Best 8

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For the “best”,

the greatest enemy of all

is the “second best”.

— Me@2010.09.17

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2010.09.21 Tuesday

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True love is inexhaustible: the more you give, the more you have.

— Antoine de Saint Exupery

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2010.09.18 Saturday

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Neo: D’you already know if I’m going to take it?

The Oracle: Wouldn’t be much of an Oracle if I didn’t.

Neo: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?

The Oracle: Because you didn’t come here to make the choice, you’ve already made it. You’re here to try to understand why you made it. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.

— The Matrix: Reloaded

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2010.09.08 Wednesday

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Emerson wrote in his speech “The American Scholar”: “We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine  Soul which also inspires all men.” Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy:

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. … Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

— Wikipedia on Transcendentalism

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2010.09.07 Tuesday

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Your world is you.

–Me@2009.12.12

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2010.09.01 Wednesday

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Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that’s one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it’s not our fault if we can’t do something as good.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as genius. But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

— Paul Graham

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2010.08.31 Tuesday

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People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

仁者見仁 智者見智

— Ralph W. Emerson

— Me@2010.08.30

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2010.08.30 Monday

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Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do. The best plan, I think, is to step onto an orthogonal vector. Don’t just do what they tell you, and don’t just refuse to. Instead treat school as a day job. As day jobs go, it’s pretty sweet. You’re done at 3 o’clock, and you can even work on your own stuff while you’re there.

— Paul Graham

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2010.08.27 Friday

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Bureaucracy makes diligent people lazy and intelligent people behave as though they were stupid.

— John T. Reed

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2010.08.21 Saturday

墨水 2

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一滴墨水，滴落一杯清水中，清水變成了污水；

一滴清水，滴落一杯墨水中，墨水仍然是墨水。

— Me@2010.08.17

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2010.08.19 Thursday

潛行凶間 7

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Cobb: They say we only use a fraction of our brain’s true potential. That’s when we’re awake. When we’re asleep, our mind can do almost anything.

Ariadne: Such as?

Cobb: Well, imagine you’re designing a building. You consciously create each aspect. But sometimes it feels like it’s almost creating itself, if you know what I mean.

Ariande: Like, I’m discovering it.

Cobb: Genuine inspiration, right? Now, in a dream, our mind continuously does this. We create and perceive our world simultaneously. Now, our mind does this so well that we don’t even know it’s happening.

— Inception (film)

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2010.08.10 Tuesday

潛行凶間 6

Christopher Nolan 2

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Films directed by Christopher Nolan

Following (1998) ‧ Memento (2000) ‧ Insomnia (2002) ‧ Batman Begins (2005) ‧ The Prestige (2006) ‧ The Dark Knight (2008) ‧ Inception (2010)

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Memento（凶心人），有關「遺忘症」。整套電影倒轉播，令觀眾體會到主角「沒有新記憶」的感受。

The Prestige（死亡魔法），有關「魔術」。整套電影本身，是一個「魔術」：原來答案一直就在眼前，只是觀眾被魔術師（導演和編劇）誤導。

Inception（潛行凶間），有關「意念植入」。整套電影本身，是一個「意念植入」：看過後，這套電影中的意念，在腦中揮之不去。

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Christopher Nolan 玩 recursion（自我指涉），比 Charlie Kaufman，還要高一個層次。

— Me@2010.08.01

— Me@2010.08.05

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2010.08.05 Thursday

Memento 2

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Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record, and they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.

— Leonard Shelby

— Memento (film)

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2010.08.03 Tuesday