Because the word “obey” is too hard, people use the flexible “obey” as a substitute.
The whip is softer than a wooden stick, but a single blow can make a person’s flesh open; the tongue is softer than handcuffs, but once locked, there is no escape. People say: Good boy! Behave yourself, child. Discipline begins in childhood and shows no sign of ending. Thus, one is left forever in childhood, a giant baby that never has a personal will and never becomes an adult.
I was a 4-year-old child when I was playing on the roof of the small Soviet-style building of the army kindergarten that day. The roof was like a small square, covered with round stones for insulation. I loved the swish of the stones under my feet, so I darted from one end to the other, enjoying myself. The kindergarten teacher got upset and told me to stop. However, there are always moments in life when you can’t stop. So she took a few steps over, lifted me up and brought me back to her seat. She clutched my wrists with one hand, gazed into my eyes and said to me, “Be good and behave! “With that, she put pressure on her hands and repeatedly thwarted my wrist bones, trying to make me feel the pain.
She was a middle-aged woman in her 40s, I don’t know which officer’s wife, and her nails were sinking into my flesh. I didn’t cry or scream, but also gazed into her eyes. What eyes they were, like the eyes of a lizard, cold brown, devoid of any emotion and lifeless.
That was the first lesson in my life about listening. When someone asks you to be obedient, he means he asks you to do what he wants, otherwise, he will punish you. There is no other reason, just because the other person is more angry than you.
It was an early autumn morning in 2000, and I was eating noodles at the airport terminal in Wujiaba, Kunming. Every time I take the 7:30 a.m. flight before flying to Shangri-La, I have to eat a bowl of noodles here. Because once I go there, I can only eat boiled noodles during the month of duty. The high altitude is not good for this, no pressure cooker even noodles can not be cooked. At that moment, an officer-like man came to my table, tapped his finger on the table and asked me, “Which department are you from? Go on, get your hair cut. “
No one wants to go to Shangri-La on duty. There is an altitude of 3300 meters and a lack of oxygen in all seasons. The whole city has more than 40,000 people and only two streets. The people who go there are either the pricks in the unit or the disillusioned in their career, rather than going on duty, they are exiled. I declared it voluntarily because I was the youngest and no one else wanted to go. Being assigned to go there and applying to go by myself are two different concepts. I don’t like to be arranged, and submitting an application is at least a reflection of my personal will. So, growing my hair long is also my personal will. This was fully respected in Shangri-La, even if I had long hair and was sitting in the first row in a formal dress during the meeting.
The morning I ate noodles, I was wearing a tie, carrying a shoulder patch, and my hair was draped over my shoulders in all its evil glory. Hearing the query, I glanced at him, lowered my head and continued to take a sip, then put down the bowl, looked up at him again, and calmly replied, “Shangri-La Airport, you can find my immediate supervisor to complain “. He was choked in place, then turned around on one foot and walked away. A few years later, when we met again, I had cut my hair, an extra bar on my shoulder patch, and we were calling each other brothers and handing out cigarettes, I asked about that day, and he had no recollection of it.
This is the second lesson in my life about listening. Other people ask you to listen, meaning that you are required to do as he thinks, otherwise, he will punish you. For no other reason than the fact that the other person is higher in rank than you. But if you have nothing to lose, and do not fear punishment, then the rank can not make you obedient.
At the end of 1999, I started writing posts on the BBS. Since that time, there have been people trying to change my mind and make me do what they want. They are amazing in number, front pouncing, and to this day show no signs of decay, but instead are flourishing and crawling all over the network with pits full of people. They are behind every text, and like Steve Jobs, they are the ones who vowed to change the world. And before they change the world, they lean in to transform others first.
They will threaten you. They tell you that if you don’t write the way they want, they’ll turn their backs on you, they’ll turn away, and they’ll “never look at it again”. They’re going to post announcements on Weibo, publicly declaring that they’re shutting you down. They are going to leave a message on the WeChat public website with an exclamation point to prove their determination to never come back. Out of a thousand people, about 3 or 4 will come back a few years later and apologize, saying it was a misunderstanding in the first place. To help them keep their original intention, I usually help them a little: silently pull the black.
They will bribe you. Tell you how much they used to love you, but you’ve changed and you can’t write the words that touched their souls. They ask you to keep writing like that so they will continue to love you, to support you, to stand by you. They mournfully declare that you have hurt them, that you have failed them, that you have wronged them, that they are about to lose respect for you. Like a call to the prodigal son to return, they imply that you will continue to return to the shrine if you write as they think you should.
They will analyze you. Tell you that your ideas are claptrap, that it’s new and different, that it’s for your personal fame, that it’s personal moral turpitude, that it’s a scam to get money and flesh …… They will prophesy about you. Tell you that you will collapse, will stink, will be abandoned, will be forgotten, and, “sooner or later, people will recognize you for what you really are”. That day is in the “future”, in the “sooner or later “, in “sooner or later”, in “one day”.
This is the third lesson in my life about listening. This lesson has stretched over a period of seventeen years and shows no sign of ending even now. This lesson taught me that when someone asks you to listen, he means he asks you to do what he wants, or else he will curse you, punish you with leaving, threaten you with prophecy, and lure you with bribery. It is like fighting with a group of low-ranking sorcerers, if you do not obey the spell, then you can survive, while they disappear into the sea of nets because of the backlash for failing to cast the spell. No other reason, just because the other side outnumbered you.
There are so many people in this community who want to change you every single day of your life. Change your mind, change your opinion, even change your behavior. Not a single one of them finds this offensive and does not feel in the least that there is anything respectable about individual will. In their view, there is no possibility of people disagreeing with each other but being at peace with each other. Life is a relationship of conquest and subjugation, the will is a relationship of rape and rape, and a choice must be made between you listen to me and I listen to you.
When this choice is not made, they sleep through the night and feel their whole worldview collapse: how can there be people who are so disobedient? They then feel a free obligation to change each other, to convince each other to accept their point of view, to convince each other to follow what they think is the right path. Moreover, they shine a flashlight on each other, so they live the same life, photocopying each other’s life, they call this “three views right They call this “three views”. Before the world is leveled, before every prick is shaved, before every pair of wrists is clutched in their palms, they cannot sleep peacefully.
This is the source of the greatest unhappiness of being a Chinese. Starting from being an obedient person, pursuing the demand for everyone to listen to themselves, finally living a neat square dance life with a large group of people, living like a group of people in a large group exercise.
For individuals, if there is still the concept of “individual”, then, disobedience is a virtue
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