I know this. The description of love by "caring for each other" means that a pair of lovers have been helping each other in difficult times and have a good relationship together. "caring for each other" originally means that fish in trouble wet each other's bodies with foam in their mouths in order to survive. Later used to refer to the feelings of husband and wife, can also be used for friends. Metaphor is to help each other with meager strength in a difficult situation.

There is also a saying "It's better to forget about the rivers and lakes", which means that the spring water is dry and the fish's saliva wets each other, so why not go to the rivers and lakes separately for more freedom. Metaphor is to help each other with meager strength in difficult situations; Sometimes you might as well give up clinging and welcome the world with a new self.

Source:

From The Great Master of Zhuangzi: "When the spring dries up, the fish phase is on the land, and it is better to forget each other in the rivers and lakes. It is better to forget about it than to be arrogant. " Later generations refined the idiom "caring for each other".

The moral of the story

Two fish moistened each other with breath in a pond where the spring water was dry, and smeared each other's body surface with only a little spit in their mouths, so that each other could survive and prolong some lives as much as possible. It is a noble moral character to leave the hope of life to others when the crisis of survival comes. In order to survive, it may be touching to feed each other with foam in their mouths, but such a living environment is not normal or even helpless. For fish, the ideal situation is that the water finally overflows, and the two fish finally return to their own world, and finally they forget each other in the rivers and lakes. In their most suitable place, happy life, forget each other, but also forget that life.

The ancients in China valued kindness over love, and love was replaced by survival, food and clothing, gratitude, morality and ethics, and "but not as those know it who have been poor together" and "the wife of dross can't stay in the classroom". Behind these old sayings, people saw a sad picture of love. If Zhuangzi's words are used to explain love, the most beautiful love should be like a fish forgotten in the rivers and lakes, and two people love each other to the best of their ability, instead of helpless shoulder to shoulder under the pressure of life and forced hand in hand under the moral bondage. Zhuangzi imagined a higher level of love for people here. ?

In difficult situations, helping each other with meager strength may be the same for people and feelings: caring for each other, sometimes for survival or helplessness, may be touching; Forgetting about the rivers and lakes is a kind of realm, and perhaps it needs an open and indifferent state of mind. Being able to forget and give up is also a kind of happiness.