Of Life’s Hardship, Pleasure and Beauty

                                            Of Life’s Hardship, Pleasure and Beauty

  For every single adult, because he has experienced a large number of big and small events in work and life, and thus, naturally has rich, profound living experiences, and these living experiences also contain many different types, while in these complex, broad living experiences, there are probably three prominent aspects, namely, life’s hardship, pleasure and beauty these three different parts.

(I)     The Hardship of Life

For an individual who has several decades of life experiences, every adult naturally all has experienced many tough and difficult moments, and the hardship of life certainly contains many different aspects and levels, and there are hardship in intelligence, hardship in human relationship, difficulty of disease, disturb of emotional problem, annoyance of family problem, puzzle of life trifle, etc; generally speaking, in life’s many hardship, there are two somewhat notable aspects:

First, many difficulties in the tough work. For every single adult, work is naturally not an easy thing, and it all has complex contents and a variety of complex or simple assignments; as a result, we often need to deal with certain technical issues, and also need to deal with many confused problems in human affair, in general, in the actual work we will face many different types of assignments, consequently, will often meet many different difficulty. Obviously, the difficulty in work is what we cannot evade and must face, therefore, sometimes we will work overtime to complete the task, and sometimes must learn certain new work techniques, and sometimes also need to deal with many emergencies, in a word, many problems in work will bring us much distress in basic aspects such as thought, emotion, feeling and physical strength, which is naturally a somewhat obvious fact. Meanwhile, hardship in work also contains another type of problem, namely, the work itself sometimes has quite difficulty, and for many technical workers, like computer programmer, their work is often somewhat difficult; for example, as we know, the actual software programming often has two features, first, it is somewhat difficult and abstract, and will bring people much psychological pressure, second, it is somewhat cumbersome, and the process of the whole programming is often complex, and  thus, is also a big test for patience; meanwhile, these programming assignments in work are also all necessary to fulfill, and thereby, this type of technical work naturally will also bring us somewhat hard overall feeling. In a word, considering many different situations, the hardship in work is naturally a basic fact which every adult all has experienced.

Second, the hardship in life such as disease and daily affairs. As for disease, in the long, tortuous and complex life, we will naturally all meet many different kinds of diseases, such as cold, intestines and stomach disease, fracture, liver and spleen problems, etc, and these diseases can roughly be divided into serious and slight these two types. Disease is naturally what everyone is unwilling to meet but also unavoidable, because disease will bring us much distress, and these obsessions roughly embody in body and psychology these two aspects; firstly, disease will greatly torment our body, which is naturally easy to understand, for example, when we catch a cold, we will all feel dizzy, and also will feel headache, while for diarrhea, we will also feel pain in belly, which will all greatly torture our body; secondly, disease will also bring much annoyance in our psychology, for example, when catching a cold, we often still need to work, and also have many things in life to deal with, while cold will greatly hinder these things, which will often let us be impatient and anxious; to conclude, in the above two aspects, disease will both let us feel somewhat painful and worried. It is worth noting that, about the puzzle in these two aspects the diseases bring to us, our feelings in childhood and full adulthood are quite different, and in physical reaction, our feelings in childhood are often not very strong and clear, while in adulthood are more obvious; meanwhile, it is also similar in psychology, our feelings in full adulthood will also be more complex, strong and disturbed than childhood, because then our rational consciousness, individual consciousness and overall character are much more mature. Various diseases also have another basic characteristic, namely, in most of the time, it comes suddenly, which will disrupt many plans in our work and life, and it also naturally increases many kinds of annoyance it brings to us.

Meanwhile, in the real life, we often also face the disturbance of various daily affairs; for instance, when we decorate, rebuild or renovate houses, we will face many problems, our daily items such as curtains, coal gas, wire, network, desk and chair sometimes will also have problems, and repairing them will also bring us much psychological and mental perplexity; meanwhile, the human relationship around us sometimes also contains complex contents, and they will also bring us various big or small annoyance. In the meantime, in the complex daily affairs, the impact of money is naturally somewhat big, and the impact of money on us embodies in many aspects, and various big or small life issues are all greatly dependent on money, such as buying electrical appliances, treating disease, everyday expense and education, namely, money has close relationship with various living issues, and consequently, the impact of money on life affairs is somewhat comprehensive and strong. To conclude, in many cases, daily affairs will also bring us much trouble, and it is easy to understand, they all require us to creatively and positively face, while in the process of positively resolving them, we often also can learn many concrete living experience, and also improving our many-sided capabilities.

To sum up, through the above analyses, we can know, work and lifethese two major parts both include many different kinds of difficulty, andtherefore, also require us to creatively deal with these different situations,and further resolve these big or small difficulties. The hardship of life isnaturally a universal significant fact, and businessmen, technical workers,artists and company employees all have profound feelings, about it, De Bottonwrites: “All lives are difficult”[1]; for example, for artisticcreators, they can often feel that it is difficult to make valuable artisticcreations; while for businessmen, some of them need to get up early and sleeplate, and need to keep working, consequently, are also very tired andexhausted. It is worth noting that, the hardship of life often embodies in manydimensions at the same time, for example, when our work gets stuck, it willbring us many-sided deeper perplexity; firstly, it is naturally the pressure inwork, at this time, we face the pressure in achieving work results, improvingwork ability and changing work situation; secondly, the comments of peoplearound us will also bring us much psychological pressure, because, at this time,people will raise doubt on our ability and idea, and there will be manynegative comments; finally, the work dilemma sometimes will also bring usannoyance in money, and at this moment, our material life sometimes is alsosomewhat difficult; in a word, the impact of life dilemma on us often embodiesin many dimensions simultaneously.

Another problem which is naturally relevant is, people often saythat difficult situations can hone one people’s ability, and this expressionmassively exists in various societies and various cultures, for instance,Mencius has a well-known statement: “Thrive in calamity and perish in softliving”[2] , generally speaking, itnaturally reflects one kind of somewhat universal and somewhat right life fact.However, we think, this well-known statement probably is just partiallyreasonable, because the impact of difficulties on specific person is a toocomplex issue. Firstly, if we observe our thoughts and psychology in good anddifficult situations, we will find that in good situations we can also do muchpositive, quality thinking, and meanwhile, our most thinking in good anddifficult situations is actually similar, which indicates that our thinking ingood and difficult situations merely has a degree of differences. Certainly, inmany cases, difficulties can indeed hone one people’s idea, personality,ability and many other aspects, which is easy to understand, because indifficulties people’s thinking, analyses, judgments towards many things and thewhole situation will be more clear and mature, and our understandings towardsmany relevant work and life problems will also be more comprehensive andthorough, and meanwhile, difficulties can train people’s many basic qualitiessuch as will, thought depth, foresight and ability to creatively treatproblems. But, we can still easily find that, many people in good situationsare actually also clear-headed, and also have many profound thoughts, and alsowork hard, while many people in difficulties are still confused in thought, andtheir thinking on many issues is also not thorough and coherent enough; inconclusion, the value of difficulties for one people should be divided intoskilled at dealing with difficulty and no ideas these two different conditions.To sum up, difficulty probably has many-sided benefits for people, and thus, itis a basic part of life; but, the impact of good and difficult situations onpeople are mostly somewhat similar, which is also a fact not difficult toobserve.

(II)  Many Pleasures of Life

Certainly, besides some difficult places, life naturally also has many marvelous pleasures, otherwise, the long life will be hard to bear; roughly speaking, the pleasure of life at least contains the following several types:

1 The pleasure of work. Because work is the major means of survival for every adult, thus, work is naturally highly important for adult; conversely, work is not just one kind of responsibility, it will also bring us many-sided deep pleasure. Broadly speaking, one individual who is good at certain aspect can definitely get many kinds of strong, direct and profound pleasure from his own work, and these pleasure is very real for talented individuals; in fact, one of the major motivations to propel people to work in certain field for a long time is the extensive and deep pleasure from their own work, while it is also the major source of interest. The pleasure in work is naturally many-sided, such as the pleasure of creation, the pleasure of broadly communicating with colleagues, the internal feeling of perceptual level, the pleasure of intellectual level, etc, while these pleasure is often interwoven, and is also naturally and organically integrated into every people’s inner self and external life journey. To conclude, work is the combination of responsibility and inner pleasure, while for an individual who has deep love for certain field and really talented, the rich pleasure in work is the major aspect, and it will enduringly emanate deep, mature and novel attractions for these individuals.

2 The pleasure of life leisure, such as playing cards. In people’severyday life, besides many unavoidable responsibilities, there are naturallyalso many pleasure, and among them, playing cards is an example. Generallyspeaking, playing cards is one kind of life leisure which universally exists invarious societies, and about the internal pleasure of playing cards, in hismedium-length novelThe Death of Ivan Ilyitch, Tolstoy writes: “But Ivan Ilyitch’s greatest pleasure was playingbridge. He acknowledged that whatever disagreeable incident happened in hislife, the pleasure that beamed like a ray of light above everything else was tosit down to bridge with good players, not noisy partners, and of course tofour-handed bridge (with five players it was annoying to have to stand out,though one pretended not to mind), to play a clever and serious game (when thecards allowed it) and then to have supper and drink a glass of wine. After agame of bridge, especially if he had won a little (to win a large sum wasunpleasant), Ivan Ilyitch went to bed in a specially good humour.” Tolstoy’sthis vivid description is naturally appropriate, because many adults’ intenseinterest for playing cards will last for several decades, and one of thereasons why playing cards has great pleasure is that playing cards cantemporarily free people from the many annoyances in work and life, and sincethere normally exist many frustrating and disrupted things in our work andlife, while playing cards can let people temporarily get away from these things’tangle and intrusion; meanwhile, playing cards will also bring lively andexciting atmosphere, and will let people unconsciously be intoxicated into it;the superposition of these two aspects naturally has great attraction forpeople. In the meantime, the process of playing cards also has much pleasure,such as analyzing how to play, calculating the cards in different people’shands, because playing cards sets somewhat rich and interesting rules, and thewhole process will also be varied, which will let people feel pleasant andcomfortable. To conclude, due to the combined action of many reasons, playingcards has been universally popular for hundreds of years in various societies.Meanwhile, one point needs to noted that, in fact, only truly mature adults canfully feel the rich pleasure of playing cards, and in our childhood, ourunderstanding towards playing cards is somewhat superficial, and only in fully matureadulthood, we can truly feel the real pleasure of playing cards (part of thereason is probably that many rules in playing cards are interlinked with manyrules in practical life and work).

3 The pleasure of sex. Sex is certainly also pleasant life experience, and it also has somewhat strong attraction for many people, and the underlying reason is naturally somewhat complex. Firstly, as for physical level, sex can bring people direct physical pleasure, which is naturally from our biological instinct, merely that human’s biological instinct is more complex than animals, and this point is somewhat obvious; secondly, similar to work and cards, sex also has somewhat rich contents, and if sex’s contents are very simple, I think it will not have strong attractions for a number of people, and moreover, the richness of sex is probably one of the major reasons why sex has partial attraction; thirdly, sex also often has the feature of pursuing novelty, and needs to include fresh contents. In conclusion, the reason why sex has strong attraction for people is not accidental, but with many basic reasons; but, in the meantime, I think it is also inappropriate to exaggerate the attraction of sex, due to at least two points: firstly, sex is obviously merely a small part of life, and one person who is merely interested at sex naturally just has a highly unilateral life, because work and life have too broad and deep intension, and each aspect of them can bring people profound, rich intellectual pleasure, for example, I think one person with rich practical experience can get more diverse and lively pleasure from a work travel than sex, and about it, Franklin also says an appropriate sentence :“He that has not got a Wife, is not yet a complete Man”, which naturally shows that family life and family responsibility are much more mature, rich and important than simply sex. Secondly, sex’s contents are essentially somewhat simple, though with a few skills, I think there are not substantially changes, namely, sex is just one kind of limited experience; a relevant fact is, since at many times, sex is one kind of irrational physical (and psychological) strong impulse, people sometimes will have excessive imagination and illusion about it, and they think if they get sex, they can get much happiness and satisfaction, but, when we truly get sex, we will find that it is just ordinary, and is just one kind of particular limited experience, namely, as one kind of physical (and psychological) impulse, sex will let people generate some psychological and conceptual illusions, which also results that in some occasions people will exaggerate its pleasure in thought. To sum up, the pleasure of sex is also one aspect of life’s pleasure, and it is both complex and simple, which also naturally appears in our everyday life.

4 The pleasure of overcoming difficulties. Because there exist many kinds of difficulties in life, while to overcome these difficulties, we must try to use our courage, intelligence and willpower, and this process also often brings us enormous satisfaction, therefore, struggling in the choppy life is one kind of basic pleasure in life; here, we can use the great mathematician Sylvester’s experience as an appropriate example. As a person who has gone through many kinds of living difficulties, the life theme of Sylvester is to keep struggling with the world around him (with the process of studying mathematics); firstly, because he believes in Judaism, not Christianity, and in his time with strong religious atmosphere, it obviously brings him much trouble; after that, when he was 27 years old (1841), he went to University of Virginia to teach, but just stayed there for 3 months and was forced to resign, and in the following two years he also had many setbacks, which results that in the following 10 years he experienced many hardships; finally, when he was 56 years old, he retired from Royal Academy of Military Sciences, the authority tried to deceive him, and deprived his partial living allowance, but certainly, Sylvester did not surrender, and the authority also flinched before this brave old man. When we look back Sylvester’s rich and tortuous life experience, what we see is his sense of struggle and unrestrained enthusiasm before the difficulties, consequently, when in his old age, Sylvester finally got satisfied living condition, he naturally showed gladness from the heart about life; when we see a photo Sylvester leaves, we will find that he is peaceful, serene and satisfied in his later years, because he clearly knows that what he passes is a full, rich (and also turbulent) life. If we observe some great mathematicians’ life experience, such as Wiener and Weil, we will find that their life is also similarly turbulent, and they also have to rush around for academic research and make a living; but, they do not flinch before many difficulties, and continuously exert their initiative, and thereby, they naturally also feel life’s much essence. In a word, the process of overcoming difficulties will also bring us wide, profound life pleasure. (It needs to add that, considering the complexity of situations, in our practical life, there do exist some difficulties which are hard to conquer and escape; we think, the statement “After a storm a calm” is valid in most times, namely, we can walk out many difficulties in life, but there are also a small part of situations which are hard to change.)

The expositions above about several aspects are naturally just a small part of life’s pleasure, and from them, we can roughly feel that life has many-sided pleasures, and they are all internal components of every adult’s life. Combining the above facts, we can probably say, life has broad and fascinating intension, but, they require us to proactively discover, and merely waiting is not enough; generally speaking, our life can become barren and tedious and also can become rich and fertile, which mostly relies on our careful cultivation, and relies on our initiative spirit. Meanwhile, we can also meaningfully find, under the surface of gentle and stable life, the world we live in is actually a disturbed world with complex individual motivations—some people are addicted to groundbreaking scientific research, some people indulge in the pursuit of sex, some people are engrossed in surpassing people around them, and some people are engrossed in fresh artistic creations, meanwhile, some people concentrate on thinking about life experience, etc; in summary, in the large crowd, different people’s leading motivations are quite different, while people’s leading motivation is clearly one core part of his (her) life; obviously, it is these diverse life pursuits that shape the vibrant human civilization.

In the analyses of several pleasures above, we can preliminarilyfeel that there is also much spiritual happiness in life, and as the greatthinker Mill says: “But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which doesnot assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination,and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those ofmere sensation.” “The utilitarian writers in general have placed thesuperiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency,safety, uncostliness, etc, of the former —that is, in their circumstantialadvantages rather than in their intrinsic nature.”[3]Mill’s view here naturallyreflects partial life phenomena, while Sidgwick further thinks that people’sspiritual value is more important than happiness, and he writes: “To be in thehighest sense virtuous, must not be done solely for the sake of the attendantpleasure, even if that be the pleasure of the moral sense; so that if I do anact from the sole desire of obtaining the glow of moral self-approbation whichI believe will attend its performance, the act will not be truly virtuous.”[4]In a word, through thesegreat thinkers’ opinions, we can also know that much pleasure in life is indeedspiritual, and they are all beyond the sensory experience in realistic level,and this basic perspective naturally also deserves our attention.

But, besides the pleasure of realistic life and the pleasure inspiritual level, life seems to still have other pursuits, some strange thoughtsbeyond life, and some free singular imaginations; to conclude, sometimes ourhorizon should not be limited by life itself. For example, in famous writerMaugham’s full-length novelThe Moon and Sixpence, the hero Strickland was a stockbroker, and due to the strongattraction of painting, he abandons his family and career, and runs to a smallisland in South Pacific and lives with indigenous people, and lives the sameway of life as primitive man, which is certainly one kind of weird lifepursuit; but, we seems to should leave room for these weird pursuits (though itnaturally should not be the mainstream of life). Similarly, in academic field,we naturally need works with rigorous structure and systematic contents likeSidgwick’sThe Methods of Ethics, butwe probably also cannot lack some works which are not systematic enough andwith imperfect arguments (though also exquisite and profound) like Nozick’sAnarchy, State and Utopia, namely, inacademic field, we also need to leave room for some books with unique and novelmethods and views. In a word, a small part of life’s pleasure is beyond life,and there is still a small part of fresh and peculiar pleasure beyond life,which seems also to be an objective fact.

If we combine the expositions in the first two parts, we can easily see, in the complex and changing realistic life, the difficult side and the pleasure side are often intertwined and alternately appear; generally speaking, in most times, life is calm and smooth, but there is also a small part of difficult and stressful time, and also a small part of happy and marvelous time; in other words, the happiness and hardship in life all scatteredly exist, meanwhile, somewhat curiously, they also have internal connections (as Goethe once says: “There are bitter in sweet, and sweet in bitter”). Here, with the awareness of many pleasures in life, we also should not forget many hardships in life, because work and life are both difficult, and the superposition of them naturally results that life is especially hard; we all know the basic importance of labor and thought in life, and the reason is that there are too many problems in both work and life, and we can merely rely on labor to gradually solve them. Meanwhile, an overused statement is, one person should try to feel the various aspects of life, and he needs to feel its sweetness, and also needs to feel its sourness, and only by wholly feeling life’s success, setback, prosperity and struggle, can he (she) form somewhat comprehensive and reasonable understanding towards life; this truth is naturally correct, but I think it needs a necessary premise, namely, one person must have mature character and thought, and I think an overly young individual cannot really know life’s various hardships, and also cannot deeply feel life’s many pleasure, and an immature adult’s feelings towards various aspects and various events of life are all somewhat superficial and narrow, and not mature and profound enough, which is a somewhat obvious basic fact.

(III)    Some Beauties of Life

It is easy to understand, life naturally has many beautiful places, while in the broad and graceful art, one theme is to characterize the beauties of life from all angles, and one basic theme of various arts, such as movie, song, novel and classical music, is the concrete or general beauties of life. Life’s beauty certainly can be divided into many different types, and here, we just want to make some analyses from one particular angle, namely, the perspective of memory, present and hope.

Firstly, one beautiful place of life is colorful and realisticmemory. Every person naturally has a great deal of memory, while these diversememories are also part of every person’s living experience, roughly speaking,our memory probably can be divided into two parts: perceptual experience andrational reflection. Firstly, about the perceptual experience in memory, weoften unconsciously recall some parts of past life, for example, some scenarioswith family member, some scenarios with friends and colleagues, or someimpressive moments in work and life, certainly, in them, there are naturallysome delightful memories, and also some bitter scenarios. Secondly, about therational reflection in memory, we will often consciously or unconsciouslyrecall many events in our past work and life, and further reflect the surfaceand deep principles in them, and extract many-sided enlightening experience forour own work and life; for the difficult realistic life, it is very beneficialand necessary to get rich work and life experience from much memory. It is easyto understand, the perceptual memory and rational reflection these two aspectsare not isolated, but often mingle together, and as John Dewey once writes: “Therevivals of memory are, however, rarely literal. We naturally remember whatinterests us and because it interests us. The past is recalled not because ofitself but because of what it adds to the present. Thus the primary life ofmemory is emotional rather than intellectual and practical. Savage man recalledyesterday’s struggle with an animal not in order to study in a scientific waythe qualities of the animal or for the sake of calculating how better to fight tomorrow,but to escape from the tedium of today by regaining the thrill of yesterday.The memory has all the excitement of the combat without its danger and anxiety.To revive it and revel in it is to enhance the present moment with a newmeaning, a meaning different from that which actually belongs either to it orto the past. Memory is vicarious experience in which there is all the emotionalvalues of actual experience without its strains, vicissitudes and troubles.”[5]In this passage, memory’svalue in both the perceptual and rational levels is well embodied. In a word,memory and reflection make up a big area of life.

Secondly, one beauty of life also lies in the present direct experience. Nobody can neglect the deep value of the present, while the reason why the present is so important can probably be divided into several points: firstly, at the present time, we can do many activities, not few activities, in brief, the present often contains broad contents. Secondly, only our thoughts and feelings at present are direct and strong, while in memory or hope, what we get are just some indirect and virtual feelings, and they can let people feel peaceful and happy, but lack the present moment’s vitality, fear, anxiety, judgment, flexibility and wisdom; in a word, what the present moment brings us is many-sided direct experience in life. Finally, the present is also the major bridge between the past and the future, because the present contains many reflections about past experience, and also is the stage to achieve future hope, only at the present moment can we fully use our subjective initiative, and can we work hard and act and think, and can we creatively solve many problems, and further improve and expand our working capability and living experience. Obviously, the beauty of present moment is also a large part of life’s beauty, and thus, the notion of valuing present is also emphasized by people in various societies.

Lastly, another beauty of life is the hope for the future. No matter for young people, middle-aged person or old people, most people will have certain expectations for the future of themselves and their family, and they are probably about career, or about money, or about some concrete life issues, big and small, and are interlocked; meanwhile, people who are engaged in various professions (doctor, artist, businessman, government official, scientist, company employee) will also have certain hope for their future, and they expect to gradually improve their work and life condition. For people who are in adversity, hope is the major impetus to inspire him to keep struggling, while for people who are in good conditions, hope is one big motivation to spur him to keep working; in conclusion, the beauty of hope is its brightness, vitality, rationality, prudence and imaginativeness. But, on the other hand, we also should realize, the hope for the future needs to consider various conditions in realistic life, and must consider various possible realistic situations, and consequently, needs to make full preparation in various aspects; here, excessive idealism is somewhat harmful, because its understandings towards living condition, working situation and social environment are often unilateral and superficial, and thus, it is difficult to get beneficial results, namely, hope must draw its major strength from realism.

 For adult’s life, memory,present and future naturally all contain many beautiful places, and we canprobably make the following partial summary: every people’s memory is a broadgarden, and there are various colorful flowers in it; while at the presentmoment, we also directly feel life’s many difficulties and happiness;meanwhile, every people also need to keep thinking about the future, and basedon various solid foundation, to achieve the realistic possibilities; while ourlives keep extending and enriching in the past, the present and the futurethese three dimensions.

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[1]SeeThe Consolations of Philosophy, Chapter VI, “Consolation for Difficulties”, Section 12,London: Penguin Books, 2001.

[2]Mencius, Gaozi II.

[3]Utilitarianism, ChapterII, London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1871.

[4]The Methods of Ethics,Book I, Chapter IV, section 1, pp. 52, 53, London: Macmillan and Company, 1907.

[5]Reconstruction in Philosophy,Chapter I, p.2, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920.