Lunarmony’s Journal

刚才复习的时候突然想到的一个问题。具体内容么，可以说我是在特指什么，也可以说是不是。

欢迎拍砖。

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当一项活动最终演化为一种建制的时候，参与者加入这一活动的前提便是首先对这种建制中的潜规则的承认。而这种潜规则又反过来作用于参与者，使得参与者不能按自己的意志去自由发展。于是参与者对这项活动的投入在绝大多数情况下就演变成了对一项合约的履行。这种合约虽然促进了社会生产力的发展，但这样的前提是合约同时将参与者的自由选择权以一种狭隘的“自由”代替，类似的，也扼杀了参与者个人的创造力。同时，社会整体的发展在另一面推动了社会大环境的形成，进一步强迫社会中的个体必须以某种形式被认同，而这里最简单的被认同的方式就是加入一种已确立的建制。

于是很多时候我们真正的问题并不是究竟什么“活动”是目前最好的选择，而是“加入”——这一举动本身——是不是对个人乃至社会发展的阻碍。但显而易见的，很多时候短期奖励的诱惑是难以忽略的。所以这一举动成为常态也许是某种意义上的……

Not exactly a review, alright.
Just something I felt after reading the book, Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Fury...

The Jedi Code
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

Used to think that those lines were a bit old-fashioned. And the fact is that I still do. It's just that I am now beginning to appreciate the Code from a different point of view, considering what happened recently.

It's only when you have absolutely nothing to lose that you can truly open yourself.

As long as you have two different – conflicting – area of interest to protect, at some point you'll be forced to compromise your principles, alter your beliefs, justify your wrong doings, all because the two aspects are incompatible in nature.

In other words, there's no integrity without pure commitment.

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Updated @ Jan 21:

Just read another article, Anakin Must Die, posted by Abel G. Pena, in which the author said:

I want to do the right thing, one says, but not at the expense of myself. Not at the expense of myself! What guarantee do I have that if I pass up this opportunity to seize my destiny -- yes, at the expense of this other -- that such an opportunity will come again? That I will not have betrayed myself forever?

Alas, we may now mourn together. Because, there is no guarantee.

And that, called alternately the annihilation of the self and the faith that hope lives forever, is what it is to be a Jedi.

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A clear, unquestioned objective.

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An interesting (or should I say alarming...) article which I just came across. A recommended read for anyone who's a multitasker (yeah, like me ).

Highlights:

But switching between tasks wastes precious time because the brain is compelled to restart and refocus. "Each time you have this alternation, there's a period in which you'll make no progress on either task," says David Meyer, Ph.D., director of the Brain, Cognition, and Action Lab at the University of Michigan. "It's mental dead time." The result: It takes longer to finish any one chore, and you don't do it nearly as well as you would had you given it your full attention.

*** 

Finally, the stress of multitasking may also impair your ability to concentrate. "We've so trained ourselves to be ready for interruption that we're not paying attention to anything," Dr. Hallowell maintains. "The two things that people think they have these days-but don't-are attention deficit disorder (ADD) and Alzheimer's disease. They're just overloaded from a severe case of modern life."

Link: http://lifestyle.msn.com/MindBodyandSoul/PersonalGrowth/ArticleGH.aspx?cp-documentid=2075672

In Search of Personal Fulfillment

By Jiaqi Zhai (Lunarmony)

Special thanks to LynnKaye for the inspiration, without which the completion of this essay would be impossible.

It’s six o’clock in the morning. Awaken by the alarm clock, you got up, looked at your never-ending to-do list, and realized that another day had started. Then you went through the day by checking off items on the list one by one. Essays, projects, presentations, examinations… Eventually the day passed, old tasks were removed, new tasks were added… And just before you slept, you realized that another day – with you doing nothing but the routine jobs – had gone, and the beautiful dreams you once had were still little more than ordinary dreams. Wondering when you will finally be free of all those things, you drifted off to sleep.

Sounds familiar? This is a typical reflection of the day for us who spent nearly one-hundred percent of the time seeking to be recognized and accepted by the society. We accept assignments without question, usually not because we really love the assignments, but because we fear that not doing them will disappoint others. We associate extreme pain to not getting the jobs done on time, simply because we believe that the expectations and demands of others should, always, be put above our own needs, and if we don’t go through life just as other people did, we would never find joy and happiness.

As a result, the all-too-familiar days go by; and whenever we look up from our present jobs, we ‘re shocked by the sheer amount of routine work we’ve managed to complete, yet at the same time we are also saddened by the fact that the vision we had still seems to be so far beyond our reach. Eventually what was a ‘must’ for us becomes a ‘should’, day by day we keep finding and labeling new things that are 'laughable', 'unrealistic', 'impractical', 'impossible' … and the dreams we once had have gradually dissipated into the frustrations of daily life. Finally we just think that it is the best that we can get from life, simply because our peers are living lives very similar to ours. But we never stop to think what we’re really losing in the process.

When the drive to complete the daily routines, to meet the unreasonable expectations of other people, has stolen from us the emotions that define us as humans – the gratitude and joy that arises from appreciating what we have; the persistence and dedication for defending the cause which we believe; the spiritual love and commitment that comes from sharing and connecting with who we worship; and the passion and faith for becoming the person who we aspire to be – what happens then, when all of those things have become nothing more than a memory buried in shadow? What do we still have, then, when we’ve been robbed of our happiness, our caring for others, our sense of contribution, and even our meaning of life? What are we then if not a pre-programmed machine?

We’ve been trained so long not to make our own decisions. We’ve been trained to accept, unconditionally and without exception, whatever our parents, teachers, mentors, and the society tell us to do. That very culture conditioning has set off processional effects causing us to give up our true selves; and there’s nothing that could possibly be more devastating in the long term. As one winner of Goldman Environmental prize, Samuel LaBudde, so accurately put it:

"People are willing to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars a year into insurance policies, but are they willing to actively participate in their future? No, they want to pay somebody else to take care of it. That's what the whole insurance model is about. People feel like that's what they do when they donate to environmental groups: It's insurance. 'Give to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund; let them take care of it.' But it's not taken care of. People think the environment is out there and that the environment is peripheral to human experience. It's not. It's our backyard, and its central; everything we do is ecology.”

It’s the same thing with our own destiny. We’re all too willing to let the society influence our choices, for surrendering to the circumstances seems much easier than fighting against the trends; and to be honest, none of us want another item added to our to-do list. But if we do not make our decisions consciously, everything that we’re doing would be worthless; it’s just like running west looking for a sun rise, something that has no chance of succeeding. And from the very day that we’re born, we are dying. There are only so few tomorrows in our lives; and if we keep wasting our days by living a life that’s not directed by ourselves, that’s solely judged by others, that’s filled with sadness, stress and frustration – how would we think when we look back five years from now, and found that nothing has really changed? How would we feel after living our lives the same way for ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years – when we grow old, and instead of feeling content because we’ve made a difference in the world, we still feel as unhappy and unfulfilled as we did in our teenage years, even after we had all the material awards we once desired?

The truth is that the things themselves can never make us fulfilled; it’s only what we’ve become in the process of pursuing our dreams that truly motivates and inspires us. We’re more than our physical selves. As many great poets, philosophers and thinkers had proclaimed, the most astonishing force that human beings process is the spiritual power – the very same power that enables us to act courageously in spite of the circumstances, to face the challenges boldly without fear and doubts, that inspires us to believe in something higher than ourselves, to find a purpose, a meaning, a sense of fulfillment in everything we do. And using the power requires really nothing but a decision backed up by persistence and faith, directed by a mind that recognizes no such thing as failure; a mind that goes beyond the common sense of the supporters of status quo, that’s dedicated to the betterment of self, others and the human race.

A committed decision is all it really takes to change everything.

Whatever experiences we’re having in our lives are the consequences of small decisions we make every day. And it is only when we begin, together, to take the responsibility to a personal level, to start making decisions and taking actions in a new way that benefits not only ourselves, but also the society we live in, that we can truly make a difference and bring about massive changes in the society’s values and our lives.

Perhaps making the decision to control your destiny is nowhere near as difficult as you might think; all it requires is to focus, and recall the natural part of yourself that you've kept hidden for so long, to take small and yet consistent actions every single day. And maybe getting the dream you desire and deserve requires nothing more than to courageously say ‘no’ to the routine tasks that are no longer giving you joy, to willingly give time and energy to pursue your own passions and dreams, and ultimately, to love everything you do from your heart.

Maybe it’s that simple.

There was a time when I believed, that the end really justifies the means, if only from a certain point of view. And still the concept seems right, as when you look back from a distance – all we can remember, all that are recorded, all that is taught and praised and passed down throughout history – is the glorious deeds that the heroes and leaders in the past have done; the history pays little attention to the means they used to achieve those ends.  At that time I used to argue with myself that since no one is prefect, if we measure everyone not only by the deeds but also by the extreme means some of them used to achieve those deeds, we would basically have no heroes – and since there must be heroes in our world, their actions must be justifiable in some way.

What I failed to realize then, was that heroes are not meant to be worshipped. Heroes exist as nothing but a symbol of wisdom, justice, courage, might, strength, or compassion – they showed us what is possible, of what could be done to make the world a better place – nevertheless, they themselves are nothing but a symbol, an image. Thus the inevitable question arises: what exactly are we worshipping, the qualities that the symbols represent, or … the symbols? And I think the answer is obvious. Despite the fact that those people are admirable, ultimately, people are not their behaviors; and by doing the exact things that they have done, we would essentially lose our true selves; and that’s probably the last thing on earth that we would ever want.

However the answer above essentially means that the ends never really justify the means, which is the equivalent of saying:

 Neither immoral motivation nor unethical methods can bring truly beneficial ends. 

The results obtained from using unethical methods could never justify the means, for a simple reason: we have no rights to sacrifice a life that is not ours to sacrifice, even in the name of peace and justice, even in the name of the greater good. To put it in another way, a “sacrifice” forced by others can never be called a real sacrifice, because the pure spirit of humanity, of compassion and love is missing; moreover, the forced act itself is nothing but a blatant disregard for human rights, a tyrannical way to force one’s will upon others. Although some might argue that as long as the end is good, all that has been done to achieve the end has to be morally justifiable as well – but what we’re losing in the process, is the essence of who we are as decent humans. And that, for me personally, is the strongest reason to believe that unethical methods can never be used to achieve an end with perfect harmony.

To conclude this essay, I would like to repeat the fundamental truth that has guided me so far: Human beings are not machines; we have the responsibility, the right and the power to choose what we do, to choose whether to make the self-sacrifices, in order to help others and contribute to the society; but we do not have the right to control the behaviors of others. And personally I think that’s exactly where the line should be drawn.

Updated at November 26 20:50 CST