I saw two films today.  The first was about taking chances and not to be afraid to do nice things for yourself because, first, great things beyond your wildest dreams can occur, and second, because humans should not let their hearts grow cold to their passion.  The second was about how a nice man succumbed to the corruption of political power when he originally started out with the best intentions, but along the way discovered that he could not handle dissent, eventually being killed by someone he had helped up along the way.

(By the way, I wonder what would happen if everybody voted according to what they think everyone else wants, as a realization of a suggestion on an earlier post arguing for "goodness maximization".  Ha, this is really going to need another post to analyze.)

Guess which got the Oscar nominations.  (It didn't win anything though)

Memorably, the first film has this as one of the last lines, "So, my little ******, you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually, your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton. So, go get him, for Pete's sake!"

The second film has a title alluding to an egg and irreversibility.

Come to think of it, there's many things that are irreversible about an egg.  You can't uncook an egg, you can't get a chicken to go back into an egg.  You can't uncrack an egg.

Which came first?  The chicken or the egg?  You can get a chicken from a (fertilized) egg.  You can get a (fertilized) egg from chickens.

So what'll it be?  If she did try to go get him does that mean she hasn't let the chance pass?  What if there's someone better?  Pete needs to mind his own frickin' business.

Burden on decisions, "You only get a couple of moments that determine your life. Sometimes only one. And then it's gone. Forever."

Free will is a funny thing.  It is plainly stated and even more plainly observed that people, given free will, will screw things up.  The more freedom, the more depravity, as a rule of thumb.  Sometimes I wonder why it was instilled in the first place.  Today I think I found the first mystical beginnings to an answer.  It takes someone special to take on this mess and find beauty in it.

Couldn't put humpty dumpty together again.  I don't want to be a rotten egg.  God help me make it into a chicken.

Today I came across an article highlighting win-win solutions to some problems, and  was a little bothered by the propositions within.  Specifically, the notion that somehow it is possible to make everything better seems unbelievable.  Various colloquialisms such as "no free lunch", "if something's too good to be true, it is", ran through my head.  If these solutions existed, it was somehow improbable that there would be such conflicts in the first place.  Such solutions just seemed to beg us to forget our convictions in order to meet some sort of agreement.  Whether that is, in essence, a solution then is open to debate.

As a person, I sought to find solutions which were not open to debate.  In my mind, logic should give a definite answer.  Thus, in my field of training, I tried to learn some "universal" principles that would provide this answer.  It is fun, and sobering, to consider them in such a context.  My field is obsessed with laws of conservation.  The laws of conservation gives us the rules to see how everything should happen.  Laws of conservation are not kind with win-win situations, however, at best, we can hope for a win-lose.

But even that is not quite acceptable to my esteemed teachers.  It is quite popularly believed among us that at least one of the dimensions within which we exist can not be reversed.  So at least anything in that dimension can have only one direction.  A loss cannot be turned back into a win along that dimension.  Yet this is another law in our belief, and it is considered equal to the conservation laws and held as irrefutable.  Our triumphs thus dictates our demise, as we are faced with the certainty of eventually lossing everything.  To us, everything is a lose-lose.

If I had the proper premise, selected a proper field and learned its mysteries properly (all by using my logic), then my result would be lose-lose.  Does that say something about my logic?  The world is which I exist?  I'm glad that my field is still booming with research, and that the mystery has still so far not been completely elucidated.  I don't want to be a loser, but I don't want to lose my logic too.  I must be missing something.

In our day to day existence, we usually don't spend time to observe the details in our environment.  The changes tend to be minute anyway, so casual inspection won't be fruitful.  As the years go by however, little changes add up, and before long, we had Kaufman, Broad Art Center, SAC, Acosta Gym, Bruin Walk, Wooden West, Court of Philanthropy, Soccer Field, Wilson Plaza, Vista, Terrace, Summit, Dykstra Parking, all those new grad housing, Humanities, La Kretz, CNSI, Ortho Research, Medical Plaza, Ronald Reagan, Factor, Eng. I., Neurosci. Research, Sycamore Alley, Portola(IPAM) and last but not least, PAB.  I can't write anymore.  Forgive me.

脫離壓力

如果我們重視自己對外界事物的影響, 一心想著世界如何對待我們, 我們的壓力無形便會增加, 於是我們用盡力氣, 試圖使他人不再操控自己.

若果我們能而及時自問:「我為何有這樣的感受?」這便能轉移產生比較正面的反應, 我們打算不讓這個難纏的人控制我們的行為或情緒, 在這樣的心理空間下我們才能做出較好的反應與抉擇.

當我們感受壓力或遭受變故時, 身體上的變化在體內發酵, 即可能令我們生病.  全身備戰準備採取行動的我們, 完全聽任身體的反應並不恰當, 那就好像一腳踩油門, 一腳踩煞車駕駛, 要不了多久一定會出車禍; 身體亦是如此, 如果像這樣的驅策它, 不消多久, 我們也會向精神科或身心科的醫生報到.  那麼在長期的壓力下又如何?  免疫防衛系統會退怯, 白血球數目雖然一樣卻不再作用.  在長期壓力下, 腎上腺分泌的皮質類固醇壓制了免疫功能.

白血球的數目相當重要, 但它們運作與否, 則與心理狀態息息相關.  一旦白血球偵測出不正常分裂的細胞, 便即時將之殲滅.  若果白血球不再發揮功效時, 我們就可能出腫瘤.

經解剖發現, 一些測試飛行員很容易死於心臟病, 這些年輕飛行員有著巨大的壓力在他們心底裏, 這因是害怕丟掉飯碗而每天隱藏著這無形的殺手在他們心底裏.

我們應當如何逃離這壓力呢?  我們可以嘗試用一早的清晨自我掏空, 讓禱告, 讀經, 唱詩歌及默想聖經的話語填滿我們自己.  除此之外, 我們也可藉著慢慢的呼吸幫助我們維持平靜的狀況, 以至我們在一天清晨中把壓力趕走, 過著輕鬆的一天.

"Look... to go through life and call it yours - your life - you first have to get your own pain.  Pain that's unique to you.  You can't just dip into the common bin and say 'That's enough!' ... He's done that.  All right, he's sick.  He's full of misery and fear.  He was dangerous, and could be again, though I doubt it.  But that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life.  And let me tell you something: I envy it."
-Equus

What matters to you?