The title is an English proverb, which means different person has different preference, or put in other words, what one considers enjoyable, beautiful, marvellous, may be despised by some one else.
The first time I ran across this proverb is about 3 decades ago, when I was still an undergrad. That time, I didn’t give it a second thought.
This summer, when I stood beside the sea at Yantai City, Shandong Province, I switched on the camera of my mobile phone and took a few pictures of the beautiful scenery. After checking, I sent them back to my lady friend who stayed at home looking after her grandson. In my imagination, when she received the pictures, she would be very excited. But in fact, she texted me as a response was nothing I anticipated, which immediately made me speechless.
Her reply read as this: Didn’t take me with you. How can you enjoy yourself as a lonely traveler?
Her words expressed her longing to be with me. That is understandable. But her words also convey another implication: a single individual should feel idle and meaningless if he travels in no company of others.
About two years ago, in September, when I went back to school to begin my new semester, I gave her the chance to live alone in our seaside cottage. But only a week later, she began to complain that she didn’t like living that way. Too isolated! Too idle! Too depressed! At last, she even call me names and I could only agree her return home before the National Day break. --- according to our original plan, I would join her during the break and then take her back home.
Once Hai Zi, the well-known Anqing poet, entitled one of his poems as Facing the Sea, You lose Yourself in the Warmth and Flowers of Spring. This sentence has now become a popular quotation in common people’s mouths. It seems that when a man is facing the open ocean, he is sure to feel free of the worldly burdens and therefore plunges into a new carefree kingdom. However, it is never the case.
In reality, only the person has the ability to enjoy what he sees in nature, he can indulge himself in natural beauty. That is to say, if a person can entirely lose forget himself when facing the sea, he should have the character of a poet or an artist. To a man whose pursuit in life is to be be promoted in career, or gain more power other other human beings, or possess massive material stuff, the sea is just water, the horizon is a line, and the flying of a dragonfly is unworthy of observation.
It’s true I travelled alone. But it doesn’t certainly mean that I have to suffer from loneliness or idleness. In fact, when I sat on the rock beside the beach, or looked at the peaceful surface of the bay, in my heart, there was nothing but freedom, fulfillment, and relaxation.
As I stood by the sea, recollecting the sentences my lady friend wrote me, I came to realize such a truth that the same landscape can actually stimulate quite different feelings to different people. Which perfectly verifies what the English proverb reveals.
In conclusion of this short essay I’d like to say that natural beauty is to some people no better than pearls to a swine, or spoken in the French symbolist poet Baudelaire’s words, no better than a bottle of perfume to a dog.
网友评论