Winter Break Reading Notes for 2007
Launch Manifesto
I remember that in the middle of last winter break I suddenly threw myself into a spurt of effort, reading dozens of books straight through at an average pace of one book a day. Although none of them could be called especially specialized works, I did indeed feel I gained quite a lot; more importantly, I read with soaring morale and doubled confidence. But the good times did not last long. Not long afterward, for certain reasons, and then because of a whole string of external and internal problems, my morale plunged to rock bottom. It was truly a case of collapsing at a single blow and sinking into despondency and decadence. Though on the surface it looked as if I had only thrown myself more deeply into academic work, in fact I could no longer recover that same momentum and enthusiasm.
Momentum can be forced out. The reason I deliberately slept in and skipped the CET-4 last semester (the semester before that, I lost my admission ticket) was precisely that I wanted to drive myself into a dead end so as to force the momentum out. Yet this plan nearly failed. This semester, right up until less than a month before the exam, I still had not gotten into gear. Only when there were fewer than four weeks left did I finally have a sudden flash of enlightenment and go a little wild for a while. But the remaining time was too short: just as I was beginning to work hard, I had to go into battle. The only achievement was that, for the first time in my life, I finally managed to memorize an entire vocabulary book. But my practical ability scarcely improved at all. Luckily, the CET-4 itself is really too easy; I suppose I can probably still pass it by the skin of my teeth, so I won’t bother about it.
The key point is that this little outburst with English finally woke me from my dream—damn it, what time is it already? What on earth am I still doing?
I am not trying to arouse the “fighting spirit” of hard work, but rather to awaken once more the enthusiasm for play. For me, what I am studying now and what I will do in scholarship later are both games to be enjoyed; philosophy is, in the first place, a game of thought, and even annoying English I regard as a pestering big Boss—I still want to keep playing. And the biggest problem in the last two semesters was not that I failed to put effort into scholarship, but that I could not treat it with carefree abandon; I treated study as a task to be dealt with. And now, I want to recover my sense of play! (Note: but why do I object to “life is like a game”? Because I only regard study and work as games, but in life there are more important things that I can under no circumstances regard as games—relationships, friends, lovers, family, neighbors—I cannot treat those genuinely real things with a playful attitude.)
That little outburst against English was forced out by pressure, whereas a true outburst is stimulated rather than compelled. An outburst should not be for the sake of coping with some purpose; rather, it should be because an outburst is fun, isn’t it? Just as sometimes I also binge on computer games for several consecutive nights, or watch hundreds of episodes of anime in a row, it is nothing more than a sudden impulse and a surge of playfulness. Now I’m going to start erupting again over reading, haha—purely for fun!
By the way, if you want to transform an outburst aimed at some purpose into a purely fun-loving outburst, you can refer to the following true words and secret mantras:
One-character formula: Kill!
Two-character formula: Duel!
Three-character formula: Who’s afraid of whom!
Four-character formula: I’ll fight you to the finish!
Five-character formula: That damned old bear!
Six-syllable great bright mantra: oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ……
January 19, 2007
At Sheep-Soup Dwelling
Latest Comments
UNICEROS
2007-01-20 01:09:34 [Reply]
Haha! This should be the funniest article you’ve ever written, right? I just keep wanting to laugh when I read it… especially the true transmission of the formulas at the end! Hahahahaha…
I’m growing more and more impressed by your game spirit! That is exactly what I lack most right now in being a person. I’m the kind of person who becomes quite absorbed only when doing things I like; for example, I can sit at a desk for three straight hours writing poetry, but for homework—at most two hours. Sitting in front of the computer is even crazier; a whole day is no problem at all.
But I’ve found that ever since middle school, it seems I’ve never treated exam-oriented education as a game or anything exciting, so I’ve always been demoralized about some of my weak subjects, to the point that my weaknesses have only multiplied since then. As for English, my strongest subject, whenever I don’t try too hard, I feel a very intense inferiority complex! Just like now. How sad! What subject do I still have confidence in now? Haha… seems only art, and at most some events in sports… that’s all.
No good… I need to get serious! For so many years, I have never truly gotten serious! Although I’ve always wanted to get serious!
This is a matter of one’s attitude toward being a person! Only now do I suddenly realize: the attitude one takes toward being a person cannot be made clear simply by “serious” and “not serious,” because everyone’s reasons and ways of being serious are different. Attitude is also pluralistic.
Hehe, what a coincidence—I also wrote something called a manifesto (not the old one, but a new one), but I’ve only just discovered that my writing still does not seriously implement [game spirit]! It still has so little morale!
I’m going to go revise it right now!
I’ve been infected by your enthusiasm! I want to learn game spirit well!
Come to think of it, I really have never in my life had what you’d call an outburst… The college entrance exam, and the middle school entrance exam too, were both very repressive and very helpless. Though I suppose I did treat them seriously, I never felt, because of the exams themselves, that I was in a game.
If a person goes through life without ever going crazy in a game-like way—what a tragedy!
Hahaha… shake hands!
unic
2007-01-20 01:13:42 [Reply]
I reposted this piece of yours, okay? You won’t be upset, right? Thanks!
Gu
2007-01-20 10:36:45 [Reply]
I also never treated exam-oriented education as a game. My luck was that I escaped exam-oriented education from beginning to end: from childhood to adulthood I was always in top-level classes, always admitted by recommendation. In middle school, when doing ordinary homework, I would at most spend two hours, and often I wouldn’t even go over an hour before switching to something else.
As for lacking confidence, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t have much confidence either; even now I still lack confidence in academic matters, and in high school I regarded myself as just a piece of worthless slag. Being a little humble is not bad; studying philosophy requires humility even more. One should be self-abasing: “Compared with so many great philosophers, what am I worth?” Personally, I am arrogant without being conceited; I do have a certain carefree ease, but not confidence.
Gu
2007-01-20 10:55:43 [Reply]
The necessary confidence is believing that one possesses the human capacities of cognition and understanding that are universal. No matter how abstruse philosophers’ writings may be, one should believe that so long as we put in the effort, we too can understand them (in our own way); it is not as if only freaks born of genetic mutation can understand them.
It is the same with your study of mathematics. Middle-school mathematics is a basic course aimed at all students; ordinary people should be able to understand it, and superpowers are not required. But studying middle-school mathematics is not the same as studying philosophy. Philosophy has infinitely broad content, whereas middle-school mathematics is nothing but a tiny little thing—you can see its end in a single glance.
Whether you have confidence or not is secondary; the key is not to give up on yourself. You must not let a single problem slip by. Every example problem in middle-school mathematics should be ensured to be absolutely mastered; not a single problem can be “one I can’t do”! Getting it wrong is acceptable, being slow is acceptable, but not a single one may be something you cannot do. Because mathematics is systematic: if one level is not conquered, the levels that follow cannot be passed either. So I suggest you dig out your junior-high math textbook. Don’t do exercises and don’t do extra practice; go through all the example problems in it, not letting a single one slip by. Only after ensuring that you can do every one should you move on to the next book. The textbook examples do not amount to very many problems; even when you add the junior-high and senior-high examples together, it is not enough to be called a sea of problems, and it is very worthwhile to go through them carefully once. Start from the beginning and make sure you can do every example problem. (The earliest problems may perhaps be very simple, but you must have the patience to check them carefully, and make absolutely certain there is no mistake. Even if half of one problem in a hundred can’t get through, that won’t do!)
Also, if when working on an example problem you are truly stuck and cannot solve it, then do not rush to look at the solution. Instead, read the solution line by line; when you see which step you had not thought of, or which concept you had just now gotten wrong, then do not keep looking further down. Follow the new line of thought and continue solving it, and in the end you must work the problem out by yourself, on your own.
I’m growing more and more impressed by your game spirit! That is exactly what I lack most right now in being a person. I’m the kind of person who becomes quite absorbed only when doing things I like; for example, I can sit at a desk for three straight hours writing poetry, but for homework—at most two hours. Sitting in front of the computer is even crazier; a whole day is no problem at all.
But I’ve found that ever since middle school, it seems I’ve never treated exam-oriented education as a game or anything exciting, so I’ve always been demoralized about some of my weak subjects, to the point that my weaknesses have only multiplied since then. As for English, my strongest subject, whenever I don’t try too hard, I feel a very intense inferiority complex! Just like now. How sad! What subject do I still have confidence in now? Haha… seems only art, and at most some events in sports… that’s all.
No good… I need to get serious! For so many years, I have never truly gotten serious! Although I’ve always wanted to get serious!
This is a matter of one’s attitude toward being a person! Only now do I suddenly realize: the attitude one takes toward being a person cannot be made clear simply by “serious” and “not serious,” because everyone’s reasons and ways of being serious are different. Attitude is also pluralistic.
Hehe, what a coincidence—I also wrote something called a manifesto (not the old one, but a new one), but I’ve only just discovered that my writing still does not seriously implement [game spirit]! It still has so little morale!
I’m going to go revise it right now!
I’ve been infected by your enthusiasm! I want to learn game spirit well!
Come to think of it, I really have never in my life had what you’d call an outburst… The college entrance exam, and the middle school entrance exam too, were both very repressive and very helpless. Though I suppose I did treat them seriously, I never felt, because of the exams themselves, that I was in a game.
If a person goes through life without ever going crazy in a game-like way—what a tragedy!
Hahaha… shake hands!
unic
Gu
As for lacking confidence, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t have much confidence either; even now I still lack confidence in academic matters, and in high school I regarded myself as just a piece of worthless slag. Being a little humble is not bad; studying philosophy requires humility even more. One should be self-abasing: “Compared with so many great philosophers, what am I worth?” Personally, I am arrogant without being conceited; I do have a certain carefree ease, but not confidence.
Gu
It is the same with your study of mathematics. Middle-school mathematics is a basic course aimed at all students; ordinary people should be able to understand it, and superpowers are not required. But studying middle-school mathematics is not the same as studying philosophy. Philosophy has infinitely broad content, whereas middle-school mathematics is nothing but a tiny little thing—you can see its end in a single glance.
Whether you have confidence or not is secondary; the key is not to give up on yourself. You must not let a single problem slip by. Every example problem in middle-school mathematics should be ensured to be absolutely mastered; not a single problem can be “one I can’t do”! Getting it wrong is acceptable, being slow is acceptable, but not a single one may be something you cannot do. Because mathematics is systematic: if one level is not conquered, the levels that follow cannot be passed either. So I suggest you dig out your junior-high math textbook. Don’t do exercises and don’t do extra practice; go through all the example problems in it, not letting a single one slip by. Only after ensuring that you can do every one should you move on to the next book. The textbook examples do not amount to very many problems; even when you add the junior-high and senior-high examples together, it is not enough to be called a sea of problems, and it is very worthwhile to go through them carefully once. Start from the beginning and make sure you can do every example problem. (The earliest problems may perhaps be very simple, but you must have the patience to check them carefully, and make absolutely certain there is no mistake. Even if half of one problem in a hundred can’t get through, that won’t do!)
Also, if when working on an example problem you are truly stuck and cannot solve it, then do not rush to look at the solution. Instead, read the solution line by line; when you see which step you had not thought of, or which concept you had just now gotten wrong, then do not keep looking further down. Follow the new line of thought and continue solving it, and in the end you must work the problem out by yourself, on your own.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
Leave a Reply