Success is an accident, hypocrisy is an inevitable event

I have been in Guangzhou for a month, but I have to leave soon, and I may not come again in a short time.

A month ago, because of an illusory internship invitation from a magazine, I made the decision to go south within two days. I bought an expensive ticket and watched my mother's eyes turn red from crying. At that time, I met the media in Beijing for a month, and all of them stopped at interviews. By the end of August, I felt more and more like a moldy and rotten garbage, shamelessly occupying the big bed at home and being served by my parents. I felt that I couldn't go on like this anymore, thinking that changing cities might change my mood.

Guangzhou at the end of August is like a towel left in a sauna room. No matter what the weather is, if you walk for ten minutes, your whole body will be wet. I originally wanted to spend a few days looking for a room, but I surrendered to the weather in Guangzhou after being taken by the housekeeper for an afternoon. After returning to the air-conditioned hotel, he signed a Ziroom apartment a few hundred meters away from the company.

My room is on the 28th floor, and I can see the towering buildings of Linhexi being silently hidden in the thunderstorm, or being reflected in warm colors by the satin-like fire clouds; The gentle night is outlined in the emerald green of the banyan tree. I thought at the time that I was off to a good start.

On the first day when I reported to the company, I saw the dirty corridors and pitch-black patio, and the heavy desk in the office was still light yellow in the 1990s. I thought: This is too old. Thinking about the media I interviewed in Beijing, the market value may not surpass Pinduoduo after another five hundred years of hard work, but the signs in the meeting room are ambitiously written "Tencent" and "Space X", and the lazy sofa and tea break area reflect The aesthetics of Soho, a first-tier city.

However, when I opened the door of the meeting room, all the people sitting on the table were my peers, which gave me a little relief. Later, I learned that the new media department of this magazine was supported by this group of young people, and the four editor-in-chiefs had only been in the industry for two or three years; while the other side wrote articles for the paper magazine, they were all in their 30s and 40s. The media veterans. My department is responsible for generating revenue for this slightly old magazine.

They told me that the KPI is four manuscripts a month, which seems like a fantasy to Caiji Xiaogu. I worked on the first manuscript for two weeks, and was finally banned; the second manuscript was lucky enough to be published, but it was deleted after the reading volume exceeded 100,000; the third manuscript, I wrote a third of it As soon as I couldn't write any more, the words on the Shimo document were already like crawlers connected together.

In the second half of September, I fell into a deep sleep during many nights of collapse, and told myself: I have to go to work on time the next day! I have to buy Haoshiduo's steamed stuffed buns after nine o'clock, and sit at my desk on time! Fortunately, I got a seat, but then I have to face eight hours of paddling, and paddling is very painful. Others paddled on the lake, I paddled in mudslides, and had to act like I was paddling hard.

The colleague next to me didn't say a word to me, and the small notebook was densely written line after line; the colleague behind me tapped the keyboard rhythmically, and every time I tapped, it seemed to tell me: My manuscript is about to be born, you work hard oh! He didn't know, I didn't choose a topic, and I couldn't find it after staring at the hot search all morning. I am currently watching WeChat reading on the PC, because the characters are large.

Sometimes when I walk on the street, the tall banyan trees block the sunlight, the condensed water from the high-rise air conditioners will drip on my shoulders, and the heat from the sausage noodle shop rises suddenly, mixed with the damp smell of iron windows and stone roads, reminding me In the southern country, in a city I am not familiar with. I will be asked by others, and I will also ask myself why I am here. I might say perfunctorily: Because of an internship, they said that there is a possibility of becoming a regular. But I actually have no answer, and more and more no answer.

To be honest, Guangzhou has a lot to like. Cheap rent, pleasant green plants, and convenience stores blooming everywhere, even if you are squeezed out in the office building, you can still be rescued by the delicious food in the street shop. I chatted with all kinds of people around me, and everyone seemed to like it here, but I was like an outlier. My friends said that I just can't let go of the pride of the people in the imperial capital, but my family is already on the Seventh Ring Road, so naturally I don't have such an exaggerated centrism that "Sanlitun is the only civilized place in the Milky Way".

There may be a hundred places in Guangzhou that are better than Beijing, but wherever I go, I may be a little reluctant to bear the strangeness of Beijing. This kind of weirdness is hard to explain clearly, maybe you just sit in a cafe and you can see some weird people flying around in place. He may be talking about shit, or he may be talking about the spring and snow that you can't reach in your life. They're all fucking themselves up in that little arena, and it just makes this place kind of damn charming to me. This sounds like a frog in a well, but I have been living in Beijing for more than 20 years, and I don't mind continuing to live here for the time being.

Back to myself, I know that my ability is not enough for this magazine. Even if I am capable enough, my current state is not sustainable. Every time I think of the "topic selection meeting", I want to run away, and then I feel sick when I see social media; I feel liberated when I go home every day, and my struggle forces my colleagues to write like crazy; then I collapse , frantically wanting to talk to a friend, and spent 200 yuan for an hour of psychological counseling. As a result, I decisively bought a plane ticket back to Beijing, checked out Ziroom’s room, and decided to be a deserter again.

During the two days when I didn't want to work, I could stay in bed indefinitely in the morning, and my functions temporarily returned to normal. Packing up things today actually gave me a sense of joy. But I'm not sure I'll be overwhelmed with frustration again when I get home. Although being a deserter is a decision to be loyal to my body, what should I do if the next time I encounter the same workplace? You can't always be a deserter.

I remembered chatting with Teacher Huang Deng two weeks ago, talking about the 985 waste group, and talking about the anxiety of students in prestigious schools. She said that the children in your good schools have too low a fault tolerance rate for themselves, and they always want to do every step well. If this step is done well, the next step will be good, but it is impossible to take every step well in life. She was right, and I understood it, and thought I was over the peer pressure. But the thing is, my emotions are starting to get more and more out of whack from years of internal friction.

When I was feeling uncomfortable before, I would think that the future can be like this and that, without the pretending middle class in Douban on Ins, and the help from Normal People; but now, I can’t imagine what the future will look like. When emotions come, I can only pray, God Ah, let me get through it, and open the doors and windows for me, and I promise to be a good man. I became more and more humble and passive in the game against bad emotions. I used to remember a very chicken soup saying in Japanese TV dramas: "Those who cry while eating will always find a way." The point is, I cried before, and then the way was shattered by my tears.

I posted a very inspirational Douban before, saying that no matter where I go, I rebuild my life, everyone will go through this, so there is nothing to feel sorry for. However, at this moment, I started to think about nothing. Being able to have broken thoughts shows that my state is okay, because when I am at the bottom of the valley, my broken thoughts are all broken pieces, deposited in the test tube of my heart, waiting to rub against the erratic emotions. My expression is like a pool of stagnant water, but thousands of storms have already been bred in my body, like a tornado under a microscope. I know it's not cute at all, like a moss-covered dejected bear, wandering around the forest without finding anything.

My mother told me that if I have a dream of being a reporter, I should go after it. People of their generation were quite optimistic and liked to use grandiose words, but as soon as I had a face-to-face with the reality, most of it withered, and I was desperately looking for a fulcrum to prevent that half from withering. I'm just not very strong, I don't have any adverse quotient, a greenhouse paramecium that wants to escape when encountering high-concentration salt water, I boast in my circle of friends and pretend to be a good person, but in fact my stomach is empty.

In terms of content freedom, many people of my age have already erected mountains, whether it is publicity or appearance, I can only look up to them. But it doesn't bother me much anymore. You have your mountain, and I have my sand castle; you have your hundred thousand plus, and I have my good mud. After so many years of education, I failed to grow a useful bonsai, and I always wanted to plant the seeds of the dog's tail flower in my heart. I also got my wish and grew into a weed full of despondent words.

I saw Li Xueqin recently and thought she was quite sincere. The end of the universe is Tieling, and I envy her, because the end of my world is Beijing surrounded by a ring. Li Xueqin can go home and stew big goose in an iron pot. When I go home, it will be an arena like a meat grinder. I complained to my friends in Guangzhou that being born in a first-tier city is really irreversible. If you want to achieve a little bit of self-realization, you have to live as a LinkedIn strongman, and you can’t afford a house in your hometown for the rest of your life. The most terrible thing is that we are all soaked in the big city unknowingly and become a hothouse waste, who can't compete with a lunatic who puts a camp bed in the office. Just thinking about it makes me annoyed like a puffer fish.

I used to say that success is an accidental event, but now I may need to add: Hypocrisy is an inevitable event. In this era when Zhihu smells so pungent, hypocrisy is the only thing I can grasp. I am also eager to be hypocritical and hypocritical, so that my heart can really be enriched.

Recorded in Guangzhou

2020/10/01