This time I spent some time in my hometown because I had to attend my cousin's wedding, met some classmates and relatives, and experienced the life in a third-tier city. After a few days, my feeling is that in China, except for those few first-tier cities where the prices are too high and the competition is too fierce, the happiness index of ordinary people is actually very high. People here do not have the anxiety of big cities at all, but are content with their own little life: most young people work for a few years to buy a house and a car, and then start a family, work will not be very busy, and there is enough time to spend with their families and children, and the parents of this generation are also quite happy, and the days seem to be relatively free, every day, in addition to going to work, it is a number of daily chores and the world of affairs, and the spare time on the game of mahjong, dancing a square dance. In their spare time, they play mahjong, square dance and so on. In short, in these second- and third-tier cities, there is basically no economic pressure, and life is also quite affluent, and from time to time, they can also go out for a trip to visit various places. For them, as long as they can achieve family harmony and harmonious social relations, this is the greatest happiness. This kind of life is actually the typical middle-class life in western countries (except for metropolitan cities, which are all very similar).
In fact, I think this kind of down-to-earth life is really quite good, and I'm especially happy for all of you, but I can't choose this kind of life because this kind of mundane happiness can't satisfy my inner needs. When I was still a minor, I knew that this kind of life was not the life I wanted, because I felt that the meaning of life should not be just to get married and have children, there should be something more worthwhile for me to pursue in life, so for so many years, I have been plagued by this problem, and I have been in search of a life that can satisfy the spiritual needs of my heart.
It was not until recently that I found the answer to the meaning of life from Nietzsche, which is self-transcendence. This is what I have been doing all along, but Nietzsche gave me the philosophical explanation to make it clear. "Ego" is a word that young people love to talk about nowadays, but Nietzsche believed that the ego is not a fait accompli hidden in the individual's nature, but a product of the individual's own creation. In fact, human babies are biologically preterm, because according to the size of the human brain, the normal period of gestation should be 21 months, but the human fetus that has been conceived until 21 months is too big for the human mother to deliver such a big fetus, so the fetus has to be born earlier. It is this premature birth in the biological sense that allows the human infant a long period of acquired learning, and it is the absence of these lines that humans must create themselves through acquired endeavors.
So, although our bodies are already mature, our "selves" are not yet complete, and they are highly malleable, so each of us has unlimited possibilities for development. We do not have a so-called "self" in our body for us to find, but we need to create our own "self". If we want to create our "self", we need to step out of our comfort zone, accept challenges, face changes, and keep working hard. There is no doubt that this kind of life is a lot harder than the small, stable life, but it is a completely different kind of "happiness" that can give our souls a deep satisfaction.
But then again, people are very different. For some people, these mundane pleasures are enough, and they live happily and contentedly in their own little lives, while for others, they are far from enough, and they are destined to go through a lot more trials and hardships for their souls, but only in this way can they get the sense of satisfaction in their hearts. Sometimes, I am quite envious of the first kind of life, however, I was born to be the second kind of person, and I can only find a resting place for my soul by staying true to my nature and constantly honing myself in challenges.
I think the good thing about this era compared to the past one is that it is more tolerant, giving more choices and space for the second kind of people to develop, so that everyone can find the life they want in this era. This is what a better world should look like.