For example, there is a Gu Song in the garden. If you are a timber merchant, I am a botanist, another friend is a painter, and three people come to see this Gu Song at the same time. It can be said that the three of us "perceived" the tree at the same time, but the three of us "perceived" three different things. You can't get rid of your carpenter habit. All you feel is how much a piece of wood costs to do a thing. I can't get rid of my botanist's thinking. What I perceive is just a flowering plant with needles and spherical fruit, which is evergreen all the year round. Our friends, painters, only care about aesthetics. All he perceives is a lush and vibrant old tree.
Thus, this Gu Song is not a fixed thing, and its image changes with the personality and interest of the viewer. The image of Gu Song that everyone sees is a reflection of everyone's own personality and interests. Gu Song's image is partly natural and partly artificial. Ordinary perception is somewhat creative; There are subjective things in everything that is extremely objective.
So is beauty. Beauty can only be seen from an aesthetic perspective. This Gu Song is beautiful to our painter, because he has an aesthetic attitude when he goes to see it. If you and I want to see its beauty, we have to abandon the practical attitude as a woodcutter, and I have to abandon the scientific attitude of botanists and look at it with an aesthetic attitude.
⑤ What's the difference between these three attitudes?
⑥ Say a down-to-earth attitude first. The first thing in life is to maintain life. If you want to live, you should pay attention to how to use the environment. "Environment" includes all people and things except myself. Some of these people and things are beneficial to my life, some are harmful to my life, and some have nothing to do with me. I have feelings of love and hate for them, and I have the will and activity to follow or escape. This is a pragmatic attitude. This is the attitude of timber merchants towards Gu Song.
All landowners scientific attitude is not. It is purely objective and theoretical. The so-called objective attitude is to completely put aside one's own prejudices and feelings and explore the truth with the spirit of "governing by doing nothing". Theory and practice are opposites. Theory can be used in practice, but the direct purpose of scientists is not practice. There is almost no emotion and will in scientific attitude, and its most important psychological activity is abstract thinking. That's how botanists view Gu Song.
⑧ In practical attitude and scientific attitude, the obtained image of things is not independent and insulated, and the viewer's attention is not focused on the things themselves. The concentration of attention and the isolation of image are the biggest characteristics of aesthetic attitude. For example, when our painting friend looked at Gu Song, he put all his energy into the pine tree itself, and Gu Song became an independent and self-sufficient world for him. Gu Song completely occupied his consciousness, and he turned a blind eye and turned a deaf ear to the world outside Gu Song.
Pet-name ruby people's practical activities are all to do something, which is limited by environmental needs; People's aesthetic activities are all idle, but the environment does not need his activities and he is willing to do it himself. In doing something, people are slaves to environmental needs; In inaction, man is the master of his own thoughts. This is only about people, but about things. In the practical and scientific world, things gain meaning by having relations with other things, but when they are isolated and insulated, they have no meaning. But in the aesthetic world, it can be isolated and insulated, but it can show its value in itself. In this way, we can say that beauty is the most valuable aspect of things and the experience of aesthetic feeling is the most valuable aspect of life.
I have participated in many vigorous heroes and beauties, and I have had many vigorous successes and failures. Only works of art are truly immortal. Thousands of years ago, the authors of Picking Ears and Peacocks Flying Southeast can still ignite a strong flame in our hearts, although at that time they were just unknown ordinary people at the foot of the Emperor. Qin Shihuang annexed the six countries and unified the cheshu. Cao Mengde arrived in Jiangdong with 800,000 troops, stretching for thousands of miles and covered with empty flags. What do these thrilling successes and failures mean to you? What does this mean to me? However, the Great Wall and short songs are still very good for us, and they can also make us understand the spirit of these bones. These walls are there, these poems are there, and they are always good to people. Is there a memorial hall similar to the Great Wall in our time, and short songs are given to future generations to make them feel that we are still very kind? The long past is just a dark sky, and we can still recognize this dark sky because of the scattered stars of thinkers and artists. Friends, let's cherish these stars! Let's also try to sprinkle some starlight to light up the future as dark as the past!