Han Shaogong. Writing is clearly not the best pastime. We can't deny that fishing, dancing, playing chess, traveling, and bowling can also entertain people, and they are more beneficial to health than writing. In fact, with the exception of a very small number of geniuses, writers often have a lonely life, and even push themselves to the point of anxiety and exhaustion, and spend more time in distress than in joy.
If you consider writing as a profession, there's no reason why you have to do it. All walks of life can lead to success, especially in today's commodity consumption society, the space for employment with a higher rate of return than writing is unfolding, and there are more opportunities and shortcuts that are shining in the vast market from time to time with attractive brilliance. There are many things that can be done in one person. A world also needs people to do a lot of things other than literature. With my mediocre qualifications, I have also been a high-level mathematics student, a production team leader, and a magazine editor-in-chief, all of which are enough to support my confidence in changing careers.
So why write?
There are many writers and many great writers who have answered this question. They say that writing is for fun, for making a living, for getting ahead, or because you can't do anything else, and so on. If these statements are not prevarications or jokes, if they are really what they say, then these writers can only be removed from my mind without a moment's delay. Fundamentally, literature is not a utility, not a coat that can be changed at any time. A person who treats literature as a coat to wear temporarily, there must be no literature under the coat, and there will not be much popularity.
There is a writer in Taiwan who said that people can be divided into men and women, rich and poor, Orientals and Westerners, but there is also a very important division, that is, people can be divided into poets and non-poets. That's what I couldn't agree more.
Not long ago, I met an old friend from my youth days during a trip and had a bedtime conversation in a guest house. This friend's family is poor, his career is unsuccessful, and although he has a hobby, he has almost never written any works. But I was amazed at the breadth of his focus on literature. What's more,His reading is heartfelt, his literary interests and life beliefs are integrated, and he is not so much reading works as he is always pursuing the meaning and aesthetic pursuit of his own life.
All good works, I mean those works that make people feel that they are no longer the same as they used to be, and can only belong to such readers. Because of the trouble of making a living, he may not be able to write a book for the rest of his life, but compared to him, some of my fellow writers are just some sellers with a strong sense of operation, and they have repeatedly succeeded in the literary field but have never had literature in their blood, just like they have repeatedly succeeded in the love field but have never been in love - the couple in their eyes will always only have the taste of coats.
In front of this friend of Mu Ne, I confirm once againChoosing literature is actually choosing a spiritual direction, choosing a way of living and an attitude - this has nothing to do with whether a person can become a writer or a famous writer. When the world has become a world of language, when people's thoughts and emotions are mainly nurtured and presented by language, the writing and interpretation of language has transcended all professions. Only the awakened soul will not lose its thirst and sensitivity to language, and will always try to go to the sea of language to cleanse itself of a certain rainy night or a certain starry sky.
I don't want to say that I'm not going to do anything other than literature in the future. I also doubt that I have the talent and skill required to pursue a career in literature. Like that friend from the time of the educated youth, I may not be able to be a writer for the rest of my life, and I will not be able to be a good writer. But it doesn't matter. Literature as a profession can fail, but language has given me the conversion I have found, and it is a spiritual home that I will run to again and again. Because only beautiful language is possible to do this:Once you find it, it's all starting over.