光阴集 2024 The Gilded Years 2024 第 12 篇 Section 12
十二月 骄阳落下 December: The Blazing Sun Sets
返回 光阴集 2024 Back to The Gilded Years 2024这学期漫步校园，常有死气沉沉之感。起初以为仅是校园活动重复与缩减所致，如今才惊觉更多源于自身心境的变化。
Strolling across campus this semester, a pervasive aura of lifelessness frequently hangs in the air. At first, I attributed it merely to the repetitive and curtailed campus activities; only now do I realize it stems far more from shifts in my own psychological weather.
在校两年有余，校园的种种变迁也略知一二，甚至总结出所谓”断代”的征兆：大一时，我在法学院前等C2下班，在三人行和C2共饮咖啡，分手后法学院搬迁，三人行歇业；大二时，我在数电实验室等P1亲亲，在可好和P1一同品橙汁，分手后数电实验室迁址，可好停业；上学期与B1在家家悦购买看海零食，一同前往闻外楼交毕业论文，分手后家家悦关门，闻外楼更名。人事匆匆，皆在追名逐利。如今校园中，唯一神圣纯洁的事物似乎只剩十六的满月了。
Having resided on campus for over two years, I know a thing or two about its evolutions, even formulating the omens of what I call “generational ruptures”: during freshman year, I waited outside the Law School for C2 to get off work and sipped coffee with C2 at Sanrenxing; after our breakup, the Law School relocated, and Sanrenxing shuttered its doors. In sophomore year, I waited in the Digital Circuit Lab to steal a kiss from P1 and savored orange juice with P1 at Kehao; after our breakup, the Digital Circuit Lab moved, and Kehao ceased operations. Last semester, I bought snacks at Jiajiayue with B1 before heading to the shore, and accompanied her to Wenwai Building to submit her thesis; after our breakup, Jiajiayue closed, and Wenwai Building was renamed. Human affairs rush by in a frenzy, all chasing vanity and lucre. On this campus today, the only sacred, untainted presence seems to be the full moon of the sixteenth night.
回想两年前对山威的初印象，恍如一场梦。疫情虽已结束，周遭一切却似陷入加速主义的荒诞倒退。小到活动停办，大到近期大城市频发的伤人事件，我不愿为虚无的功名而扮演一个热爱这一切的学生。可悲的是，我既不知从何入手解决问题，也不知何时才能有资格去解决问题。
Looking back two years to my first impressions of Shandong University Weihai, it feels like a dream. Though the pandemic has drawn to a close, everything in the surroundings seems trapped in the grotesque backsliding of accelerationism. From minor matters like cancelled student activities to major catastrophes like the recent wave of violent assaults in metropolises, I refuse to playact the role of a starry-eyed student adoring it all for the sake of illusory honors. The tragedy is that I neither know where to begin resolving these ills, nor when I will ever earn the credentials to do so.
尽管经济的凛冽寒风尚未侵袭威海这座海滨小城，我世界观的逐步成熟与山大领导的顽固守旧却以愈发明显的差异冲击着我的神经。在这场力量悬殊的较量中，我只能选择沉默。作为一个高中经常顶撞上级的学生，到大学我才知道一个能够顶撞上级的环境就已很不易。马斯克说，死亡对社会是件好事，它推动着社会的改革和进步。而当孔老二在这片土地上固守不化时，我便知晓任何自下而上的反抗终将徒劳。
Although the chilling economic winter has yet to batter this coastal enclave of Weihai, the clash between my maturing worldview and the entrenched conservatism of the university administration strikes violently against my nerves. In this drastically asymmetrical contest, I can only choose silence. Having been a student who routinely defied authority in high school, only in college did I discover that an environment where one can openly defy authority is already an extraordinary luxury. Elon Musk observed that death is beneficial to society because it drives societal reform and progress; yet when Master Kong’s dogma remains calcified across this soil, I know that any bottom-up resistance is doomed to futility.
前不久，DJY向我吐露心声：“我感觉生活缺乏细节和情调，缺乏一些看似无意义的东西，缺乏烟火气。”这轻描淡写的一句话让一向充当军师的我也陷入沉思，因为实际上我与他的生活并无本质区别——他以股票娱情，我以恋爱消愁，而真正的生活似乎从未在大学降临到我们身上。何谓真正的生活？简而言之，与所爱之人在心仪之地做喜欢的事。也许，山威本就不是一个适合我这种人自由生活的地方。
Not long ago, DJY bared his soul to me: “I feel life is devoid of texture and flavor, lacking those seemingly meaningless flourishes, lacking the bustling warmth of everyday humanity.” This offhand remark plunged even me—the perpetual counselor—into brooding silence, for our lives were fundamentally indistinguishable: he entertained himself with stocks, while I drowned my sorrow in romance; yet authentic life never seemed to descend upon us in college. What is authentic life? Put simply: doing what you love in a place you cherish with the person you adore. Perhaps Shandong University Weihai was never an environment suited for someone like me to live with untamed freedom.
X学姐说人们都更注重社会价值的提升，看我们专业前10%的学生也确实如此。然而，随着大学生活的持续，我对学业成绩、颜值正在进行一场永无止境的祛魅。成绩优异者就值得结交吗？国奖获得者也未必不是庸人；颜值出众者就值得亲近吗？若迷失于外表，则有丧失理性社会判断之虞。由此，所谓的友谊在大学中旋起旋灭也就不足为奇了。
Senior X observed that people are increasingly fixated on accumulating social value, and observing the top 10% of our major confirms as much. Yet as college grinds on, I find myself undergoing an endless disillusionment regarding academic rankings and physical glamour. Is someone with stellar grades inherently worth befriending? National scholarship recipients are hardly immune to mediocrity. Is someone blessed with striking beauty inherently worthy of intimacy? Becoming intoxicated with external appearances risks annihilating rational social judgement. Thus, that so-called friendships in college spark and vanish like will-o’-the-wisps is hardly surprising.
忽而想起我的初恋。事实上与山威的诸位女生相比，初恋的人格与我最为切近——敏感而感性、自尊而谦逊，坚强又自省。我们都会因为考完后众人稀落散去，老师一个人弓着背回办公室而感伤，都会因为彼此的存在多一些与世界交锋的勇气。“对于那些一见如故的人，我们无须准备，句子是现成的，一切都在那里。”
Suddenly, I recalled my first love. In truth, compared to the girls at Shandong University Weihai, her personality was closest to mine—sensitive and emotional, self-respecting and humble, strong and self-reflective. Both of us would be moved to melancholy as the hall emptied after an exam and a solitary teacher trudged back to the office with a bowed back; both of us drew courage from each other’s presence to lock horns with the wider world. “For those with whom we feel an instant kinship, no rehearsal is required; the sentences are already minted, everything is already there.”
“我是靠着友情才能活到现在的。”或许骄阳的落下是一场不可逆转的落幕，但与一见如故的人待在一起，我的世界便似乎确凿是一夜极昼，于是便有热气腾腾的生活。但愿这份热气，能够支撑我走过这片暮色吧。
“It is only through friendship that I have managed to survive until today.” Perhaps the setting of the blazing sun is an irreversible descent of the curtain, yet in the company of those with whom kinship is instantaneous, my world seems truly to be a night of midnight sun—and within it breathes a life steaming with vibrant warmth. May this warmth sustain me as I traverse this encroaching twilight.