Entering a strange city to meet strangers

Roger 2022-07-08 20:56:41

Entering an unfamiliar city to meet strangers
- a true warrior who dares to face the unfamiliar self
"Read ten thousand volumes of books, travel ten thousand miles, and read ten thousand discs." Taiwan advertiser Li Xinpin's book "Fourteen Life Creativity Lessons" "The adapted sentence in the preface is an old saying that every scholar would recite sourly, with a bit of seriousness and a bit of ridicule. The world allows us to look forward to our own life with such brief words, just as Ouyang Feng often looks at the desert and thinks about what lies behind the mountain. It was only until the past and memories were burnt, and he went west, spending his long-buried love and his temporarily earning a living. Talented skeptic Jonathan Swift takes Gulliver on a bizarre journey to answer three questions that have plagued humanity for so long: "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
" "The Cube Building" and the splendid and wonderful "Mirror Flower", the protagonists travel with the wisdom of self-proclaimed superior civilization, and even save and transform those ignorant and fearless social beings, in order to get the intervention of our wisdom, Make them linger with a touch of holiness. "Gulliver's Travels"'s powerful description of the outside world is not an invasion of culture, nor is it using the extremely complex development of civilization on the other side of the ocean to retest and test the barbarian land on the other side to show the greatness of a great country. : No matter how prosperous the world is, the truth is only in the country where you once were. The tiny Gulliver is just one star among trillions of galaxies in a small fragment captured by the Hubble Telescope, tiny as a speck of dust. Just being thrown out by Jonathan Swift, forced to see this strange world, as an unarmed character, witnessing intrigue, political ineptitude, playing the clown, constantly ingratiating, and then discovering his own. Tiny, discover the shamelessness of your own country, until you find a pure land, a land that is more sacred and noble than home. More often, what he sees is his own weakness and ignorance. The long-established value system can collapse in an instant, and he thought that the noble culture looks filthy.
It is to see that the promotion of Lilliput's court officials is determined in an over-the-top way, and we may reflect on whether those so-called competitions are also like a game; it is to see a country discuss every year It's all public interest, it's the original system that considers the dream of equal distribution, and it exists stably before thinking about whether the huge difference between you and me is common sense that has been promoted countless times or a helpless compromise; is it necessary to see After a country pursued science so zealously and forgot everything except science, only then did I realize that "although science is an extremely interesting thing, to some extent it lacks the meaning of life," showing the contest between reason and emotion ; The price of seeing immortality is that you can only occasionally pose a beautiful posture or move a finger, and then you will know that each stage of life, old age, sickness and death is endowed with its specific meaning; it is the real dialogue with historical figures, only Knowing the falsehood brought about by speech, the traces of history being modified by human arrogance, the desire for truth, the preciousness of truth, and the cruelty brought about by truth are all buried.
How to get into a strange city and meet strangers is to keep throwing yourself out to see the world like this, finding your own filth and ugliness in the quagmire of brilliance, shamelessness and hypocrisy; entering a strange city and seeing strangers A person who has removed the process of surprise, doubt, and acceptance, finally arrives at the unfamiliar self he has discovered, even like Gulliver, who hates his rough body and is willing to become a simple, peaceful and noble Hui horse. A warrior who dares to face the unfamiliar self. Gulliver did it, Jonathan Swift, who shaped him, did it. We saw the social contradictions in Britain in the first half of the 18th century, the corruption and evil of the ruling bloc, the war of aggression and the harm of colonialism. He used the seemingly mediocre technique of pointing at Sang and scolding Huai to satirize the superstructure he was in. Perhaps wisdom can only bloom in the gap of the mind opened under the oppression of nowhere to hide.
And Gulliver came to a country called Huiliang, where the moral norms and systems are simple, and there is a living state of no desire and no desire. Gulliver wanders between humans and animals. The difference between the two species is The country was all the more clear, but it was all the more ambiguous to apply it to Gulliver and the England he knew. "My heart is breaking." Gulliver took a close-up when he was about to leave Huiliang. A sense of belonging is probably that kind of feeling. Home is a place that can never be returned in space and time, and I think that is the last place Gulliver traveled. Compared with Hui Pang's simplicity and straightforwardness, home is full of twists and turns and dangers. He kept talking about his experience, and the more contempt he cast, the stronger the contrast, the heavier the persecution he suffered, and the weaker the feeling of returning home. The homeland that he never forgets, in fact, on the first day of his voyage, his home is destined to become another destination when he returns. It also gave Gulliver the heaviest and final stimulation - who am I and where am I going?
Interestingly, whether Jonathan Swift himself has schizophrenia is also a time-honored question discussed by 18th century philosophers and politicians. Sadness and melancholy, yearning for good things, a combination of two contradictions, and he Suffering from Meniere's disease caused his dizziness and tinnitus to provide a possibility for the source of his mental problems, and whether there is insane, Einstein's explanation for Insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result," although the explanation for Jonathan's illness is a bit far-fetched, it is unconventional to constantly travel and encourage the courage to face the unfamiliar. In this light, he is not only normal, but a leader of new ideas.
Inevitably, many trips show to us that the world is crazy and uncontrollable, just like a large mental hospital with mental patients scattered everywhere. Thanks to Gulliver's wife's final sentence "I believe in him", which took Gulliver away from the trial full of hypocrisy. That understanding and firmness shines with the author's expectation and affirmation of the kindness in the inherent evil of human nature. We see understanding and trust. The famous academic journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" found that our brains may have an "innate" rejection of "dissidents" (that is, those unfamiliar characters in our travels). We can only use more rational, Patience and effort to communicate, understand and respect? Well, that series of travel notes, those so many different and strange, how to face and understand, still can only be a happy tourist, take a photo like a quick glance, and then life continues.
Entering a strange city and meeting strange people, maybe you have the courage to leave the familiar, but you have not found the strange wisdom.
Maybe by that time, you have become Ouyang Feng and no longer want to know what is behind the mountain.
- Gulliver's Travels, 1996 edition














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Extended Reading

Gulliver's Travels quotes

  • [Gulliver has just explained in great detail the nature of 18th Century Britain]

    Queen of Brobdingnag: The history of you country seems to consist of nothing more than a squalid string of conspiracies, rebellions, revolutions, murders and massacres. Every judgment seems to be motivated by greed, by malice, hypocrisy, hatred, envy, lust and madness!

    Lemuel Gulliver: Perhaps I explained badly.

    Queen of Brobdingnag: You have proved that ignorance, idleness and vice are the only qualifications for public office and that your laws are made by those whose only interest is in perverting them. I can only conclude that your people are the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that ever nature suffered to crawl upon the face of the Earth!

  • [Gulliver has come before the immortal Struldbruggs]

    Immortal Gatekeeper: Welcome to the immortal world.

    [leads Gulliver to a font in the middle of their chamber]

    Immortal Gatekeeper: This is the source of the life everlasting. Drink from this water and you will never fear death. Never.

    [offers Gulliver a dish of the water]

    Lemuel Gulliver: But I have to get home. There's a ship in the harbor. I only have minutes before it sails.

    Immortal Gatekeeper: Minutes? What are minutes? You have no need for such petty considerations here.

    Lemuel Gulliver: [narrating] I was offered immortality... man's dream. With the fear of death removed, I could learn the truths of existence. I could get riches in wisdom. I could read every book ever written. Study the movements of the planets and the stars. I could watch the rise and falls of republics and kings and from the great depths of my knowledge, offer advice to all. I could do anything.

    Immortal Gatekeeper: Drink. Taste immortality.

    Lemuel Gulliver: Why is your hand shaking so badly?

    [he sees a Struldbrugg in the corner coughing up blood]

    Lemuel Gulliver: What's wrong with her?

    Immortal Gatekeeper: Nothing.

    Lemuel Gulliver: What's wrong with everyone?

    Immortal Gatekeeper: Drink the water. You will defy nature.

    [Gulliver notices that she is not looking directly at him]

    Immortal Gatekeeper: You will outlive the stars themselves. You'll be like a god.

    Lemuel Gulliver: You can't see me, can you?

    Immortal Gatekeeper: I'm alive! The water keeps us alive.

    Lemuel Gulliver: You're blind.

    [looks around the room]

    Lemuel Gulliver: You're all blind!

    Immortal Gatekeeper: No, some of us can still make out shape and movement. We'll never die, that's what matters. We'll never die.

    Struldbruggs: [chanting] Never die. Never die.

    Immortal Gatekeeper: That's all that matters... cheating death!

    Lemuel Gulliver: No... no!

    [runs from the chamber]