The Colors of Youth
Like the colorful ribbon in the distant sky just as the rain clears, the newborn sunlight radiates with color. In youth, at the starting point of life, who dyes us in different colors? Ourselves.
Youth is crimson, like the morning sun emerging from a sky just torn from black chaos—unbridled passion scattering boundless golden light across the vast world. We still hold vivid dreams, we still have poetry and distant horizons, and we still possess the wild arrogance to change everything.
With spirits high and lofty thoughts in flight, we fain would scale the azure skies to clasp the moon so bright.
Burying ourselves deep within mountains of books, roaming through oceans of test papers.
A time shall come to cleave the waves upon the gale, and o’er the vasty deep to hoist my cloudy sail.
Though monstrous waves may surge to the skies, the little boat carrying dreams and hopes shall not perish; a sky filled with gray clouds and ink-black rain cannot blind our burning crimson eyes, believing that miracles will surely emerge from afar once more.
The crimson, warm flame within our hearts makes us fearless against the freezing ice and flying snow at five in the morning; we leap from our beds and covers, thus beginning a day of study.
The sound of reading in the classroom awakens the world before the lazy sun; amidst pitch darkness, it is as if we carry the light. Running on the sports field, we do not fear the sweat and dirt covering our cheeks; strings of flying beads of sweat are the symbol of vitality.
Youth is also a warm tangerine.
Along the endless night road, an old, yellowish lamp keeps watch by the wayside, as if it has waited alone in the night for so long just for your arrival. This is that warm friendship. When a frail body trembles in the biting wind, when powerless hands grow numb in the ice and snow, when a hollow gaze blurs in the white storm, friendship is that warm tangerine lamp waiting for you in the distance, standing steady and unmoving amidst the flying snow. The lamp draws closer, closer, and ever closer; treading upon the pure white snow, she comes to your side. The pale rain and snow melt into the warm lamplight and the warm heart. Embracing friendship, our hearts are refueled and regain their warmth, and the blooming flowers of our hearts can once again blossom proudly amidst a sky full of wind and snow. And all of this is given to us by the tangerine, warm friendship beside us. We embrace our friendship so passionately that the world becomes nothing more than her soft, gentle body.
Youth is a tranquil deep blue.
Marveling at the rich knowledge of mathematics, physics, and chemistry in our minds, intoxicated by the cultivation of a soul well-versed in poetry, and finding peace in the nourishing rain and dew of books from ancient to modern times, both Chinese and foreign. We begin to sketch our initial views of the world in our hearts, begin to establish the yardsticks of value, and begin to look toward and plan the possible lives of our future. With blue tranquility, we confront dark terrors. Our confidence is a deep blue composure amidst crimson passion.
However, youth also holds that lost, depressed foggy gray, and pitch black.
Alone in the pitch-black dead of night, inside cold, stiff covers, tasting the teardrops that slide down one by one; a sensitive soul feeling deep, throbbing pain from an unintentional word or action of others; a momentary stern glance from teachers or parents shakes us to the core, filling us with endless terror, causing tears to burst their banks in an instant; in our anxiety, we peer through the brick walls of the dormitory, counting imaginary stars and sheep—given wings, they can roam freely in the sea of stars, while before our eyes there is only a dilapidated gray brick wall, and outside the window, only a lone tree standing stiff and dead like a night watchman; troubled in mind and spirit, we might skip a meal, skip a day of food, skip three days of food, until we faint at some point and the fact of our fasting is finally discovered; we sit in the gloomy classroom, driven by pent-up melancholy, using a pen to pierce through book pages, listening with morbid joy to the sound of tearing; we might suddenly pick up a pocketknife, and amidst a few stunned gazes, carve chaotic patterns into our arms—perhaps it is beautiful, who knows, why is something only beautiful if they say it is?—and then quietly watch the fresh blood flow, and flow, across the textbook; we might fly into a rage, and in our anger destroy the most beloved doll we have cherished for years, or kick away the poor little kitten that accompanied us for years, which we once held in our arms and rubbed against our cheeks affectionately, staring blankly at their corpses; we fear socializing, fear the flowing crowds, fear standing up in class, fear answering questions, fear standing at the back of the classroom, fear the teacher standing beside us, fear the teacher bending down to look at what I am writing…; we might still be afraid of the dark just like when we were children, planting countless grotesque monsters from our imagination around the unlit night road, all plotting how to harm me; and eventually, we will come to fear the height of buildings, and whether climbing over the railing or not, we gaze for a long, long time at the concrete bricks below, checking if anyone is passing by around us. Could the bright colors of youth really outnumber the dark ones?
Youth is vibrant and colorful, and we endow it with the colors we like. Yet sometimes the paintbrush is in our own hands, and sometimes it is snatched away, stolen, and snapped in two by others. The dark colors upon us can thus only come from the smearing of others.
This was an exam essay from last year. In order to get through the exam, the original text was much more positive and upbeat than this, though the overall outline remains unchanged; I merely modified much of the phrasing. As a result, it has become slightly longer than the original.
2021.6.4 First revision