Don't waste time knocking on a wall

A distant relative is particularly fond of painting. He has participated in many trainings, painted a lot of works every month, and tried to participate in various official or private exhibitions, but after more than ten years, he failed to become a famous painter. He complained to me about his frustration, complaining that some people who hold the power of art discourse nowadays have no eyes and look down on grassroots painters. I said to him, "It's good for a person to love painting, but you don't have to be a painter to love painting, it's too hard to be a painter, it's not as happy as enjoying paintings and books." I threw cold water for a reason. This relative has sent me several paintings with dull brushstrokes, mediocre colors, poor imagination, and no personal characteristics, and the poems next to them are half-passed and without context. Such a person will not succeed if he wants to take the path of art creation.

　　The cartoonist Bai Xiaodong was right when he said, "Don't waste time knocking on a wall". A wall is a kind of closed thing, the person inside cannot get out, you knock from spring to winter, probably no one can cut a door hole for you. A wise person learns that he is facing a wall and turns around to get around it. Because he knows that the time a person has is very limited, wasted, more expensive things can not buy it back.

　　I don't feel like thinking about Lu Xun. The achievements of Lu Xun's life need no specific introduction, but can be summed up in one sentence: he is the most influential literary figure in the history of vernacular literature for a century, with novels, essays, miscellaneous articles, poems, translations, all of which are in his wheelhouse, and his comprehensive height has never been surpassed. However, as we all know, Lu Xun studied medicine in Japan, what were his medical achievements? According to one source, he scored 59.3 in anatomy, 73.7 in histology, 65 in physiology, 83 in ethics, 60 in German, 60 in physics, and 60 in chemistry, with an average of 65.5 points, ranking 68th out of 142 students in the class. This is the average score of Lu Xun's first year of medical studies in Sendai, which naturally cannot be said to be too bad, but it is by no means outstanding, and the most important professional score is obviously low. If Lu Xun had been allowed to practice medicine after graduating from university, he might not have become the most outstanding doctor in the Republican era. Lu Xun knew how to "not waste time knocking on a wall", and after knocking for a while, he felt that something was wrong and immediately went to knock on the "door of literature", which really gave him the honor he deserved. The "door" really gave him the honor he deserved.

　　There are various kinds of walls, some of which are easy to recognize, and no one but a fool or a madman probably knocks on them; others are difficult to distinguish for a while, and they do not have the obvious appearance of a wall, and sometimes they may even faintly show the appearance of a door, as if you knock on it for a while, and it will become clear. A person will occasionally knock on the wall as a door does not matter, a life, who does not take some detours. The key is to knock for a while, the wall does not respond, you have to take a closer look to determine whether it is a door, is to continue knocking, knocking until it opens; not a door, immediately turn, and to identify the difference between the wall and the door, in order to avoid taking similar divergent paths. Lu Xun's wisdom of finding the door is fully reflected in the fact that he did not practice medicine after returning from Japan, but pushed open the door of literature.

　　To distinguish the wall from the door, you have to know yourself as well as the world. Knowing yourself, you can understand where your strengths are, where your strengths are, in fact, the door is also where to go in without too many twists and turns; know the world, you can know what kind of environment and situation you are facing, what to do will be smooth, what will be in trouble, so as to choose the most appropriate way. The world's most successful people may not be the most talented people, but they are certainly the most knowledgeable people.

　　People never have a hard wall, and wise people never waste time knocking on the wall, but spend their limited life looking for the right door and pushing it open hard to walk in.