This is the Chinese translation of the new book by American author Tara Westover. The original name is "Educated". It is said that the Chinese translation comes from the biblical poem "Flee as a bird to you mountain", which means escaping and finding a new one. Faith, when I first saw the title of the book, I thought it was long and a bit awkward to pronounce. However, after reading the entire book and looking back, I found that the translation is so appropriate and meaningful.

A book can move people often because we see ourselves, us, our world, individuals and groups in the book.

"You should fly like a bird to your mountain" as a best-selling marketing slogan - knowledge changes destiny, education changes life, the power of women, rebirth, the pain of growing up...etc. Although it may be eye-catching, it is indeed included in this book. The angle I want to talk about is not so profound and gimmicky. It is just interpreted from the environment that each of us is born in, is still in, and will continue to live in for a lifetime, that is, home, family, and family.

The original family formation of human beings was just to reproduce and survive better. Today, family is our life, and the place where interpersonal relationships begin to develop is also the place that has the deepest impact on the formation of spiritual personality. British anthropologist and historian Alan MacFarlane said, "Families have always contained internal tensions, between the desire for intimacy and dependence on the one hand, and the desire for freedom and adulthood on the other." In the author Tara's autobiography, Tara's growth in a special family uses the most painful, torn, and incredible true story to demonstrate Allen and McFarlane's views on family.

Family

Tara's family is like many families with parents, brothers and sisters living together. The only difference is that she has an authoritarian father. His father's will and beliefs must be followed by everyone in the family. His father's paranoia, ego, and distortion make him distrust the government, which also leads to the fact that all children are not allowed to go to the hospital. In school, Tara spent the first 17 years of her life growing up in a closed and ignorant environment, living an absurd and dangerous life. In such a family, mental bullying and physical trauma exist all the time. It is a kind of poisonous and deformed intimacy and dependence. Many years later, when a reporter interviewed Tara and said that it was because of her father’s extreme behavior that the family suffered a serious car accident, and even though the United States called the police and did not go to the hospital, the reporter asked Tara: “At that time, didn’t you question your father? ?" Tara replied: "No, when I was young, my father said that the world is what it is."

Escape

The first person to escape was. The third brother, Tyler, was different from Tara. He spent a year in school, ignored his father's wishes, bought books and studied by himself, and eventually left the family to go to school. However, Tara officially saw the difference in the third brother and became curious about the outside world. Even the repeated domestic violence by his violent second brother Sean in the following years could not erase it. At the beginning, the knowledge should be singing, which is an allowed activity. I found my individual value in singing and started to apply for the self-study exam.

Split

The motivation to escape is also the motivation to struggle. Tara's academic life is not supported by her family like ordinary families, but is full of obstacles and pain. The most painful thing is that Tarana's thinking mode and living habits are almost engraved in her bones and are so incompatible with the outside world. In this pain, she accepted new knowledge, gained new cognition, and became a new Tara. But when she returned home, she became her father's daughter again and was dominated by her father's will and beliefs. Constantly switching, seeing and seeing, but unable to choose, even if I saw through the lies my father spun, I escaped and devoted myself completely to study and school, from Cambridge to Harvard.

After getting rid of ignorance but unable to get rid of the torment of either/or in the heart, the daughter of her father cannot be her true self.

More possibilities

Tara lingered in such painful suffering for many years, sometimes struggling and sometimes falling deeply. At that time, she was like a traveler walking in thick fog, a traveler who was about to be drowned by quicksand. Every line was full of despair and suffocation. Even if you go to the highest school, you can't escape the schizophrenia caused by this tear. Maybe you want to ask Tara, who suffered so much, finally escaped, became independent and strong, and obtained a high degree of education. Is the education she received useless?

Of course education is useful, Tara said when explaining why she named it educated: The education mentioned in my story is not just narrow vocational training, but self-creation in a broad sense, which is experiencing after learning. After passing through all things in the world, we have the ability to judge ourselves. Education is a process of discovering self-awareness. Education means gaining different perspectives and understanding different people, experiences and histories.

Education gave Tara the courage to face her truest self, the cowardly, the powerful, the decadent, the new, the love, and the hate. Education allowed Tara to see more possibilities, instead of an either-or in life.

Tara said: You can love someone and still choose to leave them. You can choose to miss someone every day and still be grateful that they are not in your life.

Tara chose to fly to her mountain with bird wings. Break free from the extreme mental confinement of family and family and achieve freedom and adulthood in the true sense.