There is a concept of "being thrown away" in philosophy: as soon as a person is born, he is driven out of a paradise full of love and care. ——Originally, being reborn in this world is no longer my own will. A Fei’s “thrown away” is even more betrayal than ordinary people: being abandoned by his biological mother. The world in Paradise Lost has not yet taken shape, it has already experienced a betrayal of love; at the beginning of the journey of life, love and meaning are regarded as lost things. When he was wrapped in a baby and handed over to an unrelated woman, all the signals of life inheritance were interrupted, and he became a rootless man ever since. The rootless A Fei is like a bird without legs, burdened with inexplicable loss, and he begins to fly in search of love and meaning. ——The film "The True Story of A Fei" is just such a fable about flying.
The word "A Fei" is an imported product from the United States. The original text is "fly", which means flies, which specifically refers to unscrupulous young people on the streets. Because the other meaning of "fly" is "to fly", the Chinese gradually refer to this type of youth as "Afei".
In "The True Story of A Fei", this "A Fei" also has a pun meaning: He compares himself to a bird without legs, flying endlessly throughout his life. The destination is unknown.
No one knows why he wants to fly, maybe even he doesn't know. On the surface, he seemed to be just searching for the whereabouts of his biological mother, persistently pursuing it, as if that was the only purpose of life. So what does this "biological mother" have to do with A Fei's endless flight throughout his life? Is she a distant shore, an excuse, or a symbol?
1. the other side.
Spiritually helpless, and unable to identify with the lifestyle of his adoptive mother, the young ALFY may not have thought about dividing his world into two—the one belonging to the adoptive mother symbolizes darkness, chaos, corruption and turbidity; The birth mother's side represents light, order, nobility and cleanliness. He yearned for the kingdom of this birth mother, and regarded it as the other side of the spirit.
——Because of this, some people use the "Oedipus complex" to explain ALFY's search for mother. But the fact is not so simple, "original desire" cannot explain everything. A Fei's experience of feelings is too deep: abandoned by his birth mother, swayed by his adoptive mother's social life, and accustomed to seeing money and emotional transactions, he has long been far away from that period of naive illusions about feelings. His "pessimistic thinking" about feelings has caused "the negation of romantic love"-there is no feeling in the world that is not riddled with holes, even the biological mother who is far away in a foreign country will not be an exception.
In the world of ALFY's love, there is no "other shore" at all. His diligence for his biological mother is not an "Oedipus complex."
On the contrary, his adoptive mother has some "love son complexes" for him as opposed to the "Oedipus complex". Her love for him has long surpassed the scope of treating the Son of Man. At first, she adopted him just for the sake of life stability, with a stable income of 50 dollars a month; later, she gradually fantasized him as the object of her lust, the only half man in her life. She pinched him in her palm and refused to let it go easily.
What Afei longed for was love, the love that was forgotten by his mother. But these two women are not ideal-they are just women, not mothers. One abandoned him for the fame and interests of their ladies, and the other only regarded him as an object of venting their sexual desires. They all only thought of their own woman's identity and forgot how to love their own son. Except for a vague glance at birth, the birth mother never appeared in front of A Fei; even the adoptive mother who kept saying that he loved him was reluctant to bear him, eventually decided to abandon this fantasy lover for the sake of his solid old age, and followed the old but The rich man went to America. ——The beloved family in life, both lost in such a simple contest between sons and interests.
Facts have repeatedly confirmed that ALFY's pessimism about feelings is not groundless. Think about it carefully, these two hateful mothers who betrayed their sons are actually just two poor women.
When the hatred gradually faded, the loss of that eternal love was still in A Fei's heart, unstoppable invading. He began to try to fill the emptiness of this heart with the love of other women.
Maybe all women will unconsciously produce a wide range of maternal love when they are in love, but ALFY has never shown a childish side in front of them. On the contrary, he was selfish, cold, and always let them surrender to himself. In the end, he denied them one by one with a sentence full of patriarchal consciousness, and only maintained a kind of "sex but no love" relationship.
He is not without feelings, but because of repeated traumas, he has lost the ability to love. He can neither believe in the so-called other side of love, nor can he spare any energy to make the woman who loves him happy. We can read three words from his lonely eyes: no love.
2. Excuses.
Since the relentless pursuit of the biological mother is not for the perfect love of the other side, will all this be just an excuse for A Fei?
Deep down in his heart, he looked down on the life of his adoptive mother at all: erosion and sinking; her luxurious apartment, filled with dark and congested air, felt sinking after staying for a long time, sinking into a damp lake... He moved Go out and live alone. However, for more than ten years, he has been inadvertently contaminated with the breath of the inadvertent immersion in countless days and nights. He thought he could fly after he left, like a bird without feet, flying day and night, flying into the distance-in fact, this bird had already broken its wings, and he couldn't fly out anywhere except the back garden of the foster mother's mansion.
He is a weak idealist who has always been pretentious, wandering around the world, and has a lofty ideal that he does not know what it is. At the same time, his inferiority and vanity made him deeply understand that dreams are nothing but dreams, and reality will continue, and he has no ability to change his status quo at all. By his nature, he can't even be an ordinary worker or clerk in accordance with the social norms of life. ——There is emptiness everywhere, unable to grasp anything. In order to prove his existence, he can only succumb to the world that he once looked down upon: choose to use sensuality, food, men and women to enrich his drunken life.
Vanity prevented him from pursuing his ideals, and low self-esteem made him feel lonely. So he created an illusion for himself, imagining that there is a country that truly belongs to him and a biological mother who loves him in a distant place. He used this fantasy to comfort his loneliness, cover up his inferiority complex, and provide an excuse for indulging in sensuality.
At this time, the "biological mother" became an excuse, and A Fei used this excuse to realize his "personality alienation". ——Yes, he is now bohemian, has no future, no hope, it is ALFY, but one day he really wants to fly, fly away from this world of drunken dreams, and fly to his own land, clean, noble, to A new organized life begins there. ——Actually, he doesn't care if his biological mother is a daughter of a famous family. He didn't want to find this mother at all. He just wanted to alienate himself from the existing world as a famous child and overseas Chinese, and give himself a situation of "existence but not existence", so as to get rid of the inner anxiety and calm the turmoil of the soul. It also minimizes moral responsibilities.
With this imaginary flawless mother, ALFY achieved a kind of denial and a kind of rejection of the muddy world he was in.
3. Symbolic.
If ALFY can always indulge in a life of timely enjoyment, we may be able to conclude that behind his "remaining mother" and "delay in action", he is just using "birth mother" as an excuse for muddling the world. The so-called flying is just an unnecessary story he made up, and it has no meaning other than self-deception.
But that is not the case.
Whenever the passion passed, he lay on his back alone on the bed, always subconsciously remembering the story of the footless bird:
"I heard people say that there is a bird in this world that has no feet. Sleep in the wind... this bird can only land once in its lifetime, and that time is when it dies."
——The never-ending pursuit. On the journey of self-degeneration and self-saving, although he could not find love, he never gave up his desire and pursuit of self-meaning.
He once used sensual men and women to prove his existence, but gradually he discovered that these things can only make his life more unreal. In this state of subjectivity being materialized, he began to feel a trace of "unbearable lightness of life"-doing nothing, incapable of loving others, and the love he received was not what he thought; some were just flashy and frivolous , Flutteringly and not touching the ground, the whole person seems to just exist, but I don't know what is live.
A Fei, who was always clean and self-loving and unable to abandon himself, felt more and more that all the sorrows, laughs, and sorrows were nothing in the end. The more dazzling the hues, the more empty his heart; when he thinks of something in his heart, even if he is in a lively banquet, he immediately feels boundless loneliness and lack of interest. No, no, he didn't want these at all.
The biological mother far away is not the other side, nor is it just an excuse. She is also a symbol, symbolizing what Afei really wants: his self, his soul, and the meaning of his existence. The mother's womb is the origin of his self and soul, so the image of "birth mother" naturally becomes a symbol of "self" and "soul" in his subconscious.
Perhaps in the eyes of other people, the so-called self and soul are the most dispensable things compared to power, power, wealth, profit, and affection, but this is a worthless thing in the eyes of others. Said it has extremely great value. His self-love is not about self-inflicted self-pity like a water fairy, but wants to prove himself and ask for a meaning for his existence.
But what is the meaning?
Around him, there is no shortage of people who live a solid life. Either a man with a stable career (policeman, seaman), or a woman looking forward to getting married (Su Lizhen); even the friend who climbs down the pipe and looks like a thief and the dancer Lulu believes in love. And he? It is impossible to be an ordinary clerk, nor to manage for a solid life (love, marriage).
The other group of people around him are marginal figures in society, such as prostitutes who appear frequently. Or in Hong Kong, or in the Philippines; or reserved, or vulgar. They are a symbol of carnal desire, and the most persistent thing ALFY is his own soul. ——In the entanglement between A Fei and the prostitute, we can see the subtle contrast of the spirit and the flesh. He is not a secular person at all, and all his desires for power, material desires, and interests have nothing to do with him. Even when there is no money, I still take money very lightly (when I go to the Philippines alone, I give my only property: a car to a friend). At the same time, because I can't believe in feelings, even the lust is dispensable.
"People are different, as they are." Under the contrast of the mixed crowd, it became more and more impractical for him.
Finally, the meaning is lost.
The problem of "self" is approaching day by day, and he can't find "meaning" at all. His ego, his soul, and his meaning, just like that distant biological mother, are just a beautiful and empty ideal.
The idealist who can't walk the extraordinary road, so he feels ordinary and helpless in front of life. A Fei is carrying a heavy soul, waiting for the changes that come down from the sky, and waiting for the reborn day that will never come.
He already knew in his heart that there was nowhere to go, and he lingered in admitting it, refusing to face the reality, he was always stubborn and unwilling to abandon the pursuit of "self", even if the hope was slim.
Over time, the so-called self-seeking not only fails to overcome the lag of the body, but becomes a confinement. Those longings that cannot be suppressed, accumulated in the countless sleepless nights, have nowhere to go, so they have to turn inward and put pressure on self-abuse. ——I can't allow myself to be completely inactive, so I fill the void of waiting with self-abuse.
The result of this self-masturbation, presented to A Fei, is a pathological gloom. The disharmony between the heart and the body caused him to fall into the obscured sorrow of congestion, and he often felt inexplicable melancholy, and there would never be pure happiness. This unforgettable and unforgettable melancholy is just like the one in "Bo Zhou" in "The Book of Songs":
"The worries of the heart are like a bandit's clothes. If you speak quietly and think about it, you can't fly."
He always thought he could. Flying, in fact, his wings have already been broken.
"I used to think that there was a kind of bird that could fly from the beginning to the day of death before landing. In fact, he has never been anywhere. This bird was already dead from the beginning."
——Before he died, he finally Ken admits. This categorically denied everything about myself, somewhat sad, even though it was the case.
At the end of life, the paradox between trying to master one's own destiny and the uncontrollable destiny is once again highlighted.
Since the search for the self is destined to be unfinished forever, then only death can make life disappear, and the "self" that comes with life can be eliminated. The turmoil of the soul returns to calm at this moment, and there is no need to struggle with the problem of "self" from now on.
4. The journey of love and self
"I heard people say that there is a bird in this world that has no feet. It can only fly like this all the time, and sleep in the wind when it's tired... This kind of bird can only land once in its lifetime, and that's when it dies. "
-At the beginning, no one knew why the bird was there or why it was flying. At one time we thought that he was looking for his biological mother, looking for a world beyond; then we thought that it was just an excuse he made up to make us feel at ease. Now we finally know that from the moment he landed, he was destined to continue to pursue that lost love and self. And "the biological mother" is just a symbolic code.
"I used to think that there was a bird that could fly until the day of death before landing. In fact, he has never been anywhere. This bird has died since the beginning."
——He wants to fly here all his life . On the journey of searching for love and self, it is a pity that he is not only a footless bird and a rootless person, but his wings have already been broken. For a person who aims to fly all his life, this Zhanyi's life is not "dead at birth"! The loss of love and self has finally become an eternal regret in life.
With this flying fable, what exactly does "A Fei True Story" want to tell us?
At the end of the song, it was scattered, and it never gave an answer to the question of "self-meaning". Maybe it just wants to show us a kind of "eternal human dilemma", and does not want to praise or criticize specific personnel. This "inconclusive" posture rejected the categorical answer. At the same time, another more meaningful revelation gradually surfaced-I think that everyone's value orientation cannot be explained clearly to others. It may be unrealistic idealism; it may be incapable of being able to achieve it; it may be just a grand excuse for self-deception; or it may be simply obsessed with nothingness-but each person's unique soul should be respected-especially his own respect.
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