Totally mind-blowing.
This is one of the few books that changed how I looked at the world. However, the book is so complex and profound that it is impossible to write some reading notes without writing another small book.
That being said, I can still put some points here for reference. One's happiness is subject to chemical reaction. Certain chemicals such as dopamine, can affect how one perceives happiness. Does that mean, in order to achieve happiness in life, we should just obey the chemical system and try to secrete/inject as much dopamine as we can? Non-sense. Happiness consists not only the chemical reaction, but is also decided by whether one is doing something meaningful that satisfies one's life. A recent research showed that it is decided by several factors, the most important being one's expectation of his/her life. If one's expectation is low, he/she is more likely to be happy, and vice versa. Other things, including the community that supports him/her, his/her family, and money of course, also matter to certain extent. This remotely resembles Lao Tzu's saying "See and think frugally".
But it is opposite to the culture we live in. People are brought up in an education that encourages us to be ambitious, entrepreneurial, adventurous. Take my company's culture for example. We brand slogans like "Be bold", "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"and "Do things and ask for forgiveness later", and people love those slogans. Unfortunately, in the historical perspective, those are just the brainchildren of our generation, whereas never had a previous generation advocated those spirits as much as we do. They wanted good citizens to be modest, lenient and meek. Well, not so much. That is true only to certain generations in certain regions of the world, while in other regions and other times, cultures are completely different. If you place yourself in a cosmic historical settings, what you believe firmly today would be bullshit tomorrow. Nothing is forever true. You like free market? Sure. It wasn't even a thing a thousand years ago. You think love is the goal of life? And honesty is the essential goodness? And we should respect science? Each statements only hold true in a certain period of time, but never from the start of time, and may not be true in a hundred years.
Homo sapiens broke the natural selection, which is the norm of evolution for millennials. Creatures survive if they adapt to their environment better than others, so they are more likely to pass their genes to inheritors. The bird's ancestor didn't think about having feathers because they would help it to fly. All happened by random mutation. This may no longer the case, because Homo Sapiens invented gene engineering, so they can direct the evolution of living things, even themselves. They may one day introduce cyborgs, hybrid beings of the organics and the inorganics, or make superhuman. Gene engineering may fundamentally change how we think, how the society is structured, and how human relationship functions. Oh did I mention "human"? Will we still be the same species then? The future is beyond imagination. All our imaginations are simulations of our thoughts, and reflection of the reality. When things become completely different, how do we want what we want?
I don't see a definite blueprint of the future in 100 years, nor does anyone. All I know, however, is to live within the current time. 活在当下。
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