To Anniversary!

你能想像吗？这已经是第三个anniversary了，这也是第二个令人哀伤的夏季。你不能想像吧，这竟是我此生唯一的纪念日，也注定是一个人的纪念日。

向着时间深处，我一直一直回眸。想起你紧锁的眉，想起你忧伤的字，想起你一低头的安静，想起你清唱的温柔，想起你低吟的话语，想起你手心的温热，想起你飞溅的泪滴，想起难收的覆水……我爱，我怎么可以让你如此不快乐？我怎么可以让你如此痛苦？我爱，你怎么可以让我如此孤单？你怎么可以让我如此无所依归？

在我的皮肤深处，某种无法容纳的东西在搏动、呼吸，但是没有出口可以把它们释放出来。我的思绪一遍又一遍反复回到从前，我勉力把这些情景一一推开。记忆，不断的倒带、折磨、鞭笞，有时，在梦中，我会想象着一个不同的结局，那天晚上所引发的一切，那些永远无法改变的，平息了，改变了。生命朝相反的方向运行，我们知道如何继续。更多时，我不愿接納自己，我不愿接受现实，我更害怕用新的眼光重新诠释过去。

我知道，当我执着于对你的爱，我就失去了你能给我的，永远，永远。从此，我只能站在你的世界之外，想像你的生活，你的心情，你的一切。从此，我的生命萎缩成一种静止，一种无尽的悲哀。唯有冷寂的年月相伴，但它并不能冷却烧灼我的渴望。

有人说，写下的字有多少，心底的忧伤就有多宽广。可是，我爱，你不知道，我的秃笔，根本写不出、写不尽我的忧伤。太多的不可言说，堵在身体内，成为回忆。你大概永远也无法理解，为了对生活发生兴趣，我付出了多大的努力。

无垠的时间之海里，我找不到属于我们的洛亚方舟，我找不到属于我们的救赎。

夜影如墨，我举杯远眺，我内心默祷：To anniversary! To You!

Updated on Sep 6th: Encountering with the same poem written by anonymous writter again, there is nothing better than this to grieve the "one-way" over......

Fire runs through my body with the pain of loving you,
Pain runs through my body with the fires of my love for you.
Pain like a boil about to burst with my love for you,
Consumed by fire with my love for you,
I remember what you said to me.
I am thinking of your love for me,
I am torn by your love for me.
Pain and more pain,
Where are you going with my love?
I am told you will go from here.
I am told you will leave me here.
My body is numb with grief.
Remember what I said, my love.
Goodbye, my love, goodbye.

问世间情为何物 —— 《爱情笔记》

一本不落窠臼的小说，一种别出心裁的文体，模糊了小说与随笔的界限，初试啼声的阿兰，针对人类永恒的主题，由点及面的问，浅尝辄止的答。其间时有哲思巧辩，兼以行文的灵黠流畅，大都市俯拾即是的爱情故事因此色彩诱人。新瓶装上旧酒，别有一种芬香扑鼻。 　　 　　

爱过的你，有没有和他一样，问过自己同样的问题？ 　　 　　

1. 是先有爱的需要，然后再爱上一个特定的人？还是先爱上一个特定的人才有了爱的需要呢？ 　
2. 是美丽引发爱情，还是爱情创造了美丽？ 　　
3. 爱是冥冥中自有天意，还是偶然牵起的红线？ 　　
4. 你是宁愿错误而爱着，还是情愿怀疑而无爱？ 　　
5. 你是选择爱情还是自由？ 　　 　　

爱过的你，有没有和他一样，有过如此的经历？ 　　

1. 喜欢和心上人寻找诸多细节来证实自己的直觉感受：我们命中注定为彼此而生。通常微不足道的小事，却足以让爱的信徒建立一种宗教。 　　 　　


2. 面对已发生的事，充分使用阐述权，忽视每一个片段都可能出现的偶然性，为命运找到太多的因果联系，从而编织出一个姻缘天定的美妙故事。相信了爱情宿命论，偶然性带来的恐惧得以化解，我们因此觉得心上人的独一无二无可取代，我们以为爱的天长地久有了保证。 　　 　　


3. 你爱她，重要的就不再是她讲述的内容，而是她在讲述。 　　 　　


4. 你倾慕她，于是在惊惶地等待对方判决之前，对方的任何言行举止在你的目视耳听下，都有潜台词。欲望使你变成一个侦探，一个不懈的线索搜寻者，一个浪漫的偏执狂，一个符号解码员，你竭力寻找互相吸引的种种迹象，试图从一切事物中解读出意义来。所有的揣摩疑虑归于一点：她喜欢我吗？哪怕判决已下，你仍旧会疑虑：她会像我喜欢她一样喜欢我嘛？ 　　 　　


5. 你爱她，爱得郑重，你因此丧失吸引人的自信，你从心上人身上发现的完美所产生的吸引力引发你的自卑感，你开始用心上人的眼光审视自己，为了吸引她而去迎合她的需求，你因此丧失自我。 　　 　　


6. 面对他人舌灿莲花的你，在心上人面前变得沉默又笨拙。你因为心怀仰慕，因为胸怀真爱而思想凌乱，无法雕饰华丽的辞藻。烧灼你的欲望让你言辞朴拙。 　　 　　


7. 你害怕是在强加给她一份只有你自己才感受到的情感。你凭着“我渴望得到你”这一想法，错误地得出相应的想法：“你渴望得到我”。你既冒犯了她，你也遭受了羞辱。 　　 　　


8. 你完全没有认识到自己值得爱恋，在接受心上人的爱情时，你的感受就如同被授予巨大的荣誉却不知这荣誉的凭籍，既欣喜若狂又惊恐不安。 　　 　　


9. 你通过长久的体察和破译，开始了解心上人的需要；从万千语言和动作中，开始梳理出她完整的性格。 　　 　　


10. 你也曾经在想像中的完美和岁月剥蚀出来的真实之间，失去过耐心，苛求过完美。渐渐的，你学会用幽默避免直接的冲突，学会用妥协容让彼此差异。 　　 　　


11. 你们越是亲密熟悉，在一起使用的语言就越会脱离常用的，词典里的释义。这语言凝结了你们共同经历的事件，包含了关系进展的过程，记录了你们共同发掘的事物的含义，融进你们的故事，成为联结你们的纽带。 　　 　　

当爱消逝，当既定了时间表的现实以无情的动力迫使你前进时，你心之所在的灵魂是否饱含怀旧，担负着沉重的记忆跟在后面？你对现实所有的欲望有没有随她的离去而消逝？你是否生活在怀旧之中，不停地回首和她共度的时光？你的眼睛是否不再真正睁开，而只是向后，向记忆深处回眸？你是否宁愿让余生跟随骆驼行走，若有所思地穿越记忆的沙丘，休憩在迷人的绿洲，翻阅往日的快乐时光。现在时对你是否不再有意义，而过去时才是唯一适宜的时态？你是否不断问自己，除了提醒你想起那个离去的人儿，现在还能有什么意义？除了让你遭受更多因她的离去而带来的伤痛，未来还有什么？你是否惧怕不可避免的遗忘？害怕那样的忘却是死亡的提示，是失落的提示，是背弃你自己曾一度珍视无比的爱情的提示？ 　　 　　

我不相信，马克斯兄弟式的思维：爱情得到回应的可能越渺茫，渴望就越旺盛。而一旦达到目的，拥有被爱之人，爱则会自行消蚀。我不相信，爱，只是对逃离我们身边的人的疯狂追求。 　　 　

但是，我相信，爱是偶然而非必然。我相信，我们此时的情感生活只是千百种可能性的一种，曾经有过无数的林中路，我们只是被生活推着选了其中的一条路。我们或许会忧伤，或许会憧憬无缘走过的路不曾见过的风景，不是因为贪婪，不是因为不忠，而是因为遗憾，因为怅惘，因为我们在内心深处掩藏了许多矛盾的情感。我相信，爱情是一种馈赠，而馈赠的因由不为我们所知。我相信，不存在合理而无懈可击的理由去爱抑或去恨，否则爱恨就会有可以重复的基准。我相信，美丽是流动变化的，美丽只有从某些角度才为人所见，而并非所有的角度，并非永远都能看见，关键在于观者的倾向和意念。我也相信，当我们讲述某个事件，我们所述说的只能是发生时的一个片段。一旦它被讲述，就它的意义和述说者的意图而言，其多样性和矛盾性已不复存在。被述说的部分体现了那个被记住的时刻内容的贫瘠，而当时情感的诸多变化，被省略，被删减，被简化。由此，不妨听听维特根斯坦的忠告：凡不能被谈论的，不如保持沉默。

The Essential Reading (4) —— 鬼压身

An article today remind me the old discussion about sleep phenomenon "鬼压身" between us.

It seems this kind of experience is remarkably common and has its academic name: Sleep paralysis. It is a period of transient, consciously experienced paralysis either when going to sleep or waking up. During an episode the individual is fully conscious, able to open their eyes but aware that it is not possible to move limbs, head or trunk. There may be also be the perception of respiratory difficulties and, understandably, acute anxiety. In addition, the individual might experience hallucinations including proprioceptive、tactile、auditory hallucinations、visual hallucinations、olfactory or gustatory hallucinations.

It appears that up to 50 per cent of the population will experience sleep paralysis in one form or another at least once in their lifetime, and some people experience it far more often than that.

Throughout the world it has been interpreted with a diverse and colourful range of terms and cultural explanations:

Ghost oppression —— China
‘Old Hag’ —— Newfoundland
attacks from ‘shaman or malevolent spirits’ —— the Inuit of Canada
kanashibari —— Japan
kokma —— St Lucia
ha-wi-nulita —— Korea
‘witch-ridden’ —— Europe, from the 1500s until the 1700s
succubus (attacks by sex-crazed demons in female form)/incubus (in male form)—— Europe, Middle Ages

Sleep paralysis can be considered to be an intrusion of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep characteristics into wakefulness. Shiftwork, jetlag, irregular sleep habits, overtiredness and sleep deprivation are all considered to be predisposing factors to sleep paralysis.

Details please go to here:

The Essential Reading (3)

The Curse of Knowledge:

Encountering with a new concept, so-called the curse of knowledge, which means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. As a result, the more you know, the worse you become at communicating that knowledge. This phenomenon comes from that human has the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. Paradoxically familiarity is one things that gets in the way of clarity.

What you don't know about your friends:

A pretty striking finding reported in The Boston Global: On the whole, we know significantly less about our friends, colleagues, and even spouses than we think we do. Such blind spots might simply be an unavoidable product of the way human beings forge personal bonds. Even in close relationships, there are holes in what we know about each other, and we fill them with our own assumptions.

In situations where there’s any ambiguity, people tend to simply project their feelings and thoughts onto others. The main hurdle is the way we talk to those we’re close to: we do that by focusing on areas of agreement and avoiding topics that might cause friction. Our natural tendency toward comradeship makes us, ironically, leery of learning too much about the people we’re befriending.

However it turns out a certain amount of blindness may help further to cement friendships in a close and strong relationship.

Listener's response can affect speaker's language use:

A positive listening style - smiling, nodding and maintaining an open bodily position - will encourage speaker to provide a more interpretative account, hence the speaker tend to use more abstractions and subjective impressions. By contrast, negative listeners (with frowning and unsmiling facial expression) will provoke in the speaker a more cautious and descriptive thinking style.

病榻偶感

......

一生负气成今日，

四海无人对夕阳。

......

头脑迷思之六 —— Doing right things

"Doing right things" has become a slogan prevailing in air recently. As usual, I choose to be a bystander in such hectic movement. Because I don't believe that such a bureaucratic company can do right things in right time. All discussions, meetings and improvments of process are just waste of time. Doing things right is difficult, but compared to the difficulty of "doing right things", it is just a piece of cake.

As an adage saying: "Without coincidences there would be no stories. " Yesterday, I happened to listen to the lecture given by Pro. Dan Gilbert, its subject was "how to do exactly the right thing at all possible times". He mentioned one equation: "Expected value = (odds of gain) * (value of gain)". As he pointed out people mainly make decision based on the expected value, Unfortunately they are horrible in estimating these two factors.

First, the sense of probability is strongly influenced by the quickness which things come into our mind. It leads to errors in odds estimation.

Second, Prospect theory already tell us the odd pattern of decision making. Depending on how the risky situation is presented, people behave in different ways. That is, if a risk is presented in terms of losses, people will be more risk seeking, while if it's expressed in terms of gains, people will be more risk averse.

Third, people make bad judgment in value of gain. People normally compare the value with the past instead of the possible, which can fuddle our decision. Even you compare with the possible instead of the past, you still make certain kinds of mistakes. It mainly because when we value things, the comparsion can shift in different context, mood and over time.

See, how difficult it is to do right things?! Not to mention in a big group, in a fast changing age. Slogan is jus a slogan, vision is just a vision, wish is just a wish, it is hard to put into practice.

A wise man once said: We tend to underestimate the odds of our future pains, and overestimate the value of our present pleasures. Nevertheless, we still need to try our best to do right things right in all possible time.

Inglish_10/08/09

Homo sapiens: 智人(现代人的学名)
Homo sapiens is used to refer to modern human beings as a species, in contrast to other species of ape or animal, or earlier forms of human.
What distinguishes homo sapiens from every other living creature is the mind.

pigeon-hole: To pigeon-hole someone or something means to decide that they belong to a particular class or category, often without considering all their qualities or characteristics.
Eysenck, instead of thinking people could be pigeon-holed this neatly suggested people could be described on a sliding scale of each of these factors.

tin ear: 畸形的耳朵;听觉不灵的耳朵;不懂音乐的人
Ministers have an inexplicable tin ear when it comes to the armed forces.

pull oneself up by the bootstraps: 靠自己努力成功
To “pull oneself up by the bootstraps” is to better oneself by one’s own unaided efforts.
An article "On Bootstraps" in intelligentlife has introduced the origins of the idiom and also its practicality.

well-heeled: 富有的
Someone who is well-heeled is wealthy.

schadenfreude: 幸灾乐祸的
(from German) a feeling of pleasure at the bad things that happen to other people
I couldn't resist a touch of Schadenfreude when he was defeated so heavily in the election.

last-ditch: 最后防线的, 已无后退余地的, 坚持到最后的
A last-ditch action is done only because there are no other ways left to achieve something or to prevent something happening. It is often done without much hope that it will succeed.

wishy-washy: 缺乏力量, 缺乏特点或决心的;浅淡的
someone who is wishy-washy does not have firm or clear ideas and seems unable to decide what they want
colours that are wishy-washy are pale and unexciting, not strong or dark

saving grace: 可以弥补缺点的优点(可取之处)
A saving grace is a good quality or feature in a person or thing that prevents them from being completely bad or worthless.
Her sense of humour is her saving grace.

pet-hate: A pet peeve (or pet hate) is a minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to them, to a greater degree than others may find it. Examples may be; poor table manners, sloppy kitchen hygiene, smoking, grammatical errors in written passages, inconsiderate driving or lazy co-workers, and loud gum smaking.
My pet-hate is pie charts.

The Essential Reading (2) —— 《Beyond Feelings》

No doubt thinking play a crucial role in everybody's daily life. However, I hadn't paid enough attention before to the questions such as how to think, how to organize our thinking, how to change our wishful thinking into critical thinking, how to be more on objectivity than on subjectivity, more on though than on feeling, how to wrestle with our own negative tendencies which prevent us from critical thinking etc.

Written by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero, this book is designed to introduce the concept of critical thinking, try to help us acquire the intellectual skills necessary to solve problems. The content is divided into 4 sections. Section 1 elaborates the fundamental concepts; Section 2 describes the problems to impede the clear thinking; Section 3 articulates the strategy to achieve critical thinking; Section 4 presents the contemporary issues that occupy the attentions of the best thinkers of our age.

Basic Concepts:

Individuality: Popular definition is "doing your own thing, responding to life's situations in whatever way seems most natural." However, individuality must be the habit of developing your own personal responses to people, issues, and situation, rather than mindlessly endorsing the reponses you have been conditioned to make. 4 guideline to help you achieve individality:

1. resist the influence of your conditioning, refuse to embrace the first reaction.
2. decide why you reacted as you did.
3. think of other reactions you might have
4. evaluate the different ractions

Critical thinking: It is the process of evaluating ideas, in other words: judge the accuracy of statements and the soundness of the reasoning that leads to conclusios.

Key to critical thinking is the skill in asking appropriate questions, the skill to take charge of their thoughts, to use their minds actively as well as passively.

Misconceptions of critical thinker	Right perception
being able to support beliefs with reasons	the reasons are good and sufficient
never imitate others in thought or action.	making wise decision, regardless of how common those decisions are.
critical thinking is synonymous with having a lot of right answers in one's head.	critical thinking is the process of finding answers when they are not readily avaiable.
cannot be learned	a matter of habbit

Truth: The truth about sth is what is so about it, the facts about it in their exact arrangement and proportions. Truth is relative, depend on:

1. the quality of perception
2. the quality of information: reality has many faces, the quality of belief depends to a considerable extend on the quality of this information that backs it up.
3. all too often, what is taken as truth today by the most repected minds is proved erroneous tomorrow.
   

Truth is difficult to purse. We all have limitations and can easily be mistaken. And surely we'll never find all the answers we'd like to. But we can observe a little more accurately, weight things a little more thoroughly, and make up our mind a little more carefully. By doing so, we'll be a little closer to the truth. It is far different from saying "Everyone makes his or her own truth" or "It all depends on how you look at it." And it is more reasonabe to do so.

Knowing: The requirement of knowing are:

1. have the right answer
2. the realization you have it.
3. the ability to express what is known and how you come to know it.

It is different from three other mental processes:

• Assuming: taking something for granted
• Guessing: offering a judgment on a hunch or taking a chance on an answer without any confidence that it is correct.
• Speculating: making an "educated" guess, selecting an answer without any confidence that it is correct but with some evidence for believing it is probably correct.
  

The problems obstruct critical thinking:

1. "Mine is better" thinking: prefer your own ideas for no other reason than that they are yours.
It can shut us off from other perspectives, blind us to unfamiliar truths, enslave us to yesterday's conclusions, readily to accept uncritically those who appeal to our preconceived notions, leave us vunlnerable to those who would manipulate us for their own purpose. "Mine is better thinking"'s influence will be strongest when the subject is one that we really care about.

2. Resistance to change: prefer familiar to unfamiliar ideas.

3. conformity: thinking the way others do(/do not) because of the group or your desire to belong.

4. face saving: attempting to preserve your self-image
Face-saving tendency leads us to rationalize, prompt us to misinterpret our perceptions and substitute wishful thinking for reality. Rationalizing is the very opposite of reasoning; whereas reasoning works from evidence to conclusion, rationalizing works from conclusion to evidence.

5. stereotyping: making fixed, unbending generalizations about people, places or things.
the cause of stereotyping is "mine is better" thinking, another is the principle of least effort

6. oversimplification: simplifying that does not merely scale down complex matters to more manageable proportion but twists and distorts them.
The cause of oversimplification:

• unwillingness to invest the time necessary to probe the complexity of issues.
• mine is better thinking
• insecurity
• the habit of seeing only what affects us
  

7. Hasty conclusion: judgments made before sufficient evidence is obtained.
The cause of hasty conclusions:

• convenience. Some people are afraid of arduous analysis and rattled by complexity, as a result, they leap at the first conclusion that occurs to them.
• the desire to sound authoritative. Feeling some insecurity and wanting to compensate for it, or wanting to make their conversation livelier, many people have the habit of escalating every statement to a higher level of generalization.
• the tendency to prefer one idea over all others.

8. Unwarranted assumptions: ideas that you have in mind and that influence your reasoning without your being conscious of it; ideas you take for granted.

9. logical fallacies: specific errors that occur in reasoning.

• illogical conclusion
• either-or thinking: extreme views are seldom reasonable views.
• attaching the person: when an idea is under discussion, it is inappropriate to focus on the person.
• shifting the burden of proof (also known as argument from ignorance): whenever we make an assertion, it is our responsiblity to support it. You cann't demand others to disprove our assertions.
• false cause: ignore the coincidence
• straw man: straw man is an argument without substance. This fallacy consists of pretending one's adversary has said sth false and then proceeding to demonstrate that it is false.
• irrational appeals: to accept ideas at face value or on some other bias than reasonableness. It can take many forms like emotion, tradition or faith, moderation, authority, common sense.

Strategy:

Knowing ourselves: it is important, because so many of the obstacles to clear thinking are found not in the problems we deal with, but in ourselves.

Be observant: clear and sound thinking often depends on subtleties that are revealed only by close observation.

By knowing oursleves and being observant, we improve our perception and guard against error. by systematically clarifying issues, conducting inquiry, interpreting evidence, and analyzing viewpoints, we rescue our thinking from preconceived notions and first impressions. Chance favors the prepared mind and the observant eye.

The guidelines to forming judgements:

• Strive for a balanced view
• Deal with Probability
• Make your subject appropriately specific
• Make your predicate exact
• Include all appropriate qualifications: to include the qualifications of time, place and condition.
• Avoid Exaggeration

The Essential Reading (1) —— Psychology of Relationship

I plan to scribble down some excerpts here from what I have read, for 3 reasons:

1. Even we come to cul de sac, I still hope it is a substitute of my old notebook that has already lain silently in my drawer for 3 months, which will give me some illusion we are still sharing with each other. I know I'm pathetic, however......
2. To compensate with my bad memory, to help some learning not dissipate in the course of time.
3. An opportunity to have an introspection on myself.

Here comes the first shot:

PsyBlog has a series of posts about the psychology of relationship, not so good, however, two of them still strike a cord in me:

1. The art of Self-disclosure:

Self-disclosure plays a central role in the development and maintenance of relationships.

• Simply sharing our preferences for music, food or books can play an equally important role in forming relationships as self-disclosure about our deepest hopes and fears.
• Too much self-disclosure too soon can be off-putting. When someone you've just met starts pouring out their heart, it can make you want to run away.
• The way in which you react to the self-disclosure of others is of vital importance. People want to be 'understood' not just 'heard'.

The art of self-disclosing, then, is giving information to others in the right way and at the right time.

I retrospect the self-disclosure pattern between us, from the beginning to the end. The feeling is mixed. I recalled I had start pouring out my heart on the first visit to your colleage,I recalled how I gathered all courage to self-disclose my deepest hopes, fears, happyness and sadness in high school to you, which didn't scare you away. Since then, the pattern hadn't changed a lot, though I wish it had to some extent; Since then, you have gradually rein my heart. I also remembered what we had shared since our reunion, my "protest", your try, the insatiable appetite to know you more, the storm of blog, the anxiety, the longing, the loss, the shame, the jealousy, the pain......

How bittersweet they are! Deep down, I know all kinds of sensation are vivid and will never fade away.

2.Familiarity breeds contempt:

If the mere exposure effect holds for developing social relationships then, as we come to know more about others, we should come to like them more. However, after researches, the counter-intuitive finding is on the vast majority of occasions the less we know about someone the more we are inclined to like them. Of course this wasn't true for everyone - some met other people who they liked more afterwards - for the majority more knowledge led to apparent dissimilarity which led to less liking. It turns out that the connection between knowledge and dislike was a lack of similarity.

This rule is not applicable to ours. Actually the fact is: the more I know about you, the more difference are revealed between us, the more I am enchanted by you, the more I love you.

Anyway, agree or not, these findings confirmed my conclusion about relationship again: 人与人的情感进退，像一场华尔兹，时间、舞伴、步调、配合、节奏、力度，无一不影响舞蹈的美感与结果。

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