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song of the ordinary: shen lei and xie meilan divorced and parted ways, living happily ever after

ding ding ding, did you have a good mid-autumn festival?song of mortals》will it spoil the fun?

many people say that they are already annoyed, and watching this drama makes them even more anxious. i am just the opposite. not only do i enjoy watching it from beginning to end, but the more i watch, the more relaxed and happy i feel.

two reasons:

first, once the dragon in the carpet is seen, it is no longer so scary, and it is no longer an unconquerable monster.

although the "middle-class downgrade" presented in the film looks depressing, it doesn't matter. no matter how difficult or tedious a thing is, as long as you don't hide it and dare to face it, you can always extract some positive energy of "there are always more solutions than problems". covering it up and not daring to see or say it is the easiest way to breed anxiety.

second, when times are peaceful, almost everyone can take advantage of the situation; when times are turbulent, the potential in you and me can be further developed.

it is visible to the naked eye that from episode 1 to episode 37 of "song of ordinary people", each of the protagonists has experienced a roller coaster of life. among them, changes in external circumstances such as consumption downgrade, changing cities, and changing jobs are only one aspect. the core of reorganization and upgrading is the most profound change after this battle.

to put it in the words of chicken soup for the soul:yes, they lost a lot, but they also grew from it.

how does she grow up? last time, i wrote about shen lin, who gradually broke through the shackles of refinement and rushed towards the path of a down-to-earth heroine. today, i will talk about her brother shen lei's extremely "heartfelt" transformation.

shen lin's growth in the play is additive. she is excellent in all aspects, but the long-term prosperity has imprisoned her talent and will. the sudden downturn in her family's financial situation has provided her with a battlefield to show her talents.

shen lei is just the opposite. from childhood to adulthood, everyone knows that he is very good - a good student, a civil servant, a stable job, guaranteed income, stable and prestigious. as long as he doesn't make trouble, he will basically have a smooth road ahead.

but unexpectedly, the breakdown of his marriage made him begin to completely deny his own excellence. he threw away everything he had with his hands and started the belated rebellion of a good student.

therefore, although shen lin's growth line is full of bitterness and sharpness, the overall tone is vigorous and progressive. she is becoming stronger and more capable of taking on responsibilities, and is getting further and further away from being a canary in captivity. this is cause for celebration.

shen lei's journey was quite disturbing: he tore off a piece of splendor with his own hands, and then stopped to look for meaning, himself, and an anchor point. after going around in circles, he finally embarked on a path that suits him.

after breaking down and starting over again, shen lei's growth path became more tortuous and risky, and also revealed a sense of nonsensical willfulness - "how can i just give up my job as a civil servant?"

yes, it’s just a broken marriage, why should your whole life be ruined?

many people criticized xie meilan for being materialistic and for abandoning shen lei because she thought he was poor. the debate of "who should support xie or shen" was probably the first hot topic of this drama.

but in fact, xie meilan is just a spokesperson for secular standards. don't deny it, the mainstream value now is "money makes the world go round". her falling out represents the denial of shen lei by secular standards, and this denial awakens the confusion deep in shen lei's heart.

that is to say,without his wife's love and admiration, and without the approval of secular standards, he had no idea who he was or where he was going. his life suddenly lost its support, so it collapsed on a large scale.

you see, the so-called “three philosophical questions” sound boring, but in fact no one can avoid them.

xie meilan's anxiety and accusations only brought up the question of "who are you, shen lei?" in advance. even without xie meilan, there would be wang meilan and liu meilan who would ruthlessly expose the chaos under shen lei's contentment with poverty.

even if you can fool around in your thirties, you will still be broken and crazy when you are forty or fifty.

many female netizens criticized shen lei: "after suffering a little setback, he quit his job and ignored his family. he went south to wander around and cultivate a paradise. he is not mature at all and not responsible at all. you must not marry a man like this!"

i want to say that whether you marry him or not, he will be crazy. the initial stage of returning from a lost path is usually quite crazy and shocking. after all, it is difficult to correct the wrongs, and it is certainly not convenient to travel light and explore new paths without letting go of all the burdens, including responsibilities and honors.

shen lei's abandonment is a bit like the male protagonist in "the moon and sixpence" who suddenly abandoned his wife and children. he looks like he is possessed by a ghost, but in fact, it is a middle-aged awakening after pretending to be confused and his credit limit is cleared. at this time, if you don't leave the past behind like shit, you will be embarrassed to take the first step of being independent.

so the question is, among so many people in the protagonist group, why is shen lei the one who has the biggest reaction to setbacks? everyone else is looking for a job if they don't have a job, or seeing a doctor if they are sick, but why is he the only one who has a big retreat?

the answer is simple, following my previous logic:because he is the most confused, he has no self, and his historical problems are the biggest. therefore, he must undergo the most subversive changes to complete his growth at this node.

look at the image of shen lei in the play: he wears glasses, wears simple clothes, and often carries a backpack. he is a man in his thirties, but his words and actions still reveal the clear stupidity of a college student.

to put it in a positive way, this makes one look young and cultured; to put it in a less positive way, this is a sign of a low level of socialization.

here i am back to my main research area as a human observer - small town test-takers.

although the focus of "song of ordinary people" is not on the original family, the development of shen lei's character is of course closely related to his original family.

in rural families, boys who are good at studying will usually take on the responsibility of changing the family's destiny and are the so-called "hope of the whole family."

"your father and i have suffered all our lives, you have to live up to our expectations!"

"only by studying hard can you get out of this mountain den!"

parents' expectations, material scarcity, closed environment, and the homogenization of the education system have jointly pushed shen lei and other students who are studying to the path of self-instrumentalization."just study hard and get good grades, and put everything else aside."

you don't have to do farm work or housework, because the baby's hands will hold a pen in the future.

it doesn’t matter whether you have emotional intelligence or whether you can make friends. just be careful not to be led astray by those who don’t study well. how can you still lack friends if you always get first place in exams?

“turn a deaf ear to the world outside and focus on reading the books of sages”, this sentence is extremely appropriate for the growth path of many small town test-takers.

they have been assigned main tasks during the character development period, and it seems that they have embarked on an efficient and smooth development path early on. however, they do not know that this so-called efficiency comes at the cost of compressing the space for self-exploration.

obviously, your branches can stretch out in all directions, but sorry, your parents said you don't have to do this, and your teacher said if you do this well, you can get the highest honor, so you embark on a narrow road early on, which seems to be a rapid rise, but in fact it lays mines for your future.

being locked up in an ivory tower for many years, one naturally knows very little about the ways of the world and the fighting and killing in the outside world; knowing only to do exercises and take exams for many years inevitably means that one is a novice in other fields.

several years later, when a person who has always been a good student is suddenly thrown into a dangerous social jungle or a dazzling big city, his fear and confusion must be doubled and far higher than that of his peers, so they actually refuse to grow up in their hearts.

shen lei's student spirit and his choice to continue his studies and eventually pass the civil service exam can be seen as a defense against the unknown and discomfort. he hopes to remain unchanged in the face of ever-changing situations and to cover up his own weaknesses and lack of ability by always doing what he is good at.

but unfortunately, his wife is a masterpiece of the social dye vat - ms. xie meilan.

the old ways he learned in the ivory tower can still cope with work and make a living, but they can't solve family conflicts, emotional disputes, or relieve xie meilan's money anxiety. he can study, take exams, and bury himself in document editing, but he can't buy a car, a house, or targeted drugs, nor can he convert them into a private customized luxury ward for his mother-in-law. all the past that he was proud of is not worth mentioning in xie meilan's eyes.

the minefield of “turn a deaf ear to the world outside and concentrate on reading the books of sages” lies here – castrate yourself at any cost to fit a standard, but who says that this standard will follow you forever?

people can’t get too involved in a system, otherwise, when the scene changes, you will find yourself nothing in the next scene. moreover, shen lei has been concentrating on being a “good student” since he was a child, when his self was not yet formed.

so,rather than saying that xie meilan dislikes shen lei, it is better to say that the evaluation standards from society and the conventional standards of exam-oriented education are naturally incompatible. this incompatibility is reflected in shen lei in the form of his endless embarrassment, frustration and confusion.

just like that, the defense collapsed across the board, and shen lei had to face this shocking discomfort zone that was coming his way - "shen lei, who was good at studying, has become a waste, so should shen lei disappear?"

shen lei's anxiety is not about a certain loss, but a thorough existential anxiety. this anxiety is related to the mines buried in his early years and to the deep motivation for living, so it must be solved in a very subversive way.

in the past, the fulcrum of life was grades and the expectations of his parents, and later it became xie meilan. now, all of these have become invalid, and he has to find a new fulcrum - 'without the blessing of any other's eyes, who am i? '

after reading this, you should be able to basically understand shen lei, including why he was simple and contented in the early days and why he "let himself go" in the later days.

but there is one point i would like to elaborate on, which is - why has he been able to be with xie meilan for so long?

the fact that he was so devastated later shows how deeply he loved her, but why was it xie meilan?

answer: because xie meilan can just meet his dual needs during his growth transition period.

from the flashbacks in the drama, we can know that they were a campus romance. when she was young, meilan once looked at shen lei playing basketball with starry eyes. meilan recognized and liked shen lei's brilliance during his school days.

but at the same time, meilan is essentially a very different person from shen lei.

if you think about it this way, it's not because she entered the financial circle that she became a person sensitive to money, but because she had that string in her mind that made her choose to work in the financial circle.

there are not so many accidental encounters, but your choice hides your character and destiny. she is very precocious, very sensitive to money and eager for money. she is the opposite of shen lei in her bones.

the more this happened, the more attractive xie meilan became to shen lei. because everyone has the instinct to expand their spiritual space, to put it bluntly, "make up for what you lack, and yearn for what you lack."

i guess being with xie meilan might give shen lei a sense of freshness of "breaking through the original constraints and entering a new wilderness in life." it's similar to how huang rong likes guo jing. who wants to find a mirror when looking for a partner? how boring that would be!

it can also be understood as a "shortcut to growth" - how difficult it is to take a big step towards the other end, so you might as well find a partner like that and pretend that you have broken free from the past and reached a new shore in life.

so during the years they were in love, xie meilan was such a person - she not only satisfied shen lei's sense of superiority and narcissistic needs, but also allowed him to touch the possibility of a new life.

if you look at it this way, you can understand why the man was in a state of panic after the woman left him - "my sense of superiority was destroyed, my narcissism was severely hurt, and my hope for a new life was gone. i was alone and broken in the same place. i am so miserable!"

suddenly losing the focus and driftwood, it is too difficult for shen lei to find value and hope completely on his own. so shen lei is also good,wang xiaofeiwell, their first subconscious reaction is - they don’t want to divorce, they can’t divorce, and they wish i could reconcile with her.

from the perspective of appearance, well, these men are quite infatuated. the fact is, although they look tall and big, they have never really tried to walk independently, so the situation in front of them is so strange and panic-inducing.

so please don’t scold meilan, she is simply shen lei’s benefactor - she accompanies you for a while when you are ignorant, and when the time comes, she kicks you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to take your first steps and move from childishness to maturity.

oh my god, she vividly interprets "why women are the best school for men"!

in the play, after shen lei had secluded himself in a mountain village in guangxi for a few days, he became much more clear-headed. when he saw his old friends and old loves again, his steps became lighter and his smile became more relaxed. he truly achieved "the boat has sailed through thousands of mountains."

afterwards, he decided to teach in the countryside, which was what he wanted to do from the bottom of his heart. for this, he was willing to give up his past glory and his parents' expectations.

this is the most perfect ending. subjective initiative is worth a thousand gold. always being on the defensive means living forever in the past. only with light in your eyes can you have a future. compared with the beginning, the tension and shabbyness on his body disappeared, and he became a real sunny middle-aged man.

growth is so beautiful, and the opportunity for growth often comes from a setback that is neither big nor small.

it may seem like a blow to the head, but it is actually teaching you to upgrade your dimension, teach you to be independent, and lead you to a new era in life.

nothing is entirely bad. just endure it and carry it through. maybe tomorrow you will be able to greet a brand new scenery with a brand new attitude, just like shen lei.

let's have a drink to this flowing life. may we all become good workers who adjust the gears of fate.

author: mademoiselle bovary

follow me to read people’s minds and understand the customs in the entertainment world.