Frist-hand Experience

"When he was writing about such vast abstractions as Race and History and Providence, Hitler is strictly unreadable. In his philosophical lucubration Hitler was either cloudily daydreaming or reproducing other people's half-baked notions. In his comments on crowds and propaganda he was writing of something he knew by first-hand experience. " (Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Revisited)

"Cloudily daydreaming and reproducing other people's half-baked notions," isn't this what everybody has been doing in speech contests, together with anything but "personal" opinions, theorizing and moral posturing? In a word, that's a whole lot of crap. And even though I am conscious of this problem, I cannot avoid stepping into the same muddle if I try to grab a vast and abstract topic and just start talking nonsense, which however grand and formal it sounds, will never affect my life in any way whatsoever.

What really makes sense, not only in a speech contest, but also all the time before and after that, is "logical analysis of the discernible facts drawn from careful observation."

So it all begins with first-hand experience. Even if my life is barren, i can make it up by careful observation (于无声处听惊雷). I doubt whether all these people who has so much titles and experience have enough time to stop and ponder over the meaning of the things that pass so quickly in front of their eyes. They just rush from one spot to another, twist themselves in order to fit in everything else and become as busy as they can get, never question anything, least of all themselves, and at the end of the day, they call that colorful.

Now that the summer holiday is almost over, I have to step out of my comfort zone, meet new teachers and schoolmates, make new friends and develop old friendship, take part in some inevitable activities, have new classes, continue with my tutor jobs, and meet a whole lot of people and things in the journey to Hangzhou, or whatever it is... I need only to open my eyes and ears to hoard first-hand experience when the flood begins to pour in. Then the night time, before i fall asleep, I need to ponder on these issues that i see and hear and experience, and try my best to impose upon them logical analysis, and make them part of my wisdom.

Always stick to the essence of things. This is what I am going to do.