Please allow me to copy this message here-
"I don't know how to address you. Every attempt makes me depressed, so I take the liberty to speak. This is really a cordial and warm respect for life from the heart.
"Remember your name is about seven years ago, when I read a book parents must read, there is an article written for children or for children. It is printed, but it has a delicate feeling. I think your man's face is very different.
"Later, when I grew up, I read more of your articles. I often recommend them to people around me. I never make noise. I feel that your articles and people seem to need us to be quiet. Because of what, I won't delve into it.
"This time, reading your" Time Village Past "is like walking in the country, bathed in the cleanest and warmest sunshine. I am a humble life, but I believe you will be willing to listen to this life quietly and say,' I am willing to listen to you quietly …' I never want to imagine you as a thinker or essayist, so you won't get angry.
"Maybe many years later, I will be old. At that time, I believed that I would sincerely thank those words I read when I was young. "
There is no signature at the end of the letter, only this line: "life has no name, right?" I am, so are you. " It was not until I found that there was no sender's address on the envelope that I thought of checking it. Instead, the word "time village" was used. I noticed the postmark, which was sent from Huailai, Hebei.
Judging from the tone of the letter, I believe that the writer is a very young girl who has just grown up, a girl who lives in a poor town. I have never sent a manuscript to my parents for reading. The article that let her meet me for the first time may be reprinted by this magazine, or it may be that she misremembered the place where she published it, but it doesn't matter. What moved me was the way she read my article, not looking for ideas from it, nor appreciating it as prose, but listening to another life quietly. So what I get is not the satisfaction of a writer's vanity, but the warmth of one life being understood by another life and the deep touch of the root of a warm human nature.
"Life has no name"-how well it is said! Who had a name when we were born? Who came with a title, position, identity, property, etc? However, as we grow up and become more and more addicted to worldly affairs, few people can remember this simple fact. We meet by name, which is associated with title, status, property and so on. As a result, under the entanglement of these parasites, life itself is hidden and even shrunk. The feeling of life is becoming more and more paralyzed, whether for yourself or for people. Many times, we just live in this world with a title. Even partners who get along with each other day and night rarely treat each other in the natural state of life, and it is more an ethics and habit. In the vast universe, perhaps only our planet has left flower of life. However, on this lucky planet, there are exchanges of interests, contests of status and struggles for property everywhere, and the most rare thing is the encounter between life and life. Think about it carefully, how we put the cart before the horse, because of small losses, failed to live up to the care of nature.
Yes-I am, you are, how ordinary and unique life everyone is. There was no name, but the ending was very touching. I, you, every life came to this world by accident, and it is impossible to be born, but I was born after graduation, and then I will inevitably leave. Think about the infinity of the world in time and space and the contingency of the birth of every life. How can the meeting of one life and another life not make people feel like a miracle? Sometimes I even feel that there were two kinds of life in the world at the same time. Even if they never met, there is still a touching karma between them. I believe that this treasure and understanding of life is the deepest source of all human love. You say you love your wife, but if you don't love her as a unique life, your love is still limited. You love her beauty, gentleness, virtue and intelligence, of course, but these qualities can also be found in other women. It's just that her life, as a living body, can't be reorganized or regenerated by women all over the world. Once lost, it can't be retrieved. Everything in the world can be repeated, love can be repeated, spouse can be chosen, identity can be concocted, money can be repeated, and even history can be repeated, but life can't. The more subtle things are, the more unrepeatable they are. Therefore, relative to every ordinary and unique life, all kinds of external experiences, including fame, status and property, are really superficial.
In this case, when another life, a life that is too strange to even know its name, finds that your life is far away but just around the corner, it sends a response to your life without asking for anything in return through secular utilitarianism and cultural appearance. Isn't this touching luck in life?
Therefore, I want to thank this unknown girl for inspiring my life with her quiet listening and understanding. She convinced me more and more that it really doesn't matter whether I am a thinker or an essayist. I just want to keep the true face of one life, a innocence that can listen to other lives quietly and make other lives willing to listen quietly. The happiness in this is far from flashy fame and fortune.
I really want her to know my thanks and I hope she can read this article.
1994? three