Wouldn’t you feel frustrated if people keep telling that you are wrong or you are not right? Many people have this kind of frustration and at other times they do the same intimidation to others. They would say you have the wrong knowledge, wrong understanding, wrong applications, wrong analysis, wrong judgments, wrong plans, wrong receiving (受), wrong mental responding (想), wrong valuing of the mental responds which lead to a commitment (行), wrong organizing of the commitments which leads to a kind of value system (识), and even wrong religion. They include strangers, community members, family members, parents, and even yourself. Yes, you would sometime tell yourself you are wrong and make yourself frustrated with yourself. However, it only matters to you if you believe in right and wrong. In other words, you won’t feel frustrated if you don’t believe in right and wrong (无是非之心).
The number of teens who felt useless and joyless – classic symptoms of depression – surged recently and teen suicide attempts increased. It is a huge problem to the teens themselves, and it is also a problem to the society. One doesn’t really have a life if he is not happy; he will be like a zombie who walks around, doing something but not happy doing it and not knowing why he continues doing it. He may harm himself, and he may also harm innocent people without any reason, hence is a time-bomb to the society.
The mental health issues may be due to academic pressure, peer pressure, economic pressure, relationship problems, and some people blame it on the ascendance of the smartphone. Did the addiction to smartphone causes depression, or joyless living cause addiction to smartphone? That is the question, and the answer is probably the latter. Many “successful” individuals were unhappy with their “lives” too. At the moment before they die, they would probably say: “I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy. Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed. At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death. In the dark, when I look at green lights, of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me. Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you have to pursue objectives that are not related to wealth. For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood. No, stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me.” – These aren’t Steve Jobs’s last words, but they still managed to inspire many people. “Successful” people become addicted to work because of joyless lives, the same way teens become addicted to smartphones. They did look forward to wake up every morning to go to work or play with smartphones, until they don’t. Yet many people say love-your-work is right but love-your-smartphone is wrong. In actual fact, both are not right and both are not wrong. What is right and what is wrong, actually?
I love my children, the same as most parents do. I don’t want them to be harmed in any way. To achieve this, I can try to protect them whenever they are with me. But I won’t be with them all the time and forever. They will have to learn to protect themselves and be resilient, able to become strong and healthy again after something bad happens. Not only they must be physically strong, they must also be mentally strong. There are limits to one’s physical strength, but it is possible for one’s heart to be so strong like it is shielded by “golden bell” (金钟罩) and “iron cloth” (铁布纱). It is possible to have heart and intestine like iron and stone (铁石心肠). Is it wrong to be unforgiving and cruel? It is not politically correct, but it is not necessarily wrong. Politically correct is not correct; it is only correct politically. After all, political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
Right and wrong are in the “box” (方内), but the problem is there are many “boxes” everywhere. If you subscribe to one “box”, you have one set of right and wrong. If you subscribe to a few “boxes”, you find that the different sets of right and wrong are conflicting with one another. You are thinking out-of-the-box (方外) when you start to question whether there are absolute right and absolute wrong. You will have freedom of thoughts (思想解放).
To believe in right and wrong is very stressful. Not believing in right and wrong is bewildering. Right and wrong are like proton and electron; they are opposite but attracted to each other, and both are indispensable (正反相依，对立相存). The universe cannot exist with too much proton (Yang) or too much electron (Yin). It is a matter of maintaining the balance in time and space. There will be imbalances from time to time and from one place to another place, but that’s OK. Wanting to be right and hate to be wrong all the time will be very stressful, whether you are imposing on yourself or other people. Other people imposing a set of right and wrong on you will also make you stressful. More often than not, you may think you are right but other people think you are wrong. That is why we see people committing suicide, quarreling in a family, racial/religious disputes, and wars between nations.
A group of blind men have never come across an elephant before. They wish to learn and conceptualize what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant body, but only one part. The person, whose hand lands on the trunk, say: “Elephant is like a big snake”. Another one, whose hand reaches its ear, say: “Elephant is like a kind of fan”. The third person, whose hand is upon its leg, say: “The elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk”. The blind man who places his hand upon the elephant body say: “Elephant is a wall”. Another who holds its tail say: “Elephant is a rope”. The last feels its tusk and say: “The elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear”. They describe the elephant based on their partial experience and their descriptions are in complete disagreement on what an elephant is. They come to suspect that the other person is wrong and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to project their partial experiences as the whole truth, and ignore other people’s partial experiences. We should consider that we may be partially right and may have partial information. It doesn’t mean we have to feel unhappy to have doubt about our understanding; we just have to accept that it’s OK to be partially right but not totally right. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain. Just because you have the similar view as the majority doesn’t mean you are right. It is highly possible that it is a groupthink.
RESILIENT KID 