"Writing a letter to the dawn" "I beg you, let's chase it together"｜Lian Zhiping
2024-08-14
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Roller coaster wedding on the Chinese Valentine's Day. Photo by Fu Guolin
The American film "The Professor and the Madman" tells the tortuous history of the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary. One of the important etymologists and providers was a schizophrenic linguist who accidentally killed a stranger because of a paranoid attack. This accidental crime left the victim's wife a widow, and they had five young children. The whole family fell into severe poverty while losing their husband and father.
The unfortunate widow became a streetwalker to make a living, enduring unbearable humiliation. The children worked day and night at home doing handicrafts to supplement the meager family income. Naturally, they all hated the crazy linguist.
After the linguist was imprisoned, in his sober moments, he deeply regretted his crime. He asked the prison guard to send Christmas food to the unfortunate family and said that he hoped to provide financial assistance to the family to the best of his ability. Unintentional murderers are also murderers, and these compensations are actions that a person should make based on his conscience.
In prison, the madman assisted the Oxford Dictionary's vocabulary compilation project with his extremely talented linguistic ability. With his great help, the project team broke through the long-standing bottleneck. The project leader, an intellectual who was difficult to be accepted by the academic aristocracy because he was born in a merchant family, formed a close friend and close friend with this special prisoner, sharing academic joys and sorrows.
The widow went to see the madman in prison. Her original intention was to express her family's hatred and lack of forgiveness by rejecting him face to face. But she was a smart woman. She saw purity and sincerity in the madman's eyes, which gradually made her let go of her hatred and choose understanding and forgiveness instead. She thought that her deceased husband was a kind person and he would agree to her forgiving a person suffering from mental illness.
The linguist developed a love for this beautiful woman. Once, the two met again in prison. The linguist was surprised to learn that this woman with a noble soul was illiterate, so he strongly requested that the woman allow him to teach her how to read.
He persuaded people like this: "Standing on the spine of a book, I can fly out of the wall and ride on the wings of words to the ends of the earth..."
The woman interrupted him: "I can't..."
The linguist sincerely insisted: "When I read, no one is chasing me. When I read, I am the one chasing: chasing the footsteps of God... So I beg you, chase together!"
This is a group of shots in the movie that are illuminated by light. What a touching confession. In my opinion, this is true love, and its greatest quality is: rarity.
Because, to love someone means to try to broaden her spiritual world and support her life.
There are many "love stories" in reality. If you look closely, it is often that one of them gives his whole self to fulfill his partner. However, the partner who is fulfilled occupies a high position in the relationship, but fails to do what he should have done - to support the soul of the giver and let her have a spiritual position. In the final analysis, he enjoys the fulfillment of the other party, but calmly watches the other party's self-abasement. This cannot help but make people suspect that he probably only loves himself.
Love is an invitation to "chase together" with you, to chase the glory that transcends the mundane world. True love will not allow itself to ignore the other's dustiness, so it will constantly send out the invitation to "chase together".
Or, my feelings can be described in another way: the most precious part of a love relationship is that two people can "chase together". If you can't "chase together", don't forget to keep chasing yourself. If the other person doesn't help you chase, then the meaning of this relationship is worth questioning. If the other person not only doesn't help, but also prevents you from being the "chaser", this is not love, but a relationship that you should seriously consider how to "give up".
[Writing a Letter to Dawn] is Lian Zhiping's column in the Pen Club
Author: Lian Zhiping
Text: Lian Zhiping Editor: Qian Yutong Editor-in-Chief: Shu Ming
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