Easier said than done
July 26th, 2022

I thought that all genres were like iron cages, caged with groups of dumb birds called "writers" or "poets". Everyone is flying in the cage, and they will be laughed at and scolded if they accidentally collide with the cage. One day, a nine-headed bird hit the cage hard, expanding the space inside the cage, and everyone flew in the enlarged cage. Another day, a group of nine-headed birds broke through the cage, but they still couldn't fly into the blue sky, they just flew into a bigger cage. Four-character poems, five-character poems, seven-character poems, free poems, Tang legends, Song dialects, Yuan Zaju, Ming novels. The formation of a new style does not happen overnight. Once formed, it must be stable for a long period of time, and it must have its norm—the cage. The nine-headed birds kept ramming it and expanding it, but before breaking through the cage, they always flew in the cage. There may be Marx's dialectics here.

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For us single-headed birds, it is enough to flutter a few thin wings in the cage of prose that was rammed by the nine-headed masters.
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It was noon when I came out of the "No Blowing" restaurant at the foot of Suoxiyu Mountain, a newly opened tourist resort. The white air in the mountains rises, the yellow light on the stone road is dazzling, and I don't know where the sun is. I only felt that my bare skin was being pricked by a needle, and the sweat was too sticky to come out, and my body seemed to be coated with a layer of sticky glue. When I met my brother in previous years, he always talked about the popularity of Hunan. Although I made promises, I actually didn’t think so. Because I know from the weather forecast that the temperature in Changsha is not much higher than that of Beijing, and sometimes it is not as high as Beijing, and I have been in Beijing for many years, and I have not felt that Beijing's summer is difficult. Now of course I know. I knew it at noon on the day I first arrived in Changsha. I saw the vendors on the streets of Changsha, all listless, with faces like drunken crabs, pedestrians hurried away with their heads bowed, unable to look forward to it. Taking the long-distance bus from Changsha to Changde, when the car passed the Xiangjiang Bridge, I saw the river water was turbid like mung bean soup, and dozens of white boats and black boats died on the water. The sticky grayish-yellow light appeared on the river surface, and there was no such feeling when reading Chairman Mao's famous poem "Qinyuanchun·Changsha" when he read the famous poem "Qinyuanchun·Changsha". Maybe it's because of the different seasons. Over there, the famous Juzizhou is like a woman who has peeled off Qiluo and lies on the river covered in sweat. I hope that when the cold autumn comes, she will dress herself up with fiery red splendor. I should find an autumn Opportunity to go to Hunan.
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The proprietress of the "Don't Brag" restaurant added one or two chili peppers to the two or two bowls of noodles. When I left the restaurant, I still felt like a furnace, the sweat that flowed out seemed to be dark red, and every pore was burning with fever. The new land, the road is rugged, we have to go to a place ten miles away to take a car. Fortunately, the ten-mile road passes through a mountain valley. It is said that the mountain valley has beautiful scenery, like the scenery of heaven. Shout out to go, and everyone starts walking together. Hundreds of steps after entering the valley, I looked back at the "No Blowing Cow" restaurant, and saw the large red cloth curtain hanging like a piece of cowhide under the eaves of the corridor. I remembered those "Wonderful Hands Rejuvenating" and "Hua Tuo" hanging on the inner wall of the restaurant. The pennant such as "I'm alive", I feel panic in my heart.
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I crossed the three rivers in Hunan, walked through the three cities of Hunan, climbed Wujia Mountain in Hunan, and on the long-distance bus covered with yellow dust, I saw rolling hills and lush trees on both sides of the road, and nature was like a sleeping horse. the beast. I think the nature in Hunan, especially in Western Hunan, has its own character. This kind of character is as solemn and simple as ancient pottery stained with human blood, and it is wild and brilliant. Recalling that many years ago, many of Sanxiang's romantic children walked out from here and entered the world stage, where they were all powerful, calling for wind and rain, turning the world upside down, and shaking the earth with their feet.
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Walking into the Shili Gallery, there was a slight wind, and the hair on the hair stood upright when he saw the cool breeze. I heard that there is a small river in this gallery, but I can't walk it for a long time. There is a river ditch on the right side of the road, and there are pebbles of various sizes in the ditch. The pebbles were covered with a layer of white lye flowers, much like giant eggs soaked in brine. I think, this Tianhegou may be a river. I saw some teardrop-like trickles ticking on the cliff to the left. Some of my fellow travelers stuck out their tongues to catch water, and I followed suit. The water is brackish, soaking the sadness of the mountains. When I first came down from the narrow path on the mountain and walked on this flat road, I was flattered by my feet, and I subconsciously raised my feet and lowered them. Fatigue and heat make it hard to laugh. However, the scenery in the mountains is really beautiful. The peaks stand abruptly and have strange shapes that cannot be described in words. There are good metaphors in my peers, pointing to the east and pointing to the west, calling this mountain a cang dog, and calling the other mountain a beauty. In fact, a mountain is a mountain, and most of the names have only symbolic meanings. They insist on sticking to the name, and they have to perfunctory several similar stories, which are almost the same as blasphemy against nature.
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Going deeper and deeper, the trees descended from the mountain walls on both sides. Among the lush greenery, I only knew pine trees, and the rest did not know their names, so I was really ignorant. I suddenly felt that the pine trees standing upright among the many trees looked at me pitifully, while the trees whose names I could not name seemed to close their eyes and express their great contempt for me. I was hunched over by the contempt and panting. From time to time cicadas chirped on the tree - I wasn't sure if it was cicada chirping, maybe a little girl with a picture clip beside her was a local, she said it was cicada chirping - the cicada chirping was like the chirping of toads in the northern pond , mellow, moist, and elastic, even if it is a cicada, there is also a gloomy and arrogant character in this cicada. The cicadas born from the arrogant and arrogant Hunan landscape trees are also called Degeru. I think this kind of cicadas that sing like toads can eat mantises but will never be eaten by mantises. I also thought, the cicadas here are so rude, will the mantis here be willing to be confused with the mantis from other places? The mantis here may be able to cut off the head of the oriole trying to eat it. The question is, will the oriole here be a normal oriole? I can't imagine that there would be a splendid Chu culture without such an ancient pottery-like nature that has been smeared with human blood. Hunan writer Han Shaogong tried to find the splendid flow of Chu culture in "The Roots of Literature". He heard a poet say that Chu culture has flowed to western Hunan. I think, if Western Hunan were not so closed, if there were many high-rise buildings, vertical and horizontal roads, peasant families had cars and pianos, culture was popularized, and life was greatly improved, would Chu culture still be retained here? Thinking about it like this, it's a little scary. It turns out that the preservation of traditional culture is based on the premise of isolation and backwardness. All kinds of ancient customs and traditions have been passed down for a long time, especially after the political and economic conditions and geographical features on which they were produced have changed, most of them have lost their original solemnity and splendor, and become an empty shell, just like dragon boat racing in May. What exactly do the boatmen who wear electronic watches experience? If this is true, it will be broken. After all, it is impossible for Xiangxi to be closed and backward for a long time. If it is advanced and enlightened one day, won't the splendid Chu culture be cut off again? Fortunately, I also think that Chu culture is a concept with both deep and broad connotations, and part of it has indeed remained in some "deep pools" in western Hunan, manifested in some ancient customs and some totem worship; another part is like Qu Yuan. His works have already been fed into the surging river of Han culture and nourished the Chinese for many generations.
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At this time, I heard the sound of horses' hooves behind me, and when I hurriedly looked back, I saw seven or eight horses being ridden, and colorful came in. Everyone jumped to the side of the road, forgetting the heat for a while, and looked at the horse team in surprise. The horses are black and yellow, and there is a jujube red, but no white. Suddenly I remembered the saying that "a white horse is not a horse". Philosophy textbooks say that Gongsun Longzi is a sophistry, and "a white horse is not a horse" is worthless. But behind these textbooks, I saw Gongsun Longzi staring at the sky, sitting proudly on the bank, with a big stone falling from the sky in front of him, his eyes not blinking. "A white horse is not a horse" is "a white horse is not a horse", no matter what logical mistakes he made, just this very outrageous proposition, isn't it great? For decades, we have been accustomed to using a simplified dialectic method to explain the world, and the conclusions drawn seem to be fair, but in fact contain a lot of sophistry. The formula and simplification in literature are probably not unrelated to this. I think a writer should have the spirit of "a white horse is not a horse". It's good to dare to make an argument. Let's take a break and decide whether it's fair or not. Han Shaogong said that the Chu culture has flowed to Western Hunan, so let it flow. He has his own truth hidden behind the words, which is difficult for others to fully understand, so it is not unreasonable to naturally discuss a few sentences as a kind of thinking training. Anyone who wants to criticize the writer's argument by implementing formal logic will be a bit rigid--in fact, they can hide their thoughts in their hearts--they have their own "quanjing".
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I was thinking about my "quanjing", but my eyes were fixed on those horses. The horses were getting bigger and bigger, all foaming at the mouth, the sweat shining brightly on their bodies, and the horseshoes hitting the pebbles with a short thud. Horses seem to be walking lightly and quickly, but they are melancholy and unbalanced in their bones. They are numb and rigid, and they have lost the freedom of the horse's body. Riding a horse is not a horse. Zhuangzi's Horseshoe Chapter says: "A horse, its hooves can tread frost and snow, its hair can keep out the wind and cold, it can eat grass and drink water, and it can cross its feet to land on the ground. This is the true nature of the horse. Although it has a platform and a road bed, it is useless. When it came to Bole, he said: 'I am good at managing horses.' Burn them, tick them, carve them, tie them together, connect them with restraints, weave them into stacks, twelve or three dead horses; hungry, thirsty, galloping, sudden, and straightening , Qizhi, there is the danger of pegs in the front, and the power of spurs in the back, and the death of the horse is more than half." The horse originally wandered freely between heaven and earth, hungry for herbs, thirsty for sweet springs, and sleeping in the open air, enjoying himself. Unrestrained, Fang is a real horse, Fang does not lose the nature of horses, and Fang has the spirit of dragon and tiger leaping. Xu Beihong's horses rarely have reins and chew iron, which must be the reason. But a man puts a chain in the horse's mouth, puts a saddle on the horse's back, whips him when he is angry, feeds him with beans in love, pays equal attention to grace and power, gives both soft and hard, even though the horse is fat and strong, how can it be like the bones of the past Li also. People are too cruel, people are too domineering over the earth. I was suddenly filled with hatred for the horse riders. However, I immediately began to deny myself. It is the law of nature that the strong eat the weak, and under certain conditions, human beings are no exception. It is often heard that: "In the old society of all evils... living an inhuman life..." Once a person is controlled by others, he is "inhuman", and "a horse is not a horse" should also be established. It seems logically correct. It may be a wrong analogy to compare Mabi people, but aren't we making such analogies every day? When Confucius heard that Zilu was killed by a thousand wounds, he ordered people to pour out the meat sauce in the kitchen (when criticizing Lin Piao Confucius, he said he was hypocritical). In recent literary works, aren't there also many small animals captured by writers to entrust their great humanitarian spirit?
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Easier said than done. I hate horse riders probably because I don't have a horse to ride. I feel a pity that Confucius poured the meat sauce. How many vegetarians do poor little creature writers have? It is human nature to say the opposite of what is done.
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The horse team came to us, firstly because they asked for directions, and secondly because they were near the river, the heroes got off their horses one after another. They were all bald and dark-faced, with bare chests or sweat-stained vests. Some were wearing espadrille sandals and some were wearing high black riding boots. On the back of their clothes, there is a piece of white cloth the size of a full moon, on which is written a fist-sized character for "Yong" or "Bing". There are two bows and arrows on their backs, and two steel knives on their waists. The horse carried a saddle bridge, and under the saddle hung a long-rod red tassel gun, or a machete with an iron handle, and some luggage and sundries. The accent is very different from that of the Hunan people, and I don't know where it is.
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The young man who led the jujube horse looked like a small leader, with a slender body and beautiful eyes. The jujube red horse is covered with tassels, and a string of copper bells hangs under its neck, making a ding dong sound. Pulling the horse with his left hand and pressing the scabbard with his right, he came to me like a wolf. I was overwhelmed. But I saw the young man smiling sweetly, showing strong yellowish teeth, and asked me, "Comrade, is this the way to go to the hostel?" I hurriedly answered correctly. A young man with a dark horse and a scar on his face said: "Dawen, do you still have cigarettes? Borrowing them is fun." "What loan? You can't pay it back." He took two cigarettes, took one by himself, and handed one to the smoker. Blue smoke spewed from their noses and mouths. The horse was beside them, snorting anxiously, flicking its hoofs, lashing the midges with its tail, and tilted its head toward the river. The river water was as green as emeralds, and suddenly flowed out from the gaps in the mountains, exuding icy comfort. The young man with the red horse said: "Brothers, don't rush to give water to the war horses, walk for a while, and drink them after sweating." The young man asked me to smoke, but I said no. When he saw the school badge in front of me, he caught up with it and chatted very speculatively. Everyone walked out of the mountain together, and they were walking in the Shili Gallery. Because of the river, the scenery really has aura. Everyone followed the horse team. While chatting, they found out that Xiaoxiang Film Studio was shooting a big play here, "Heaven's Enmity". They were extras hired from Henan, playing the role of Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army. There was a battle between Xihai and the "Taiping Army", and the "Xiang Army" had no casualties, but a general of the "Taiping Army" took a heroic attitude and fell off the horse accidentally, breaking one arm. Everyone laughed. In the depths of the conversation, the young man said that they were paid meagerly. They ran from Henan to Hunan, and rode their own horses that pulled carts to plough the fields. Lively, for fun, let's travel on horseback. He said that as soon as he got on the war horse and hung it up, he felt that he was not afraid of the sky or the earth, and a heroic spirit boiled in his chest. When I was in my hometown, my calf shivered when the mayor shouted. Now think about it, afraid of him being a bird? The identity of a person is like this dress. If you enter the bathhouse with your bare buttocks, no matter how big the official is, you will not be able to gain prestige. Do you believe it or not? If you don't believe it, I believe it anyway. He said that I had been a soldier, and the internal affairs regulations stipulated that in the bathhouse, the soldiers could not salute the chief. One of our squad leaders was a sycophant. When we saw the company commander in the bathroom, he stood at attention and saluted. The company leader got angry and kicked our squad leader into the pool with one kick. He also said that he played a small leader of the "Xiang Army" and was always beaten. The plot stipulated that there was no way. If you play the "Taiping Army", it will be fun, and you will shout: Children, come on! Going up in a swarm, attacking cities and lands, killing the rich to help the poor, drinking in big bowls, eating big pieces of meat, happy!
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He and his mates were drinking horses by the river, and the water was so cold that the horse's lips curled up. After drinking, he flew on his horse, with his head held high and his chest high, his armor clear, his mouth made an ancient sound, and he bowed his hands to say goodbye to me, shouted, and with his legs tucked, the jujube red horse ran with joy. On the mountain road, the stone edges are prominent, the gaps are vertical and horizontal, and the horses run crookedly, very cautious. But lame horses are better than healthy donkeys, and we can only follow in their footsteps

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