Einstein had the following confessions in his later years:

It is difficult for a person to know the meaning of his life, and of course he should not bother others with it. How much does a fish know about the water it swims in all its life?

However, Einstein, after all, made a clear answer from a certain side:

Bitterness and sweetness come from the outside, strength comes from the heart, and comes from our own efforts.

For more than 20 years, this self-improvement answer has been like a lighthouse standing on the foggy sea at night, looming and shining on my life voyage.

In many other places, Einstein answered the eternal question of "what is man" with very clear language and conclusions:

We eat food grown by others, wear clothes sewn by others and live in houses built by others. Most of our knowledge and beliefs are taught to us by others through languages created by others. ..... The reason why an individual becomes an individual and the significance of his existence lies not so much in his personal strength as in his being a member of the great human society. From birth to death, society dominated his material life and spiritual life.

I think Einstein's simple view of "what is man" is acceptable to us.

Different people have different answers to the question "What is a person?". Even the same person will have different answers at different times. For example, Hugo, a great French writer in the19th century, sometimes gives a very gloomy answer. Hugo said, we are all sinners; We are all sentenced to death, but we all have an indefinite probation period; We only have a short time, and then there will be no us here.

Later, Hugo's pessimistic answer, intentionally or unintentionally, became one of the pioneers of French existentialism in the 1940s, because Camus also regarded man as a lifelong slave in ancient Greek mythology-Sisyphus. He was destined to push a boulder up the mountain forever, and when he reached the top of the mountain, he rolled down again, so he pushed it again, and so on.

However, when Goethe talked about Sisyphus, it was almost another tone. Because the poet's life is indeed full of great creativity and has made great contributions to human culture. 1824 65438+1October 27th, Goethe, who is in his twilight years, reviewed his life when talking with ekman:

People usually regard me as the luckiest person, and I have nothing to complain about myself, and I am not picky about my life experience. My life is basically hard work. I can say that I have lived for 75 years, and I haven't lived really comfortably for a month. It's like pushing a stone up a mountain, and the stone keeps rolling down and pushing it up. My chronology will clearly illustrate this statement.

-readers, this is man!

Answering the question "What is man" is also very important in Kant's philosophical system. In his later years, he even asserted that all philosophical undertakings can be attributed to the answer to this question. At the age of 75, Kant replaced words with his creative mental work all his life, and made the following answer with his hard work in the spiritual garden of philosophy: man is a creature who creates culture with the help of amazing ability-imagination. "Achieving (absolute) satisfaction in life-this is a symptom in itself, indicating that this is a kind of idleness, all motives have stopped, and feelings and related activities are also boring. However, this state is just like the heart stopping working in animals, which is incompatible with people's spiritual life. " In Kant's view, people are constantly doing creative work; Work is the best way to make people happy.

Shortly before Einstein died, he said to his friends, "As long as you get a reasonable thing to do one day, your work and life will be a bit strange."

In fact, Einstein's life is full of energy and light, because he always does something reasonable. For him, the only difference between life and death is that he is not studying physical problems, thinking about the unified structure of nature, and constantly approaching "him", that is, approaching Spinoza's god-nature.

Goethe, Kant and Einstein worked like Sisyphus all their lives, which naturally reminds me of a conversation between Confucius and his disciples:

Tired of studying, Zigong told Zhongni Day: "I want to have a rest." Zhong Ni said, "Life has no rest."

I am really impressed that eastern and western philosophers should have such a consistent view. In the era when we are struggling for the Chinese nation to take off in the world, we might as well give this motto a brand-new meaning and write it on our banner.

I think people are composed of three parts: recalling the past, grasping the present and looking forward to the future.

When people reach middle age, most of them think so. 18-year-old young people, probably only expect it; Most 80-year-olds only have memories; As for a middle-aged man in his forties, he often swings back and forth between longing and memory. However, whoever grasps the present should be the focus; As the second part of the whole, as an intermediate link, its proportion should account for 95%.

"Life is young." Who hasn't relived the experience of Meng Tong? Going home from school and entering the house to call "mom" as a teenager; Autumn and spring in Yuanmingyuan, trysts and strolls on the forest path, through the vast night, my lover left and never came back. ...

Memories of the past have several meanings.

On some touching occasions, the past is vivid, and the memory that can withstand the wind and rain is really a deep-rooted expression of human nature and an irresistible psychological impulse, just like spring comes and seeds sprout irresistibly.

When a person sometimes feels lonely in real life, he will get some unspeakable comfort and happiness from some sweet memories; I'm afraid this kind of happiness is no less than the pleasure that historians and geologists get by tracing the rise and fall of a dynasty and the evolution of nature. Because these scientists believe in the adage: "It is no more pleasant to bring something dead back to life than to create it."

Moreover, "bringing back the dead" has another layer of greater significance: stringing pearls that have long been scattered in memory is to use the mirror of the past to illuminate the present road of life and enhance confidence and courage in looking forward to the future.

I don't believe that the pain in life (as long as it is sincere and kind), once recalled, will often feel a touch of sweetness and turn into a profound poem. Pushkin wrote: "The past will be a kind of nostalgia." This is like dead vines, old trees, crows and other sad objects. Once it becomes the theme of poetry and painting, it often gives people the highest aesthetic enjoyment. -I call this highest aesthetic enjoyment sweet melancholy or melancholy sweetness.

Why can Chopin's 19 serenade touch your heart and hook your soul? It is precisely because of this sentimental "piano poet" that he has created a poetic realm of "sweetness and melancholy" with melody and sound.

Why does Niu Xiji's poem "Remembering the green silk skirt and pitying the grass everywhere" have immortal artistic charm? One of the reasons is that it creates a "sweet melancholy" state in your heart.

Memory is undoubtedly one of the creative psychological motivations of many excellent literary and artistic works, and it is also the main part of it. It can be said that without memory, literature and art will lose their luster and become dry.

One of the reasons why a piece of music often makes us cry is that it can remind people of the past. When we were young, the episode of the American film Cui Di Xiao Chun had this function most. Because its lyrics are full of memories. Arouse memories:

When we were young, on a beautiful May morning, you said you loved me when we were young.

You once said you loved me, ah! We are soul mates, we laugh, we cry, and it's time to break up. Don't forget that you loved me when we were young.

Who has no youth? Who didn't love in the past? When you are white-haired and standing in the oblique light of the sunset, you suddenly hear this song floating from the Woods in the distance in late autumn. How can you resist its emotional power? How can you resist memories?

How do people with feelings resist feelings? How do people with memories resist memories?

People without memories are incomplete people and dry people; Both human beings and individuals are historical in nature. The historical consciousness of human beings endows human beings with wisdom and makes them aware of their present situation, which is conducive to looking forward to the future. Memory is an individual's historical consciousness activity. Without such activities, people can't even appreciate many literary works, let alone engage in literary creation. For example, some adults actually commented on the film "Old Things in the South of the City": "Children's films are boring!" The person who said such a thing is a child himself. Because children don't have much memory.

One of the psychological backgrounds of Tang poetry and Song poetry creation is also the recollection of the past;

How many Penglai past events, looking back, are all fog. Outside the sunset, Western jackdaw in the west counts, and the water flows around the lonely village.

In essence, recalling the past is also a fantasy, a "daydream". Their function is often to make up for the defects and deficiencies in current life with fantasy. Freud said that night dreams are the realization of wishes; Daydreaming is a fantasy and a realization of wishes. Poetry creation and dreams (night dreams and daydreams) are often the same thing. There are many dreams in Tang poetry and Song poetry. Su Dongpo's eulogy "Jiangchengzi" (Yi Mao recalled dreams day and night on the 20th day of the first month) best illustrates this argument of Freud's theory:

Ten years of life and death are two boundless, disapproving and unforgettable. A lonely grave thousands of miles away, desolate and nowhere to talk about. Even if we don't know each other, our faces are dusty and our temples are frosty. When night came, my dream suddenly returned to my hometown. Xiao Xuan window is being dressed. Care for each other without words, only a thousand lines of tears. It is estimated that the annual heartbroken place, moonlit night, short matsuoka.

This poem, which describes the love of the couple in Where Are You Going, is a mixture of dreams and poems from the poet's creative motivation to the content (the poet was originally a dreamer). It can be seen that the recollection of the past is deeply rooted in human nature!

As for the hopes and longings for the future, they are also fantasies and dreams in essence.

/kloc-Voltaire, a famous French thinker in the 0/8th century, put it well: God gave man two things-hope and dream-to alleviate his pain.

A hopeless person is a desperate person, a lifeless person. One can't live without hope for a day. Its roots in human nature are deeper and stronger than recalling the past. It is the cell of the spirit, the white blood cell and red blood cell of the spirit; It is one of the signs of a person's vitality.

"to see the sun, for all his glory, buried by the coming night" Among the old people, there are also many people full of hope. These are real people, people who will never grow old:

The old horse crouches, aiming at thousands of miles; The martyrs were full of courage in their later years.

Beethoven died suddenly in his creative plan. He said that he would write a few more great works and then say goodbye to the world like an old child. )

1945 In April, Einstein retired as an honorary professor. A few months before his retirement, he had a sincere conversation with Professor Stern. Einstein said that he was painstakingly studying some changes in the theory of relativity, and his retirement would never interrupt this work.

In this regard, Steen commented: "Retirement does not mean that Einstein gave up all future scientific activities. Public servants can retire, but smart people can't. "

I think this is the true meaning of "the martyrs are full of courage in their twilight years". This spirit is naturally very kind to our nation in the face of the rising sun and the resurgence.

Hope is an ideal and a pursuit.

/kloc-Lessing, a famous German thinker and writer in the 0/8th century, said that it is more noble to pursue the truth constantly than to possess it. This is Einstein's favorite famous saying. He took it as his life motto and gained strength and comfort from it.

Indeed, what really makes people feel happy and satisfied is the constant pursuit and the process of pursuit. It is better to travel hopefully than to reach your destination.

I think this is the most fundamental psychological principle that dominates all human activities.

People who are constantly pursuing and full of hope are exactly what Confucius said: "endless life." Picasso was such a great artist. He studied printmaking at the age of 60 and Potter at the age of 70. His inexhaustible passion for pursuing artistic beauty is amazing. He said, "There will never be such a day ... I can say" I have finished my work "and" Tomorrow is Sunday ". Once your work is over, it means that you must start a new job. ..... you can never say the word' end'. "

Let's talk about the most important part of a person-grasping the reality!

What is "reality"?

Modern western logical positivism philosophers and operational physicists have thought about this problem. Einstein also racked his brains for this problem. Einstein believes that the experience of "present" is unique to human beings and is essentially different from the past and the future. However, this major difference does not appear in physics, and it is impossible to appear. This kind of experience is beyond the grasp of science. For him, this seems to be a painful but helpless thing.

For those of us who are not physicists, there is naturally no need to fidget about the current physical significance. We are only content to understand the present as our daily experience: the present experience is everyone's own, everyone has his own present, and everyone has different attitudes towards the past, present and future.

As for the author, the present (current) is regarded as 1 and the vision for the future is regarded as 0. Every pupil knows that the position of 0 is very important. 0 can only display its value and weight after 1 instead of before 1. The more zeros after 1, the greater the value. In everyday language, it is: great ambition makes great people, but we must firmly grasp the present.

Only cherish and firmly grasp every minute of the moment and devote yourself to the great cause of rejuvenating China in the most effective way is the most reliable guarantee for the beautiful scenery in the future. Otherwise, you will waste your youth in colorful hope soap bubbles.

However, without memories of the past and hopes for the future, it is difficult to grasp the present. A person who can't grasp the present is a person who has lost himself. In the torrent of life and the world, he is bound to dance aimlessly alone in the afterglow of the west wind like the last dead leaf falling from a tree in early winter.

As for the relationship between memory and hope, we may say that memory is a distant and dark dusk after all; Hope is the bright morning light nearby.

Ah, people, more hope, more morning light. ...