that the basis of this statement is still possession, so there is the double tragedy of the pain of unsatisfied possessiveness and the boredom of satisfied desire. If we shift our focus to creation and look at life from an aesthetic perspective, can we not say the opposite: There are two great joys in life. One is not getting what you love, so you can seek and create; One is to get something you love so that you can taste and experience it? Of course, life always has its pain that cannot be eliminated, and the bitterness and sorrow experienced by those who value love over profit are even more unimaginable for those who pursue profit. . However, getting rid of possessiveness can at least save people from many trivial worries and trivial pains and lead a more dignified life. I do not intend to use aesthetic sentiment as a good way to save the world, but just express a belief: besides justice and benefit, there is a life more worth living. This belief will sustain me through the uncertain years ahead.
Zhou Guoping's life philosophy article: The taste of waiting
A lot of time in life is spent waiting. There are thousands of kinds of waiting, and there are thousands of flavors of waiting. The feeling of waiting is the most difficult to describe in words.
I don't like everything etc. No matter what you are waiting for is good or bad, good or bad, unknown, good or bad, there is always nothing you can do about it.
While waiting, my heart was hanging, which was an uncomfortable feeling.
Even if what you are waiting for is happiness, the waiting itself cannot be called happiness. The more tempting the imaginary happiness is, the harder it is to wait. For example, "The moon is above the willow branches, and people make appointments after dusk" is a beautiful thing, but impatient lovers are probably like the couple in "The Romance of the West Chamber", "Since the beginning of that day, thinking about the moonlight, every moment seems like a dream. "One summer. I only regret that the sun sets late on the willow branches and the moon shadow rises slowly." During their first tryst, Zhang Sheng and other Yingying would lean against the door and look up, and lie down in bed lamenting. They wondered for no reason whether the beautiful woman would come or not. They would complain and forgive each other for no reason. The look of being absent-minded was really too horrible to watch. I believe that Yingying will not be so miserable. The one who waits before a tryst suffers more than the one who goes there, just like the one who stays behind after parting feels more miserable than the one who leaves. Those who go and leave are more or less active, while those who wait and stay are completely passive. Those who have arrived have not yet arrived, and those who are waiting are faced with still time. Those who have left are left facing an empty space. The terrible thing about waiting is that the person who is waiting has absolutely no control over the thing he is waiting for, and has no thoughts about other things, so he is forced to be in a state of doing nothing. Having something to look forward to makes people excited, having nothing to do makes people boring, etc. It is a state of mind that mixes excitement and boredom. As the waiting time prolongs, excitement turns to fatigue, and boredom takes over. If the beauty never comes, as long as the talented man is not so worried that he hangs himself on the willow tree, he may just stretch himself and yawn under the moon.
People wait for good things to come too late, and they also lack patience for bad things. No one wants to wait for bad things. We have to wait for bad things because it is inevitable and we have no choice but to do so. However, since it is inevitable to escape, the mentality of most people is that they would rather end it early than delay it needlessly. If a loved one develops a fatal disease, we certainly fear the outcome. However, no amount of fear can eliminate the boredom of waiting. In "War and Peace", Natasha is knitting a sock while guarding Andre on his deathbed. She loved Andre more than anything in the world, but she still couldn't do anything but wait for her sweetheart to die. Will a person be bored while waiting for his own death? This probably depends on whether he has enough energy. A more appropriate example is death row prisoners. I guess as long as they are still some time away from their sentence, they cannot think only about the fatal bullet. Fear, like all strong emotions, is difficult to last. Over time, it will become paralyzed and intermittent. As soon as you try to do something to fill the interval, the throbbing fear will arise again and destroy any positive thoughts. The absurdity of waiting for a certain disaster to happen without doing anything makes the disaster itself seem more bearable.
Whether you are waiting for good things or bad things, the result you are waiting for is clear. If the outcome we are waiting for is of great importance to us, but it is uncertain whether it will be good or bad, it will not feel so good. At this time, we seem to be waiting for the verdict, and our hearts are anxious. Anxiety is actually a tangle of opposing emotions, including hope for good results and fear of bad results. A heart is not only hanging in the air, but also up and down, suffering greatly from turbulence. It's pitiful to say that we have to go through countless hurdles in our lives from childhood to adulthood, from taking exams when we were students to getting jobs, grades, promotions, going abroad, etc. after graduation, and we really have to experience the feeling of waiting for the verdict. Of course, if a person has enough understanding, sooner or later he will look down on worldly fame and no longer put himself in this position of waiting for judgment. However, if we do not cultivate to a state similar to nirvana, I am afraid there will always be some things that we cannot remain indifferent to. At the moment, a certain agency is studying whether to give me a salary increase, and I can just ignore it. At this moment, a hospital is performing a caesarean section on my wife. Can I still be so open-minded? If we go to the door of the obstetric operating room and see the stern faces of the husbands waiting there, we will know how anxious it is to wait for the judgment of fate. Experienced. On the road of life, we will inevitably come to some unfamiliar doors and wait to be opened. The mood is similar to the mood of husbands waiting in front of the obstetric operating room.
However, the place where we wait most often in our lives is not in front of the door, but in front of the window. They are some very narrow windows, tangible or intangible, located in shops, banks, stations, hospitals and other places related to livelihood, as well as government offices that handle various cumbersome procedures. In order to survive, we have to be patient, line up, move slowly towards them, and then turn our heads sideways in humiliation, so that we can put our eyes, hands and the banknotes or applications in our hands into the narrow hole, and then fumble again Then take out the receipt documents we need, etc. This kind of small window is often closed for no reason. Fortunately, our patience has been very developed and we have become accustomed to waiting silently and endlessly.
Waiting in front of the Gate of Destiny, waiting for life and death, the mood is anxious, but also tragic. Waiting in front of the window of livelihood, waiting for firewood, rice, oil and salt, the mood is irritability, mixed with a sense of humiliation. Wait for the former, because the ending is so important that you won't get bored easily. However, if our understanding is enough to calm anxiety, then in detachment we will experience a kind of great boredom that sees through life. The latter kind, because the objects are ordinary and trivial, it is easy to feel bored, but it is often a small boredom that is taken for granted.
Speaking of the boredom of waiting, there is probably nothing worse than the forced detention during a reverse journey. The so-called traveler's sorrow, in addition to separation and homesickness, is mostly composed of boredom and idleness.
For example, due to traffic interruption, you are unexpectedly delayed in a deserted village and shop in a deserted village on your journey, with no traffic scheduled and no one to see you. The boredom in this situation is really indescribable. However, if we compare life to an adverse journey, we will find that delays along the way are actually a common occurrence in life. We march towards an ideal life, but due to various inevitable restrictions and accidental changes, sooner or later we stop at a certain point on the way. We believe that this is temporary, and we are always waiting to get back on the road, hoping that one day we can live the life we ??really want, but unexpectedly, we stop at this point forever. Some people gradually become practical and arrange their lives at this point with peace of mind. Some people still wait and wait, the years are ruthless, and in the end they lament that they have been delayed all their lives.
So, what if there is no waiting in life? After saying so many bad things about waiting, I suddenly remembered the benefits of waiting, and I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of my ingratitude.
I once lived on a farm for a year and a half. It was an isolated island in the lake, surrounded by only vast lake water and no human habitation. We grow rice on the island and live an extremely monotonous life. What finally made me endure this monotonous life was waiting for letters. Every day I wait with such earnestness for the moment when the messenger arrives. It seems that I live for this moment. Although the wait often fails, the wait itself provides color to the day's life. and meaning.
I lived in a basement for several years. Day after day, it’s just me. When I was reading and writing at my desk, I couldn't help but wait for the knock on the door. I look forward to being visited by my kind, and this anticipation makes me feel that I am still living in the world, and that I also have a share of the sunshine on the ground. I am not afraid of interruptions in reading and writing, because there is no need for visitors, and extreme loneliness has already interrupted them time and time again.
No matter how patient it is to wait, there are still many things worth waiting for in life: waiting for the footsteps of a lover coming from far away on a winter night, waiting for the train carrying a long-lost friend to slowly enter the station, waiting for the first time. When a child is born, wait for the child to babbling and babble by chance and call out daddy a second and third time, wait for the first work to be published, wait for the readers’ response and screams after the work is published?
There can be no love, but if there is no longing for love, where can there be youth? There can be no understanding, but if there is no expectation of understanding, where can there be creation? There can be no waiting for everything, but if there is no waiting, where can there be creation? Life? You have to wait for something, even if you are waiting for Godot. Someone asked Beckett what Godot represented, and he replied: "If I knew, I would have said it in the play." In fact, we spend our lives waiting for something we don't know, and life is about waiting. Expand and gain reason. The feeling of waiting is inevitably boring, but a life of waiting for nothing is even more boring. No, waiting for nothing is impossible. Even when we have nothing to wait for, we are still waiting for the moment when we are waiting for something to come. When a person reaches the point where he has no hope of waiting, he must commit suicide. Therefore, Mr. Godot, who never appears, is really the protagonist of the stage of life. Without him, the drama of life cannot be played.
The only thing in life that is certain that it will not fail is waiting for the inevitable death. However, everyone seems to have forgotten this and is waiting for something else. Even when death is approaching, they are still stubborn. I feel sad and satisfied with this situation.