Work and Life

Abstract

I am now halfway along the road of life; if we liken the human lifespan to a single day, it is now noon. Childhood is when we wake up from our slumbers and need some time to get over our morning lassitude, before we throw ourselves into our work; at midday, our energy is at its greatest, but we already feel tiredness looming; by dusk, we just want to finish off the day's work and get ready to sink into eternal rest. If you look at it in this way, as I do, work is the most important thing in a person's life. But not everyone would agree with this view. I know that in China, country folk see having children as the most important thing in their lives. You bring up your children and then you die, leaving space for them—this is a very common way of thinking. But in the towns there is a different way of thinking, though I don't know if it is very common, and that sees winning social status as the most important thing in life. If you stand in front of the wall on Babaoshan in Beijing where the ashes of the dead are placed, you can gain some understanding of this attitude. On the grave of an old gentleman there I saw written, "Deputy Department Director, Deputy Branch Secretary, Associate Professor, Deputy Director of Such-and-Such a Teaching and Research Section, etc." It would of course be better for the old gentleman if the word "Deputy" could be removed from all of those, but that word is the best evidence for this way of thinking. And incidentally, in graveyards I have been to look at in the United States, I found that only two things were written on the gravestones: One was the dates of birth and death; the other was the dates of military service. This shows that they believe these two things are the only ones worth recording about a person's life: That this subject of God came into the mortal world, and that this citizen served his country loyally. To write anything else would be superfluous. I think this is a simpler and more unaffected way of thinking though probably it is overly distressing to write in a youth magazine about what I've seen written on graves, and I should get back to the main topic as soon as possible.