Accumulate leaves and listen to the rain

Accumulate leaves and listen to the rain

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Zhu Guangqian (1897- 1986) is a famous aesthetician, literary theorist, educator and translator in China. Leaves Listening to the Rain is his first classic work. The title comes from an interesting anecdote: once a student visited Zhu Guangqian and saw the teacher's yard full of leaves and wanted to help clean it up. Zhu Guangqian quickly stopped him.

Zhu Guangqian deserves to be called a master of aesthetics, and even the sound of rain should be deliberately created. This seemingly meaningless move contains a certain truth, that is, most of the beauty needs to be painstakingly created: the beauty of photos comes from the clever cooperation of aperture and shutter, the beauty of love comes from the obsession of being willing to do stupid things, the beauty of words comes from deliberation, the beauty of music comes from the boredom of practicing hard at the piano, and the beauty of family comes from the harmony of mutual understanding and mutual accommodation. Natural beauty is becoming more and more rare now, not only because human activities are eroding the original habitat of nature, but also because the simple wind in interpersonal communication is being tempted by various interests.

The construction of beauty requires both subtle efforts and thoughtful intentions. Listening to the rain for a day or two is not enough to achieve the effect of "rustling" rain. You have to hold your breath and hold your temper. Similarly, a photographer may have to wait all day to capture a beautiful moment. A girl will stay up all night in her hospital bed to make a paper crane for her boyfriend. A literati can boil words into Ejiao in order to extract the essence. A pianist's masterpiece is to gather his feelings at his fingertips, and the deepest affection comes from the deep heart.

I don't know how different the sound of rain hitting Lin Qiu and leaves falling on the court is, but I can imagine that Zhu Guangqian longed for the autumn leaves to accumulate thicker and thicker, fearing that the wind would blow them away and that someone would sweep them away until he longed for a storm. In this expectation and waiting, beauty slowly condenses into a seed in my heart. You can't guess whether it will grow into a towering tree or a grass crawling on the ground, but my heart has nourished a refreshing beauty with the germination of seeds.

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