day37-The road less traveled

2019.3.22 己亥二月十六 周五

        What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world,a seemingly useful,workable map,and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn?The painful effort required seems frightening,almost overwhelming.What we do more often than not,and usually unconsciously,is to ignore the new information.Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive.We may denounce the new information as false,dangerous,heretical,the work of the devil.We may actually crusade against it,and even attempt to mainpulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality.Rather than try to change the map,an individual may try to destroy the new reality.Sadly,such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place.

       人生苦短，我们只想一帆风顺。我们由儿童成长为青年人、中年人乃至老年人，付出不懈的努力，才成就了人生观、世界观的地图，似乎各方面都完美无缺。一旦新的资讯与过去的观念发生冲突，需要对地图大幅度修正，我们就会感到恐惧，宁可对新的资讯视而不见。我们的态度也变得相当奇特——不只是被动抗拒新的资讯，甚至指责新的资讯混淆是非，说它们是异端邪说，是来自邪恶势力。我们想控制周围的一切，使之完全符合我们的地图。我们花费大量时间和精力（远比修订地图本身多得多），去捍卫过时而陈腐的观念，却不去考虑如何更新旧的地图，这是多么可悲的事情啊！