A human being, said Nietzsche, the famous philosopher of Germany, is a combination of desires, seeking to make the realization of some one, in the heel of which, however, comes the emptiness, and when aroused by another one, he or she retrieves energy and resume—we are always wandering between desires and emptinesses. No better insight—at least I think—into this problem can be found through the history. Such words as “Emptiness”, “Void” or “Loss” can be notably heard during chats or conversations with friends, family members, relatives, or sometimes strangers if lucky enough.

When traveling back to my hometown for Spring Festival by train last year, I came cross a guy with long hair and loose jeans sitting in the opposite, who was about three or four years younger than me. Frankly, he was really sociable. After getting himself seated comfortably, he began picking up with me by saying that you must be a college student. I gave him a mild smile for reply and went on reading the magazine, for I always keep wary to strangers, especially in the train where the situation is beyond my simplified anticipation.

“I am a student, too, but in a technical school”, he added.

On hearing this, I was first surprised as he looked much more like a jobless idler than a student; and then got delighted, for it is really boring for me to withstand so long a period for the journey of nearly 50 hours if there is no one to talk to. He said his favorite was to court pretty girls, which proved to be true for during his stay in the train he always actively inserted girls’ chats and sweetened them by saying some complimentary words at the right time, and to hit pubs. His interests largely differ from mine.

“What is your plan for future”, I asked.

He was all of a sudden stuck in blankness, looking at me in silence for a while. He stumbled that his little desire was to entertain himself by drinking, dancing and courting girls. After doing that lavishly, however, he was often back to dormitory empty and lonely. He knew that it was thoroughly useless to repeat the same things to get rid of emptiness, but he just could not resist the temptation. I advised him to set a challenging goal in the long run and take concrete steps in the short run to take the mind off the harmful excessive wine drinking and meaningless socializing. What really surprised me was that I was asked: can you assure that you will not slide back onto the old way of feeling empty after realizing your desires, more ambitious, though? Now it was my turn to be stuck in blankness. Our conversation in this topic was terminated and I had to turn to something else for chat.

When he got off the train, I even had not learnt his name, yet, and gotten the answer to his tough question. Fortunately, I read of Nietzsche’s statement before I can figure out a convincing one. It is probably the truth of life.

May you promising future!

Which is more fearful, drug or loneliness? This is a monologue at the beginning of a newly released film—Protégé. Taking a close look at the daily lives of human beings in the increasingly modernized society nowadays, I can hardly disregard the problem of drug addictions, smugglings and producing, which have triggered the death of tens of thousands of people. However, modern people are not only plagued by drugs. I am now a senior in a university, facing the unavoidable event—graduation. Though I have a large number of things, however funny or sorrow, touching or dull, and rememberable or irrememberable, to relate during my four-year college life, I will today place my focus on the negative part of college life. After a challenging entrance exam, known as Gaokao in Chinese, many proudly become freshmen, encountering a new situation which is totally different from that in high school—unfettered, self-managing and pressureless temporarily. As a result, life gets directionless for many all of a sudden. Admittedly, some of the classes are really boring; the content of textbooks unchanged for a couple of years, lagging behind the quickening development of society; some of the teachers committed not to improving education but to making extra money; dozens of students hooked on electronic games. It is almost impossible for me to put an end to the listing of concerns you may meet or have met in college. What have happened to us? What is the real reason?

According to the Holy Bible, a man should be alive both spiritually and physically, quite different from animals, which will never get lonely, bored, or sorrow after feeding themselves full, for the simple reason that animals are only alive physically. All the problems aforementioned are attributable to the malfunction of our spirits. I can still recall that plentiful well-known Chinese ancient scholars, Quyuan, say, who wrote the famous book Lisao in exile, made their successes in adverse circumstances, and after the school of adversity, they came to a widely accepted conclusion that the spirit is of great importance. However, Caesar, a famous emperor of ancient Roman, confessed on his kneel that he felt lonely and impeaceful at the presence of God in spite of his astronomical wealth, overriding power and thousands of wives. Why is a human being still dissatisfied after the achievement of desire for money, status and power? It is because they are only leading lives physically. The solitary way to cope with this harsh problem is to turn to spirit for help. Our spirit will never fade, but remain immortal. It is the spirit that overcomes the obstacles, conquers the difficulties, and lights up our future.

And the next question is how to find the spirit back. Only those who believe in God can make it. The Jesus, God’s son, exempted our sins, rescued our spiritual lives, and, finally, was nailed to the cross. The collapse of beliefe has given rise to curious situations where people get alcoholic, the environment of our world is becoming overwhelmingly threatened by off-track progressive population, pollutions from    smoke emissions, over-industrialization and global warming, and our offspring turns troublesome. God is the rescuer!

    Those who believe in God get alive!

   那天和朋友闲聊。

    朋友提到那个叫“雁过寒潭”的网站。

    雁过寒潭？

    这四个字在我脑中一闪而过，想到，如果将“雁过寒潭”翻译成英文，那么“雁”字是用单数还是用复数表示呢?感到自己很无聊，不关心网站的内容，而想这些。

    后来，细想了下，感到，文字的背后是文化，以及说这种语言的人的逻辑思维方式。“雁过寒潭”在中文里，强调的，仅仅是一种现象，体现一种意境，而不着重有多少大雁经过。而在英文里，就要体现是单数还是复数，既描述现象，又体现数量。

     进一步深究，发现中文是种感性的文字，譬如，“鸟”、“鱼”、“虫”、“草”，都是象形文字，用中国的毛笔写起来，非常好看，很有艺术性。其他的会意字和形声字也大抵如此。而英文则是由高度抽象化的字母拼成，难以在自然界里一一找到其对照物。英文一般都有一个基本的词根，而后由此不断演进，不断抽象，不断逻辑。比如，“CEASE”是动词，指的是“停止”。如果在尾巴上加上“LESS”,就是形容词了，意思相反，指的是“不停止的”。如果再在尾巴上添上“LY”，就是副词了。而“CEASE”的名词形式则是“CESSATION”，也是演进而来。而中文就不是这种构词法。

    李约瑟说，作为四大文明古国之一的古代中国只有技术发明，而没有科学发明。我想这是有原因可以追溯的。一部分原因，可以从汉字背后的思维方式来知晓，感性化，经验化，很难将朴素的、原始的、个体的发现，提纯到高度理论化、一般化、抽象化的规律。例如，知道了勾三股四弦五，而没有得出直边平方和等于弦边的平方，此类例子很多。而英语的抽象化、逻辑化和演进化，是否就是创造和完善这种语言人的理性、演绎、归类和逻辑思维的有力体现呢？是否是近代西方在科技理论方面作出重大突破的原动力？

    太博大精深了，玄之又玄！