I’ve been reading Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” these days. At the end of the book, there’s a retrospective article written by himself 20 years later, titled “Brave New World Revisited”.

Reading his retrospective doesn’t resonate with me as deeply as my experience reading the novel. The vague yet intense emotions brought by the novel were diluted in his reflection. He discussed many social contexts, touching on democracy, freedom, propaganda, drugs… many detailed analyses, but I don’t particularly enjoy them.

If Huxley had initially written these social commentaries instead of the novel, it would have been just another academic paper of that era, soon forgotten.

But he chose to write it as a novel, and thus it became a century-spanning classic. Even today, 100 years later, we’re still reading it.

If you acknowledge that existence itself is God,

Then your description of God’s personality is actually a description of the laws of existence itself.

“The essence of existence is certain paradoxes” and “God is humorous” mean exactly the same thing.

Viewing time as a resource is a waste of time

Waste is the only way to use

Stopping is the only way to arrive

This is the most exquisite paradox

Waking up in the morning,

Through the bedroom door,

I hear the sounds of cooking from the kitchen,

It feels like home.

Taozi enters my room,

Comes to my bedside, nudging my hand with its nose,

Urging me to get up.

Oh, it turns out my dad is cooking,

My mom is doing laundry,

And Taozi wants me to take it out to pee.

Suddenly thought of an interesting question: Would a beggar donate money to others?

What I mean is, can someone who is willing to give become poor?

A friend shared this brilliant quote from his friend:

God must have an incredible sense of humor.

What makes James Cameron’s “Avatar” brilliant is his creation of an entirely new social structure on another planet: life forms interconnected with each other, connected to the Mother Tree, forming one integrated ecosystem. This is far more challenging than designing novel spaceships, and much more demanding than portraying traditional empires, military systems, or democratic models.

This is something others couldn’t conceive - it requires genuine care for humanity.

Yesterday in the temple, I suddenly understood why temples have statues of Buddha and masters.

I had heard various explanations before - some say it’s religious worship, others suggest it’s a meditation tool (for visualization).

But last night, looking at the statues of masters in the temple, I suddenly realized it’s simply pure love.

Just like how we keep photos of our departed loved ones at home or on our desks, looking at them from time to time - it’s just simple, pure love.

You, and me, everyone of us, we are a song.

Everything of us, we are a song.

We are a song!

Who is singing the song?

The song is singing itself.

Every moment generates next moment.

The song is singing itself.

Who is the listener?

It’s the song itself. It’s listening to itself.

Of course the world is doing itself.

People get so used to it, that they all forget what a miracle it is.

We are not different songs. We are all parts of this song.

Be in the song, and enjoy it.

Modern medicine is largely built on reductionism

That is, understanding what creates phenomena at one level by breaking things down into smaller parts

But this has its limitations,

Especially when it comes to the human body, this approach might be fundamentally wrong

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How would someone from 300 years ago understand a computer?

Their approach to understanding software might be to disassemble the circuit board, trying to figure out what creates each pixel on the screen

But computer scientists know this is futile

Because software is a symbolic phenomenon many layers of abstraction above hardware - you can’t understand it at the hardware level

There are numerous layers of abstraction in between, unless you can understand each layer of abstraction.

But without documentation,

This is a futile endeavor.

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So how should this person from 300 years ago understand computers?

In fact, they can understand software through software itself.

And fortunately, we ourselves are that computer, we ourselves are that software

We can understand ourselves through ourselves.

This is not just a reasonable approach, it is theoretically the only way.

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From this perspective, modern medicine might be something very backward, primitive, and crude.

When we encounter technologies that “understand software through software,” we need to recognize them with wisdom, rather than label them as unscientific superstition.

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(P.S. After writing this, I discussed my thoughts with a friend about the difference between reductionism and holism, and surprisingly discovered that “holistic medicine” is actually a term, referring to approaches like Traditional Chinese Medicine, yoga, and shamanic traditions. He also told me about “holistic agriculture” in his hometown in Colombia, which is like applying “holistic medicine” to agriculture instead of using reductionist approaches like pesticides. I found this fascinating.)

Our habitual reaction to things is in “review mode”: good or bad, useful or useless, beautiful or ugly.

Try looking at them the way parents look at their children instead.

Your self-awareness is an illusion,

You are just a storyteller.

You tell story from the vision.

But in your vision,

The only constant is yourself.

So in your story,

You believe you are the cause of everything.

Let the driver take the wheel.

You just enjoy the view.

You think you are the driver?

No, no.

You are the car.

In a conversation, my friend mentioned:

When we recommend things to others, we might not need to expect their feedback or acceptance.

Because everyone is on their own journey.

When we share things we want to share, it’s actually because we want to share them, it feels good to share, and it has nothing to do with the other person, so there’s no need for expectations.

Without expectations comes freedom.

I think this is well said.

This is the same principle as giving (dana) - true giving is giving without attachment. If you require gratitude or appreciation from the recipient, then the giving isn’t right—it’s amateur giving.

I suddenly realized that a person’s understanding and views of something are entirely determined by their past experiences. From this perspective, demanding that others understand something, or hold the same views as you, is actually unethical.

You can’t say someone is bad because they don’t understand, after all, this isn’t something they can control. Similarly, feeling bad about yourself because others don’t understand is also unethical.

Coming back to giving, if you expect understanding and feedback from the other person, then it’s not giving—it’s a transaction.

It’s incredible how the mainstream completely overlooks the theories of Gödel and Hofstadter. It feels like while the whole world is trying to build airplanes, Gödel and Hofstadter had already built starships cruising through the galaxy, yet no one realizes it.

A hundred years ago, Russell attempted to construct a perfect mathematical system that could explain everything.

Then Gödel discovered a flaw in Russell’s theory, a flaw similar to: “When you try to grasp it, it vanishes; when you let go, you had it all along.” (Though expressed in mathematical terms).

Hofstadter then discovered that Gödel’s theory wasn’t limited to mathematics - it was universally applicable, and quite possibly the very source of consciousness and the universe itself.

At first there were only numbers

Perhaps not even numbers

We gave them meaning

Meaning is metaphor

We created similarities between numbers and “reality”

Reality is story, story is metaphor

Numbers move back and forth

Our brains paint them into a rich world

我一直对比喻很感兴趣。我去年写过一条笔记：

比喻就是分形。

但我现在对此的感受更进一步。

我忽然怀疑：“比喻”并不存在。可能所有可以用上比喻的两个事物，都具有完全相同的符号化本质。

我们一群人，大家吞下了不同的药丸

有的成了超级英雄，

有的成了怪物，

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你歌颂英雄，唾弃怪物，

但你忘了，我们都是这个伟大的探索旅程的一部分，

我们要给予怪物同等的尊重，

这是第一点。

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还有一个更难以被理解的第二点，

即怪物不是怪物，

它在它的旅程里，它只是尚未长成你认得的样子，

当你认出来的时候，它已经不再是怪物了。

如果世界是分形的话，那意味着它只能是一条公式。

因为多条公式的话，它就是一个拼接图形了，不合理。

所以只能是一条公式。

由于只有一条，所以它需要能够自己生产自己，自己表达自己。

也就是说它会是个很简单的东西。

而且从这个角度来说，这个公式会普遍存在于一切地方。

任何不同领域的人，理论上都会得到差不多的结论，

那个结论就是公式的体现，除非你能在结论中找到更简洁的递归。

你从最细微的生活层面领悟到平常心的道理，和你通过参悟宇宙终极规律而得到平常心的道理，是一样的。

它们只是来源有差异，但“规律”是一样的。

就好像从不同的尺度上观测一个分形图形，你都会得到同样的公式。