There is not only a protagonist Larry in Oscar Pistorius, but also a beautiful and fashionable Isabel, Isabel's uncle Eliot, a simple and kind Isabel's husband Green, and the only Sophie that Larry loved and wanted to marry.
Larry, a pilot who returned to the United States after World War I, was only 17 years old when he joined the war, and just turned 20 when he returned home after the war. Of course, I've been engaged to Isabel since I was a child. But Larry doesn't have a job and doesn't want to go to work. The war changed something inside him. Flying alone in the vast sky made him feel a mysterious "infinity". As the French writer Saint-Exupé ry wrote in his book Stars in Sandstorms (about flying), "When you explore the world from the sea of clouds, it suddenly takes on a completely strange meaning."
Larry doesn't want to accept a promising nine-to-five job in the eyes of ordinary people. The death of a companion in the war (to save him) made him begin to explore the meaning of life and question the existence of God.
Confused, he began to study hungrily. Subsidies for retired soldiers enable him to maintain a basic life without working. He wants to travel around with Isabel after marriage and live a simple life. However, his fiancee Isabel is a girl who grew up in a rich environment. She likes parties, beautiful clothes, big houses and servants. . . Larry is bent on learning to solve his own confusion and is not prepared to engage in financial work as others think, which makes Isabel very disappointed. So she broke off her engagement to him.
Naturally, Isabel married Green, the son of a local rich man. (Although the person she loves most in my life is Larry) and Larry, she started a long road of enlightenment.
Since ancient times, so many people, born or influenced by some things, have begun to question what life is, what is the meaning of survival, and whether there is really a God.
Larry's reading psychology and philosophical principles. Reading for ten hours every day, two years later, the book still can't answer his doubts. So he began to travel around the world, worked as a coal miner and a tramp, and finally found the teacher he was looking for in East India. He followed the teacher's practice, sat quietly and meditated, and went to live in a hut on the mountain alone. On his 30th birthday, he watched a sunrise on the mountain. When the sun rose slowly and the lake below was sparkling, at that moment, he had an epiphany, all doubts disappeared and the whole person was full of joy.
So he said goodbye to his teacher and returned to America.
Unlike people around him who are eager to make money, Larry thinks that money brings bondage rather than freedom. In the United States with rapid economic development, the first thing he realized was the nothingness of the meaning of life and the doubt about the existence of God. Confusion made him unable to ignore his inner call for answers and compromise with the society around him. At first, he thought he loved Isabel, but when he grew up, he found that he and Isabel were different at all. Larry pursues spiritual transcendence and self-improvement, while Isabel pursues a stable and rich life. So Isabel may still love herself the most.
H often discusses with me that "human thinking is spiraling forward." Maybe a person's life is like a circle, and finally he moves towards the initial innocence of life. "Going around a big circle and then reflecting, having an epiphany, returning to nature and stopping at the starting point are two different concepts. Larry after the epiphany looked the same as when he was young, but he did get calm and real freedom.
In the journey of gradually answering his doubts, Larry gained strength and used his own strength to save others.
First of all, he saved Susan, a woman who loves art but comes from a poor family and can only sell her body to artists and painters to survive. He helped Susan when she was seriously ill and broke, took care of her daughter and gave her money to cheer her up. Susan said, "I almost fell in love with Larry. You know how dangerous it is to fall in love with him. " Indeed, Larry was still on the way to get the answer, and no one could stop him from moving forward. He can't give any woman a stable life.
The second person who was successfully saved by Larry was Isabel's husband Green, who went bankrupt and had a nervous breakdown, and had a bad headache during the economic crisis. Larry used hypnosis he learned from India to help Green regain his confidence.
Third, Larry can't get it back, but he is also the only person that Larry loves and wants to marry-Sophie. Sophie, like Larry, is an orphan and raised by close people. When they were young, they often read and wrote poems together. In Larry's view, Sophie has a smart, intelligent and interesting soul. She cares about the lives of the people at the bottom and once wanted to be a social volunteer. But Sophie's life is unfortunate. Her beloved husband and children died in a car accident. From then on, she was devastated, drunk, promiscuous and smoked opium. Larry met her and wanted to marry her to save her. He can still see the bright spot in Sophie's soul. Sophie gave up drinking and smoking for Larry. But a week before the wedding, Isabel deliberately lured Sophie to drink. Sophie couldn't resist the temptation, and her old illness recurred, so she fled Larry and continued her original life. Finally, she was killed by an unknown person and dumped in the sea.
The complexity of human nature, Isabel claimed that her favorite person was Larry and Sophie was her childhood playmate, but when Larry wanted to marry Sophie, Isabel used despicable tricks and became the murderer who indirectly killed Sophie.
Buried Sophie, Larry moved on with his life. After the epiphany, he wanted to be a taxi driver, hoping to earn enough living expenses, and then he was free to drive anywhere he wanted and read and write at other times. "Live calmly, tolerantly, compatibly, selflessly and intimately." Larry began to realize that God does not exist, otherwise why not create a world without evil? India's teachings-reincarnation theory-he partially adopted, but he believed in his own strength, calmness, patience, restraint, love and selfless life. He believes that he can bring some good influence to the people around him. Even if the influence is just like a stone thrown into the lake, the ripples it brings can continue to spread.
Larry returned to America, exhausted all his savings, and began the life he expected as a taxi driver.
This is the second time I have read Oscar Pistorius. The first time I saw it was at the beginning of this year, and I saw it in a hurry. On the second reading, I found more. Larry in the book is not the only protagonist. Isabel's uncle Eliot is very sociable. Before he died, he cried because he was not invited to dinner. He represents a kind of aristocratic class who is keen on socializing, but in fact his life is empty and meaningless, and he has been forgotten since he was old. Isabel and her husband represent wealthy American businessmen. Their ability to earn money and wealth is the source of all their sense of security. Larry, on the other hand, represents a very small number of people who give up everything in pursuit of spiritual epiphany and regard material things as a burden. When I got the Tao, I re-entered life and loved life, but I still kept my spirit independent and clear, not trapped by it, smart and smart.
Today, do we really know what we want? Did we accept the values given to us by this society and culture before we thought about it, and rushed to follow suit? Do you really want something that everyone praises and expects?
The road to self-discovery is long and difficult. No one can tell how far the moment of epiphany is, but what is certain is that it is right to keep a clear head at all times and not be blind.