陈凯博客： www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

“戒毒”
“Quitting"- On Mindset of Cultural Narcotic Addicts

价值一语： Words of Value:

If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you. --- General Charles Gordon

如果你是真实的人，宇宙中会有无穷的力量去支持你；可是如果你是个虚假的人，宇宙中会有无穷的力量去摧毁你。 --- General Charles Gordon

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By Kai Chen 陈凯 (Reprint 10/4/2011)

Recently I have watched a Chinese movie with English subtitles -- Quitting （戒毒）. The main character - the junky named Jia (贾），(in Chinese it sounds same as 假 - the fake or the phoney) was a rebellious youth who had escaped from the social phoney reality into another phoney world of physical narcotics.

Yet, it was in his drugged moments, he revealed the truth about the falsehood and phoniness of his surroundings -- the nihilistic Chinese society with a glorious facade. Jia, as in all the Chinese movies and cultural icons, went though a process from a fierce rebel who saw nothing real around him, to a conformed -- "rehabilitated" man in the end. Again he surrendered his unique individual characters (sustained by drugs and alcohol), after cultural and social pressure from his own family and authority (in a mental institution) and went back into the morass of Chinese nothingness.

Jia was an accomplished actor in the Chinese movie, TV circle, after he graduated from the Central Academy of Drama. However, he had found that all of his acting in all the modern　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ dramas lacks reality and truth. He could never truthfully portray anything. Everything he ｄｉｄ was only to help numb the masses and drug them into a stupor with powerful spiritual narcotics. He, with his talent and profession, was only a part of that deception, contributing to the mass delusion and illusion in Chinese society. He shouted, in one of his sober moment, to the passers-by on the streets: "You are all stupid assholes." He viciously slapped his father's face (who had also been an actor for many decades on the Chinese stage) and drilled him with questions:

"Are you real? Are you happy in your life? Are you not here to deceive yourself and others?"

Jia even imagined that he was not a Chinese, but a descent of John Lennon, one of the Beetles from England. He entirely rejected all the Chinese reality and termed it as fake. But he had nowhere to go except drugs and alcohol. Of course, in the end of the movie, Jia quit the physical narcotics and alcohol and returned to the Chinese normalcy - a perpetual hopelessness and helplessness, a silent desperation every individual has to endure.

On the surface, this movie is about how a person quits his drug addiction. But I think the producer of the movie also uses Jia's mouth to tell many things about the Chinese society -- its phoniness and nihilistic culture. However, the producer of the movie is as the same with the main character, moving back and forth from physical narcotics and spiritual narcotics, deceiving themselves by telling everyone that life is just like this and you just have to take it.

When I was in China, I also had this sense of helplessness, knowing that I had not lived in reality. Everything around me, the people, the culture, the society, the activities of every day life, is only some kind of stage acting, showing others that one is normal and happy. But in reality, despair and emptiness is the only feeling and reality in a Chinese life. Even after I came to America, I was still doubtful about everything around me, testing everything I had encountered to see if it was real. It took me quite a while to finally realize that indeed there is objective reality in this world, on this earth, in a society called America. And indeed there is God who governs our perceptions and morals so we can have a sense of hope and progress. It is this strong faith in objective truth and reality that had sustained me through my Chinese ordeal toward my eventual triumph over nihilism, emptiness, hopelessness and despair. And I believe it will continue to sustain me throughout my life with infinite optimism.

Now I live in a state of hope and optimism, with a profound sense of fulfillment and joy. I only want to tell all my fellow-travellers in their journey toward freedom that existence does indeed exist, joy and happiness in reality is indeed possible and achievable. So keep your strong faith, keep your mind clear and sharp, keep your spirit high, keep your yearning for freedom intact. The world is not fake, is not choiceless, is not oscillating between physical narcotic addiction and mental-spiritual narcotic addiction. The world is full of joy, life, freedom and happiness.