本文来自:草二皿,原文标题:《人生的意义到底在哪里 ——一个体制内打工人的思考》,题图来自:视觉中国
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This article is from Cao Er Ni, with the original title of "Where is the Meaning of Life: Reflections on a Working Person within a System". The title is from Visual China
Article Summary
This article is the author's reflection on the meaning of life. As he faces the confusion of life, he gradually realizes that there is no standard answer to life. He discussed the essence of human beings and primitive drive, and proposed ways to break free from primitive drive.
• • The essence of human beings is a living entity that possesses both natural and social attributes
• • The development of human social attributes is to meet the needs of natural attributes
• • The way to break free from primitive drive is to pursue personal happiness and self actualization
Where exactly is the meaning of life? When I wrote this line, my heart was filled with a sense of powerlessness and lack of confidence. This proposition is too big, and I think I haven't figured it out very clearly yet, and it's likely to be difficult to fully understand it throughout my life. But it has been troubling me for a whole four years. I have been anxious, lost, insomnia, depressed, unable to find the direction of life, and countless times woke up in the middle of the night with palpitations.
Now, after years of repeated friction and torment between reality and spirit, I finally see a glimmer of hope in the cracks of life, as if I have found an exit from this ideological abyss. I have decided to muster the courage to write it down. Why say muster up courage?
Because, like most of you, I think too much and do too little in my daily life. Life is full of laziness, and I have experienced a strong addiction to words. However, if I really want to put my ideas into practice, it is as difficult for me as asking you to quit your phone. It requires a lot of courage. In addition, I am a pure male science and engineering student, and many of the viewpoints in the article are based on my own thinking and lack scientific research. They are purely personal opinions and cannot be guaranteed to be completely correct (this question itself is not absolutely correct). In the eyes of experts, it is inevitable that it appears to be a show of skill. Please forgive me and do not criticize me if you do not like it.
For the convenience of understanding in the following text, let me introduce myself first. I was born in a poverty-stricken village in a poverty-stricken county in a poverty-stricken city in the north about 90 years ago. The total number of men, women, old and young in the village is less than 100. I am the first key undergraduate 985 master student in the village's nearly 100 years of construction, and a proper small-town swot. I am currently working within the system of a first tier city, as a grassroots leader with an annual salary of over 40000 yuan, and my life is considered relatively comfortable.
I first fell into a profound contemplation of the meaning of life at the age of 32. At that time, work was not smooth, family conflicts were constant, and my body was suffering from serious allergies. One night, I suddenly woke up and felt that time was passing by quickly. I was constantly aging, and it seemed like I had achieved nothing.
Since then, the anxiety about the passing of life has often accompanied me. I can always feel a deep sense of oppression and restraint, feeling that the current life is not what I want. Life is so short, and I am not willing to spend it like this. However, I do not have the courage to break free, or I do not have a clear understanding of the life I want. I began to think, why do people live and how should I spend this life?
After nearly 20 years of education in science and engineering, I naturally thought that these problems were like solving differential equations, with a definite general solution. Or at least there will be a clear answer that fits the current era, telling me what is right, but in reality, it is not. For Chinese people, the mainstream way of life seems to be to strive for promotion and wealth, but you can also put it another way - to serve the people and realize personal value.
But why do I want to get promoted and become rich? What is personal value? It seems that no one can provide a reasonable explanation. The key is that many people are struggling in such a race, seemingly not experiencing happiness, and only feel infinite regret at the moment of death. We seem to have been instilled with the concept from a young age that we should be good people, but in fact, we don't quite understand why. We just feel that this way of life is right.
But this kind of life doesn't make me feel happy, at least now I feel that if my life goes through like this, I don't feel satisfied. But when I stopped and gathered the courage to think about another way of life, I realized that no philosopher had ever given a standard answer to this question. Not only does it not exist now, but looking back 5000 years, it also does not exist. Not only did it not exist, but history was filled with various viewpoints, some of which even completely opposed each other.
This discovery immediately left me, a straight male in science and engineering, at a loss. It turned out that I had been walking the path of having a standard answer for the first 30 years of my life, and once I found out that there was no standard answer, I didn't know how to go. Loneliness, confusion, and fear make me feel at a loss for an instant. What is the meaning of life? How should I choose?
1、 What is a person?
In order to understand the meaning of life, we first need to understand what a person is. Or rather, what is the essence of our existence? A cow, a horse, an ant, we roughly know the meaning of their existence, because their meaning is what we give them.
But we can never know the initial essence of human existence, because humans have not yet been able to break through the limitations of species on intelligence. What can currently be achieved is to describe the characteristics that are closest to the essence of the phenomenon, that is, "human beings are living beings with both natural and social attributes." Let's take this superficial understanding as the essence.
In this sense, fundamentally speaking, humans are still animals, and the vast majority of people are driven by their natural attributes, which are instincts, throughout their lives. For animals, the meaning of life is nothing more than survival and reproduction. When there is no food or water, they migrate and fight for opportunities to survive. After eating and drinking enough, they become estrous, mate, reproduce, and ultimately die under the stimulation of hormones. The ultimate goal of their lifelong activities is nothing more than to pass on their genes, which is the basic way for organisms to fight against death.
People are also like this. They learn, work, and strive towards higher levels of society, even risking their lives to harm the interests of others. The reason for this is simply to have access to more social resources, gain more mating rights, resist more environmental risks, and even hope that future generations can avoid risks and enjoy wealth forever under their own grace. All of this is to better pass on their genes and fight against death. In fact, not only animals, but also plants, this seems to be a behavioral paradigm engraved in the genes of every living organism.
But people are different, they also have social attributes. The most direct example is that animals do not commit suicide, while humans do. Human suicidal behavior is not naturally bestowed, but rather stems from the influence of acquired society. Throughout the long process of historical development, humanity has established a brilliant civilization. For example, political systems, cultural arts, natural sciences, social organizational models, and so on are all social attributes of human beings.
But let's think about it, how were these civilizations established? Or rather, why do we establish these civilizations? Overall, the four words can be summarized as demand orientation. What needs? Natural attribute demand! Here, let me first present the viewpoint that human social attributes essentially serve natural attributes, and social attributes are just one of the manifestations of natural attribute civilization.
Human civilization began with the use and creation of tools, but human social organization emerged before the use of tools. It seems that as long as living in groups, there will be social organizations and division of labor, such as wolf packs, horned horse packs, and even ants. This primitive group organization and division of labor pattern is engraved in the genes of social animals, and is the best way for social animals to ensure the continuity of their population genes after long-term struggles with the natural environment. This is particularly important for understanding human behavior.
This organizational model has its positive side, which is that it can maximize the efficiency of this group. Those who are good at commanding can become leaders, those who are good at fighting can become warriors, and those who are good at reproduction can reproduce, which is equivalent to the most primitive professional division of labor.
But there is also a negative side, which is that individuals who are not good at fighting and lack leadership skills often have to be eliminated or even die, which is the cruel aspect of primitive division of labor. However, with the continuous advancement and development of historical processes, humans have learned to use tools, and the rapid increase in productivity has led to explosive population growth. Under the primitive drive of genetic inheritance, a population must do two things well:
One is to optimize the organization of productivity in order to obtain more production benefits and feed more population, which is the origin of natural science. The second is to allocate production income well, otherwise it is easy to cause group chaos and ultimately disappear.
At this point, the original organizational and division of labor models were no longer sufficient to meet the requirements, so people established a more complex social organizational model on this basis, which is the political system. From the initial monarchy and dictatorship to the later collective leadership system, including multi-party and one party systems, as well as the derived concepts of right and wrong, morality, law, and so on, they are all just extensions of the continuous optimization of social organization division of labor.
The above discusses the original driving forces of political system and natural science, but human social attributes not only include political system, but also many other aspects. The most obvious thing is culture and art, and where does culture and art come from? This thing seems to have nothing to do with the continuation of genes for half a penny. If the emergence of political systems can promote the development of productivity and enable humans to better fight against death, then the absence of culture and art does not affect the progress of productivity or the transmission of genes. Why do we still create art? This does not seem to conform to the law that human social attributes serve natural attributes. In fact, many philosophers in history have considered the causes of art.
One is the theory of imitation: Democritus believed that art is an imitation of nature. He said that we learned to weave and sew from spiders, to build houses from swallows, and to sing from birds like swans and orioles. Aristotle further believed that imitation is a human instinct. He pointed out that all literature and art are imitations, with only three differences: the medium used for imitation is different, the objects taken are different, and the methods used are different.
These statements affirm that art originates from objective nature and social reality, containing a naive materialist perspective with progressive and reasonable content. However, this statement only touches on the surface of things and does not reveal their essence. This statement also attributes imitation to human nature and fails to find the creative intention behind imitation, thus failing to explain the fundamental reason for the emergence of art. It turns out that in terms of philosophical issues, the ancients were only superficial.
The second is game theory: the 18th century German philosopher Schiller and the 19th century British philosopher Spencer proposed that artistic or aesthetic activities originated from the game instinct possessed by humans, which is manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, because humans have excess energy, and on the other hand, they apply this excess energy to activities without practical utility or utilitarian purposes, reflecting a free game.
This statement affirms that people can only have excess energy to engage in games, artistic and aesthetic activities, if they are not forced by life, that is, only when they meet the basic material needs of clothing, food, housing, and transportation. However, the claim that art originated from games, solely from a biological or psychological perspective, is detached from human social practice, so it still cannot uncover the true mystery of the birth of art.
The third is the theory of "expression": its main theoretical basis is to emphasize that art should express itself. The core of Italian aesthetician Croce's aesthetic thought is "intuition is expression". Croce believed that the essence of art is intuition, and the source of intuition is emotion. Intuition is expression, so art is ultimately the expression of emotion.
The famous Russian writer Lev Tolstoy believed that art originated from the need to convey emotions. He once said that in order to convey the emotions one has experienced to others, a person awakens these emotions in their heart and expresses them with some external symbol, which is the origin of art.
In addition, there is also the theory of "witchcraft", which believes that art originated from witchcraft. Representative figures include the famous British anthropologist Edward Taylor, the famous American aesthetician Thomas Monroe, and the Finnish art historian Sean; The theory of "labor" holds that art originates from labor practice, with representative figures including Russia's Plekhanov and French structuralist scholar Althusser.
However, in the author's opinion, all of these so-called ancient sages' thoughts on art are purely nonsensical nonsense! After talking for a while, I couldn't explain where art came from.
Since ancient times, there have been three immortal traditional scholars in China - those who uphold virtue, perform meritorious deeds, and speak up. Originating from the Zuo Zhuan, it is said that "the Supreme Court has established virtue, followed by achievements, followed by words, although they have not been abolished for a long time, this is called immortality." Art is no different from literature, or rather literature is a part of art. The essence of establishing virtue and art through words is still derived from the primitive drive of genetic transmission.
However, this type of gene is not what is called a biological gene, but is similar to what Laozi said, "Those who die but do not die will have a long life." It is a transmission and continuation of spirit, and another way for humans to fight against death. All these saints, including Confucius, Hegel, Wang Yangming, and others, wrote books, preached, and imparted knowledge to solve the difficulties of the times, or to establish their hearts for heaven and earth, and to establish their lives for the people. However, their essence is to continue the genes of individuals or ethnic groups to meet the need for resistance to death.
Seeing this, some people feel that the above discussion is too pessimistic and negative, attributing all human activities to the primitive driving force of gene transmission. Human natural and social attributes, and even literature and art, are ways to fight against death, or that humans live to fight against death. If that's the case, can people still be called humans? Or is it still a person we understand in layman's terms? If we are driven tool people with no self at all, then life is nothing but nothingness? Is there a way for us to rediscover ourselves or break free from the primitive drive of "fighting against death"?
2、 Philosopher's Reflection
Life is meaningless and meaningless. The essence of our existence is to intentionally or unintentionally confront death, which is truly a sad discovery. Numerous philosophers in history have engaged in contemplation from different perspectives and levels, and have provided their own solutions to find the meaning of life, thereby opposing this nihilism.
The most direct answer given by Danish philosopher Kolkegore is to deny that the world is rational, meaning that there is no phenomenal or essential world in the world, and therefore no universal truth. As mentioned earlier, the existence of people or all living beings is to fight against death, and Korkegor does not acknowledge it. He believes that each of us is a lonely individual, so the so-called truth is only subjective truth. In Korkegor's view, to find the meaning of life, one must have faith, and this faith is also irrational and unreasonable. He opposes beliefs based on rational weighing, which are all false beliefs. Instead, one must face faith and take a leap forward.
Unlike Kierkegaard, the German philosopher Schopenhauer, after reading Schopenhauer's worldview, I was surprised to find that his understanding of the world almost perfectly matched my own. This discovery made me so excited that I almost burst into tears. Schopenhauer believed that the world is void because people live under the drive of desire, and the source of this desire is the will to survive, which coincides with the author's view of fighting against death.
So what is Schopenhauer's method of getting rid of nihilism? It mainly includes two aspects, one is abstinence, and the other is aesthetics. To be honest, when I saw Schopenhauer's two prescriptions, I was quite disappointed. I thought I could find the answer from this sage, but I didn't expect the answer he gave to be so weak and pale.
Firstly, let's talk about abstinence. Abstinence is actually rejecting the continuation of genes in order to combat the primitive drive of "fighting against death". This is essentially no different from suicide, as abstinence is just a delayed version of suicide. But Schopenhauer does not approve of suicide, believing that it is a surrender to the primitive drive of "fighting against death". If we commit suicide, we will lose. But he didn't understand why abstinence is not true? Perhaps he has already figured it out, but lacks the courage to admit it.
Speaking of aesthetics, he believes that when appreciating works of art, people will temporarily forget themselves, thereby achieving a state of transcendence and inner peace. However, according to the author's viewpoint, the essence of art is to seek emotional identification and transmission, essentially seeking a spiritual continuation that is no different from genetic transmission, and the driving force is still the "death confrontation".
Let's take a look at Nietzsche. He was originally a fan of Schopenhauer, but later went his separate ways due to different philosophical ideas. Firstly, Nietzsche did not believe that life is nihilistic, but his negation of nihilism was not based on a rational analysis perspective. He believed that the reason why people fall into nihilism is because humans always fantasize about a world on the other side. All human behavior and activities in the current world are temporary and illusory, and all right and wrong can only be determined when they reach the other side, which is the real world.
Nietzsche denies this claim, believing that there is no other world, so humans are not nothingness. Moreover, in order to combat this nihilism, he believed that humans should unleash their vitality, fully bloom themselves, live themselves as superhumans, and control their own lives in this world. Obviously, Nietzsche's view of nihilism is not the same as the nihilism discussed in this article. He did not fundamentally involve the primitive drive of nothingness, and here it serves as a reference.
There is also a French philosopher named Sartre. Firstly, Sartre acknowledges that human existence is void, but humans do not need to overcome this void because it is the fundamental survival situation of humans. We must constantly take action to actively shape the possibilities of our lives.
After flipping through it, the author found that even when faced with the meaning of life, these great philosophers were unable to provide a logically consistent standard answer. Their thinking could only be shallow at a certain corner, or avoid discussing the main contradiction. The answer they gave seemed strong, but in reality, they were stubborn, and behind their stubbornness was a sense of powerlessness.
Moreover, philosophers themselves may not have realized that their actions against nihilism are inherently nihilistic. Why do you say that? Because being trapped in nihilism is negative for humanity, not conducive to the transmission of ethnic genes, that is, not resistant to death. Therefore, philosophers who want to fight against nihilism are fundamentally to fight against death, and humans who fight against death are passive and nihilistic.
This conclusion makes people feel hopeless. It seems that there is a high-dimensional creature that, at the very beginning of creating life, set a fundamental command in the genes of the living organism. All behaviors that violate this command will eventually return to it, and all human struggles cannot break free from the norms of this fundamental command. For hundreds of thousands of years, this high-dimensional creature has been silently watching humans, like machines, dumbfounded and obediently following this behavioral paradigm to rise and fall. Occasionally, some self proclaimed intelligent old men may jump up and ponder for a while, but ultimately, they will let out a long sigh and join the army of humans advancing aimlessly.
So, life has no meaning. So what should I do? If I fully comply with the original drive of "death resistance", how will I spend this life? Is this really what I want?
3、 Adapting to the primitive driving force of life
If one completely abandons oneself and conforms to the primitive drive, or according to the definition of "success" in our mainstream social value evaluation system, then one's life is likely to be spent in this way: first, strive to earn the most money and build a more solid material foundation; Secondly, strive to advance towards the higher echelons of society and acquire more social resources; The third is to mate with as many people as possible and have many, many children.
To achieve the above three points in practical life, it is necessary to master two skills: one is to do things, and the other is to be a good person. The better you do these two points, the more successful you will be. There's nothing new about this, it's just a clich é d argument, but the author still has some insights to share.
Firstly, regarding work, it can directly affect the development of productivity, which means mastering a skill that contributes to the continuation of this ethnic group. 50 years ago, this was a very high threshold because at that time the cost of information transmission was very high. The rarer the skill, the higher the cost of transmission. Obtaining information often required opportunities of favorable timing, location, and people. Only a few lucky people had the opportunity, so mastering a skill was enough to make you "successful". The more scarce the skill, the more "successful" you were.
But now with the advent of the information explosion era, the cost of information transmission is getting lower and the value of skills is also getting lower. To rely on skills to widen the gap with others, people need to put in much more effort than 50 years ago. It's not that you can't create value anymore, but that the difficulty of creating more value than others has increased. Because the number of people participating in internal competition has increased, society has progressed, but people are even more tired. Living in the "blessings" of 996 and 007 every day cannot find any sense of happiness.
Speaking of being a person, it means dealing with interpersonal relationships. In other words, it means making people around you accept and like you. This thing does not directly affect productivity, but it is particularly affordable in a top-down social system. For some people with average work skills, it is almost the only magic weapon for their upward progress. Many capable people disdain those who are good at being a good person, but upon careful consideration, it is not easy to be a good person.
There are many ways to handle interpersonal relationships well, but in China, if you want to get along well, it actually requires a lot of time, energy, and even dignity.
Speaking of which, most of us can only focus on one side in both doing things and being a good person, and we can only do it carelessly. Those who can truly balance these two aspects and bring them to the extreme can basically compete to a higher level in this ethnic group. This kind of life is like raising Gu, a group is like a laboratory, and the living beings inside are constantly breaking through the internal competition like raised Gu insects, allowing those who can better adapt to this value evaluation system to become kings. Next, develop subdivision rules that are more suitable for this value evaluation system, in order to continuously improve, consolidate, and optimize this gene delivery model.
Someone said, can I escape this ethnic group? Is this enough to break away from the mainstream value evaluation system? All you can think of is that high-dimensional organisms have already thought of it. In addition to the fundamental command of "death resistance", high-dimensional organisms have also extended another command based on this, which is the insecurity of acting alone. An individual, whether actively or passively leaving a social organization, will instinctively experience anxiety and insecurity.
Taking the current system in which the author is located as an example, people say that jobs within the system are stable and there is no need to worry about unemployment. But what you don't know is that there is a more painful punishment within the system than layoffs, which is marginalization. Within the system, if a person is marginalized, it is undoubtedly a judgment that they are a failure. This judgment can create an insecurity of being abandoned by the group, and the deeper you participate in the mainstream value evaluation system, the more severe this insecurity becomes, which is an instinct.
It seems that all the roads are blocked, which is the principle that that high-dimensional creature has set for us, the original driving force of "death confrontation". In this sense, the more population the ethnic group is, the better it conforms to the primitive drive, and it is also the least self-awareness tool of the human group. For example, in the Confucian cultural circle, it can be said that it is far ahead in terms of "being a good person, promotion, wealth, and reproduction".
However, this principle that benefits the entire population is extremely difficult for individual individuals, and the process can even be painful. Moreover, due to the constant existence of primitive drives, human desires are almost infinite, and our entire lives will be limited to constant pursuit and internal competition, which is arduous for the vast majority of people.
You may not even know why you need to participate in internal competition, but under this primitive drive, you have to actively participate. Otherwise, in the mainstream evaluation system derived from primitive drive, you are a failure and a loser. The Infinite Longevity Sutra states that one is born to suffer, while the Bible states that every person is born with original sin, and the process of life is the process of redemption. So, suffering seems to be a curse that every insect cannot escape.
But can I ask: why am I born to suffer? Why am I born to redeem myself? This life is so short, I don't want to just be a tool person, let alone feel that my life is not worth it at the moment of death!
4、 How to get rid of primitive drivers
French writer Romain Rolland said that there is only one kind of heroism in the world, and that is, after recognizing the truth of life, one still loves it. We acknowledge that the activities of life originate from primitive drives, but we cannot despair about it, but we must strive to find ourselves. No matter what measures are taken, my principle is only one: make yourself happy! It's about transitioning from what I need to do to what I want to do. If I am happy and Gao Wei is also happy, congratulate him. If he is not happy, let him go to play with his mother!
Having understood this principle, the meaning of life seems to have become somewhat clear. What should be done specifically at the operational level? Let's look back at the methods proposed by the philosophers mentioned earlier: Cole Kegel said we should have devout faith, Schopenhauer said we should have abstinence and aesthetics, Nietzsche said we should bloom with vitality, and Sartre said we should let nature take its course. Are these methods feasible? This varies from person to person, and different people can choose one or a combination of several based on their actual situation. Here, based on my own experience, I will briefly analyze the situation.
Firstly, we must survive and ensure that our basic needs are comfortably met, such as safety and health. This requires us to have a certain economic foundation, for which we need to participate appropriately in social competition under the mainstream value evaluation system. But this kind of competition should not continue indefinitely. Of course, if you are naturally fond of competition and can derive happiness from it, that is another matter.
But I think for most people, participating in competition is a painful process. Just think about the process of Gu Bu biting each other. So, if your current basic needs have been met, then you need to think about whether continuing to bite other insects until you die is the result you want. If not, then stop accepting the influence of the original drive, slowly move away from the center of the bite, find a relatively safe place, and watch them bite, so that you can more easily obtain happiness.
Secondly, is it necessary for us to have children? The demand for reproduction among people stems from the primitive drive of "death confrontation", reflected in the vigorous sexual needs of humans; Secondly, it stems from insecurity and is reflected in the concept of raising children and preventing aging in daily life; Thirdly, I am naturally fond of children. The first point is not a concern. Smart humans have invented various contraceptive measures, which can allow people to enjoy the pleasure of sex without having to bear the consequences of pregnancy.
Secondly, does raising children have an anti-aging effect? It can be said that there are still many ways to prevent aging, but in today's highly specialized division of labor, there are many ways, and raising children is just one of them. And if we only look at the role of anti-aging, having one child in a person's lifetime is enough. For safety reasons, having at most two is already enough to meet your retirement needs.
The third point is another matter. If you are born with a fondness for children, you can reproduce indefinitely, provided that you can bear the consequences. So, if you currently have no children or already have one, then you need to think about whether it is necessary to continue having children. If not, then stop accepting the influence of the original drive and take contraceptive measures. As for the clich é d saying that having more children brings more blessings and having a son is necessary, let it go to hell. These are all lies fabricated by the filial and virtuous descendants of that high-dimensional creature! Happy Laozi is the most important!
Finally, go to great lengths to pursue happiness! If you are not born to enjoy competition or having children, congratulations, you will have plenty of time to enjoy life! Some people say that enjoying life requires a lot of money, so I still have to go and bite other insects. I can only say, brother, you haven't fully realized yet. Your idea is still based on the mainstream value evaluation system. For example, if you think that having yachts, luxury cars, villas, or private planes is the way to enjoy life, it is actually the smoke bomb created by that bastard in high-dimensional biology for us.
There are many ways to be happy, and the kind of happiness you refer to is called comparative happiness, which is the happiness you feel because you have something others don't have, but you can never be the first in the world. Therefore, if you are used to getting happiness from comparison, it is difficult for you to truly feel happy.
We can change the way, for example, the world is so big, don't you want to go and see it? Do you feel uncomfortable listening to so much beautiful music? Don't you have any hobbies or interests of your own? Immersed in hobbies and interests, aren't you happy? Are you not happy when you mobilize all your senses to feel this world, to feel a world that others cannot perceive? If while you are doing these things, you can also find some like-minded friends to share your happiness with, wouldn't your happiness double?
This is the meaning of life! Not feeling regret when you die is the meaning! In summary, it is similar to the approach given by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but we do not need to completely abstain. We want to achieve happiness and enjoy life by satisfying the instinctual desires set by high-dimensional organisms, but we don't need to follow their principles to constantly reproduce and achieve gene transmission, emphasizing non violence and non cooperation!
Some people say that if that's the case, there will be fewer and fewer people who pursue themselves, and they will eventually be eliminated, while the group of tool people who follow the primitive drive will forever roll in. I want to say, they are willing to take you and let him take it. As for whether they will be eliminated in the end, is it important? You will have been dead for eight hundred years by then, you care so much about him!