Life is like a string-there is an absolute life.

"There are two blind people walking in the vast gray mountains, one old and one small, tandem, two black straw hats undulating and rushing, like drifting with a restless river. It doesn't matter where you come from or where you go. Everyone wears a lyre and makes a living by telling books. "

Shi Tiesheng's Life is Like a String tells the story of two blind storytellers. The old blind man and the little blind man turned over mountains and mountains, carrying a lyre, and rushing around on the road of "storytelling" all the year round. The old blind man said to the little blind man, "In our line of work, we will go like this all our lives." What can make them go on like this? Is it a "prescription without words" that breaks 1000 strings? Is the unknown world they want to pursue? Or those bittersweet moments in life? This, like Shi Tiesheng himself, can survive because it has found sufficient reasons to live.

Shi Tiesheng's works are full of caring for human nature and exploring the value and significance of life, full of philosophical thinking and style with strong personal feelings. That is the condensed art of life after his self-promotion. Works cannot be separated from the author himself. We can see the shadow of the author from the characters, and we can also reflect on the theme of the work through the author's own experience, and think about the life thinking that this story brings to readers. I think the story of Life as a String revolves around three themes:

With regard to disability:

Physical disability manifests itself as disability or disease. The protagonists in Life is Like a String are two blind storytellers, which is actually an expression of Shi Tiesheng's sense of disability when writing. First of all, the first misfortune they have to face is the conflict with society, which is not a fierce contradiction, but more reflected in the thinking of the disabled themselves. They will feel uneasy and lonely because of their disability, but they will also feel and think about life more intently because of their disability.

In addition to physical disability, there is also a part of mental disability. The old blind man was born blind and has never seen the world. The little blind man has a short memory of the world. This setting is full of emotional care in a sense. What they lack is not only the vision of "seeing the world with open eyes", but also the perception of the world. From the constant mention of the "winding oil wolf" (winding veranda), we can see that they are actually full of curiosity about the world, and they all want to see the novelty they heard from the small box.

The disability in Shi Tiesheng's works is precisely the lack of physical function. Physical disability does not mean mental and emotional inferiority, and personal dignity can be trampled on at will. This cruel fact will not take away the most essential power of life, and those indelible forces will make them tighten the strings of life. This is the meaning of life that Shi Tiesheng wants to reveal.

About fate:

"In terms of fate, Huron is fair." Fate is full of injustice, even if it is resisted, it may not help. The misfortune of fate is an established fact with force majeure. This is the fate of Shi Tiesheng. What is the fate of the old blind man and the little blind man? They are disabled. They have to break a thousand strings to get a prescription. Then they see further. The prescription is actually a blank sheet of paper without words. After all, they can't see the world. These are established facts for them and their destiny. When the old blind man understood the meaning, he saw through the fate and then reflected on his own thinking about the fate-should the little blind man know the truth? When the old blind man looks back on his past life, we can see that Shi Tiesheng has risen from thinking about his own destiny to thinking about the nature of destiny. Even such an unfair and unfortunate fate can still get out of the predicament and bring the meaning and value of life. So in the end, the old blind man chose to let the little blind man continue to break more strings, continue to tighten his heart and live with hope.

About life and death:

Life is inevitable, so is death, and life must be accompanied by death. In "Life is like a String", he wrote: "What attracted him to live, walk and sing suddenly disappeared. Just like a string that can't be stretched, it is difficult to play a pleasant tune. The old blind man's heartstring is broken. " In fact, before the old blind bullet broke a thousand strings, he realized many times that he was old and would not live for a few years, but he still lived to see the last side of the world. He said to himself, "Yes, of course it is." Finally, when the lie was exposed and the belief collapsed, the old blind man realized, "Those busy people who used to climb mountains, hurry and play the piano were so happy, even worried." Just like a string that binds life, faith is illusory, but it is necessary for the little blind.

So what is the function of the prescription? It is a white lie told by story tellers from generation to generation for disciples in order to keep life from falling into despair, and to let people from generation to generation learn to enjoy the happiness and value of the process while approaching hope. Finding a better reason to live is also the obsession expressed by Shi Tiesheng in all his works.

The famous writer Han Shaogong once commented: "Shi Tiesheng is a miracle of life. During his long wheelchair career, he became the supreme and literary peak. His imagination and speculative power refresh the height of contemporary spirit again and again, a kind of warmth that hurts millions of people, making people touch eternity in an instant, enter the world in particles, but smile generously in their hearts in hardship and pain. "

In my opinion, Shi Tiesheng is a writer who can write his own story and write his own story. "His works are exactly the same as his life." The characters in his works always seem to have his charm and even the same fate. He can be the disabled person C in "Retreat Notes", the blind storyteller who has turned over mountains like strings in his life, or the "I" who haunts the distant Qingping Bay in my distant Qingping Bay. There is always speculative beauty in his words, and he is good at expressing the philosophy of "fate" and "life and death" in life. This has become an eternal theme and art in his works.

There is an absoluteness in life. Between life and death, after careful consideration, after pain and joy, after hard struggle, you can still see the hope in the distance through all despair, so move on. Shi Tiesheng tells us how to understand, how to make us face our life with words, and how to give or explore the meaning of life. It was not until the end that we suddenly realized. Isn't the absoluteness of life like "life is like a string"?

Now let's go back to the beginning:

"There are two blind people walking in the vast gray mountains, one old and one small, tandem, two black straw hats undulating and rushing, like drifting with a restless river. It doesn't matter where you come from, where you go, who is who ... "