无意中在六大的实验室里翻到了一本关于《大学》的少儿入门书籍，里面有一句话是这么说的。
“知止而后有定，定而后能静，静而后能安，安而后能虑，虑而后能得。”
这句话立刻与我产生了共鸣。不得不承认老祖先们对人生的哲理有了相当系统和深入的理解，几句话就把我昨天想说的东西给包罗概括进去了。人不静下来怎能有所得？如果我们的大脑退化到不能集中精神，何谈虑？
我们这些现代人没有去学习这丰富的宝藏，反而整天追求着无数虚假的东西，同时抱怨着生活多么不美满。就算自己没能力禅悟人生之道，听听这些大思想家的见解应该让我对种种事情有更清楚的认识。
《大学》又曰：“古之欲明明德于天下者，先治其国；欲治其国者，先齐其家；欲齐其家者，先修其身；欲修其身者，先正其心；欲正其心者，先诚其意；欲诚其意者，先致其知，致知在格物。”
要没有知识的话，是会被淘汰的。
Consider a walk on the Internet.
I went on Wikipedia to look for information on Fresnel half-period zones. It turned out that the page on Fresnel zone is about something completely different. Clicked on "near field" in the See Also section to see what it is about. I was overwhelmed with wordy descriptions. Scrolling down I started reading the "Analysis" section as the paragraph begins with the words "Maxwell's equation". I stumbled upon "Bessel's function", which was mentioned in my notes but not explained. Click and it was pages after pages of mathematics. WOW. Didn't bother to understand any of it. But Bessel's functions are first defined by Daniel Bernoulli? Lots of things seem to be related to him. Have to see what other things he has accomplished. His page is definitely the most friendly so far, with many familiar names and concepts. Since I'm doing fluid mechanics next term, why not check out it, as he made important contributions.
I shall end it here. Potentially I can go on and on, just clicking on links that catch a glimpse of my attention. Similar things occur on the BBC website and more dangerously Facebook. I say dangerous as it is interactive, and high tendency to stay on for much longer.
A simple "random walk" like this costs me at least half hour before I even realize I am walking. I will continue walking even after that, as it is so addictive. The feeling to getting a reply with a simple click is just enormous. Ever since English was no longer a barrier, I have been just browsing through pages and pages on the Internet. The amount of information I come across also increased, as I begin to get interested in more and more topics. To cope I begin to skimming through the text faster and faster. It has developed into such a daily routine thing that I think my brain has been wired to just skim through things. It's a daily caffeine dosage that it cannot miss. After receiving training in this area, it seems to have lost its function to stay focused on a single article or topic. Now this is a problem.
I can't seem to focus on a very long article or commentary on the newspaper. I find it very hard to read my lecture handout slowly enough to understand the previous sentence before moving on. In less than 30 minutes into any lecture, my mind will wander away. These are all the signs of restlessness. I cannot foresee this problem going away easily, just like addiction.
Internet has brought the world to the computer screen. Everything is just a click away. However, is it going to make us evolve in the reverse way? Has the brain become too used to accepting answers with a click, that it has slowly lost its function to think and analyze?
As said earlier I'll be talking about being a parent. College and CUMSA parent of course. No matter how you look at it, this is a hugely interesting topic. I'll try to put everything clearly through without mentioning too many names.
I had parents of my own to begin with. CUMSA parents were sources of answer to my queries before I arrived. They also provided great support especially at the start of the term. Still remember the nice good Yongsheng always cooked last year. There were not much family gathering in any sense, and I would primarily attribute it to the dysfunctional family make up.
College families were a bit different. I have a grand total of 5 parents, 1 dad and 4 mums. That's definitely an super-alpha male here. Anyway, they are absolutely amazing people. A good bunch of friends, and are very caring to us. Sometimes I feel sorry for them because we as kids never clicked. One of us was outgoing and had great conversations with them. Another one was cool. Then there was another international student like me. Both of us are very shy to begin with and were by default limited in conversation topics. We tried some form of gathering other than the compulsory first two sessions, but they never worked out great. I still managed to see a great deal of them at Stokes talks, but nothing else interesting happened.
I'm not sure how typical our family was. From talking to other people the some really happening things occur in college families. Some kids seem to get along with their parents really well. There were not enough data to do any serious analysis, but I have to admit I was disappointed. The initial cultural and academic shock have put some irreversible damage to my social interactions. The effects are still reverberating up till now.
Now back to the main point of being a parent. We as the college parents are a group of close friends. Half were from my old CC corridor. And as per norm I have a very big college family, with six parents and five kids. We made sure it is a science only family with only Medic, Natsci, Compsci and Engineers. This was done to prevent possible estrangement in the family, or any split that would occur along the subject line.
We have some of the most amazing kids. They are nice to talk to, and great to mingle with. There are nobody who feel very left out or extremely quiet. First faimly night was great with great conversations. Then there was Much Ado About Nothing. Family formal followed by the Life, which was only the second time I went to clubbing in Cambridge. I have to admit it was rather fun. One of the dad was always busy, but he always provided us with all the outing ideas. The family ended the term in a high when we went to watch The Freshers Pantomine at the ADC. It was a great performance and better still to leave the memory with the family. The kids were so sweat that they bought us wine on that day. But the sad reality is that I'm not the person who can strike a conversation easily, and with the all persistent East-West cultural boundary I'm not very close to any of them. I still feel contented, but will try to do more.
The advantage of a big family is that there is a higher chance to get along with at least one person. The disadvantage is that, it's too big. Yes now i'll talk about the small CUMSA family. I only has one kid, and thus one wife, but at least this time the family had a proper gender ratio. I would have to say that my daughter and her mum are very similiar in many aspects. Both are very outgoing and sociable, and crazy to a certain extent. In fact, the daughter was doing so well in social life that I think she didn't really need a family to help her along. Don't get me wrong, She is very nice person and great to have conversations. But just that didn't "inhereit" much of my genes. The strange thing is that I didn't get to see my CUMSA family that much. Still to have some Singaporeans/Malaysians in college was great.
College family are most active during Michaelmas term. Its function will decay rapidly and approach zero after that. Nonetheless I hope there will be more family gathering, who won't?
