1006G备考日记 by pluka——Pursuit of simplicity（谢幕）

plukaUID: 2721764

01.23COMMENT
NOTE
IT IS bonus season again.
COMMENT
Policies to handle the economic crisis remains tricky. With the larger bank size due to the shrinked safety buffer, some people are concerned about the possible malallocation and dysfunction that banks may endure under the governmental subsidy. There have already enough controversies on to what extent that the government should interfere the economy. By and large, financial experts admit that the urgent issue right now is to fight for the welfare of all and to stand through the crunk. Yet worries are never alleviated.
I'm not familiar with financial things. Facing with those puzzles which baffle top economists, all I can see is murky murky murky cloud......

plukaUID: 2721764

大致是正常状态吧。
噼里啪啦看issue系列要好好参与~（虽然今天只来得及逛了一个贴= =）嗯，本来就该是计划内，趁机搞定那几个题目才好。
01.23

plukaUID: 2721764

01.24 COMMENT
NOTE
This complacency implies that women should call it a day（收工休息终止） rather than continue to agitate for a better deal.

the economic rat race（激烈混乱的竞争, 你死我活的竞争）And in trying to do both things many women are bearing a burden that their mothers were spared.


The answer depends on the way an individual woman understands her role in society. An important consideration here must be self-fulfilment and, as Fay Weldon the novelist once said, men are irrelevant in women's considerations. "Women are happy or unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled, and it has nothing to do with men," said Weldon. （I hate this）That is harsh, but women must believe this of themselves if they are to reshape a better future than the conflict-strewn path of history carved by men.

The traditional role of motherhood, they find, must be slotted within career breaks, then juggled in ever more complex organisational demands of combining salaried work with domestic cares.

【For all the talk of growth economies, of productivity, of richer nations enjoying greater spending power than less successful neighbours, the end game of humanity is not a fistful（一撮一把） of dollars but about relative happiness and contentment over a lifetime. Women play a unique role in that equation, always have, always will.】

【Keeping a family together, raising children as they should be raised, creating responsible citizens: these require values and skills common to all humanity, that transcend rich and poor countries and that should transcend the sexes.】

a raw deal（不公平的待遇？）
Tomorrow there will be more work and women should embark on the rest of their journey, wherever they believe they should be heading, in the knowledge that they are second to no man.
OK, maybe Mr Donkin was just being cheeky（厚颜无耻的）。
filch（窃取）
COMMENT
the assertions of Mr D are as follows.
1、the sense of fulfillment, the self-perception, depends on women themselves alone, and has nothing to do with men.
2、women today are not constrained by notions of some predestined career such as teaching but can enjoy the same opportunities as men.
3、there are more safeguards such as legislations protecting the right of women than ever.
4、women today pay much more attention on outside careers than motherhood, this is not a good tendency, as the speaker put it: "That cannot be right. I would like to see leaders of the feminist movement fighting to restore the dignity of motherhood in our lives. Men need to be part of that struggle, directing some of their own ambitions in the direction of good parenting, so that the raising of families is accepted as something that demands equal input and that is valued in society, particularly by governments and employers."

the speaker expressed his concern on the lost womanhood during the struggle for work place equity.

he adored the caring for children and the old as a honored and valuable career; he praised the noble and important role that the caring plays in family. Yet when I read this, I cannot help thinking: if the job is so noble, than why man does not take it? It's unfair to say that because women are more suitable for that job and, see, that job is all right, so you women just do it and enjoy! The speaker tried his best to depict the rosy image and appeal to one's emotion. However, I can hardly accept that, and more or less I feel a little bit being brainwashing: well, I just hate moralizer.

Another thing I oppose is that he said that the scarcity of women in political and economical fields was due to the choice of women themselves. What a convenient excuse! Stating that "it's all your own choice!" and one can stand by and feel no obligation or empathy.
Simply put, I'm not buying his patronizing attitude.

plukaUID: 2721764

有点感冒，头重鼻塞。
目前的写作文最短时间是50分钟，不包括列提纲，中间论证和语言十分之纠结，郁闷……
改作文的时间比写还长……再郁闷……
01.24

plukaUID: 2721764

01.26 COMMENT
NOTE
Nonetheless, “Food for Thought” gives an insight into why some Americans have such poor diets. 


The fast-food fans in the book typically lead chaotic lives. They often toil long, irregular hours for not much money. They grab food when they can, skipping many meals and gorging at unorthodox times.
Could it be that the American obesity epidemic has reached a plateau?
Add to that the indirect costs of obesity, such as lost productivity due to sickness or premature death. 


The startling Republican victory in Massachusetts this week throws Barack Obama’s health reforms up in the air.
【If you say that a decision or a situation is up in the air, you mean that it has not yet been completely settled or planned.】
Plausible theories abound. Time grows more precious: hence the lure of fast food.


Americans are suspicious of the nanny state at the best of times, let alone when it nags them to curb their most basic instincts.
COMMENT

Is obesity a social problem or individual vice? I guess this essay hints something. Though people deem their eating habits as personal, gluttons do impose heavier burden on health-care system--up to one trillion in furture by reckon. Another thing, as pointed out, eating is social. Hance obesity may be the most insidious epidemic that threatens chronically the living quality of society as well as individual. As for the role of government, it's hard to balance the strict regulation and willingnessof people. Politicians do not want to reproach their gluttonous vetors too vigorously, and perhaps, so should not they. For most of us, eating is still a private thing. Under such tricky backdrop, all will be happy to see a fat plateau which can ease the tension at least at this moment.

plukaUID: 2721764

01.27 COMMENT
NOTE
Whereas every other big industry has computerised with gusto（由衷的高兴） since the 1980s, doctors in most parts of the world still work mainly with pen and paper.


Developing countries are already using mobile phones to put a doctor into patients’ pockets（很有意思的表达）.

 “like chemistry before it, biology is moving from a world of alchemy and ignorance to becoming a predictable, repeatable science.”

This special report will ask how much of this grand vision is likely to become reality.
Clever technology can help solve two big problems in health care: overspending in the rich world and under-provisioning in the poor world. 


The hidebound（守旧死板的） health-care systems of the rich world may resist new technologies even as poor countries leapfrog（竞相提高） ahead（固步自封啊）.

In the past medicine has taken a paternalistic stance（家长的姿态）, with the all-knowing physician dispensing wisdom from on high, but that is becoming increasingly untenable（站不住脚的）.

But patients actually know a great deal about many diseases, especially chronic ones like diabetes and heart problems with which they often live for many years.（这就是原因啊）

COMMENT
One thing that impresses me most about the advantage of incoming medical system assisted by telecommunication technology is that it expends the equity between patients and doctors, undeifies the position of medical practitioners, and enables ordinary people to gain larger share on making the decision of their own health problems. This reveals another part of changes that technology can bring about: the change on people's attitude and right. As patients get more convenient access to doctors, they can get more information which, though perhaps trivial, consists the wall between ordinary people and speciallized practitioners. Now that the wall is to be erode, so the largely unnecessary and excessive awe to doctors. People's right to take part in the decision of their own medical cure will also be expanded, as reckoned. I find one sentence especially convincing when explaining people's adequate knowledge on this duty: "... with which they often live for many years." well actually I get some inspiration for writing contensions on issue: the common sense. yes~

plukaUID: 2721764

01.28 comment
ESSAY


‘Art upsets, science reassures’ (Braque)
Analyse and evaluate this claim. The difference between; reality and fantasy, an accurate representation of what is, and a brilliant orchestration of the mind, can often become blurred with the paintbrush of an artist. Yet, as Braque would surely agree, there are certain areas knowledge that only serve to reify（使具体化） our reality, saving us from delving into the fantastic chasm of questions arising from art. This specific area is of course science. One can often become lost in art, in a never ending series of inquiries as to how such a sculpture or painting could be physically possible. Although, science will reassure us as to what is possible and what will remain limited to a picture, or expression of thought or questioning. （科学的reassure的限制范围）
To evaluate Braque’s claim one must look to art, and the aspects thereof, that defy and upset nature and natural science. Next, the process by which science can reassure ‘what is’, as opposed to a representation of the artistic. And last, what the reassurance of science, as well as, the nature of art entail in their representational and informative nature. 【Art itself has proven throughout time to confuse many, all of the thoughts by the creators seem to be in the slightest way manipulative of that which every person would think scientifically so. 】Dance and the Theater, a place where art has flourished, is an example of how deceit and manipulation have manifested themselves in an art form that is revered, and held to be a distinguishing skill; acting. Seeing the ghost of Oedipus come back to haunt his children, is something that is far beyond what anyone has experienced in reality, and instills in individuals a mystical image of what could be. Or, the people indigenous to North America performing dances in attempt to cause rain, and perhaps an occasional rainfall to follow, only serves to upset the theories of natural science. These are both examples of what art has done to upset the view that one has on the way things work.【艺术upset人们对事物的原有理解】
Not everyone sees their dead father return in a pale, luminescent mist to speak to them, yet, Shakespearean actors would make us think otherwise. It may be thought that this form of art would only serve as a method of human expression, and would actually be pure and true in revealing something about human nature, but this is not necessarily the case. This art form still is only a means to upset what natural science has supported extensively (e.g. that rain comes from processes that occur naturally and randomly). 【艺术表达‘真相’的方式upset科学的描述】Confusion still comes about when the meteorology and earth sciences tell us that performing a dance has nothing to do with a rainstorm coming about.
Furthermore, even if the intent of the art work is to reveal something about humans, or to deliver Stoll 2 any kind of message, the message might not necessarily be interpreted by the individual in the way it was intended. The social science of psychology tells us that each individual has a different perception of complex messages, such as those offered by a theatrical performance, only proving that the art has served as a way to upset a person’s interpretation by saying that it is wrong. 【艺术可以被不同地阐释，upset个人的理解，让人不能确定自己的正确】Thus it is that a problem of knowledge when dealing with the arts is the interpretation of the arts by others Though this form of art may be upsetting enough, there are still many illustrations to ponder and induce discomfort. Lionel Penrose developed a work of art that was and is constantly an upsetting image. This image was of the impossible staircase (appendix 1). This disturbing image, as based on our visual system, seems to be a constantly descending (or ascending) staircase. The would be end point reconvenes with the point at where we visually began, when tracking the staircase, and proceeds to ascend or descend another level, depending on how it is looked upon. Not only does this prove to be a physical impossibility, but a tedious chore for the mind. Everything that this staircase suggests defies reality, and goes against all that is known in the third dimension. The same is true for the impossible triangle (appendix 2), developed by Roger Penrose, son of Lionel. It is in a shape that makes it physically impossible to create in the three dimensional world. The beams of the triangle simultaneously appear to recede and come toward you. Yet, somehow, they meet in an impossible configuration! It is difficult to conceive how the various parts can fit together as a real three-dimensional object, and yet it exists in the art of humanity. 【艺术创造出实际上不能存在的东西，upset现实】Some would say that these works of art are explainable through dimensional theory and extensive analysis, but this still does not deny how upsetting the concepts these pictures present. The mere fact that you require such an explanation to understand these models only supports Braque’s position on art, and shows a problem surrounding the ways of knowing when it comes to the area of the arts.
The explanation of arts is what we see as most reassuring, even if it takes a method that is not traditionally associated with the arts. Science is not usually in the forefront of one’s mind when viewing a work of art, yet there is explanation for some of art’s implications through science, and refutation of some of the implications of art, on reality. With the example of the impossible triangle, one could understand the reason behind why we interpret it as impossible, or what the constraints of our visual system have if it Stoll 3 is explained scientifically. The triangle exists in the second dimension, but when placed into the third dimension (which is what our brains try to do once it is viewed) simply can not happen when realistically applied. Moreover, our visual system is constrained by how it interprets two-dimensional pictorial images into three-dimensional mental representations. It is with the help of such constraints that your visual system assigns depth to each point in an image. Furthermore, it is more important for your visual system to adhere to these constraints than to violate them because you have encountered something that is paradoxical, unusual, or inconsistent. It would lead to biological disaster if you were blind to the unusual, inconsistent, or paradoxical (Seckel).【人类视觉构造对某些艺术难以忍受】 This kind of scientific explanation shows the reassurance that only can be offered by science itself, rather than a confusing image produced by an artist. 【科学解释艺术的超现实之处，让人分辨艺术的不可能】Not only is the science of biology part of this explanation, but dimensional theory as well.
Another example of science’s reassurance can come with experimentation. When Sir Isaac Newton sat beside an apple tree, and was struck by a falling apple; we see today, when we are holding an object, then let go when there is nothing between it and the ground but five feet of unoccupied space, we see the scientific support for the theory of gravity. This kind of reassurance is exactly what Braque is suggesting art cannot definitively support, due to the processes that science endures it is seen as a more legitimate and trustworthy method of assurance.【比起艺术，科学是确定的不变的持续的，更能够提供assurance】
Although art may upset, and science may reassure, this does not necessarily imply that one could do the other and vice versa. The paintings that comes from Latina artist Frida Khalo are self portraits that do not romanticize her image at all. She shows herself to be just as she was, with ridged facial features, and even facial hair. Or, Pablo Picasso’s early works; violent depiction’s of war in his time. It is this kind of art that reassures people of a reality,【有写实的艺术，reassure真实】 that she was not an overwhelmingly attractive female, or that war was a place of sorrow and death, not victory and triumph. Again there is the issue of perception on behalf of the person viewing this art, and how they interpret the work. Though, with art of this nature, one does not have to deal with metaphors, or abstract concepts, the picture is straight forward, telling what is, not what is subjective.
As for science, there is an ever present tendency to have an occasion where the theories are indescribably upsetting. It has been my personal experience that quantum physics will offer Stoll 4 many explanations with extraordinarily complex, and/or incomplete justification. How can I really be right here, and over there all at the same time? Quantum physics holds the answer that most likely does have justification, yet, that justification is not entirely useful or valid. The views on art only further prove its subjectivity, and how it can never be as reassuring as science. From the Native people of Bali who claim not to have art at all, that they merely try to do things the best they can, and not toil with the unnecessary troubles of art, to the masters of the Japanese Noh, a drama that is entirely dependent on music as well as choreography (two examples of representational art). There is a wide variety of opinion and lack of continuity regarding artistic concepts, yet science seems to find a way to transcend this subjectivity. The notions of eastern scientists, regarding the geometry as not absolute, but rather an intellectual construction holds true with such teachings as that of Ashvaghosh (an ancient Buddhist teacher) of space being a mode of particularization and how it exists only in relation to our particularizing consciousness (Capra).
Science can reassure because its axioms exist in nature, where art will eternally be left up to individual interpretation. Braque does indeed show us how art can truly be upsetting, while leaving the reassurance to a reliable natural given that we find in science.

COMMENT

I must admit that this essay is a little bit vague and intangible for me. Nevertheless, I tried to get some ideas from it. The primary gain for me, then, is that I finally understand the meaning of 'upset'...well honestly, I'm beseted with how this word should be explained for long. Habitually I perceived 'upset' as something that provoke turbulence on emotion, strong emotion. Perhaps that understand is roughly acceptable, yet seems I used to constrained myself with too narrow confine that I came up with revolution only. So humm, now I can see 'upset' as more complex and subtle: the defy on already accepted or traditional views or stances. That expands the content a lot.
It seems, then, the major difference lies between arts and sciences is that one is subjective and may lend itself to multi-explanations, while the other is relatively objective that can sustain itself over time. The author started his analysis from tracing the difference of the two; this thinking pattern, perhaps, worth learning~

plukaUID: 2721764

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance (1841)

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for US than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole Cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preéstablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give hint no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for your the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.
The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent; irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary ways of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent. troublesome. He numbers himself never about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with éclat, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe（遗忘之河） for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock（合资的） company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not he hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it he goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes why should I not say to him, "Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home." Rough and graceless would he such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,-- else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. 
I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim.  I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropists that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prisons if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies;--though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.
Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily nonappearance on parade. Their works arc done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,--as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

COMMENT
Honestly I haven't grasp all the picture this philosophical essay. The language is vague for me. Though I know every single word separately, when they come together: I can't read...(That's one important reason why I hate philosophy book: you can write really esoteric contents, yet please use language of earth, not Mars.= =|||)
Well, get down to the essay. Still I perceived sth( I think I perceived sth). That is, the individuality against community, the resolved against the hesitant, the bold against the flabby. I read about the resolution and pride on the independence of one's mind. How envy I am! There's, perhaps, distance between Emerson and the general. 
A little bit chaos in mind...
--If I can prevent a heart from broken, then I'll not live in vain.
Dickenson wrote it, though perhaps I do not get the word exactly. Somehow when thinking about the bold and frank mind espoused by Emerson, I come up with these words. The tenderness of Dickenson touches me more than Emerson.
错别字: philosophy

plukaUID: 2721764

01.29COMMENT
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance (1841)


I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,--that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for US than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole Cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preéstablishcd harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give hint no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for your the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.
The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent; irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary ways of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent. troublesome. He numbers himself never about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with éclat, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe（遗忘之河） for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock（合资的） company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not he hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it he goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes why should I not say to him, "Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home." Rough and graceless would he such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,-- else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. 
I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim.  I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropists that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prisons if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies;--though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.
Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily nonappearance on parade. Their works arc done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,--as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

COMMENT
Honestly I haven't grasp all the picture this philosophical essay. The language is vague for me. Though I know every single word separately, when they come together: I can't read...(That's one important reason why I hate philosophy book: you can write really esoteric contents, yet please use language of earth, not Mars.= =|||)
Well, get down to the essay. Still I perceived sth( I think I perceived sth). That is, the individuality against community, the resolved against the hesitant, the bold against the flabby. I read about the resolution and pride on the independence of one's mind. How envy I am! There's, perhaps, distance between Emerson and the general. 
A little bit chaos in mind...
--If I can prevent a heart from broken, then I'll not live in vain.
Dickenson wrote it, though perhaps I do not get the word exactly. Somehow when thinking about the bold and frank mind espoused by Emerson, I come up with these words. The tenderness of Dickenson touches me more than Emerson.
错别字: philosophy

plukaUID: 2721764

回学校，明天开始XDF。
回学校又觉得压力了。不止是AW不止是GRE，而是更多的……
我大概还是软弱了一些，易感了一些，踌躇了一些，总觉得很难过。
有时候也会想，为啥要自虐啊！mediocre也不见得过得很差劲。
另一些时候，却总是想起纪德的那句——没有进步的快乐，我不屑一顾。
这种反复的摇摆和自省跟随我二十年了，还将要一直跟随下去。
行动力啊行动力。
一方面觉得年轻，一方面觉得年华如水。
01.29

plukaUID: 2721764

可以软弱，不可以放弃。

plukaUID: 2721764

01.30-31 COMMENT
NOTE

The starkest（十足的完全的） transatlantic（大西洋彼岸的） divide（用这个做名词！） is in holiday time.
most heartfelt（衷心的） wish
To put the case in a nutshell（坚果壳）（简短地说）, Europe makes itself poor by working many fewer hours per person than Americans.
【You can use in a nutshell to indicate that you are saying something in a very brief way, using few words.】
Excessively long vacations are only the tip of the iceberg（冰山一角）. 


snoop（探听调查） on
Americans' multiple（多样的） one-week vacations in contrast to the European five-week August exodus（大批离去） are much more efficient. diminishing returns of being bored with your relatives does not set in.


After all, I get five weeks off and I can come to this beautiful place and it's not even that crowded because the Americans are all chained（被链锁住的） to their bloody desks.（好表达！） I’d be having less fun if they had more vacation." 

Vacation time is a hedge（障碍物） against coronary disease.
All together, these infirmities account for a lion’s share of the enormous health-care costs borne by Americans. 


Vacations help bond families and often reintroduce romance into the lives of parents.
Extended holiday time allows for more tourism—a benefit to many national economies—which, as a travel specialist, Rick Steves, points out, helps increase international understanding and connection, vital in these times of worldwide distrust. （有意思的观点）


Yet even if they produced a bit less, the tradeoff（交易折中平衡） would be worth it. 
COMMENT

Are European long vacations deleterious to people's life? My intuition replied this question even before my rationality started working. Picture two image in your mind: one is an American who is savvy in business with a fashion of restless competition that swift yet pressed; another is an European who is a little bit casual for his work yet with an easiness and satisfaction and basks himself in the sun show in a Spanish shore. The answer then seems self-evident for me: the contented leisureliness,not the smart pressure, catches me. 
Mr Gordon's affirmative on reducing European vacation was based on the premise that Europeans had no good way to consum their time plethora while the insuffient working hour hamstringed the economic health. Let's put the latter aside firstly, and examine the validity of the former claim. This statement, according to what he clarified next, seems to be grounded on that visits to resorts are the major pleasure and relief that a vacation provides. As Europeans are too poor to afford decent tours (so he claimed), they gain little pleasure on vacation. This assertion is too material. Many times people find themselves contented in tours not because of the breath-taking scenery but because of the comfortable companion of family and friends. The destination of visit contains not only the acquaintance of new places but the reintroduction of old affections: the family tie, the friendship, the love for life and nature. The economical scale can not weigh everything.

plukaUID: 2721764

开始XDF，时间猛然少了好多
泪
要开始赶了
今天第一篇阿狗，不，第二篇……50分钟640字左右，这叫我如何是好……囧
01.30

plukaUID: 2721764

三天没有写ISSUE，感觉跑掉一大半。状态不行？噢NO~
万恶的XDF，搞得时间超级紧张。
01.31

plukaUID: 2721764

02.01COMMENT
NOTE
It is one of those fables which, out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for（意外的，料想不到的） wisdom
【The fable implies that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers. But, unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops and cannot be gathered. 】

【In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking. 】
 for the student’s behoof（利益好处）
【The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts.】
【The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.】
【man hopes; genius creates.】【 Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame.】
【They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,—with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. 】

COMMENT
This passage is a little bit vague for me. Perhaps for Emerson's writhing habits or style, I actually found many grammatical confusions: sentences without verb, subject, etc. That burdened me to figure out his meaning. And I dare not to say that I done the deal well. 
Anyhow, there are some pieces that I have managed to grab. The first one, the theory of Man and Man Thinking, looks familiar for me. A ancient Greek philosopher( I forgot his name), put up ideas that there was an ideal world out of this mundane one, and every earthly object was but imperfect imitation to the perfect prototype in the ideal heaven. Did Emerson mean the ideal prototype when saying the only Man? Another piece I drew from the essay is the human instinction to convey shared thoughts and emotions through the time and space. We read works written hundreds years ago, and feel aroused by a similar surge. That's ineffable. Reading Emerson's comparision of human to the insect that stores food for unseen offsprings, I can not help feeling a little bit fatalistic. Is human doomed to prepare his offspring with the most primitive share of minds and soul, to meet some day in the future the sun, the god, the ultimate, and talk to it? That's an enthralling hypothesis that no one can defy its attraction.