旅行日记 | Travels, 生活感想 | Life

辞职去旅行

今天突然发现已经一月底了。不管什么时候,好像看日期总容易吓一跳:怎么都这个日期了!时间真是过得好快啊。感觉才跨年而已,都已经一个月了。说来辞职旅游已经都整整半年了!

朋友打电话有的时候会问,旅游开心吗?

我想来想去,开心是开心,但我工作时候也没有不开心啊。除了体力上干的活不一样了,工作时候大部分时间是眼睛累,现在大部分时候是身体累,其他好像区别也不是特别大。现在与其说每天是神清气爽地开心,不如说是挺平静的开心,跟工作时候平静的开心也差不多。出门的时候需要担心的从赶不上早上十点半的早会,换成担心错过公交赶不上去下一个城市的大巴。

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旅行日记 | Travels

Moana

最近这周我们在Rotorua,新西兰北边靠中间部分的一个城市。

原住民

新西兰本来是原住民的。澳大利亚也是,太阳这么爆裂的地方,怎么可能都是高加索人!怪不得澳大利亚皮肤癌最癌,这里根本就不是皮肤白的人该住的地方啊。

刚到这个城市,下车站在走不久就已经发现了,大部分人居然都不是高加索人,都是原住民深色的肤色,很多人脸上下巴上都还有传统刺青。今天去了住处附近的一个原住民村庄,带路的姐姐说,她从小毛利语长大,用英语只有对话而已,从来都没学过认字,不会读不会写,也不打算学。

rotorua也不算是个小城市,但是感觉大街上人好多彼此都认识。走在路上,经常车子大马路开过去的时候滴一下,路上的行人都不回头看一下就挥挥手,互相问候一句。或者因为同族,同胞感就特别强,就好像总感觉两个黑人陌路相识,都能bro得跟真的一样。

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与人的联结 | Connections

请不要讨厌我

在我的印象里,从有记忆以来,小学开始,我就特别希望别人喜欢我。

或者更准确地说,特别害怕被人讨厌。

从小到大这个话题也想了很多遍。有在ky看到过的理论说,怕被人讨厌的人,大都是成长过程中环境特别批判性,或者特别危险。

在危险环境,比如家庭暴力中成长起来的孩子,习惯了要时刻观察身边人的眼色。因为如果不小心做了什么惹施暴者不开心就会被揍,而孩子又无法离开监护人,所以他们把『别人的心情和喜好』跟自己的安危紧密联系在一起,自然特别会察言观色,也害怕被讨厌。

而在批判性环境中成长起来的孩子,习惯的是爱的有条件性。成绩好父母就夸赞表扬,做错事父母就没有好脸色,而,再次,父母是孩子的唯一依靠和安全感来源,所以为了能感到安全与关爱,也逐渐习惯做什么都得努力得到身边所有人的认同与喜爱。

前段时间看的school of life系列里一本书,提到说对于别人的看法过度在乎,是信任问题。

alain说:

Where does such underconfidence around enemies come from? We should, as ever, begin with parents and sketch an imaginary portrait of types who could unwittingly create such tortured mindsets. However ostensibly loving these parents might have been, they are also likely to have felt a high degree of trust in the system. If the police were investigating one of their friends, their guess would be that the authorities were correct in their suspicions. When reading a newspaper, if they were to read a destructive review of a novel, even one by an author whose work they’d much enjoyed in the past, it would seem evident that the author had lost his talent and was now kidding the public. If the parents were friends with an architect who was up for a major prize that was then awarded to somebody else, they’d feel the friend – whose buildings they admired – must have lacked talent in comparison with the winner, whose dark asymmetrical structures they would vow at once to take a second, more respectful, look at. 如果他们发现警察在调查某个朋友,他们会假设调查是有合理原因的。如果他们看报纸的时候发现对于某个小说的风评不大好,哪怕他们以前明明很喜欢读这个作者的书,他们会想当然地认为这作者大概水平下降了。如果他们跟某位喜爱的建筑师是朋友,然后某个建筑奖项被颁发给了他的一位竞争者,他们会重新带着更仔细、更尊敬的眼光,审视并欣赏这位竞争者。

When it came to their own children, these underconfidence-generating parents would have applied a similar method of judgement: the issue of how much and where to love would have been to a large extent determined externally. If the world felt the baby was adorable, they probably were (and if not, then not so much). Later, if the child won a maths prize, it was a sign not just of competence at algebra but of being, far more broadly, a love-worthy person. Conversely, if the school report described the child as an easily distracted dreamer who looked as if he would flunk his exams, that might mean the offspring didn’t quite deserve to exist. The lovability of the child in the eyes of the parents rose and fell in accordance with the respect, interest and approval of the world. 而当这些人有了孩子,他们也习惯用类似的眼光看待他们的孩子。如果所有人都觉得他长得漂亮,他应该就是个漂亮可爱的孩子。如果孩子赢了数学竞赛,这不仅证明孩子有数学天分,还证明他是个值得关注与被爱的孩子。而相反,如果学校报告上说这孩子上课老是走神,考试八成要挂科,那说明他大概长大也不会成什么器。他们的孩子究竟有多值得被爱,是由外部世界决定的。

To be on the receiving end of such parenting is a heavy burden. We, the recipients of conditional love, have no option but to work manically to fulfil the conditions set up by parental and worldly expectations. Success isn’t simply a pleasant prize to stumble upon when we enjoy a subject or a task interests us; it is a psychological necessity, something we must secure in order to feel we have the right to be alive. We don’t have any memories of success-independent affection and therefore constantly need to recharge our batteries from the external power source of the world’s flickering and wilful interest.

Unsurprisingly, when enemies come on the horizon, we are quickly in deep trouble, for we have no ability to hold in our minds the concept that they might be wrong and we right; that our achievements are not our being, and that the failure of our actions does not presuppose failure of our entire selves. Rendered defenceless by our upbringing, we have no border post between inside and out. We are at the mercy of pretty much anyone who might decide to hate us.

Contrast this with the blessed childhood of the confident. Their parents would have maintained a vigorously sceptical relationship to the system. The world might sometimes be right, but then again, on key occasions, it could be gravely and outrageously wrong. Everyone was, in their eyes, endowed with their own capacity to judge. It is not because the crowd is jeering that the accused is guilty, or vice versa. The chief of police, the lead reviewer of The Times, or the head of the Pritzker Architecture Prize might well be idiotic; these things happen. In their role as parents, the messages of the confidence-inducing were no less generous in their scepticism: ‘You are loved in and of yourself because of what you are, not what you do.’

说得很有意思,因为对系统的过度信任。

而在这样的环境中长大的孩子,也无法意识到,当世界或者某个人对他们给予反馈的时候,对方可能是错的。他们可能是叛逆或者生性怀疑的人,但矛盾的是,他们却怀有对任何外部意见无条件的信任。

昨天正好看到Brené的dare to lead里提到类似的情况。

她写道,女儿告诉朋友的秘密被『背叛』了,女儿哭着对她说,我再也不要相信任何人了!她回答说:信任就好像一个装着鹅卵石的罐子,你对一个人的意见相信多少,应该是由一个人信任的罐头里有多少鹅卵石来决定的。对没有赢得信任的人,他们的意见是无关紧要的。对陌生人就该有对陌生人的礼貌,而对时间洗练出的朋友才能有对朋友的信任。

If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I’m not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their lives but who will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those who dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fearmongering. If you’re criticizing from a place where you’re not also putting yourself on the line, I’m not interested in what you have to say.

她说,如果你未曾付出过汗水与真心,从头到尾不过坐在观众席里戏谑着愤世妒俗,那你的意见对我不重要。

她说,世界很大,当你把心打开给一个未知的世界,总有人会把匕首扎下去。

而她的结论很有意思:

Don’t grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don’t play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don’t pull hatefulness close to your heart.

Let what’s unproductive and hurtful drop at the feet of your unarmored self. And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears, or how eager the shame gremlins are to use the hurt to fortify your armor, take a deep breath and find the strength to leave what’s mean-spirited on the ground. You don’t even need to stomp it or kick it away. Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit. It doesn’t deserve your energy or engagement. Just step over the comments and keep daring, always remembering that armor is too heavy a price to pay to engage with cheap-seat feedback.

Again, if we shield ourselves from all feedback, we stop growing. If we engage with all feedback, regardless of the quality and intention, it hurts too much, and we will ultimately armor up by pretending it doesn’t hurt, or, worse yet, we’ll disconnect from vulnerability and emotion so fully that we stop feeling hurt. When we get to the place that the armor is so thick that we no longer feel anything, we experience a real death. We’ve paid for self-protection by sealing off our heart from everyone, and from everything—not just hurt, but love.

不必太信任环境,也不必变得坚硬。

保持心的柔软,留给值得信任的人。

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社会黑暗与光明 | Darkness and Light

歧视

因为最近几天对黑人文化产生兴趣,昨天找了好几本书来看,一个ijeoma oluo的so you want to talk about race,还有morgan jerkins的this will be my undoing。两本书看下来真是,好沉重。

读到一个比喻,觉得很形象:

说歧视就好像,你在大街上走,遇到的路人里随机有概率会给你一拳。他们其中有的人可能并没有恶意,每个人打你打得也并不重。但是每天每天重复,你会开始害怕出门。你外表看起来好像并没什么问题,但是衣服下你已经伤痕累累。

两本书背景都是美国,以前从来没意识到对他们的歧视这么严重。

唯一相关读到过的是okcupid的数据,说非裔女性和亚裔男性分别是两性群体中最不吸引异性的。

而歧视不是『他们』的问题,永远不只是『他们的问题』。

五十多年前,有个德国的新教牧师说:起初,他们抓共产党员,我不说话,因为我不是工会会员;后来,他们抓犹太人,我不说话,因为我是亚利安人;后来他们抓天主教徒,我不说话,因为我是新教徒。最后他们来抓我,已经没人能为我说话了。——王小波『沉默的大多数』

作为黑人,肤色可能被歧视。作为程序员,身为女性可能被歧视。作为男性,个子矮可能被歧视。任何一个人,都可能因为属于某个少数群体而受到歧视。

先得能承认歧视存在。

然后,如果我必然属于某种少数,我想要生活在怎样的世界?

一个没有鄙视链的世界。

那就游向少有歧视的水域和鱼群,或者更好,自己成为组成那世界的一部分,让相似的人来到你的身边。

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文化诧异 | Cultural Diffs

另一种生活

最近对非美裔/黑人文化产生了兴趣。

先是michelle的自传,然后最近这两天看得挺起劲的小说,突然发现作者是黑人,然后突然理解为什么故事情节如此爆裂。还有旅游以来反复听的一首歌:

Space For Two – R3HAB Remix, Song By Probz

歌词真是震撼,每次听我都还目瞪口呆:

She set my ’94 four door Ford on fire today 今天她把我九四年的四门福特,一把火点了

So I took her favorite pair of diamond earrings and I pawned them away 所以我拿了她最喜欢的一副钻石耳环,当掉

That’s when she walked in the kitchen full of dishes and she broke every plate 她得知后走进厨房,满厨房的碗碟,一个一个摔得粉

Man, she might be the death of me, but I wouldn’t have it any other way 老天,她能置我死地,但我除了她谁都不要

She called my boss and she told him I ain’t coming in to work no more 她给我老板挂了个电话,通知他说我辞职不干了

So I changed every lock on every door before she got home 所以在她到家之前,我把家里所有门上的锁统统换掉

If I would get a dime every time she wanna go through my phone 如果每次她想我翻我手机我都有钱拿,我早就已经发大财

She might be the death of me but I know I could never leave her alone 她能置我死地,但我知道我永远无法离开她

But if crazy is a place, then I hope they got space for two 如果疯狂是个地方,我希望他们有双人间可以容纳你我

And I know it’s messed up but I can’t get enough of you 我知道我们实在一团糟,但是跟你在一起怎样都不够

It don’t matter what we say 我们说什么都不重要

It don’t matter all the things we do 我们做什么都没关系

She might be my cocaine 她是我的可卡因

She might be my rehab 是我的戒毒所

She’s the pain and the medicine 她是我的伤口,我的解药

The problem and my solution 我的麻烦与答案

But she knows I wouldn’t have it any other way 但她知道,我绝不会选择一个没有她的世界

歌手明明是荷兰人,但是我查了下mr. probz,一点也不奇怪地发现他是黑人。

虽然知道是偏见,但是总觉得他们大多数时候:

敢爱敢恨,口无遮拦。朋友间什么难听的话都能说得出口,哪里痛戳哪里,但是气过头回头照样是朋友。换其他文化真是不敢想象,早就断绝关系了。

恋爱相爱相杀。就像歌词唱的一样。明明这种关系很不健康,但是不知道为什么却死活不会离开彼此。该说这是忠诚还是什么呢?就好像就因为在一起痛,所以一辈子认定认死了一样。

天下一家人。整个黑人群体,都有一种大家都是家人的感觉。女人之间互称『sis』姐妹,男人之间互称『brother』兄弟,甚至男人会尊敬地称呼不认识的女人『sister』,而女人则称呼不认识的男人『brother』。

最让我着迷的一点,是非裔社会里女性的强势,和对强势女性的尊重。michelle的书里,每一个女性形象,她母亲、教她钢琴的奶奶,她的阿姨,等等等等,全都是强势的。甚至于我跟非美裔的女同事打交道,都明显感觉对方比欧美同事要自信沉着很多。毕竟我从小长大的环境,总是期望女性作为崇拜者的角色,实在也受够了。但他们这种文化是如何形成的呢?

Fascinating.

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社会黑暗与光明 | Darkness and Light

真正的英雄主义

这两天在看michelle obama的传记,看得让我想哭。

以前对奥巴马没什么了解,但看她描写奥巴马说,刚开始约会的时候他跟政治还完全不沾边,从认识他起他就总把所有的钱都拿来买书,成打的政治哲学读来好像看小说,总是在考虑世界本可以是什么样。约会一段时间以后,有天晚上半夜一点起来发现他一个人坐在窗户边上发呆,问他想什么。她以为他在担心他们俩关系、或者在想下面职业怎么规划,结果他很不好意思地说在考虑收入不均的问题。

上次有这种感觉,还是看电影『明日世界』。

真是好喜欢啊。

奥巴马也好,迪士尼也好,明日世界也好,总有这么些人。他们好像不属于他们的时代,总在想象世界可以是什么样的。除了理想,他们也知道现实昏暗,却不会变得愤世妒俗。正相反,他们总会尽己所能去改变现实,让这个差距哪怕变小一点。

不仅认得清现状,看得到未来,还敢于真的付诸行动。

真正的英雄主义。

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