Hum.

The picture given here manifests two texts I received with four quite fundamental questions in modernism sent by an innocent looking high school girl who is an agent (Let’s name her Agent W.) from the opponents and ordered a VIP service(one-on-one course) to study SAT Writing with me just to, again, record my class.

The intention is extraordinarily clear—to challenge me for the 500th time. A little background information: the rivals have sent a host of agents to record my TOEFL writing class over the years and sent the recordings out to my colleagues who are also teachers. At one time, one of the agents (Agent N) almost drove me insane. I was very close to end my life, but anguish is gone and I am fine now.

Agent W, however, is somewhat different. Unlike the previous agent N being bound up with lies and aggression, she is more of a high school sweet heart with an innocent smile, but I could still smell the rat while talking to her. It was not until the second class that her cover no longer clung to her with the aid of my fairly whimsical Plato-like questioning. Before that, I truly believe that her mother got divorced and worked as a doctor and she couldn’t afford to go the U.S. for pursuing a bachelor degree unless her student loan is approved. I even phoned the course advisor who persuaded her to choose a one-on-one course with me because it costs a lot more and it was inhumane for there are plenty of materials available to make a progress in SAT Writing other than courses which charge a lot. The course advisor comforted me by saying that she would learn more from me. After her cover was discovered, I contacted the advisor again who, like any other people I know, has no idea what my life currently is, and I said I wanted to cancel the one-on-one service with her and required a rearrangement. (Now you may ask that Agent W didn’t ask me to be her writing teacher, and the selection of teachers is random. So I may be paranoid. Well, first, if she appointed to a teacher, it would arouse suspicion. Second, I am the first choice for the course advisor, which makes my rest and vacation gone with the wind. Third, even if I had missed her, she would have filed a complaint for the assigned teacher and the advisor should have asked for me.)

I received no positive answer to my request because it would be immoral to leave the “student” out of the blue.

Now, my judgment appeared to be right. Four questions were raised trying to bring me down, again, which were shown on my cell’s screen LIVE as a message.

Normally, I would answer the questions in Chinese within 10 minutes and I did compose the answers on a piece of paper as soon as I read the text at night. But If I do that again, super cougar version 13224(yes, she has ungraded and becomes a terrorist to me. When will China have restraining order to execute my freedom?) might love me more. So I decided to write the so-called answers in English.

Cut the crap.



The questions are here.

Question one: Do thoughts or ideas give birth to languages or can language represent thoughts or ideas?

Question two: What should the meaning or meaningfulness of thoughts be like?

Question three: Are humans destined to live in foolishness?

Question four: Do you believe it is fortunate to acknowledge and discover the limit of knowledge or wisdom of mankind?



Possible answer to question one:

Socrates was impossible to be defeated in his day. His rivals, the aged group with the vast expanse of expertise, or shall we call them the dogged seniors of wisdom, referred him as an indescribable figure in language, and his flawless image of thinking can hardly be painted even with the finest painters who can complete a reverie on walls or canvas because the argumentation of Socrates is based on absolute and amorphism-oriented( if we turn to a modern word) individuality.

Using metaphor, we might say that his individuality might be reflected by an amorphous mass of twisted mental. Once the heat of argument was excavated, the mental would melt and when the argument was about to close, a point would be cooled down and formed. I feel like describing a transformer all of a sudden. Besides, the power of refusal to be classified or have genres to tag his mind is another charming trait of his individuality which, unlike a number of shameless self-centered academic copycats living in denial in China, amounts to few variation or synthesis of existing ideas. As a matter of fact, Lord wants to tell us that the reason for the existence of Socrates or the biggest contribution of Socrates aims at proving the value of individualism and showing that our feelings and the perceptions of the world, the views/thinking patterns are quite unique in a streaming nature and cannot be described in words. It is just like the cliché that words might not visualize or envisage God. In sum, we are our own masters, and we should be born to speak for democracy itself. In other words, Socrates spent his life in telling us that no one can ever beat you if you are who you are and that a hero lies in you.

But what does the above have to do with the first question?

Well, we understand that humans are different from each other and each one of us is attached to individualism by God or nature/biology, and languages fail to describe this uniqueness in us that tells who we are and who Socrates, the great thoughts makers, truly was, and it is such uniqueness and individuality that act as the ubiquitous catalyst of the origin of thinking, organizing thoughts, extrapolating ideas etc.

So languages might not succeed in capturing our minds in the first place.

Socrates himself answered this question as well. He adhered to the viewpoint that writing is an inferior means of representing thoughts in that wording itself is merely the substitutions of speech/thought, not the speech/thought themselves.

Socrates continued to analyze and prove that words themselves are essentially confusing , using the word “pharmakon”(It can refer to poison, yet it also means medicine. ) Plato also stressed that writing may not strengthen memory. Rather, it causes the memory to decline—when reading the words we wrote, we may fail to notice our thoughts in the written words.

Better explanation is here:

“now/this second” will become a “past/past second” in a second, simultaneously, future is unattainable. Thus, if viewing the style of living for individual, the nimble selves may dredge up the fact that individuals encounter the process of being buried to death of the past second continuously. Our life embraces death of the previous self every now and then.-----Arthur Schopenhauer

My blog title “An Impressionist’s Gravestone” tries to express this idea and a painting may preserve one’s ideas/emotions/thoughts a little bit longer.

Nietzsche incisively summed up the above. He had given numerous definitions for human—the crudest animal, the bravest animal, the animal that is armed with judgment, and the severely sick animal etc.

Yet the most adorable adjective by him is that humans are an ever-changing animal that is unable to be framed or drawn a line.

Therefore, words may be somewhat insufficient to express the thoughts of complicated and quickly evolving species since thoughts are like boisterous typhoon, fairly unstable.

Of course, I will never be satisfied with telling you just one seemingly proper explanation. Let’s move onto the next possible answer.

First and foremost, allow me to lead you to diving into language itself.

What is language?

I’d like to invite Michel Foucault to our little debating society in my bedroom.

Michel Foucault went to extremes to provide readers with important facts and statistics by advocating(Foucault was gay.) that the leading, mainstream dramatic system of both language and knowledge is the bodyguard of the gerentocratic, ruling circles or dominance hierarchies. Thus, each word and every expression we have installed in our phonology, linguistics, speech center and language acquisition model are made to be a servant of the aristocratic. Our naive language is not supposed to be ours; let alone speaking for our thoughts at the very beginning.

What’s more, Nietzsche wrote that human consciousness (also one of the starting points of language according to psychoanalysis by Freud) is equal to the Will’s memory. Now the Will has been determined by the authority previously and not by us, judging from Foucault’s analysis.

Languages, again, may scarcely be suitable to loading thoughts.

After answering the first question, it simply exacerbated the difficulty and possibility of answering the second question—how can you expect me to refute the functions of languages in expressing thoughts and then answer the second question—what the meaning or meaningfulness of thoughts should be like since languages cannot be the representatives of thoughts? Hum… indeed very irreconcilable.

Well, aren’t the opponents calculating, execrable, satanic and fiendish for exterminating, extirpating me?

It must take a lot people to work together, be gregarious for the sake of breeding these questions. They did more than this. Let me remind you. First, they record my TOEFL/ IELTS/ SAT writing class and hoped I would lose my mind and my job, I didn’t. Second, they sent agents to discourage and provoke me and hoped I would lose my mind and my job, I didn’t. Third, they shared my words without my consent to my colleagues and hoped I would lose my mind and my job, I didn’t. Forth, they, a group of people who have various sources and social network to rely on, asked the most abstruse questions to challenge me, a single individual, who have answered all the questions and refuted their words in a snap all by myself without googling (Fine! I looked up some words I didn’t remember how to spell not in the dictionary, but in Google.) in my bedroom with books, fingers and my mind alone.



I am definitely not going to answer question two with an enormous fart, or literally, a blink of an eye or yoga/treadmill yoga or any motions available for a human being to accomplish in order to express answers not by using words for the sake of meeting the efficiency and effectiveness of society surrounded by errant realities, and by adopting to a circumvent tactic.

So let me face the music, shake the craven self off and write in words some possible lucid answers to question two. (What the meaning or meaningfulness of thoughts should be like.)

At first, I have to buttress that languages are functional in adducing and embodying thoughts.

Before that, I’d like to discuss Wittgenstein’s blueprint in 1961 which was to develop a universal language, and this language will be the perfect reflection of the actual world. Such a language is definitely transparent and the relation between the objective world and the language could be coordinated. This world which could be expressed in words while excluding being blurred by wording would become a candidate to be explained.

The attempt to demonstrate the existence of a transparent language could be seen in Plato, Aristotle , Rousseau, Hegel and so on.

......(etc)



Therefore, I may use words to describe the meaning or meaningfulness of thoughts.

The possible answer is orgasm.

To most philosophers and scientists, abandoning oneself into the pursuit of upgrading or rising above themselves mentally can rarely go wrong. When the pleasure of the state of mind gets close to bliss, people’s lust will be scattered into pieces. Freud once wrote that libido is the first motivator in mankind, but man can let orgasm give way to other sorts of release, such as the research of science, the exploration of knowledge etc.

Plato elucidated this orgasm or happiness in his metaphor of cave. A group of people can be deemed as cavemen who haven’t seen light. Suddenly, a man is out of the cave and sees the sunlight. The man cannot adjust himself back into the dim cave. Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones. Right?

Now Let us explore question three: are humans destined to live in foolishness?

Say hi to Socrates again. Here is an interesting conversation.

Socrates: Tell me, kid, do you know that this is a foursquare? (Socrates points to a square.)

Kid: I do.

Socrates: As you can see, a foursquare has four sides and each side length of a square equals any side length of the rest three sides?

Kid: Yes.

Socrates: Now if I find the point right in the middle of each side and link the points, the length of two points equals to the rest length of two points?

Kid: Yes.

Socrates: If this length of the foursquare is two yards, can you find the number for units of the area of this foursquare? Let me explain that if this side length is one yard and its adjacent side length is two yards, the units of the area of this foursquare would be two yards?

Kid: Yes.

Socrates: Since the other side length is not one yard but two yards, we have two “two yards”?

Kid: Yes.

Socrates: Then, the area of this foursquare is two square yards?

Kid: Yes.

Socrates: Can you tell me the answer when one becomes two?

Kid: Four, Socrates.

…

Socrates: So four times four equals sixteen, right?

Kid: Yes.

……
This conversation spares no effort to convey a fact to people that the kid having no geometry knowledge can answer the question correctly through proper deduction and guidance.

Can you feel it?

The knowledge of geometry had been put into the kid’s mind before he knew what geometry was.

Therefore, education, the major rational way to get rid of foolishness, awaits no teachers but you. You are your own teacher. You will be Socrates if you want to be. You are a trillion miles away from living in foolishness.

Now we understand why people keep saying never too old to learn.

More importantly, now we know for sure that one of the most essential reasons for President Obama to win the election in 2008 is his campaign’s slogan—yes, we can.

Here comes one of my favorites: now we know why Lucas is the best teacher holding a squirt gun to fearlessly enlighten the “lost” generation.

As a matter of fact, Lord first made people into a group and gave the group a mission—to resume what they never own. It seems paradoxical at first, now we know why Lord wants us to do that.

Besides, “All genuine merit, moral as well as intellectual, is not merely physical or empirical in its origin, but metaphysical; that is to say, it is given a priori and not a posteriori; in other words, it lies innate and is not acquired, and therefore its source is not a mere phenomenon, but the thing-in-itself. Hence, it is that every man achieves only that which is irrevocably established in his nature, or is born with him.”-----Arthur Schopenhauer

I am very sorry question three. But, are we destined to live in foolishness?

The fourth question: do you believe it is fortunate to acknowledge and discover the limit of knowledge or wisdom of mankind?

Possible answer:

As long as there is a behavior called encouragement, I don’t see the limit. Besides, I don’t know the meaningfulness of this question.

BTW, if you treat this question as a question, there would be no limits whatsoever. But if you consider the question an answer (that we have limits), congratulations my dear, you are officially pronounced dead for the 501st time.

Time to Say...Hello!

Scarcely anything was worth being omitted the past year, or the coming days in my quietly-polished routine life. (I'll explain why one day.) Time, as an everlasting concept and one of the rationalism-painted witnesses of my personal struggle over a decade, has struck a host of observers and critics, even great minds, as farfetched and overwrought; and certainly, from their point of view, the various arguments based on the assumption of a parallel between the commoners’ “Every second takes away something.” and Nietzsche’s “Belated youth simply amounts to a perpetual youth in full blossom.”—as well as the hypothesis about both matrilineal and patrilineal effect on time, the totemic stage of religion as traces of obtaining answers to the definition of time, in time, and so on, have made full-fledged schedules more than a usual practice.

“Hello” is the beginning of everything; as a criterion to being close to the understanding of time, it is definitely a suitable start. In The Analects by Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, consciously or unconsciously, expressed his words of forfeited flaw to his audience. In the book, Confucius adopted merely two Chinese characters to interpret how to be able to survive in the world with benevolence—知人 (Know your fellow men.) These two characters by all means evoke the earliest enlightenment of modern Psychology. And it is hello that serves as a starting point for any sort of mental contact and connection to know of others regardless of the contact’s nature—a failed connection between souls which Schopenhauer considered as the fundamentality of tragedy and futilitarian in our time or an effective two-way communication free from cultural barriers. Meaningful time after Hello is one of the starter-kit-like determinants of how humans view the rotation of tic-tac inside the clock.

A major question left that time is confronted with at this point is whether the self-evident explanation and its universality are to be considered or related to the components of truth.

“The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! ... If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. … That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht). If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.”

“…Dog time cannot be plotted along a straight line; it does not move on and on, from one thing to the next. It moves in a circle like the hands of a clock, which—they, too, unwilling to dash madly ahead—turn round and round the face, day in and day out following the same path. …”

–Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Too many hints already to form a properly-accepted explanation, aren’t there? Time may be boiled down into two curiously simple and elegant drawings. One might belong to western civilization with an endothermic line to infinity of innovation as would be expected in Apple and systematically classified genres of intelligence reflected by the astonishing number of books available to be approached. “Hold on. There will be tomorrow.” The popular song says it all as well. Get to that part later. The other might find its way to divesting eastern civilization itself of line-shaped time and be bound up with a cycle which, unlike Christianity’s ‘see you in heaven after death beckons’, suggests that in Buddhism Chinese restart their lives in a new circulation concerning few memories of previous lives.

Nevertheless, Freud himself recognized that “the greatest difficulty in treating civilization as if it were an individual capable of having a neurosis is the question of how we are to suppose that contemporary people can be motivated, indeed compelled, by memories of events that occurred not in their own lives, but in ancient history. ” Besides, Kant thought that out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Therefore, a third one must be introduced to render the drawing of time more accurate and precise. Once combined, the complete outlook of time might invite an experience of riding a roller-coaster—curving up while extending like an unstable, fluctuating, wavering line or a plate of fusilli, the long, corkscrew shaped pasta—combination of memoirs, déjà vu plus l’aventure.

In the language of English or other western Germanic languages, tenses emerge in that individuals are influenced by the line of time with a looking-forward spirit—“when was the last time you did things for the first time? ”. In the universally-praised American education, encouraging individuals to sparkle with the aid of moderate amount of freewill, compared to Tiger mum’s Nazi administration over her daughters’ pore arrangement on rosy cheeks by setting up dreadful rules and regulations, is much more omnipresent and pervasive in the US because of the involvement of the never-ending line leading people to new problems, solutions or beliefs. Nothing has received more praise and, sometimes, abuse than the wide agreement that just do it. Yet Chinese, the language, basically neglects tenses thoroughly due to the circulation of constant repetition, causing numbness even weaknesses when we are robbed by our government and eventually contribute intolerable annual GDP growth rate accompanied by “Made in China” with fading guilt, humanity, happiness and a working-like-a-dog doctrine, always keeping in mind that every dog has its day, day by day. Such findings are never in short supply.

In conclusion, Churchill mentioned during a speech in November 1942 that this is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end; but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. The notion that time to say goodbye is groundless and that time to say hello is waving at us every now and then. Just let mother Mary come and whisper words of wisdom—let it be; let time stroll and meet “Hello”, as it did in the case of Mariah’s two precious mind-conjoined twins. ❤

Me against the Mirror

In fact, I forgot to bring my underwear along with me, so... things could get cocky and rocky.

Don't Know What to Say...

Nick Cannon in the Making

Flipped through the newspapers and magazines, numerous and countless pieces of news aiming at introducing us how to be an animal all over again come flooding into our brains ordering us to lead a civic-deterioration-free life due to a natural distrust of civilization.

Better explanation rests on the love with primitivism which is not quite ready for citizens to bid farewell to. Nick Cannon presents this idea with maturity and taste often associating with labels like Dior, Gucci, Chanel, LV and Mariah who is ready for perpetual & spiritual adventure.

So, I feel it obliged to work out and regain the animal heritage.

The Mummy Returns with a...

The moment of creation itself is fleeing. No one can capture it.
But you did it, again, as always.

I need your voice to make it through the night.
Who doesn’t?

Common sense can be extremely misleading and the truth always lies in what is unsaid.
Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel will be valued and valuable.
After all, to love for the sake of being loved is human and to love for the sake of loving is…you, angelic.

Mariah, be good and be your best self!

Stoicism vs Epicureanism

My best gal came back the day before yesterday, again. And out of gratitude, that shopaholic brought me gifts. I despise Epicureanism. But a Dior Homme coat(more like cloak, or poncho) with uncontrolled zippers; 300+ Swarovski scattering bijoux and an XXL K underwear, I consider the above a deed of altruism. Financial fiasco?

So I blitzed her iPod with Mariah while she's in the restroom.