Artistic youth, middle-aged

My best friend is a single artistic young woman who loves life. She usually likes watching movies, dramas, ballets, various exhibitions, making bread, and on weekends she goes to dance lessons and listens to music from the library. Lecture...life is enjoyable.

One day, when I saw her schedule, I expressed my sincere envy again. My husband dismissed my envy: How old are you, why do you still have unrealistic dreams?

Once upon a time, I was also a literary young man. At that time, I lived a sparkling life: I wrote a popular blog, participated in Douban group activities (sounds a bit pretentious), and went to Shanghai Watch old movies at the Grand Guangming Cinema, listen to songs from niche singers, plant all kinds of cute succulent plants, wear forest girl-style long skirts... and go to the old teaching building of Shanghai Jiao Tong University to take beautiful photos.

Looking back now, it feels so far away. It has only been ten years, and I have already entered another stage of my life: becoming a wife and a mother. There are three elders at the top and a younger one at the bottom. As a modern woman, she not only needs to worry about daily necessities, but she also needs to plan for the future of her family and work hard for herself to make a difference in the workplace.

The Analects of Confucius said: "When I was fifteen, I was determined to learn; when I was thirty, I was established; when I was forty, I was not confused; when I was fifty, I knew the destiny; at sixty, my ears were obedient; at seventy, I followed my heart's desires without going beyond the rules." You should do what you should do at any age. This is the foresight of our ancestors.

1. Middle-aged people who stay away from literature and art

Thirty years old was once called the beginning of life, which is the threshold of middle age. Most people have started a family or a career by this age. What is the living situation like for middle-aged people who have passed their thirties? The day of most middle-aged office workers in first-tier cities starts like this: they wake up from their sleep at around 6 o'clock by the rapid sound of the alarm, get up and prepare breakfast for their children, wake them up, prepare things for their children for school, and maybe themselves There is no time to take a bite before sending the children to school, and then jogging to squeeze into the bus or subway. In most cases, you can only stand all the way, so catching up on sleep on the subway and freeing up your hands to play games are both luxurious behaviors. .

Such a flustered middle-aged man really seems to be incompatible with literature and art. As my husband said: We hard-working middle-aged people are not qualified to engage in literature and art.

My husband, Xiao Ming, was once a literary and artistic young man. When Tianya was relatively popular, his articles were read tens of thousands of times. In his spare time, he also liked photography and was keen on studying various lens parameters. , there are also many good works. I like NBA and CBA and must watch every game.

But now that he has been promoted to a husband and a father, he has to work harder for his life. He is thinking about how to do his job better. He is looking forward to a promotion and a salary increase so that he can do better. to support the entire family. Mortgage, car loan, early childhood education expenses, aunt's expenses, parents' insurance premiums...

He said that he has a lot of ideas, a lot of material to write about, and a lot of hot topics to pursue, but he needs to be very intense during the day. He only has time for work at night. If he writes at night, his brain will be extremely excited and he will basically be useless in one night. I simply don’t have the energy to support my day’s work.

This is true for men in the workplace, but it will only be harder for women in the workplace. In addition to work, most women in the workplace also have to worry about the food, clothing, housing and transportation of the family, the children's education, the health of the elders... all cultural and artistic activities other than baking It is considered as not doing the job properly.

2. The efforts of middle-aged people

At the age of thirty, in today’s first-tier cities, more and more people have just arrived and started a new life. They either have just graduated from graduate school or have been working in small places for several years. They either followed their original intentions, convinced their stubborn parents, or fulfilled their promises to their lovers.

I just interviewed a boy today, and I also listened to his story: Originally from a better family, he naturally planned to go abroad for further study after graduation, and even went to Beijing to learn German for half a year. He didn’t want to meet Something unexpected happened and his father's company lost millions. There was no way to study abroad. After missing the school recruitment, he went to a research institute of a central enterprise through social recruitment. In the end, he could only work as a contract worker. After working for a year, he found that it was not the life he wanted at all. Then he changed jobs and went to another company in Changsha. Several companies, but due to various circumstances were not satisfactory, they found our recruitment information online and asked for leave to come to Shenzhen for an interview.

The boy’s overall conditions are quite good, and he works very hard. Because of his work, he often has to travel on business. The child is very small, and his wife takes care of the child full-time. For the future development of the child and himself, he has done With a very detailed and specific career plan, he decided to work in a first-tier city, and he also signed up for an on-the-job postgraduate course. Looking at his smug look, I remembered myself when I decided to leave my small place and venture into the world.

Every step a hard-working middle-aged man takes is never just for himself.

There is a mother in the community. The second child is one year old, about the same age as my son, and the eldest child is only three years old. I often see her mother with her second child, so I asked her why she hadn’t seen her walking the baby for so long, and I rarely saw her on weekends. She said it was because she was taking the CPA exam recently and had to spend a lot of time reviewing every day. After putting the baby to bed at night, I have some time to myself, but I basically spend two days on the weekend in the library. She works in finance. Only if she obtains the certificate of certified public accountant will she have better job opportunities and her working hours will be much freer.

3. When middle-aged people run away from literature and art, what are we running away from?

If busyness, anxiety, and desire for success are the main themes of modern middle-aged people, no one will oppose me. But people have to learn to enjoy hardship, right? As a former literary and artistic young man, I will definitely not let my middle age live like the ordinary majority.

But why do many people, including my husband, think that middle-aged people should stay away from literature and art, thinking that they are divorced from the reality of life and are just unrealistic petty romances? I think one of my bosses in the past said it very well.

Many years ago, I occasionally went to Taipei for business trips. After work, I liked to stroll around the hotel. Walking in the alleys full of snacks, I felt an irresistible smell of human fireworks. Come. Those small noodle shops, convenience stores, fruit stalls, and milk tea shops all make people feel clean and refreshing. From the signature tables and chairs, pots and pans, and menu dishes, it can be seen that the owners carefully designed and selected them. Most of the restaurants are middle-aged. Mom-and-pop shops, I found that even though the houses in the alleys are very old and shabby, they are always well taken care of by the shop owners. Potted flowers and potted plants are indispensable for decoration at the door, and door curtains and pergolas also complement each other. Compared with the dirty and messy snack streets in mainland cities, people have to sigh. One day when I was having dinner with my boss in a small noodle shop with a nice environment, I expressed my doubts: Why would the shop owner here have the leisure and elegance to choose suitable background music and maintain flowers and plants in such a busy place? I feel that they are all very fresh and artistic. The boss said: This is just a difference in cultural background and lifestyle. I believe that with the development of economy and education in the near future, our mainland will definitely be like this. Once everyone has economic conditions, aesthetic needs, and culture, they will definitely pursue feelings. This is what you call literary and artistic.

To put it bluntly, cultural precipitation and economic foundation are still needed.

The truth is heartbreaking: middle-aged people talk about staying away from literature and art, but in fact you are escaping from the reality of having no money and no culture.

4. Literature and art are the flowers that embellish the hard life of middle-aged people

If the life of middle-aged people is very hard, you must not forget a group of people: middle-aged mothers who help their children with homework . My good sister Lily is the HRD of a start-up company. She is also considered a powerful figure in the workplace. She has worked for well-known foreign companies and managed HR teams of dozens of people. But once he returned to the "fighting arena" at home, he was defeated repeatedly. A child who is naughty, smart, thoughtful, and emotionally sensitive needs more patience from his family and the school. Most of the teachers now are very young, and they are all promising young people with ideals and feelings, and they have a love for education. For a problem student, at the beginning, we devote unlimited energy with enthusiasm, but as time goes by, we will always feel tired and helpless and even give up on saving the student. But as a mother, you cannot give up on your child no matter what. The child has some attention deficit and can't control himself during class. He is either thinking about things by himself or drawing all kinds of cartoons and being wild and unconstrained. I read the communication between Lily and the teacher on WeChat. The teacher’s attitude is basically a barometer of the child’s performance. Sometimes the teacher is very angry, and sometimes the teacher is very pleased. The old mother's mood always goes up and down like a roller coaster. I have to tutor my children with homework every day, and the child is so lazy that I doubt my life. I have to patiently guide and take care of the child's emotions.

For such a middle-aged mother, her only pastime is to meet up with three or two friends on the weekends to find an uninhabited mountain wilderness to have a picnic, fish, or just to look at the scenery and get wet. A refreshing drizzle. Only at this time did the heartstrings that had been tense for a week really relax, and my mind wandered to a beautiful island, as if I had always lived on a seaside full of flowers and never left.

5. In middle age, I am very tired, but I still love life

I checked the characteristics of artistic youth on the Internet, and there are several keywords: loving literature and art, freedom , have unrealistic dreams, romantic feelings, and like beautiful things. These do not seem to have anything to do with miserable middle-aged people. However, there are many people who still get inspiration from their ordinary and boring life to live a lively and interesting life: a middle-aged literary and artistic man who runs a restaurant, because he loves photography, occasionally takes some photos of customers who come to eat, and the response is very good, so he actually turned his restaurant into a It turned into a part-time photography studio, and many people held small parties, children's birthday parties, and even company business meetings for the boss's photos.

"There is only one kind of heroism in the world, and that is to still love life after recognizing the truth of life." I hope that all young literary and artistic people will still love life after experiencing the efforts and struggles, expectations and disappointments of life. You can be an elegant and artistic middle-aged man.