Man is an animal suspended in a self-woven web of meaning.
—— Max Weber
Oral / Wu Xiaobo (WeChat public account: Wu Xiaobo Channel)
Two days ago, I was walking in the small garden downstairs of my home. I passed by an osmanthus tree. I originally wanted to get closer to see if there were any buds growing on the tree. As a result, I suddenly found a spider. .
This is a black spider, weaving a web. Its eight legs swayed and waved alternately, stopping and walking on the spider web that was beginning to take shape, and its tail pulled out slender threads, making it look busy.
I had nothing to do that day, so I simply stopped and watched it quietly weave its web. As I watched, a question suddenly popped up in my mind: How many webs can a spider weave in its lifetime?
I really didn’t know the answer, so I looked it up online. Unexpectedly, this little question that came to my mind by chance really gave me some inspiration.
According to information, there are more than 46,000 kinds of spiders in nature, and the number of webs weaved by different spiders in their lifetime is different, which can be roughly divided into three types:
Some spiders only weave one web in their lifetime, such as ball spiders and funnel spiders. Spider . They select a corner and start weaving a web. After the web is completed, they continue to repair it. This web will grow larger and thicker. From birth to death, ball spiders and funnel spiders basically spend their lives in this web.
Some spiders can weave a web in one day, such as , garden spider, and golden spider. After they finish weaving a web, they move to another place and continue weaving a new web.
There is also a third type of spider that is a hunting spider, such as cunning spider . Judging from its name, you know it should be quite cunning. This type of spider does not usually build a web, but only builds a web when it finds prey that it can catch somewhere. When the hunting mission is completed, they will leave and continue to wander elsewhere, looking for the next place worthy of spinning their webs.
When I looked up this information, I smiled knowingly, not only because I realized the richness and wonder of nature, but also because I thought that if we compare the life of a spider with the life of a human, they seem to be very similar. I can't help but wonder, if I were a spider, what kind of spider would I be? This is actually a life and philosophical proposition.
Different attitudes towards life will produce different web-weaving behaviors.
Max Weber said in his book "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" that humans are animals suspended in the web of self-woven meaning. What's the meaning? It means that a person has been thinking about how he should spend his life since he was young. This question will give birth to goals and ideals. When goals and ideals are determined, he will fight for them.
The process of striving for dreams is the process of a person weaving his own web of meaning. It will bring two results.
The first result is that the website will become the value of your life and constitute the entire meaning of your life.
and what is the other result? You spin silk and spin the web diligently every day. The more diligent you are, the more silk you spin, and the more severely you are restricted by this web. You build a web to catch prey, and you eventually become the prey of this web. This seems to be a helpless life.
will tell you a story that happened to me. I wrote "The Great Defeat" and "30 Years of Turmoil", both of which were about China's business history. A few years ago, the Chinese film market was very hot. I had some friends who were making movies in Beijing. They wanted to make some commercial movies with realistic themes, which were about Chinese business history . Who do they think of? Think of me.
Two directors flew all the way to Hangzhou to find me and said to me, "Teacher Wu, we have all read your book "The Great Defeat", which talks about many Chinese business figures."
I said: "Yes, I have seen people from Yu Zuomin , Lu Guanqiu , Wu Renbao , to Jack Ma , Ma Huateng , very There are many famous entrepreneurs, and I know their stories. "
The director said: "Look, you are a huge treasure of business and entrepreneurial stories. Can you help us write a movie script?"
I thought about it and thought it was quite interesting, so I agreed and said, "Okay, I'll write it."
Then I stayed at home and wrote a business war movie script. I wrote it for a week and wrote more than 10,000 words at that time. But I picked up the phone and called these two directors and said I'm sorry, I can't do the job.
Why? Because I am a non-fiction financial writer, in my financial writing, when I write down any entrepreneurial story on the computer, I have two requirements for myself: First, This story and case are real ;The second point is called "isolated evidence does not stand", that is, the fact cannot occur in isolation. There must be at least another relevant person or insider who has seen or knows the fact before I will write it down.
So I am a non-fiction financial writer. Everything I think about will be based on facts. When I started writing the screenplay, what happened? It’s just that I have lost the ability to make fiction.
So I said to the two directors: "Sorry, I may not be able to write this movie script, but you can find a few screenwriters and I can tell them stories." If you want to tell a business story, I can tell them three stories Three days and three nights. But I can’t be a novelist or a screenwriter because the fictional string in my mind has been pulled out.
You see, I spent 30 years becoming a non-fiction financial writer, but when I started writing a fictional business story, I found that I had lost this ability.
I think I may never be able to write a business war novel or script. You think about it, The same is true for writing business stories, and every path is so narrow. So maybe many people are like me. When you weave a web of meaning, you are also limited to this field.
In this sense, I should be a ball or funnel spider, weaving only one web in its life. What's the downside? The disadvantage is that I don’t have the opportunity to experience the joy of being a novelist.
Of course, there are many students now who are slash youth. I know a lot of students born in the 1990s, and I think they are quite capable and can do a lot of things with their hands free. For example, they can work during the day, run a bar at night, or be the organizer of a travel club, and a part-time photographer, etc. They have many abilities and their time is spread widely. They should belong to the second type of spider.
In fact, whether you are like me, studying one thing for 30 years, or like these post-90s students, weaving many different webs, whichever choice is good. You see, there are more than 46,000 species of spiders on the earth. Don’t they all have different choices when it comes to weaving webs? What is the key to
? The point is that you need to know which kind of spider you are, and ask yourself if you are really happy with this choice. Just be happy.
Next, we might as well ask ourselves three questions: What is my relationship with the web I am weaving? Is it possible for me not to be limited by the web of meaning I have spun? Or, do I have the possibility and ability to escape this web of meaning?
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