After reading my "My Octopus Teacher", I didn't know how to write a movie viewing record for a while. My heart is full of something, is it sad? joy? admiration? It seems like they are, and they are not. I just feel that it is too arrogant to interpret her story from a human perspective here.
Yes, from her life story, I saw human arrogance and felt humility.
She is just one of countless octopuses in the sea. And all along, my knowledge of her has only been related to food: takoyaki, grilled octopus. Have I ever cared about her as a creature, what habits and characteristics? This is the arrogance of most human beings. We are the smartest, the strongest, and the highest in the food chain.
So, we define all other creatures in the world: delicious or lovely, beneficial or harmful ... These evaluations are limited to their functionality (to humans). Even in the end, he became an instrumental person. We are so arrogant that we are often self-centered. Excessive magnification of one's own meanings, emotions, and desires. Therefore, we despise others, value our own emotions, and are often swallowed up by emotions.
So, what did Teacher Octopus teach us?
1. Use up your natural talents. But a tiny octopus (yes, my "but" here is the tone of human contempt for everything), but it has such a delicate composition. Every inch of her body, every foot, every suction cup has a precise function. All talents are fully utilized. Her nervous system is distributed all over the body, and more than 3,000 suckers have relatively independent control capabilities. Her body can be deformed infinitely, putting herself in a small crevice.
2. Continuous learning and continuous improvement. How many skills can she learn in just over a year of life? She is always observing the surroundings, and will instantly change color by imitating the surrounding environment, and even imitating a patch of water plants or the way a person walks. Depending on the type of food, it will continue to summarize failures, improve and change hunting methods.
3. Be strong. She is also food for sharks and has been bitten off a leg. But still slowly crawled home, lying weak and weak all day. But a week later, it grew small new legs. Take it and start slowly moving forward again. When being chased and hunted, it uses all means to save itself, wrapping itself with water plants and shells, and even climbing up reefs and backs of predators to avoid it.
4. Trust and love. Facing the sea, no, not the sea, as long as it is unknown places and people, I will be afraid. However, she would reach out to strangers who are non-sea creatures, and even swim to her hands and stick to her body. What can it gain from this behavior? Oh, this questioning method seems very "human" and very utilitarian. They may not have such a thing, just out of the instinctive trust, love and closeness of the creatures. Although she feeds on fish, she also plays and dances with them. Even if each other is a link in the big food chain, the relationship is far more full than "you or I live". She has no endless desire to kill, preys only to feed her belly, and then, with all creatures, wanders, explores and learns with the waves.
5. Responsibility. Life will come to an end, and the life of an octopus is only about 400 days. They are not growing old, disabled and dying. Instead, they choose to mate at a certain age (more than one year old) and the body is not significantly degraded. After that, they no longer prey, just wait for spawning, and then die quickly. This is how the film suddenly comes to an end under the beautiful picture frame by frame. This elf-like life also came to an abrupt end here.
The biggest lesson taught by Mr. Octopus is to fully develop life in an environment full of uncertainty and even danger. This meaning means: exhausting the talent of the gene, constantly improving its ability, never giving up its life, but also safely accepting the instructions of gene transmission and natural extinction.
When we let go of the obsession of "being a king", we see that we are only a speck of dust in the universe and in the ecology of the earth. No matter what human society has taught us, we must not forget our original self. After a simple meal, we have fallen asleep on all sides, ran in the sun, played, explored nature, and kept recording and praising life even without words. But now, the unending (and probably not real) desire continues to swell, and we can't stop for a moment. We must be better than ourselves, and others can compare. We no longer praise life itself, but success. We don't know how to unleash our inner power, and we see instinct as inferior and external goals as superior. So, follow the countless external signs to develop life. We want to have a lot, and then more, because people say it's not poor, it's the destination of happiness...
You said: Teacher Octopus, the human society we live in is different from the sea, we can't completely lie down, what should we do?
Teacher Octopus said: While surviving, try to develop rather than bury your own vitality. Don't roll yourself infinitely, after all, your genes have not given you an infinitely soft body like mine.
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