I remember passing by a small town on an autumn evening. At that time, I worked in the countryside for a while. I walked on the gray country road, with soft soil under my feet and dry fields around me. The air at that time was filled with a mixed moisture and heavy. I don’t know if it was the smell of grass and trees, or the smell of time itself.
In the square of the town, several middle-aged men sat together, chatting about family matters, and the topic deviated from trivial matters from time to time. Under the old elm tree at the head of the village, several old women were whispering about whose daughter-in-law was pregnant with a second child, accompanied by bursts of laughter and heavy coughs. I stopped and looked at them, feeling an inexplicable depression. Everything in the town seemed to be so unchanged day after day, as if people’s lives were like the old elm tree, year after year, still standing still.
I can’t help but think that these people live here day after day, year after year, and their lives seem to be uneventful. In their world, the most important thing is how to live and how to maintain that insignificant peace, even though it all seems so hopeless. People take their daily lives for granted, and it seems that no one has ever asked themselves why they live like this, why they have to endure all the injustice and pain that life brings.
Sometimes, think about life, what has it given you? Have you ever lived for yourself? I think of my own experience – when I was young and full of ideals and ambitions, I once had a dream that I could change the world and even overturn the structure of society. But as the days passed, the ideal began to be smoothed, until finally I found that I was just a silent shadow, constantly pushed and swallowed up as others moved forward. Life did not give me the space for my ideals, but pushed me into a corner, where I became a person who lived like a dog.
Many times, I would talk to my friends about the past and those dreams I had. We once dreamed of changing the world, and even felt that we had the power to do something big, but the reality is that the so-called dream is nothing but an irony. Dreams are beautiful, but reality is the hand that cuts your beautiful fantasy with a knife. You want to break free, but it holds you tightly. At that time, I still felt that I had something and felt that I could do something. Later, I realized that life itself is like a heavy hammer, hitting you all the time, making you unable to breathe.
One day, I sat under the dim street lights, watching the shops on the corner gradually close, and there were fewer and fewer people on the street. I felt that I was so out of tune with this world. People walked by busy, and their footsteps echoed in the silent streets. You passed by them, but they never looked at you, as if you didn’t exist at all. You are insignificant in their world, like a dead dog that no one cares about, lying there quietly, waiting to rot.
I began to wonder, is life really like this? What are we living for? Some people say that we live to pursue happiness, but I think happiness is a distant concept. People chase happiness, but in the end they are left with only exhaustion and helplessness. People talk about ideals and success, but deep in their hearts, they have long been worn out by life, becoming smooth and numb. We thought we were chasing light, but the result was getting closer and closer to darkness.
A friend once asked me, what do you think life is like? I didn’t answer him at the time, but just took a puff of cigarette silently and looked at the gray sky. Finally, I said that life is just a vicious circle, and we are all walking on this road until the end. Everyone walks at different speeds, but they will eventually reach the same place. You think you can surpass something, but in the end you are just swallowed by time, crushed by life, and eventually become an unknown dead person.
I know that such thinking may make people feel depressed, but life itself is such a dilemma. We live in a world bound by rules. How many people are exhausted on this road, but in the end they still can’t escape this cage. And those who are pushed into the corner, like us, can only hold unwillingness and helplessness, waiting for an unknown ending.
Life is never kind to anyone. It is not to make you feel comfortable or warm. It just pushes you into a corner and then quietly watches you struggle in the dark. All our efforts and persistence are just to survive in this desolate world. And we may just be like dogs, facing this desolation and waiting for the end.