One day, I went to see a bonsai exhibition, and when I walked in, I was shocked. All kinds of Qiugen Qugan, Cang pine and ancient cypresses are dotted with small figures and pavilions.
”Did you cultivate it?” I asked a reception lady.
”No! No! No!” The lady replied hurriedly, and said embarrassingly, “It was all made by my husband and my son. I am a woman and can’t make bonsai.”
I was startled and asked the lady: “Why Women can’t do it?” The
lady smiled and said, “It’s not that women can’t do it, but I believe that most women can’t do it. Because women are not ruthless enough to do it, so they can only make a beautiful potted plant. I can’t make it…” She pointed to one of the intertwined bonsai trees. It has to be so flavorful.” When I
walked out of the exhibition, the lady’s words still rang in my ears, reminding me that my gardener had said something similar—the tree had too many branches and needed to be cut; the potted plant had too many roots and needed to be cut. The more you cut it, the better it will grow and the more it will bloom. If you don’t cut it and think you love it, you may actually harm it. Although they talked about the method of planting flowers, what they think is like “I ask you to plant trees, and you must raise people’s skills” in Liu Zongyuan’s “The Story of Planting Trees and Guo Liaotuo”.
We grew up in school. In addition to all kinds of knowledge and skills, what we learned in school is not only to receive management, training, and education. It is like a small tree sapling that is irrigated and cultivated while being pruned. It can be said that all knowledge is presented in a “pruned” manner.
In the first grade of elementary school, do “right and wrong questions”, don’t you choose one of the two? If you choose “Yes”, you cannot choose “No”.
Isn’t the “multiple choice question” done in the second grade of elementary school just choose one from one, two, three, or even four, five, or six answers? There are so many, only one can be chosen, what a harsh thing. But why don’t we feel harsh? Because we are accustomed to the rule of “taking this, you have to give up that”.
From small to large, we went from the baby of the family to a member of the class. We went from “only being the boss” to the possibility of losing our name to Sunshan. We want to go out to play, but we have to sit in the classroom to have class; we want to eat, but we take it out and it will be confiscated by the teacher; we don’t want to take the exam, so we have to take the exam in three days.
What is education? Education is both “lessons” and “cultivation”. You will find that education has one of the most important functions, which is to teach us self-control.
