What will happen to the "last generation"

"This is our last generation, thank you."

During the closure of Shanghai on May 11 last year, a young citizen who refused to be taken away for isolation responded to the threat of "after the punishment (retaining the case) will affect you for three generations" issued by the police. This simple sentence, which expresses the aspirations of countless Chinese young people, quickly spread throughout the simplified Chinese online world.

Indeed, in China today, whether it is a political action against totalitarian tyranny or a personal choice for passive self-preservation, the "last generation", or "refusal to have children", has become the only feasible option for those left behind. way of fighting. Only this way of resistance seems to be something that the party-state cannot stop. The party-state used to have many ways to prevent children from being born, but now it seems that there is no way to make children have children. This is undoubtedly something that all political minorities (that is, "rebels") like to hear.

However, when Lu Xun faced the awakened female college students, he had to ask, "What will happen after Nora leaves?" Lu Xun in our era obviously didn't even have the chance to become Lu Xun, so no one asked: How will the "last generation" live.

This question seems to have no answer, and no one wants to know the answer. There was a popular saying a while ago, "Many people say they can't see the future, but they actually see the future." The reason why young people decide to become the "last generation" is superficially because they don't know what the future will hold, but the underlying reason is that they know This future must not be what you like.

Young people who call themselves "problem masters" will find that high diplomas cannot be exchanged for high salaries, high salaries cannot match high housing prices, and getting a house is only the first hurdle to get married and raise the next generation; "Young people who think of themselves will find that even if they lie flat, they need at least a job that will neither drain their time and energy, nor eliminate themselves in a few years, or a job that is capable and willing. Long-term support for their family - parents in most cases, spouse in rare cases.

Apparently, no matter how much you struggle and introvert, it will be difficult for you to achieve the two small goals of "marrying in your 20s" and "having children in your 30s" that are regarded as standard in life by mainstream values. A piece of paper exchanged for a diploma has really become a piece of waste paper; no matter how much the lying flat people lie flat and touch fish, it is difficult to avoid the fate of risking their lives for public examinations or working overtime. Not a peaceful single bed.

Those who struggle have doubts about struggle in their hearts, and those who lie flat cannot lie flat physically. This is the reality in China today. In this environment, for the vast majority of young people who have no spare time to consider marriage and childbearing, the "last generation" is neither a personal choice nor a political action, but an inescapable fate, just like the one written by Edgar Allan Poe. Like a maelstrom at sea, it lies in the future of most people.

Among young people waiting to meet their fate, marriage and childbirth, a mediocre option that can be seen everywhere, has become an abnormal state: those who "conditionally" marry and have children do so, giving people the impression that they are showing off their wealth; People who "have no conditions" to marry and have children do so, giving people the impression that they are making mistakes.

Whether it’s showing off their wealth or making mistakes, what marriage-children have in common is that to some extent they have lost the qualification to complain about structural difficulties in the field of public opinion, let alone form a joint force to promote system amendments or even public opinion changes. Even if the social progress that is good for them is likely to be good for everyone, it is the kind that the party-state that is trying to increase the fertility rate is relatively the least likely to oppose: reform of the maternity leave system, reduction of overtime hours, elimination of maternity/sex discrimination in the workplace, infant The universalization of child care, the unbundling reform of the household registration education system, the addition of family/gender-free toilets and barrier-free passages in public places...

This is not surprising, because most young people no longer care about how to solve the structural difficulties in marriage and childbirth, and the level design of the hard mode has discouraged their interest in clearing the level. They hope to do it in one step, proving that "as long as you don't marry or have children, life can get better/at least it won't get worse".

To be honest, I have a hard time disagreeing with this statement.

If we can't go abroad, my husband and I will definitely not have children; if it is not for the convenience of going abroad together or to appease our parents, we may not get married—we are sure that the other party is the partner we want to live together for a long time, should we register? Marriage has little to do with this cognition. We are still very sure that if we do not go abroad and give birth to a child, our quality of life will drop sharply, and there is no possibility of recovery until the child becomes independent. As for the independence of the children, let alone our state at that time, will the party-state be okay?

However, it is also difficult for me to agree with this sentence unconscionably.

Psychologically, human beings have an illusion that they are immortal. It's not that people who have this delusion think that they will never die, but when they are young, it is inevitable that unless they voluntarily give up their current state of life, otherwise it will last forever. In China, this delusion is especially dangerous. Because people age quickly, people over the age of 35 who did not become leaders disappeared from the workplace; the environment has also changed rapidly. Now the public examination is to go to the shore, and in the 1990s to do business is to go to sea. No matter whether people are in the sea or on the shore, It is very possible to live with Feng Shui turned the other way for a long time.

So the big truth is that even if you are the "last generation" and only take the risk of your own life, your life may not get better, but worse.

Marriage and childbearing are not enough, and neither is marriage and infertility. As long as you are in China, is there no way out? On the bright side, this is not a problem of China alone.

Since the Internet age has provided human beings with an increasingly fascinating online life, human beings as a whole have become less and less interested in the part of life that has to be done offline, and even the sexual behavior between people has greatly improved. reduced . If even sexual desire isn't enough to get us interested in reaching out to another living human being, what desire can motivate us to form an intimate relationship?

I just saw a short review when I finished watching "The Instantaneous Universe", to the effect: "Just once, I really hope that love is not the antidote to all problems". I understand this suspicion and exhaustion of love very well. After all, in the life experience of many people, there are very few good loves, and bad loves can be seen everywhere. Love seems to bring us much more pain and trouble than comfort and hope, especially when the object is a human being who is close at hand; and in the ever-changing online world, we seem to be able to pass through the person in front of us. Vibrant electronic screens can participate in any kind of life, without having to bear the redundancy of the longing life outside the camera, and can escape the boring life around you that is not worthy of being photographed.

This kind of life is very tempting to me, and probably to any lazy person. It has only one shortcoming here, but it is a fatal shortcoming: it can make a person live happily for a long time, and at the same time gradually make him lose the ability to feel happy; it can make a person give up thinking for a long time, but when When he can't help thinking, it will be difficult to find a reason to live.

Humans are still a social animal, so if you don’t have face-to-face contact with other people for a long time, you will be depressed; Positive values are more depressing. If before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were still people who firmly believed that "as long as you can access the Internet, you are not afraid of going to jail", after experiencing different degrees and forms of lockdown, there must be countless people who have realized how depressing it is to live without being affected only by the Internet. In this era, there seem to be many spiritual products that can make people happy without being connected to people, but unfortunately, human beings have evolved to the present, and the body and brain cannot adapt to a life that only has this kind of happiness.

A healthy spiritual life has at least three pillars: good work, hobbies, and intimacy. Conversely, bad jobs, addiction problems, and bad relationships can also destroy mental health. If one pillar is missing in life, the other two will be even more burdensome; if two are missing, the person may achieve great success in the only area left, or may have a complete mental breakdown-of course, it may happen both .

In China today, it is difficult to make a life plan that pursues quality, and this is no exception for anyone; it seems very arrogant and even cruel to "advise" young people to live a healthy spiritual life when they "can't see the future" . However, one day counts as one day, and a life with three pillars is a happy life. Even if one day is gone, it will be happy in retrospect.

Therefore, my only message to the "last generation" is not to be "alone" easily. After the "child is his weakness" incident, everyone knows that the person you love the most is your weakness. But the last famous sentence about weakness is a reply from Zhihu: "(The feeling of loving someone) seems to have a weakness suddenly, and also an armor. " Love will make you weak, and in this way make you weaker You become stronger.

If you can love your lover, love your lover; if you can love your friend, then love your friend; if you can’t love people, then love your pet; even if you love a hobby, love a job. From a psychological point of view, people who have the ability to love are mentally healthier; people who have the ability to love for a long time are even more enviably strong mentally. Of course, we are all sick in a psychological sense, but just like physical health, the farther away from a state of mental health a person feels, the worse it feels.

Love may not be the antidote for all problems, but it is difficult to find a better antidote than it for the problems between specific people. Please believe how enthusiastic and professional the creative workers and pharmaceutical companies are in developing new drugs all over the world, and how enthusiastic and professional they are in developing new routines other than "love is the last salvation". But are we consumers willing to buy it? Most people who don't believe in love want to read "It's hopeless, even love can't save it", not "There must be a better way than love".

Human beings, even if they just believe that they can love, they seem to have traveled to a completely different world. "Love concrete people, not abstract people." Because what can be obtained by loving concrete people can never be obtained by loving abstract people or doctrines.