Freedom of the Mind

by 碧树西风

Motivation

Mom suggested me to give my aunt some advice about the problems she was facing. After knowing her situation, I decided to write an article from my grandpa’s (aunt’s dad) perspective on life.

Nowadays it is popular to talk about leaping socioeconomic classes.

69 years ago, my grandpa accomplished his social class leap.

Grandpa’s Life

My grandpa was born from a super behind a rural village. His biological mom passed away early; his stepmom was super harsh to him. During the winter, she sometimes starved him and kicked him out of the house. He had to hide in his classmate’s lawn to not freeze to death.

But somehow he became a history teacher. Later he got jailed by the Nationalist party members for advertising revolutionary speeches, but then broke out of jail. His legend started from then. He organized guerrilla warfare for the Communist party, solo convinced an entire battalion to surrender… Lots of old soldiers and generals’ memoirs mentioned his stories. When PRC was formed, he was the Province’s most well-read soldier.

When he passed away, I asked people to transport all his books to my house. Because no one else in the family read. Within the books there were lots of notes from him. It was only after he passed away that I got a chance to see how intelligent he was.

Unfortunately his education didn’t carry him in educating his children.

His life was full of difficult challenges. Few years after China defeated the Nationalist party came the cultural revolution. To protect his subordinates, he had to take on all kinds of tortured. Until I went to college, there were still old soldiers telling my parents grandpa’s stories.

But my grandpa really loved his children. Maybe bc his over-protection, my generation above all lacked fighting spirits. It was hard to grow another tree under a large tree.

My Aunt’s Life

My aunt was born with the best cards possible but she didn’t play them well. Her father-in-law was also a general. When she was young, she was regarded as the most pretty woman in the district.

How come a woman with so much gift had so many problems in life.

In the 80s and 90s, Uncle spent 5million on drugs. Back then, anyone who had more than 10k was considered “rich.” I never have any prejudice against doing drugs. But you can only enjoy it if it doesn’t destroy you. One of my old ancestors was rich enough to do drugs until he broke. But somehow he died at age of 81 without any terrible diseases. While my uncle’s body was utterly destroyed at the age of 40. The drugs nowadays was not just plants, but synthetical chemicals, like the high-purity drugs in Breaking Bad.

My aunt’s daughter, my cousin also did drugs and gambled when she grew older. I also never hold any prejudice against gambling. But none of the gambling masters really rely on luck. See Warren Buffet only wins bets. If you win some and lose some, that was lucky most of the time, you should probably quit.

One year, when I was celebrating mom’s birthday, my aunt asked, why was I the only child different from others in the entire family?

My Life

Because I had a terrible terrible hand at birth: I was born with a disease. Back then there was no privacy at school health examinations, so all my classmates knew I was sick. They not only did not console me but often scared me by saying “you are going to die soon.” I was bullied for years even after I was cured, until I graduated to middle school where no one knew me.

I did my operation when I was 10 but only cried after I got to middle school. That was the first time I told my parents how terribly I was tortured mentally. I didn’t understand why a child could be so nice to a cat but also so cruel to me at the same time.

But that was not a bad thing. With pain, I grewed wisdom but hatred. Jack Ma knew he couldn’t change the environment but himself at 30. I learned that when I was 13.

Hence, I restarted my life like a 130 year old. Being healthy was way too hard for me so I couldn’t understand why someone would want to purposely destroy their health. Everyone started from being a little baby, how could you take in those drugs when you think of your parents’ worry face when you were little.

Although I was cured, my health was always bad. My PE grade was the bottom across the entire county. I got 3-4 times flu every year on average, each lasting about 1 month. In other words, most of the semesters I was competing with my classmates while being sick. But I was used to it, because life was way more unfair when I was at elementary school.

When I was in college, my medical record booklet was renewed 3 times. Even after graduation, I started all kinds of chronic diseases: diarrhea, insomnia, random hurts from here and there. Thus I was very familiar with all kinds of Chinese medical techniques:

• Tuina
• Cupping
• Acupuncture
• …

The first skill my son learnt at 3 was to do cupping for me… My wife had a relative with similar age as me. He asked me what was fun in life if I don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t play majiang, don’t eat meat, sleep and wakeup early… But he didn’t know, I had to spend so much effort just not to get sick.

I used to see lots of famous Chinese-Medicine doctors. The last time I saw one, a 92yrold national-level doctor told me:

The most important part is not the medicine. You have to rely on yourself. If you have strong positive energy everyday, your blood flow will accelerate. Then you will be immune to lots of diseases. Otherwise if you lack positive energy, you will get all kinds of sickness.

Life Energy

If cousin could stop hanging out with people who did drugs and gambled all the time, what else could those people do to her? One has to learn to save himself/herself before asking others for help.

In society there are also lots of hardworking people. Though many think, compared to hard work, you make money faster if you have certain backgrounds, connections and skills.

But does making money faster make you happier?

Aunt used to see many elderly care workers from grandma’s place. But she never really talked to any of them. Bc she thought there was nothing to learn from them.

I didn’t think so. One of my colleague classmate told about his story: His dad woke up at 4 every day, carrying a full load of cargos, walked 6 hours in the mountains back and forth to make 10 rmb. (that was like 20 years ago, so 10rmb was not as insignificant as today) He did that for 10+ years so that his son could go to college.

It was not really economically efficient, but I saw the son’s eyes sparkling with fire when he told the story. I knew he would just try as hard as his father in life because he knew the weight of this opportunity his dad created.

My cousin who did drugs never cared about the elder care workers. But those people are full of energy and hope. When a person loses hope in life, he/she would be more likely to be sick.

When I was at 12 grade, I went to classmate J’s place.He came from a farmer’s family. He is the youngest son, his dad is already 70 years old.

When I first saw his dad, the dad’s face was radiating with energy. He drank 2 pounds of baijiu during dinner and showed us his muscles.

In contrast, when my grandma was in her 70s, she had diabetes and at risk of stroke. She always had 2 elder care workers around. She showed up at my wedding but couldn’t utter a single word.

Who was the real winner in life? Who would you want to be when you get older?

I thought it was ridiculous when my mom asked me to give my aunt some life advice. But my family didn’t really have anyone who was doing “well” except me.

70 years ago, my grandpa charged into an entire battalion of enemies and convinced them to surrender.. While he would never imagine his descendents would end up like this!

He was a hero all his life not to have young children give him flowers on his tombstone. As a father, all he hoped for was that his children could live a good life.

Nowadays young people tend to complain that working hard is useless etc etc. But when you look at the next 50, 100 years of your life, how can you maintain a high energy level while doing nothing?

When people have too much “free time,” they tend to have too many trash friends; they tend to have all kinds of diseases; their energy is always fading away.

Life is not just the body but a kind of force, a kind of energy.