After a new New Year, we have two New Years every year, and we receive congratulatory messages and gifts for both of them. The most thoughtful gift I received this year was a seal engraved on the bottom of a small wine glass with the words “untethered boat” and a greeting card from Zhuangzi: “When you eat and swim, you are like an untethered boat.”
Zhuangzi’s original text before and after is: “The dexterous labor and the wise worry; the incompetent have nothing to seek; the satiated and roam; the flood is like an untethered boat; the false and roamer!” It means: the dexterous person is able to work more, the wise person is more worried, the person who has no ability has nothing to ask, can eat and roam around, like a boat without a rope, floating freely, because the empty can roam ah!
The Analects of Confucius says, “When you are seventy years old and follow your heart’s desires, you do not exceed the rules”. In the book “Luoshu He Tu”, Confucius asked several students about their aspirations, and three of them said they wanted to govern the country, make the people rich, and take charge of the temple rituals, while one disciple, Zeng Zeng, who was playing a cassowary, said, “Unlike the three of them, I would put on my spring clothes in the late spring, go to the river with five or six adults and seven or eight children, take a bath, blow the wind, and sing songs all the way Home. “The master sighed tersely and said, ‘I am with the point too!'” (Confucius said, “I’m just like Zeng Dou!”). According to Cheng, this is the ultimate goal of Confucius’ aspiration, which is a state of freedom, especially inner freedom.
In an online article, a female Internet Writer, Shen Yan, said that one of her aunts told them about the hard times in the past, saying that today’s Life is already very good, so don’t be ungrateful. She then said, “Are you afraid of going to the hospital? Are you afraid of the public prosecution (public security, prosecution, court)? Are you afraid of your granddaughter walking home alone after school? You see officials dare not full of smiles? “Phone from Baidu pictures turned out a photo: auntie, you dare to scold him a word?” The answer is all: afraid, do not dare.
When the heart is full of fear, even if everything in life is not lacking, that is still not in a state of freedom. Former U.S. President Roosevelt proposed in 1941 that freedom includes four aspects: freedom of speech, freedom of belief, freedom from poverty, and freedom from fear.
The freedom from poverty that China talks about, even without discounting, is only the freedom from poverty of the four freedoms, while the other three are really not to be thought of. Freedom of speech and freedom of belief may not be important to some people, as long as they can live, it does not matter whether they have speech or belief, but fear is experienced by everyone.
Montesquieu said that the ruling principle of a dictatorship is “the fear of the ruler”. Hong Kong is practicing a “second reversion” from a free society to a dictatorship, so for the vast majority of people, the first step is to subtract the “freedom from fear” from the four freedoms they basically enjoy. The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal has ruled that whenever a person is charged under the National Security Law, he is presumed guilty and denied bail before trial by invoking Article 42 of the National Security Law, regardless of whether he will be found guilty after trial. As a result, everyone has the fear of going to jail before trial. This is the very principle of the dictatorship that has come to rule Hong Kong during the “second reunification.
In the United States, where freedom of speech is proclaimed, the media and social media of last year’s election were induced by political interests to perfectly close down and censor speech, and some academics even openly expressed their opposition to the classic phrase “defend to the death the right to dissent”, which means they support the blocking of speech.
After the Qin Dynasty, China entered an era of authoritarian politics that lasted for more than 2,200 years, ruling the people by spreading fear and keeping the rulers and all classes in fear of different things. Since its founding more than 200 years ago, the United States has also entered an era of political correctness overriding freedom of speech in the last few decades. With totalitarianism and money, mankind is sinking into a despicable descent without limits.
In these difficult times, I thank my friends who gave me that seal, and may I and my fellow travelers keep our will to think “like an untethered boat” and remember the words of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides: “The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.”
I wish you all happiness and freedom in the Year of the Ox.
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