Born as Human

ID: 132 post_title: Born as Human post_name: '%e7%94%9f%e8%80%8c%e4%b8%ba%e4%ba%ba' author: mxr612 post_date: 2021-03-15 21:30:42 layout: post link: https://mxr612.top/?p=132 published: true tags: [ ] categories:

• Essays

"So-called that world, isn't it just people?"

I have read several versions of No Longer Human, watched the TV version of youthful literature, and also translations from various publishers. Different versions have different translations of sentences, and thus I have read different interpretations of the same sentence. No Longer Human is the last completed novel by the author, in a sense also an autobiography, leaving behind many thoughts and questions.

Xiaoye felt at a loss in his interactions with humans; even ordinary things like eating and playing could fill him with fear. What he feared was not the things themselves, but the thoughts of others that could not be guessed. He was afraid his father would be unhappy, and wished to do what his father wanted him to do, but he could not guess what his father wanted him to do. So his actions were strange and criticized by others. The author has this passage about the "unguessable world": "Unable to say you dislike what you dislike, and trembling like a thief even with things you like, thus sinking into an extremely bitter taste and indescribable pain, unable to extricate yourself."

Was he wrong? He was not wrong; he was merely sensitive. Was the world wrong? The world was not wrong either; it merely exists.

So he simply chose to be funny. He said, "This is my last act of love for humanity." He hoped that "pranks" could please the people around him—parents, brothers, servants. Because he did not know how to get along with people, he only hoped such pleasing could become a way of handling interpersonal relationships.

Reading this, I felt a slight resonance, perhaps because I am a strange child, unable to think like ordinary people or do the same things as ordinary people. So I longed for others' understanding, so I mocked my own strangeness, which could both make people laugh and avoid others' rejection.

The world is a maze, composed of people, and it also makes people lost, with occasional warmth hidden like treasure. For Xiaoye, that was women. Interestingly, Xiaoye always gained warmth from women, perhaps because of sex, but definitely not only sex. The women in the text all carry different forms of tenderness.

But before Xiaoye, beauty is always destroyed. Xiaoye's tragedy does not stem from money, alcohol, drugs, or women, but from the need for love and sensitivity to harm. A coward is afraid even of happiness; touching cotton can wound him.

A down-and-out woman brought him the warmth of empathy, and ultimately jumped off a cliff with Xiaoye to die together. A strong woman (and her daughter) brought him the stability and warmth of home, but Xiaoye collapsed because of the daughter's question about jumping off the cliff and chose to escape. A "genius of trust" gave Xiaoye a full sense of security, but a misunderstanding caused by trust made Xiaoye "unable to trust again."

If speaking only of Xiaoye, he was a child like a god.

He suffered because he faced himself directly; others were happy because they deceived themselves. Facing the complexity of the world, he could not become complex, nor did he have the courage to face it, and could only spend time through prostitution, drinking, and drugs. He was as innocent as a god, escaping like a child.

In reality we would say these people are hateful and pitiable, and probably no one would care why they are like this, only teaching children, "When you grow up, don't learn from them, wasting life." But what is the difference between "a life not wasted" and "a life wasted"? If all who live ultimately die, and all that is possessed cannot be taken away, why do we live? If there is no pain at death, and the pain of the world is no longer known, why do we not die?

So I can understand Xiaoye's suicide.

The so-called world is nothing but people.

Born as human, we are the world.

No need to apologize; it is merely existence.