Akutagawa Ryunosuke: True wisdom is to turn a blind eye to the world and to be complicit in it

Starting from the novel "Rashomon"

The Japanese short story "Rashomon" tells a thought-provoking story. In the war-torn era, the Kyoto area of ??Japan suffered from famine. There is a plague, corpses are everywhere, cocks are crowing, dogs are robbers and there are many thieves.

A servant who had just been dismissed by his master was looking for a place to rest under the Rashomon Castle, and suddenly came up with the idea of ??stealing (due to the general environment).

He climbed up the dim tower, only to find that the attic was full of corpses, and the air was filled with a suffocating stench of corpses. Among them was a living person facing one of the female corpses, not knowing what he was doing.

He took out a dagger and went to question it. It turned out that the old woman was pulling out the dead man's hair and preparing to exchange it for money. If she didn't do this, she would starve to death.

Guess what the servant did in the end, he took off the old woman's clothes because he wanted to live as sluttishly as the old woman.

There is an old saying in China: It is better to die than to live in vain.

Although there are very few people in our era who have no food to eat, due to the greed of human nature, people like old women and servants are everywhere.

After reading "Rashomon", my biggest feeling is: The environment affects a group of people. A good environment makes people positive, but in a bad environment almost everyone is a villain. People with HIV are often called freaks. You can't change the environment. You can only change your mentality or the environment.

Starting from Rashomon, I have some reflections on my work, job changes and resignations in the five years since I graduated.

1. Why do we work?

Since we were in school, we have been indoctrinated by our family and society with the idea that if we study hard, we will definitely find a good job in the future.

Once you graduate and enter the highly competitive jungle society from the ivory tower with no worries about food and clothing, one day you will think about this question: Why do we have to work?

Some people say: If you don’t work, you can’t support yourself, so we work to live.

There are generally two ways to support oneself:

There are honest ways, such as opening a store or company, working for others, or taking the civil service examination.

There are also less honorable ways, such as begging, stealing, fraud, using power for personal gain, eating soft rice, etc.

Most people will choose the former when they grow up. After all, we are all successors of socialism.

Work can indeed support a person, but in the long run, people’s pursuits are never-ending. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, from primary to advanced levels are physiological needs, safety needs, and social needs. Needs, esteem needs, self-actualization needs.

When work provides people with food and clothing, people will pursue higher-level things, such as more wealth, more resources of the opposite sex, better social reputation, etc.

What a poor man most urgently needs is a job. As long as it keeps him from starving to death, he can do anything. However, when the legal supervision of the entire society is not in place, people are often immoral in order to survive and benefit.

For example, the "six-liang scale" used by fruit vendors has become an unspoken rule in the industry. So after I learned about this unspoken rule, I rarely went to roadside stalls to buy fruit, and I even rarely went to the fruit shops I frequented.

In order to deduct employees' wages, some private enterprise owners have also formulated various unreasonable regulations, such as deducting wages due to attendance, not being regularized upon expiration, not paying social security, not paying overtime pay, etc., and exploiting employees regardless of the law. of hard-earned money. This is also a manifestation of the evil of human nature, but it is more hateful than the "six-liang scale" at the fruit stall.

Of course, morality and wealth do not conflict in many cases.

2. Why do we like to change jobs?

Many companies always ask a question when recruiting new people: What is your career plan in this company?

In fact, as a migrant worker, the planning everyone should make is: Be prepared to leave at any time.

Because most people’s plans often fail to keep up with changes. For example, I plan to be promoted to general manager in three years. What if the company collapses in two years? Who should I ask to reason?

Being ready to leave at any time is the first principle for every striver in the workplace, rather than necessarily getting a promotion or salary increase. Because as long as you have real skills, there are many companies that can give you a promotion and a salary increase.

The current job is more like a springboard through which we can jump to a better stage.

3. Why don’t we like working for others anymore?

1. Being exhausted both physically and mentally

In ancient times, Tao Yuanming resigned from his government position and returned to the countryside to work as a farmer, living a life of "taking care of wasteland and filth in the morning." The pastoral life of "Returning with Moon Loads and Hoes."

Official life made him physically and mentally exhausted. He was not good at interpersonal relationships, and he disdained flattery. Why don't you just resign and go home to be with your wife and children? What a sweetheart!

Today, people over the age of 35 are increasingly disliked by their bosses in the workplace. You cannot become an expert in a certain field at the age of 35. If you have not established a professional moat, it means that you may be eliminated at any time.

2. Jobs without a sense of fulfillment will turn people into machines

Since the industrial revolution, work has become more and more subdivided. After watching Chaplin’s movie "Modern Times", The protagonist's feeling of tightening hexagonal screws day after day is probably similar to that of us modern people sitting in front of the computer for a day.

Capitalists hire workers to perform labor. However, the alienation of this kind of labor turns an emotional person into a machine without emotion. Such a person will have no sense of achievement at work.

Working for others and always thinking about your superiors and the company will make you lose the joy of being a human being.

Li Bai said: "An Neng bows down to serve the powerful, which makes me. Not happy. ”

Of course, not everyone can become Li Bai, and we don’t have the talent and talents of Li Bai. We spend our lives traveling around, drinking and composing poems, and in the end we become famous throughout the ages.

In According to Ryunosuke Akutagawa, the author of Rashomon, those who do not want to go along with the world may look elegant, but in reality they are not smart enough.

He believes that smart people are like this: They have no regard for the world. Roll your eyes, and go along with it.

Translated into modern language: Say no, but your body is honest.

If the woman in Rashomon didn't pull out the dead man's hair, She will starve to death; those street vendors will not be able to make any money, which is quite sad to think about.

The world is so hard, living in such a weird way.

About "Rashomon":

The representative work of modern Japanese novelist Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927). He is known as the genius of Japanese short stories and is good at describing human nature. The dark side and criticism of the ugly phenomena of society are also good-looking works such as "Christians in Nanjing" and "Magic". The writing techniques are quite superb. If you like short stories, don't miss it.