1.0- 10 years old: Xinhua Dictionary
Many people ask Bai, "What is the book that has the greatest influence on you?" Bai said: "My answer is always the same, of course, Xinhua Dictionary."
In fact, to be exact, Bai in the 1970s had no bookshelves, only a Xinhua Dictionary. Bai said, "Without Xinhua Dictionary, I can't enter the vast China culture. Its profoundness makes me become a real China person step by step in the cultural sense. Xinhua dictionary is too important to me! "
Bai once said an interesting contrast: In the decades of history of China, Xinhua Dictionary has always been accompanied by "a catty of pork", which is very wonderful. He said: "1957, Xinhua dictionary 1 yuan. At that time, 94 yuan had a kilo of pork. 1998, Xinhua dictionary 1 1 yuan, pork 10 yuan a catty. It's hard to say which China people's lives will be changed by a kilo of pork, but one book after another, Xinhua Dictionary, which is equivalent to it, has promoted one China person after another to become a real cultural China person. I am the same. "
"If there is no Xinhua Dictionary, how can I have the courage and ability to open one book after another, thick or thin, from the beginning to the end when I know the simplest Chinese characters? If I can't open those books, how can I open them in front of me with many puzzles and many unknowns? What is growth? Growth is not only the slow growth of age, but more importantly, one question mark after another accumulated in my heart has slowly got the answer. "
Second, 10-20 years old: selected obscure poems
Bai said: "When I look back at my age of 18, that is, 1986, the memory of hunger was very clear to me at that time, but I think such a clear memory of hunger is not as unforgettable as the memory of hunger related to reading."
Bai said, "Many books I have collected now were bought in 1986, and several books that have made important changes in my life are also related to 1986. I'm surprised. When I opened Selected Misty Poems, I suddenly saw: 1986 was purchased from Wangfujing Bookstore on May 8th. You know that for people at that time, Beijing Wangfujing Bookstore was like a church, and you were almost like a pilgrimage. "
"Nobleness is the epitaph of the noble, meanness is the passport of the despicable." When we opened the book, two sentences floated before our eyes. Bai said: "When I read these two poems and so many poems in the book, the young people who really came from the grassland became Beijingers, from middle school students to college students. I suddenly realized that poems that are so obscure in other people's minds are so easy for us to read, because they reflect our hearts and let us find our own language expression. Instead of following my grandparents or parents to the set of words that they are already familiar with, I became a responsible China person and began to think about various problems in China, and began to have my own independent way of thinking. "
"In this way, Selected Poems has deeply changed me. In Selected Poems, I found my own language and began to be independent. "
Third, 20-30 years old: Zeng Guofan
Bai said: "The youth of every generation is not easy. Don't make your youth so melodramatic. Everyone has a swamp of youth at the age of 20. I understand that people will inevitably have some feelings in their youth, but they need to go out on their own. Moreover, today's young people can seek dialogue through the Internet, which is much better than when we were here! "
So what is white youth like? In the mid-1990s, Bai, who was in his twenties, entered the Eastern Time and Space and became the host of The Son of the East. Recalling the feeling of shouldering heavy responsibilities at a young age, Bai said: "I know I definitely don't have such confidence in my life, so I will keep learning." Reading is helping me, and a thick set of books has played a very important role-Zeng Guofan of Tang Hao Ming. "
"In the book Zeng Guofan, I saw the most complicated human nature, including Zeng Guofan who made me respect, Zeng Guofan who made me angry, Zeng Guofan who was very famous in culture, and Zeng Guofan who got into the corner. A person's humanity is so complicated that I began to have a fuller understanding of people and humanity. "
When young Bai closed the last page, he suddenly felt that he had grown up. He gradually realized that he should return to his original heart, instead of looking at the world simply by right or wrong, winning or losing, he had more courage to face new challenges.
Four, 30-40 years old: Tao Te Ching
Bai said: "In the new century 10, if I were to pull out a book in my memory from the shelf, what would it be?" Of course, we have to trace back to our ancestors-Tao Te Ching. We are far less clever than our ancestors. People didn't read thousands of books or take the Wan Li Road, but like Lao Tzu, we wrote the Tao Te Ching with more than 5,000 words. When you have the opportunity to open this book again, you find that our ancestors wrote almost everything today. " Reading Tao Te Ching lets Bai know how to live the rest of his life.
Bai said that a passage in the book made him think deeply, that is, there are three relationships to be solved in a person's life: the relationship between man and matter, the relationship between man and man, and the relationship between man and heart. The relationship between man and matter is the first stage, and the material foundation is extremely important. Next, in the face of the relationship between people, people usually say that it is easier to get along when they are in love, and it is not difficult to get along if they have a full understanding of human nature. More importantly, the third point, the relationship between people and their hearts, people can not convince themselves, how to go to the second half of life and sum up the first half? After reading Laozi's "Selflessness makes it personal", Bai suddenly became enlightened and learned how to spend the rest of his life.
Maybe all the people in China know that "Tao can be Tao, not surprising". Once, a man joked with Bai, "Don't read like this. There were no punctuation marks at that time. You can read it in another way. Tao can be, Tao can't be, and Tao will always be. " It means: it is common sense to say one thing, some people say it right and some people say it wrong. This explanation may be wrong, but it opens a white mind. There are many problems that can be considered from another angle.
Bai said: "When I was approaching middle age, the Tao Te Ching helped me a lot. I can forget many things. For example, it will tell you that if the glass is full, you should throw it out, otherwise you can't put anything in it. So I quit all three of my producers in 2003. Just like a computer, no matter how big it is, you have to reset the previous operation to zero before you can restart it. Yes ".
"Looking back on the first forty years, Four Books, Xinhua Dictionary, Selected Poems, Zeng Guofan and Tao Te Ching have become my guideposts every ten years, reflecting the relationship between reading and my life." Bai said, in his view, you have to go through something at any age. Some books can't be read now, and they won't be put down in a few years. This is reading and climbing stairs.