People are old enough to die as soon as they are born.

——Heidegger

"Forty percent of freshmen at Peking University think life is meaningless", "30 Peking University students are tired of studying just because they have hollow heart disease." In the past two days, Xu Kaiwen The doctor’s article on the nihilism of modern young people has become an overwhelming hit.

The reason why this article has been discussed a lot is due to two important pieces of information: Peking University student, hollow heart disease.

Peking University students are the best in exam-oriented education. In fact, most of them will also be future workplace elites and so-called winners in life; hollow disease, a new and unfamiliar concept, makes me When I first saw it, I felt a sense of belonging, ah, "hollow", this feeling of emptiness of the walking dead, isn't this what the hell describes me?

Everyone doubts the meaning of life

I remember when I first entered elementary school, I was thinking about why people should live, and what is the meaning of living? When I was in second grade, I wrote a suicide note in a serious manner, planning to bid farewell to this world during the summer vacation that was about to end. I vaguely remember that the suicide note said, "I don't know what I want to do with my life, and I am very curious about whether there is a Hall of Hell in the world." Of course, when my mother saw this suicide note later, her focus was all on "I didn't write a word of homework during this vacation."

When we got to junior high school, we had to write a home-school contact list every day, and write down our daily reflections on it. Sometimes we copied famous quotes and aphorisms, and occasionally we also wrote with true feelings. Once I wrote a letter with true feelings. Fan Hua wanted to hear an answer from the teacher, "Why do people study hard now? To get into a good university, have a good job, live a decent life, and finally have a decent funeral and die decently?" However, , the teacher did not reply to me below that day, but just signed his name to indicate that he had read it.

As I grew up, I would often doubt the meaning of life. When working, I can't help but think about the value of what I do and the significance it can have on the world. However, after thinking about it, I can only think of "I will support myself in the future, that's all." And I can't think of any other great meanings. Then, with this job that just made me breathe, I was angry, depressed and helpless and threw myself into my work life.

So, you see, I am not as good as the students from Peking University, but I have been wondering about the meaning of life and the value of living since I was still in single digits. I am negative, decadent, and look down on myself from time to time. I often ask myself: What does everyone live for? Is it more biological instinct, or is it more about pursuing a certain value? So are the values ??we pursue really what we want to pursue? Or is it instilled in us by the social environment, and we just act as unconscious and passive recipients?

However, in addition to meaning and value, what we rely on for survival are love, cause and effect, fate and instinct. People who have lived up to now with doubts about the meaning of life, as well as love, cause and effect, fate and instincts, in addition to a sense of meaninglessness, have also experienced various small blessings in life. I think this is not the hollow disease that Xu Kaiwen mentioned. So don’t rush to label yourself as a hollow person, and please be cautious when entering the new round of registration.

Hollow heart disease is a value deficiency disorder

What is hollow heart disease? In one of the cases interviewed by Dr. Xu Kaiwen, a man wrote down his feelings after a suicide attempt:

"I was still standing on a small island that was extremely unstable and could fall apart at any time, but at least I knew in my heart Where am I? Now I know that the place I was in is not right. I have become drifting in the vast sea, unable to see the land, and feeling scared from time to time."

Another classmate. Describe your world like this:

"My world is a lawn full of mist. There is a well on the lawn, but I don't know where it is, so I might accidentally fall in while walking. I broke my leg and screamed desperately at the bottom of the dark well. I felt like I had no self at all. This was so difficult.

”

Through these two paragraphs of description, we will find that the hollow disease defined by Xu Kaiwen is actually a value deficiency disorder. This disorder is no longer just a myth of normal people, it seriously affects the normal life of individuals. It is very similar to depression, but different. Its main symptoms are as follows:

1. Symptoms may be consistent with the diagnosis of depression. It will manifest as low mood and loss of interest. Hypohedonia and anhedonia. However, unlike typical depression, all these symptoms are not very severe and prominent, so they may not look any different from other students or most other people.

2. They will have a strong sense of loneliness and meaninglessness. This sense of loneliness comes from having no real connection with the world and the people around them, and all connections have become very illusory; more importantly, they do not know. Why do they want to live? They don’t know the value and meaning of living. They have achieved very good results and achievements. These achievements seem to be an addiction and a drug. They seem to spend a lot of time working hard to gain a sense of accomplishment. But when he finds that he has obtained all those things, he still has a strong sense of meaninglessness.

3. Their interpersonal relationships are usually very good. You care about what others think of you, you need to maintain a good self-image in the eyes of others, you need to be a good child, a good student, a good husband, and a good wife, but it seems that all of this is done for others, so you do it very well. It’s hard work and very exhausting.

4. We have many cases that are insensitive or even ineffective to biological treatments. We have treated them in the best psychiatric hospitals in the country and used all kinds of drugs and even electricity. Shock treatment was given once, twice, and three times, but it was ineffective, which means that biological factors do not seem to be the main factor in their problems.

5. There is strong suicidal ideation. It’s not because of the difficulties, pain and frustrations in reality. In their words, “I don’t really want to die, but I don’t know why I’m still alive. I have absolutely no idea what the value of my life is. My daily life is like a walking dead. If this is the case, I might as well end it as soon as possible. "So they tend not to use such painful and tragic methods to end themselves, such as burning charcoal, hanging themselves, and taking medicine.

6. Usually these clients have not had such problems for more than a day or two. It may have been since junior high school. , high school, or even earlier, he may have attempted suicide before.

7. Finally, the problem with traditional psychotherapy is probably not that it can be changed. Negative cognition can be solved, not even by studying the problems of their family of origin, nor by early trauma - you will find that they have a good relationship with their parents, although there are conflicts of one kind or another, but overall it is not The typical problems of parental divorce, early attachment, and early foster care

Xu Kaiwen also put forward a point in this article: Kongxin disease is a disease of the times. The fertile ground for the birth of Peking University Kongxin disease is utilitarian examination. Education represents a strong value behind it, that is, "As long as I can achieve a good score, I can give up everything, ignore everything, abandon everything, and trample everything." ”

We who are deeply harmed by exam-oriented education have a little idea of ??how exam-oriented education deprives modern young people of their value orientation, and Dr. Xu Kaiwen and others have already discussed it deeply enough. In addition to the impact of exam-oriented education, The alienation comes from the nihilism of modernity.

The essence of modernity is nihilism.

In the modern world, people look at themselves, understand themselves, look at the world, and understand the world. The way has changed. So, modernity actually means the emergence of a new, mainstream attitude towards life.

One of the characteristics of modernity is the one-sidedness of life. Herbert Marcuse has a book called "One-Dimensional Man", which is translated as "One-Dimensional Man" in Taiwan.

The opposite of one-sided is "all-round development of people". What determines the one-sidedness of our lives depends first on our mode of production, which is socialized mass production. Everyone is reduced to a point, a link, a fragment, and a part in the big social machine, just like the worker who only knows how to use a wrench in Chaplin's movie "Modern Times." Karl Max mentioned a very important concept called "alienation" in the "1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts". The concept of "alienation" profoundly reveals the state of servitude under today's living conditions. Everyone becomes a slave to the products they produce. For example, the "house slave" in "Snail House" and the "machine slave" in the TV series "Mobile Phone".

The second characteristic of modernity is "movement". The word "jixin" is a concept in Chinese philosophy and comes from "Zhuangzi·Heaven and Earth". "Smart heart" is the heart of ingenuity. Today, people's pursuit of convenience and comfort in life has reached an unbridled level. This is "motiveness".

The consumer society we live in consists of three links: the first link is to create desires; the second link is to induce desires; and the third link is to satisfy desires. Any new product that creates and occupies the market actually relies on these three links. Desire ultimately mobilizes "motivation."

Many knowledge production no longer assumes the obligation to reveal the truth, but only assumes the obligation of consumption. This superficiality in knowledge production also corrupts the basic qualities of intellectuals. The direction of many intellectuals' efforts has changed. The so-called revealing the truth is actually just to promote consumption.

The third characteristic of modernity is numerical rationality. German sociologist Max Weber put forward a very important modernization theory when talking about the process of modernization. He said: The so-called modernization is actually rationalization. The essence of rationalization is to "disenchant", and "disenchantment" means to remove all kinds of incomprehensible, unfounded, and incredible things. With the sublimation and popularization of rational vision, superstition has nowhere to hide. The sight of reason drives out superstition, just as sunlight drives out darkness.

Weber distinguished the two most important types of rationality: one is instrumental rationality and the other is value rationality. Value rationality can sometimes be called purposefulness, while instrumental rationality is to reduce everything around you, including people, to tools.

The three major philosophical features of modernity have brought three direct consequences: first, the lack of meaning, the inability to find meaning in life; second, moral relativism, the standard by which people judge whether they are moral or good and evil. It is relative, there is no unshakable standard of right and wrong, good and evil; the third is egocentrism. Together, these three characteristics make up the world of nihilism.

Therefore, the break between "modernity" and tradition is essentially a fiction in philosophy and life.

How to fight against hollowness

1. Concrete labor saves hollowness

In Milan Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", life becomes It's light and there's nothing worth fighting for. As life loses weight, life loses meaning.

The meaning of life is not something you can just sit there and think out of thin air. The meaning is found in the process of commitment. Only a life that bears a heavy burden can find its own meaning. Only a life that bears hard work can find its own meaning. Meaning is not something you think of, but something you live out. Ji Kang's favorite thing besides drinking is blacksmithing, so Ji Kang and Xiang Xiu often sit under the big willow tree, hammering at each other, immersed in selfless happiness. The more concrete the labor, the more it can save the nothingness of the moment.

2. Happiness versus hollowness

The Confucian gaze on the world is always as warm as spring. The every detail of life seen with this warm gaze can actually be implemented in personal life. Just happiness.

To find the so-called happiness, to find intimacy, to find that smooth feeling when we have a sense of accomplishment, maybe some of these methods will help.

But can those noble emotions, kindness, justice, integrity, respect, and sense of responsibility make our hearts more fulfilling? Can it help us see a better version of ourselves? Can it make us realize the beauty of life and humanity?

3. Seek help from a professional doctor

In the end of every article that talks about depression and anxiety, I will definitely recommend that people who are suffering from mental torture seek help from a professional doctor. . Everyone can experience negative emotions, but not everyone feels the pain caused by the disease. If you feel very painful, abandoned by the world, and your life is meaningless, I can only tell you, dear, to seek help from a doctor in time. Information on the Internet and other people's stories are always one-sided, and finding experience from other people's experiences is a risky business.

Finally, there are more and more neurotic diseases in this era. Don’t make hollow disease a trend and epidemic and repeat the mistakes of depression.