想明白（之四）

很多书籍里都会有相当长的篇幅从逻辑上论证、说明这个原则；可是，最终还是有很多人不仅无法深入体会这个其实很简单的原则，并且常常因为忽略这个原则而推导出很多其它的看法。

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20111113105720/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/404.html

Figure It Out (Part 4)

> By Li Xiaolai · 2008-05-10 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113105720/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/404.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

Many books devote quite long passages to arguing and explaining this principle logically; but in the end there are still many people who not only fail to grasp deeply this principle, which is actually very simple, but also often derive many other views from neglecting it. For example, people often say:

- Everyone has his or her own truth (Everyone makes his or her own truth.)
- One person's truth may be another person's error. (One person's truth is another person's error.)
- Truth is relative. (Truth is relative.)
- Truth is constantly changing. (Truth is constantly changing.) (Or: truth is not fixed and unchanging.)
- All ideas should be equal. (All ideas are equal.)

The problem exposed behind these sayings is actually not a problem of logic, nor any philosophical problem, but a psychological one.

When an infant is born, it doesn't know who it is, and can't even separate itself in consciousness from the world around it. It thinks it is everything and everything is itself. When hungry it cries, and when it cries there is something to eat. So it feels that when it is hungry the whole world is hungry, when it hurts the whole world hurts, when it moves the whole world is moving. Psychology calls this state "symbiosis." [Translator's note: the original writes 成为 ("becomes"), a slip for 称为, "calls"; translated by the intended sense] It is said that this state lasts about five months, after which the infant can gradually separate itself from the world—for example, it can realize that mom and itself are not one and the same, and slowly begins to know what its own hands are, its own feet……

The process of leaving the symbiotic state is very painful. Escaping this symbiotic state is in fact entirely a matter of having no choice; if it were possible, everyone would have the desire to return to the symbiotic state at any moment—because in that symbiotic state, everything seems to be under one's own control. The most incapable state is understood as the freest state—what a frightening, pitiable, twisted illusion that is!

Yet almost no one cares whether that feeling is an illusion; they only know the feeling is fantastic. So, in their teens, people will willingly go through fire and water to find "friends" to live and die with; in adolescence they will throw themselves like moths into the flame for "[love](http://www.lixiaolai.com/?p=571)"; and after reaching adulthood they will still be moved to tears and excited to death at meeting a "kindred spirit." So, without being taught, without training, or without going through one's own struggle, a person may never in his whole life break free of the "symbiotic" state in his thinking—in fact, you can see that many people remain in a symbiotic state in their thinking all their lives.

This explains why books on logic, books on philosophy and even books on psychology have always been powerless to solve the problem of people's constant tendency to ignore the third principle, and why all teaching and training from outside usually just peters out. In this matter there is almost only one means—struggling with oneself. If that force does not come entirely from oneself, it simply can't be strong enough to endure the pain of separating oneself from the outside world. [Translator's note: the original repeats 的 here (外界的的教化); the duplicated particle has no effect in translation]

And precisely because of this, we say that figuring things out is one's own business; it is fundamentally a one-person odyssey. It is merely a choice. Do you want to be a happy pig, or a suffering Socrates? Are you willing to enjoy false joy, or will you exchange long-term pain for even a moment of true happiness? Confucius said: if one hears the Way in the morning, one may die in the evening. It is probably by and large because he had chosen the hard, right path and experienced its trials that he was willing to pay such a price for that "Way," isn't it?

But from another angle, actually taking that step is really very simple. If one day you finally take that step, you will understand why most of the people beyond that step have never felt there was anything painful about taking it; and you will also very quickly experience what kind of joy the joy beyond that step is. No one can help you; you can only rely on yourself. And remember firmly: just as no one can help you, you probably can't help others either. You can work toward it, just as I am doing now, but how effective it is does not depend on you. Because, perhaps you can already understand that very often good intentions don't necessarily bring good results……

Very often we have to admit the importance of luck. Thousands of years ago Jesus said, render unto God the things that are God's, and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. At that time, religion was the tool used to explain the world. Today, religion no longer takes explaining the physical world as its duty, because there is already something more competent at it—science; so religion has gone off to take charge of the field it is better at—the spiritual world. But Jesus's sentence pattern can still be borrowed: render unto luck the things that are luck's, and unto effort the things that are effort's.