Myth of Lilith

According to Jewish folklore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam.  She was created at the same time and from the same earth as Adam.  She was banished from the Garden of Eden when she refused to make herself subservient to Adam (specifically, she refused to get into the missionary position with him during sex).  When she was cast out, she was made into a demon figure, and Adam was given a second wife, Eve, who was fashioned from his rib to ensure her obedience to her man.

Lilith's existence as a historical person depends on a reading of Genesis 1 apart from Genesis 2. The woman created as Adam's equal in Genesis 1 is said to be Lilith and the woman created subservient (from Adam's rib) in Genesis 2 is said to be Eve.

According to the myth of Lilith, she left Adam because he insisted that she submit to him. She spoke the Divine Name and gained such power that she became an angel, but when God told her to return to Adam, she refused and became a demon. She is cast as the epitome of the evil seductress who works in league with Satan to torment and destroy Adam's offspring.

Lilith is not mentioned in Genesis because insinuating her presence overthrows the biblical picture of Adam and Eve living close to the Creator in Paradise. This paradise was lost due to disobedience of God's command given to them 'not to eat', not because Lilith refused to take the missionary position with Adam.

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Moment of Truth

The term 'Moment of Truth' was coined by Jan Carlzon, who managed the Scandinavian SAS Airlines. He used the term to mean those moments in which important brand impressions are formed and where there is significant opportunity for good or bad impressions to be made.

Moments of Truth often happen when they are not thought to occur, in odd interfaces with staff and moments with products. First impressions are often critical moments. When customers have certain expectations and they are disappointed, then they can form very negative impressions or feel a sense of betrayal that sends them into destructive desires for retribution.

There are two fundamental ideas behind the use of Moments of Truth in management practices.

• The elimination of all UNNECESSARY Moments of Truth – everywhere.
• The repeatable delivery of Moments of Magic for each Moment of Truth that cannot otherwise be eliminated.

 What are Moments of Truth in Process?

From the process perspective, Moments of Truth exist anywhere the customer touches the process or the process touches the customer. Any contact with the customer – any contact – is a Moment of Truth.

Identifying, eliminating and improving Moments of Truth can be a daunting task for many organizations. It requires an organization to move away from the ingrained internal perspective to the external perspective – the Outside-In perspective of the customer.

Identifying Moments of Truth will – without a doubt – lead to the discovery that many of our processes are fundamentally flawed. The elimination of unnecessary Moments of Truth will impose change on the organization, although the good news is that the resistance to this change will not come from the front lines. They are already living with the flaws in our processes so removing those flaws will typically be well received and often has knock-on effects of improved morale, loyalty and job satisfaction.

For many managers the story is much different.  The change that identifying Moments of Truth (then challenging them) brings to them will often require a fundamental shift in how they perceive the purpose of the organization, their job function, and their entire way of directing, overseeing and supporting their staff.  While for some managers and executive managers this is a much needed breath of fresh air, for many it is simply one more thing to be discounted, ignored, and tacitly resisted.

If once the Moment of Truth is lost badly, it will be very difficult to make people recover back from this.

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Apotheosis

Even in this information flooding ages, apotheosis is still going on with stupidity neglecting facts.  Take for an example of Thomas Edison.  Was he a genius inventor or just a greedy capitalist?

You may know that Edison’s dogged determination drove him to try a thousand different filaments before he invented the light bulb.  We often think of this as emblematic of American hard work and dedication. But in truth, Edison was a slob who could not stand to organize his work or perform proper research. So instead of figuring out how to make the light bulb work better, he literally tried everything lying around until he stumbled on the right filament. That is not dedication.   People had been “inventing” the light bulb for about seventy years when Edison came along and made one good enough to mass produce and sell.  Bamboo, carbon, and carbonized bamboo filaments were all used by earlier inventors.  And Edison’s team, notably Lewis Latimer, made significant contributions to Edison’s “achievement.”

But that is not all.  Back then, there was a big argument between Edison and a man called Nicola Tesla about the better type of electricity; AC (alternating current) and DC (directional current). To cut a long argument short, the AC is better the way we use it and we in fact use AC electricity.  But anyway, Nicola Tesla was for AC electricity and proved its power by lighting a lot of streets with one flick of a switch at a World Fair.  Edison was for DC electricity.  To prove DC was "safer" than AC, he electrocuted animals with AC electricity (including an elephant) and "invented" the Westinghouse Chair, an electric chair which used AC electricity. Of course, both AC and DC electricity will electrocute you, there is no difference in that respect.  But Edison was the jerk who tortured animals and people alike to get his point across.

Thomas Edison was a selfish individual and quite a ruthless businessman who fought ferociously to defeat his competitors in the battle of inventions.  Selfishness is nothing uncommon, after all it is human nature.  But the question is, if we take Thomas Edison to a God like inventor and deviate from facts, then we easily neglect that many good innovation development had been suppressed by his selfishness.

In our age, Apotheosis by now should be antique.  A successful business man already got the monetary reward in his life and there is no need to make him become God.  This is because it is hard to measure his way of defending his own benefit is actually promoting innovations or retarding them instead.  This should also apply to Steve Jobs and Bill Gate.

Nonetheless, is a inventor must be a selfish person in order to get recognition?  This may not be the case.  A good example is Benjamin Franklin.  He was also unequaled in America as an inventor until Thomas Edison.  He invented the Franklin stove, bifocal eyeglasses and the lightning rod.  Franklin was not greedy about his inventions, preferring to have them used freely for the comfort and convenience of everyone.  Thomas Jefferson called Benjamin Franklin “the greatest man and ornament of the age and country in which he lived.”

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Butterfly effect

Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?

Edward Norton Lorenz

Everything has its cause.  But are cause and effect fair?  In the macro sense, causation may seem fair.  Things are happened because there must have some reasons.  However down to an individual level, the effects act upon us may not related to what we did before.  Other people’s work done acts upon us, and we have to take it voluntarily or involuntarily. 

In fact, cause and effect is operating in an indifferent way without limit.  It could not be said to be fair or unfair, it just operate “cruelly” or “peacefully” in indifference.  Bearing this in mind, we human should be more humble and should not have any delusion that we could save the world by our subjective will.

Perhaps this is what we should try:
Let us live one day at a time;
Enjoy one moment at an instant;
Accepting things that we cannot change;
Courage to change the things we can;
Taking this sinful world as it is,
not as we would have it;
Trusting that we will make a difference
if we don’t surrender to indifference;
That we may be reasonably happy in this life ……

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The Watchmaker Choplogic

The watchmaker analogy consists of the comparison of some natural phenomenon to a watch.  Typically, the analogy is presented as a prelude to the teleological argument and improbability.  This is generally presented like this:

• The complex inner workings of a watch necessitate an intelligent designer.  No one could expect by putting all the components of a watch in a sealed black box and shake it for even a very long period of time, a workable watch could be developed.
• As with a watch, the complexity of X (a particular organ or organism, the structure of the solar system, life, the entire universe) necessitates a designer because it is very improbable that complex structures could be developed just by some simple physics in our universe.

But this argument of improbability and teleological is very often deviated from the fact.  It is similar to what most people would expect the chance should be less than 10% in a group of randomly selected students, say 30, with 2 of them were born on the same day of the year.  Perhaps, in human brains, there are some kind of misfired mechanisms always make us underestimate the probability of something that could be happened without our interference.

Here is a simple analogy trying to show people who still believe in the Watchmaker argument, how wrong they could be.  The analogue card game is like this:

In one shot of cards (52) , each time send 1 out to the table until it get to 13.  Then whenever 1 card is sent to the table, 1 card should be taken away at random from the cards on the table.  The question is:  What is the probability (after the 52 cards are all sent out to the table and 39 cards are taken away randomly) to get a full house (13 cards with the same suit) on the table eventually?

The calculation should be somewhat as below:

or

 
Both equations give out the same result.  The chance of the result (i.e. after sending out the 52 cards, the remained 13 cards are all in the same suit) is pretty small, around 6.3 E-12 (that is less than 0.000000001%).   If this has to be happened by random, it could be said very very improbable. 

Nonetheless, if a very simple selection rule is applied (no need of a designer to design this rule, no need a guardian to monitor the process throughout or to change the rule to achieve the result) the chance of getting this result (i.e. after sending out the 52 cards, the remained 13 cards are all in the same suit) could be increased tremendously.  And perhaps, "tremendously" is even not the right word to describe this.

The simple rule is: preserve the card with the same suit and reject cards with different suits whenever a new card is sent out to the table. 

With this simple rule in place, the chance of achieving a full house after finishing all the 52 cards becomes 100%.  That is to say,  this is for certain there will be a full house on the table before or when the 52 cards finished.  The improvement of the chance is from 0.000000001% to 100% certainty this will be achieved.  That is why the adjective "tremendously" seems a bit weak in this case to describe the betterment.

This calculation answers the Watchmaker choplogic is in fact a fallacy.  No matter how improbable it may seem that a watch could be developed with all the components in place by shaking it in a black box even for million of years, just with a little simple rule of selection, the situation turns 180 degree.  And this is how natural selection works.  The selection criterion (only cards with the same suit remain) could be a very good analogy to kin selection or species with similar characteristics which have the best survival rate in a particular environment. 

Back to the question about birthday mentioned in the beginning of this article.  Many things appear to be very improbable in the first sight and are found that the probability is in fact very high either by mathematical modeling or by experiments.  The answer may surprise for those who did not meet the question before.  Because the answer is over 50% chance, in fact it is over 70% chance there will be 2 people have birthdays on the same day of the year in a group of 30 randomly selected person.  The calculation is as below:

After all, the watch analogy does not function as a premise to an argument — rather it functions as a rhetorical device and a preamble. Its purpose is to establish the plausibility of the general premise: you can tell, simply by looking at something, whether or not it was the product of intelligent design.

In most formulations of the argument, the characteristic that indicates intelligent design is left implicit. In some formulations, the characteristic is orderliness or complexity (which is a form of order). In other cases it is clearly being designed for a purpose, where "clearly" is usually left undefined.

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Wine and Sewage Law

Conventional wisdom says groups are powerful. Group dynamics are powerful. And so groups dominate individuals, not the other way around. There was tons of research, going back decades, demonstrating that people conform to group values and norms.

A recent episode of This American Life interviewed Will Felps, a professor who conducted a sociological experiment demonstrating the surprisingly powerful effect of bad apples.  Seems peer effect only has the power towards the dark side.  The experiment is as below:

Groups of four college students were organized into teams and given a task to complete some basic management decisions in 45 minutes. To motivate the teams, they're told that whichever team performs best will be awarded $100 per person. What they don't know, however, is that in some of the groups, the fourth member of their team isn't a student. He's an actor hired to play a bad apple, one of these personality types:

1. The Depressive Pessimist will complain that the task that they're doing isn't enjoyable, and make statements doubting the group's ability to succeed.
2. The Jerk will say that other people's ideas are not adequate, but will offer no alternatives himself. He'll say "you guys need to listen to the expert: me."
3. The Slacker will say "whatever", and "I really don't care."

And Will found something different.

Invariably, groups that had the bad apple would perform worse. And this despite the fact that were people in some groups that were very talented, very smart, very likeable. Felps found that the bad apple's behavior had a profound effect -- groups with bad apples performed 30 to 40 percent worse than other groups. On teams with the bad apple, people would argue and fight, they didn't share relevant information, they communicated less.

Even worse, other team members began to take on the bad apple's characteristics. When the bad apple was a jerk, other team members would begin acting like a jerk. When he was a slacker, they began to slack, too. And they wouldn't act this way just in response to the bad apple. They would act this way to each other, in sort of a spillover effect.

What they found, in short, is that the worst team member is the best predictor of how any team performs. It doesn't seem to matter how great the best member is, or what the average member of the group is like. It all comes down to what your worst team member is like. The teams with the worst person performed the poorest.

While it's depressing to learn that a group can be so powerfully affected by the worst tendencies of a single member, it's heartening to know that a skilled leader, if you're lucky enough to have one, can intervene and potentially control the situation.

Still, the obvious solution is to address the problem at its source: get rid of the bad apple.  Or perhaps the other way around:

Wine and Sewage Law:  

Dropping a piece of drink into dirty water, you would get a bottle of dirty water; while dropping a spoonful of dirty water into a bottle of wine, you still would get a bottle of dirty water.

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The Daemon Lover

Also known as "James Harris" or "The House Carpenter" is a popular ballad from Britain.  It tells the story of a man (usually the Devil), who returns to a former lover after a very long absence, and finds her with a husband (usually a carpenter) and a baby.  He entices her to leave both behind and come with him, luring her with many ships laden with treasure.  Together they board one of his ships, and she is surprised to find that the ship does not have a crew, and put to sea.

She soon begins to lament leaving behind her child, but is heartened by spying a bright hill in the distance.  Her lover informs her that the hill is heaven, where they are not bound.  Instead he indicates a much darker coast, which he tells her is hell, their destination.  And then  the ship is wrecked by a storm at sea, drowning them both.

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Selfish Gene

The point I am making now is that, even if we look on the dark side and assume that individual man is fundamentally selfish, our conscious foresight - our capacity to simulate the future in imagination - could save us from the worst selfish excesses of the blind replicators.  We have at least the mental equipment to foster our long-term selfish interests rather than merely our short-term selfish interests.

We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators.  We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

Selfish Gene●Richard Dawkins

Survival of the Fittest

Applying the Game Theory for the brutal competition of survival, perhaps the below is a nice reflect of the concept:

Two guys were hiking through the jungle when they spotted a tiger who looked both hungry and fast.   One of the guys reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of sport shoes. His friend looked at him.

"Do you really think those shoes are going to make you run faster than that tiger?"

"I don't have to run faster than that tiger," his friend replied. "I just have to run faster than you."

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Snake and Frog

A pretty but innocent girl Snake meets a boy Frog one day.  The Frog has smooth skin with beautiful patterns.  The Snake loves the Frog at the first sight.

So the Snake asks the Frog "Could I hang out with you?"
The Frog answers "Yes, why not?"
The Snake and the Frog live together.

One night, when they are sleeping, the Snake involuntarily wraps the Frog around with her slim body tighter and tighter during a dream.  The Frog feels he is choking to death and strives his way out from the body of the Snake with all his strength.   During the struggle, the Frog's strong legs stamp on the Snake's stomach heavily and springs himself out from the Snake's tie.  The Frog flees away and never comes back.

The Snake is hurt physically and mentally.  After a long while, the Snake eventually recovered from her physical wound but is not able to heal emotionally.  Since then, the Snake is frightened by all handsome frogs and conceives all good looking frogs will hurt her.  So she would rather choose to remain single.

Then the other day, an ugly Toad encounters with the Snake and finds she is very enchanting.  The Toad can't help but falls in love with the beautiful Snake.

So the Toad asks the Snake "Could we hang out?"
The Snake looks into the repellent eyes of the Toad and finds that they are very sincere.  The Snake's lonely heart begins to sway.  The Snake then thinks deeply: as the Toad is so ugly, he should treasure her beauty more.  So the Snake answers the Toad: "Yes, why not?"
So the Snake and the Toad live together.

One night, when they are sleeping, the Snake again involuntarily wraps the Toad around with her slim body during a dream.  The Toad feels he is choking and strives his way out from the body of the Snake.   During the struggle, the Toad's back skin ejects a stream of poison secretion into the eyes of the Snake.  The Snake''s eyes are badly hurt with great pain and relax her body.  The Toad quickly flees away and never comes back ......

Moral of this story:

• Don't believe that only handsome guys will hurt girls or vice versa, ugly guys will also hurt girls.  So beautiful girls, there is no reason for you not to pick handsome guys in the first place.
• This story also told us that: appropriate lingering is alright.  However, if you are too demanding, asking too frequently, or pushing too hard on your guy, then you may frighten him away.

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Women really want ...

In order to find out what women really want, come across the story below:

Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.  And the question is:

What do women really want?

Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query.  But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end. 

He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.  Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer.  But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.

The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch.  She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first.  The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!

Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc.  He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.  He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur.  He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table.

Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus:  What a woman really wants, she answered:

"Is to be in charge of her own life." 

Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.  And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.  The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. 

But, what a sight awaited him... The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened.  The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.

Which would he prefer?  Beautiful during the day ... or … night?

Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch?  Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?

Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.  Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.

So the final answer to the question "What do women really want?" is to let her in charge of her own life.   Um..... not quite right.  The true moral should be:  

If you don't let a woman have her own way .....

 Things are going to get ugly.

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Council of Nicaea

 Why does the date for Easter change every year?

The New Testament of the Bible told that Jesus' death and resurrection happened around the time of the Jewish feast of Passover.  According to Matthew, Mark and Luke's Gospels, the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples was a Passover meal, while John's Gospel says that Jesus died on the feast of Passover itself.  In those days, the Jews celebrated Passover on the "14th day of the first month" in accordance with the Bible's commands (see Lev. 23:5, Num. 28:16, Josh. 5:11). The months of the Jewish calendar each began at new moon, so the 14th day would be the day of the full moon. The first month, Nisan, was the month that began from the spring new moon. In other words, the Passover was celebrated on the first full moon following the vernal equinox (the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator) and was therefore a movable feast.

Early sources tell us that this very soon led to Christians in different parts of the world celebrating Easter on different dates.  As early as the end of the 2nd century, some churches were celebrating Easter on the day of Passover itself, whether it was a Sunday or not, while others would celebrate it on the Sunday that followed it.  By the end of the 4th century there were four different methods of calculating the date of Easter. In the year 325, the Council of Nicaea attempted to bring in a unified solution that would retain the link with the date of Passover as celebrated in Jesus' time.  Eventually, therefore, Easter's date was established as movable.   It is deemed to occur on the Sunday immediately after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.

For this means of measurement it can be understood why the dates of future Easters will appear to be in such flux:

    * 2011: April 24
    * 2012: April 8
    * 2013: March 31
    * 2014: April 20
    * 2015: April 5
    * 2016: March 27

In addition, regarding for how many days Jesus was buried before he came to his resurrection, the four Gospels (selected by the Roman Catholic Church in the 4th Century while abandoning tens of other Gospels) did not agree to each other.  In Matthew 12:40, Jesus was buried for 3 days and 3 nights, while in Mark and John, he was only buried for 1 day and 2 nights.

Similar discrepancies also found about the birth of Jesus on December 25.  There is no evidence for this date.  The Bible itself tells us that December 25 is an unlikely date for his birth. Palestine is very cold in December.  It was much too cold to ask everyone to travel to the city of their fathers to register for taxes. Also the shepherds were in the fields (Luke 2:8-12).  Shepherds were not in the fields in the winter time.  They are in the fields early in March until early October.  This would place Jesus' birth in the spring or early fall.  It is also known that Jesus lived for 33.5 years and died at the feast of the Passover, which is at Easter time. He must therefore have been born six months the other side of Easter - making the date around the September/October time frames.

So then, who decided that Jesus' birth would be celebrated on that date? The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus' birth. It wasn't until A.D. 440 that the church officially proclaimed December 25 as the birth of Christ. This was not based on any religious evidence but on a pagan feast.  Saturnalia was a tradition inherited by the Roman pagans from an earlier Babylonian priesthood.  December 25 was used as a celebration of the birthday of the sun god.  It was observed near the winter solstice.  Some scholars think the church chose the date of this pagan celebration to interest them in Christianity.  The pagans were already used to celebrating on this date.

All the important dates related to Jesus were just compromises between the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Christian Church during and after the First Council of Nicaea held in A.D. 325.  And there is nothing to do with the sacredness of Jesus.
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Love and marriage

One day, Plato asked his teacher, “What is love? How can I find it?”

His teacher answered, “There is a vast wheat field in front. Walk forward without turning back, and pick only one stalk. If you find the most magnificent stalk, then you have found love.”

Plato walked forward, and before long, he returned with empty hands, having picked nothing. His teacher asked, “Why did you not pick any stalk?” Plato answered, “Because I could only pick once, and yet I could not turn back. I did find the most magnificent stalk, but did not know if there were any better ones ahead, so I did not pick
it. As I walked further, the stalks that I saw were not as good as the earlier one, so I did not pick any in the end.”

His teacher then said, “And that is love.”

On another day, Plato asked his teacher, “What is marriage? How can I find it?”

His teacher answered, “There is a thriving forest in front. Walk forward without turning back, and chop down only one tree. If you find the tallest tree, then you have found marriage.” Plato walked forward, and before long, he returned with a tree. The tree was not thriving, and it was not tall either. It was an ordinary tree. His teacher asked, “Why did you chop down such an ordinary tree?”

Plato answered, “Because of my previous experience. I walked halfway through the forest, but returned with empty hands. This time, I saw this tree, and I felt that it was not bad, so I chopped it down and brought it back. I did not want to miss the opportunity.”

His teacher then said, “And that is marriage.”
　　



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Trust (with people) ...

For those who trust, no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not trust, no explanation is possible.

Trust, but expect the unexpected: Having trust on people should not be punished. If, while building a house, a carpenter strikes a nail, it proved faulty by bending. Does the carpenter lose faith in all nails and stop building his house?

Deal with evil through strength. But affirm the good in man through trust. In this way, we are prepared for evil but we are encouraging good. And is good our great reward for trusting? In striving for an ideal, we do not seek rewards. Yet trust does sometimes bring with it a great reward. Even greater than good ...... that is love.
　　

Right Person for the Job

Put about 100 bricks in some particular order in a closed room with an open window. Then send 2 or 3 candidates in the room and close the door. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours and then analyze the situation:

If they are counting the bricks. Put them in the accounts department.

If they are recounting them. Put them in auditing.

If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks. Put them in engineering.

If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order. Put them in planning.

If they are throwing the bricks at each other. Put them in operations.

If they are sleeping. Put them in security.

If they have broken the bricks into pieces. Put them in information technology.

If they are sitting idle. Put them in human resources.

If they say they have tried different combination, yet not a brick has been moved. Put them in sales.

If they have already left for the day. Put them in marketing.

If they are staring out of the window. Put them on strategic planning.

And then last but not least. If they are talking to each other and not a single brick has been moved. Congratulate them and put them in top management.
　　

Disregard how others see you ...

People who make a show are not wise.
Those who are self-righteous will not be respected.
Those who boast achieve very little and don't endure.
Behaving in this way will not bring happiness.
People are despised for their pride and admired for their humility.

Life is a journey of constant strife and endless changes. Sometimes we do not see the forest for the trees. Sometimes we seem to have lost our way. We need the recognition of others in order to find a direction.

Believing we all had tried to exhibit ourselves from time to time, one way or the other. It may seem pointless to be skillful or knowledgeable if it does not result in recognition. But why is the admiration of others so essential? Why do we feel worthless unless we have the praise of others?

Yet, most of us avoid people that we suspect have a narcissistic disposition. These people are often boasting of their achievements and importance in an effort to obtain admiration. They may also become emotionally volatile if the approval they seek is not forthcoming. Their ego is effectively enslaved by the opinions of others. Consequently their sense of self-worth varies wildly, often making any interactions with them very unpleasant.

Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily - weak people, in other words - they stand no chance against his powers.

Nonetheless, who really understands contentment can only come from within. Furthermore, living without either the desire for approval or the fear of rejection, one could be truly free. Then again, who really could live so consciously.

企者不立 He who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm;
跨者不行 He who stretches his legs does not walk so easily;

自見者不明 He who displays himself does not shine;
自是者不彰 He who asserts his own views is not distinguished;
自伐者無功 He who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged;
自矜者不長 He who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him.

道德經廿四章

　　

Pareto principle

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, the principle of factor sparsity, and the power law) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

A power law 冪律 or Pareto principle is a special kind of mathematical relationship between two quantities. If one quantity is the frequency of an event, and the other is the size of the event, then the relationship has a power-law distribution when the frequency of the event decreases at a greater rate than the size increases. For instance, an earthquake twice as large is four times as rare. If this pattern holds for earthquakes of all sizes, then the distribution is said to "scale." Power laws also describe other kinds of relationships, such as the metabolic rate of a species and its body mass (called Kleiber's law), and the size of a city and the number of patents it produces. What this relationship means is that there is no typical size in the conventional sense. Power laws are found throughout the natural and man made worlds, and are an active area of scientific research.

有關 80-20 定理在經濟學的範籌已有很多應用，但利用冪律應用在其他地方卻有另一翻啟發。

冪律表明，大事件和小事件都是由相同的因素引起的，並沒有特別的『大』因素。地殼或沙堆處於自組織的臨界狀態 Critical state (自身逐漸形成的高度敏感的不穩定狀態)，在這種情況下任何規模的地震或坍塌都可能發生，大規模地震或坍塌的出現純屬偶然，並無其他的特殊因素，是不可預測的。

又以野火的發生為例，是否森林本身是處於自組織的臨界狀態？康奈爾大學的研究人員統計了發生在美國和澳大利亞的森林野火，沒有找到典型的野火規模，並且它們也遵循冪律。這一發現不僅不能用來預測野火的規模，反而表明大規模野火的發生是不可預測的。

不過，研究人員通過計算機模擬發現的另一個現象，卻對如何控制野火的規模很有啟發。他們用不同的點火頻率進行模擬。有的模擬每種 125 棵樹扔一根火柴，有的每種 500 棵樹扔一根火柴，有的則每種 2,000 棵樹才扔火柴。點火的頻率越低，發生大火的頻率就越高。在頻率低到每種 2,000 棵樹才扔火柴時，這時網格上已密密麻麻佈滿了樹，扔下的火柴通常點燃大量的樹木，在許多情況下甚至燒光了所有的樹。

他們把這稱為『黃石公園效應』。在 1972 年之前，黃石公園對野火採取零容忍政策，一旦發現野火就盡量將其撲滅。這就像是模擬程序中超低的點火頻率，也出現了類似的後果：1988 年黃石公園突發大火，燒掉了 32 萬公頃的森林，佔黃石公園面積的36％。

對任何野火都強行撲滅，這樣做讓森林不再處於臨界狀態，而是處於更不穩定的超臨界狀態：森林裡充滿了老樹、死樹、矮樹、野草，地面堆滿了樹枝、樹皮、枯葉，這些全都是上好的燃料，只要有了火源，就會熊熊燃燒起來，不可抑制地蔓延開去。野火是不可能完全制止的，只會推遲其爆發，推遲得越久，後果就可能越嚴重。

美國林業部門後來意識到了野火也是森林自然生態一個不可或缺的部分，對自然因素引起的野火不再撲滅，任其燃燒（除非威脅到生命、財產的安全）；林務員時不時地還在嚴格控制下有選擇地放火燒掉一部分森林。但是要讓森林恢復被破壞了近百年的自然平衡還需要時間。如果美國林業部門早一點放棄對野火零容忍的政策，也許 1988 年的黃石公園大火就可以避免，Angelis 國家森林所在的加州也不至於近年來連連爆發森林大火了。

這就有如中國人有句老話，『水太清養不活魚』意思雷同。
　　

Human Factor in Tsunami

很多人在抱怨各國政府在處理今次金融海嘯，利用大量印銀紙的方法，妄顧將來數十年的通脹可能，之前一段時間傳媒不停批評政府，救市措施是否有效，金融海嘯把不少人打到人仰馬翻，自信心盡失，傳媒不斷重提 1930 年美國大蕭條的慘況。 2009 年的美國不是 1930 年的美國，經濟抵禦衝擊的能力不可跟八十年前相提並論。最重要的一點，是美國政府不惜一切挽救經濟，今日美國政府能動用的資源豐富得多、武器的威力也大得多。美國政府的果斷行動影響了全世界，從中國到印度到德國，全球政府都以挽救經濟為當前急務。

把金融海嘯同 1929 年的大蕭條比較，有人認為，這一次的情況比大蕭條更嚴重，因此其後果也一定比大蕭條更嚴重，這種說法忘記了這個「人」 字。雖沒比較過兩者的初始條件，也許這一次的初始條件比諸 1929 年時更惡劣，也說不定。但現在和當年有著最根本性的不同﹕當年是金本位制，現在不是。更有甚者，在當年的金本位制下，美國和全世界的政府還採用了緊縮的貨幣政策，因而產生了大蕭條，造成民不聊生，資源錯配，在美國等大國也出現饑荒餓死人的慘事。相反，現在的美國卻大開銀根，因此可以斷言，大蕭條不可能發生，這即是說，1929 年的情況在這一次的衰退中，不可能再出現。

再者，簡單來說，大蕭條是在下列兩種情況下發生﹕

• 基本結構的改變，例如天災，人禍如戰爭戰後，國家的基本戰略地位的改變，等等。
• 當衰退發生時，有很少的可能性會變成蕭條，但只有在政府採用了錯誤的金融政策，即是緊縮政策之後，才會由蕭條變成大蕭條。

現在的美國既然沒有出現以上的任何一種情況，大蕭條也就不可能出現。

加上現在實情是政府不可能坐着不動，它會不停調整救市措施細節，邊救邊改，務求「唔啱做到啱」。以中國為例，我們不停辯論「四萬億」和「保八」的各項細節，縱使數據中有多少水分，投資有多少因貪腐流失，可肯定的是這道救市力量巨不可擋。一個肯聽外間意見、擁有足夠資源的政府下決心做好一件事，假以時日，必定可把這件事做得好。最近幾個星期，多國政府分別公布經濟見到曙光的消息，相信就是救市措施見成效。

不是想把一些大事情簡單化，淡化危機意識，但鼓勵大家要冷靜思考問題。沒有危機，我們不懂得驚，但驚可凝聚由人發出的一道力量，這道力量可化解很多危機。這是一個矛盾：當政府和人民懂得驚的時候，我們其實不用太驚；當政府和人民不再驚的時候，這場危機可能真是危機。

補白：

華爾街股災後，AIG 這家美國最大保險公司，也面臨財困倒閉，BBC 走訪芝加哥期貨市場的出市員，詢之以重整金融市場之道。這個三十來歲出市員的一番說話，給人留下深刻的印象。他是這樣說的：『從事我們這一行的，都是二十歲出頭的人；到我這個年紀，已經算是老經驗的了。我們何曾見過什麼場面？要重建秩序，首要工作是找上了年紀、識得驚的人坐鎮。』

格林伯格已八十三歲，他當然識得驚，要不然，他又豈能在四十年間建立舉世無雙的保險王國？風高浪急之際，沒有了個像他那樣識得驚的人掌舵，難怪短短三年間這個王國便分崩瓦解了。平心而論，置 AIG 於死地的元兇是 Eliot Spitzer 這個人魔。
　　

The four words ...

By John Wesley:

One couple was blessed with a son after 11 years of marriage. Naturally, the son is the pearl to the loving couple's eyes.

The boy was two years old. One day, the husband was about to go to work when he saw on the table a bottle of medicine left open. As he was in a hurry, he told the wife loudly to replace the bottle with the cover. After which he closed the door and left.

The wife was very busy in the kitchen and forgot all about what the husband told her to do. The boy took the medicine bottle. As he was curious and attracted by the color, he drank all the medicine. The dosage was strong. And an adult should only take a small amount of it.

The boy was sent to the hospital but died of overdose. The wife was very frightened and did not know how to face the husband. The worried husband rushed to the hospital and was very sad to learn the bad news. After looking at the son's body, he looked at the wife and said four words.

What are these four words?

This story highlights choices of making a decision. Facing a mishap, you can indulge in blaming, scolding the whole world or even self-blaming. All these would not change what has happened. In fact, it would change your subsequent daily life: carrying on life with a scar.

On the other hand, when one let go resentment and fear, let go the past, carrying on life with courage, the situation one is facing is not as bad as one may imagine. This is what the author called Proactive Behavior. This is changing the conditions around us and not allowing it to influence us.

The reaction of the husband as talented in human relationship, is a proactive (able to control the situation and not controlled by the situation) one. He just uttered these four words to his beloved wife:

“I love you, darling!”

He fully understand the death of the son was a reality. Quarreling and scolding would not bring the son back, it would create more sorrows. Moreover, he was not the only one losing a son, his wife too.

This is a simple story, however how many of us could act like this? Just a few simple words! Nevertheless, it needs very good self-development, tolerance and a lot of wisdom to say such touching words under that kind of situation.

• Meeting a true love. Siege the opportunity for life companionship with her. As once she is gone, it would be too late.
• Meeting a trustworthy friend. Get along well with her, because in life, meeting a confidant is really not easy.
• Meeting a benefactor in life, be grateful. As he is the turning point of your life.
• Meeting someone whom you loved before. Remember to smile and be thankful, as she let you understand more about love.
• Meeting someone you hated. Greet him with a smile, because he allows you to grow stronger.
• Meeting someone you were secretly fond of. Do wish her well. Because when you liked her, didn't you want her to be well and happy.
• Meeting someone who betrayed you. Have a friendly chat with him, as without him, till today you would not understand the world.
• Meeting someone who left you in a hurry. Thank him for having come into your life, because he is part of your wonderful memories.
• Meeting someone whom you had misunderstanding with. Clarify the misunderstanding now, as this could be the only opportunity for clarification.

　　『猝然臨之而不驚，無故加之而不怒。』

蘇軾《留侯論》

故事當中那一句「I love you, darling!」，雖然只是很簡單的一句說話，但到底需要多久的修行，多大的包容，多深的人生智慧,，才能在那種時刻說出如此令人動容的一句話？每個人一生中都會遇到很多不幸事，但究竟應該選擇用什麼方式去面對？
　　

The Window

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed would live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the outside world. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the man had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything? It didn't seem fair. As the thought fermented, the man felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned him sour. He began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window - and that thought now controlled his life.

Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the man by the window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence - deathly silence.

The following morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths. When she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away - no words, no fuss. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.

.