Whether you know life depends on whether you can appreciate many things. So far, we've been talking about the creation and appreciation of art. To conclude this section, I propose a brief explanation of the relationship between art and life. In the opening chapter, I emphasize the distinction between aesthetic attitude and practical attitude, and the distance between art and practical life. If I had said so far, you might misunderstand me for treating art and life as two separate things. That's not what I meant. Life is a multifaceted but mutually harmonious whole, to analyze it, we say that a part is practical activity, a part is scientific activity, a part is aesthetic activity, for the sake of justice, the original should be this separation; But let us not forget that the full life is found in the average development of these three activities. They are distinguishable but not in conflict. "Real life" has a narrower meaning than life as a whole. The common mistake is to regard them as equal, to assume that art, being separate from "real life," has no value in the whole of life. In order to maintain the status of art, some people want to force it into the small scope of "actual life". Such people not only misunderstand art, but also fail to understand life. We regard real life as a fragment of the whole life, so when we affirm the distance between art and real life, we do not affirm the estrangement between art and the whole life. Strictly speaking, there is no art without life, because art is the expression of interest, and the origin of interest is in life; On the contrary, there is no life without art, because all creation and appreciation are artistic activities, without creation, without appreciation of life is a self-contradictory term. Life is an art in a broader sense. Every man's life history is his own work. This kind of work can be artistic or not, just like the same kind of hard stone, one person can carve it into a great statue, while another person can not make it "synthesizer", the difference is all in sex and cultivation. He who knows life is an artist, and his life is a work of art. Living a whole life is like writing an article. Every perfect life has the beauty of a good article. First, a good essay must be a complete organism in which the whole and parts are closely related and cannot be moved or added or subtracted slightly. The whole spirit can be found in every word and sentence. For example, Tao Yuanming's poem Drinking Wine was originally written as "Leisurely seeing the South Mountains under the east hedge of picking chrysanthemums", but later people misprinted the word "see" as the word "Wang", thus completely losing the expression of nature and things meeting in the original. This artistic integrity is called "personality" in life. Every perfect life is the expression of character. The big and the big and the big and the small and the voice and the smile and the appearance, none of them conflict with the whole personality. Refusing to bend over to the village children for the five-bucket rice is a proper passage in Tao Yuanming's life history. If he misses this subsection, he will lose Tao Yuanming. When he was sent to prison, he refused to escape, and when he was executed, he told his neighbors to pay the debt of a chicken. This was a proper passage in Socrates' life history, otherwise he would have lost his name as Socrates. This kind of life history can make people regard it as a picture to be amazed, it is a masterpiece of art. Secondly, "rhetoric is sincere" is the key of the article, a poem or a beautiful article must be the ultimate deep feeling, stored in the middle and then form outside, there is no any false. Interest is originally the result of empathy. The scenery is changing, and the interest is growing. I have my personality, things also have the personality of things, and this personality changes and grows and develops at any time. The scene which each person sees at one moment, and the interest which each scene arouses at one moment, is of its own peculiarity, and cannot be exactly the same as the scene which another person sees at another moment, and the interest which another scene arouses at another moment. The slightest difference is the most subtle. In this endless interest we can see the nature of life. If this kind of life is revealed in language, it is a good article. Show it in words and deeds, is a happy history of life. Article avoid vulgar, life also avoid vulgar. Vulgar is not their own nature and conform to the old rules of others. Dongshi has no heart, strong learning holding heart eyebrow posture, can only attract disgust. In the west is creation, in the east is platitude. Cliches arise from the dryness of life, which is the expression of hypocrisy. "Hypocrisy" is "ugliness," Croce has said. "Popular water, natural pattern", the article is so, so is the beauty of life. What kind of position, what kind of person, what kind of feeling, what kind of demeanour, what kind of words and deeds, so that people can feel at first sight of their harmony and integrity, this is the artistic life.

Humor makes people laugh, and he who laughs is not always humorous. humour is a good transliteration of humour. It is said that it was written by Mr Lin Yutang. However, the word "humor" is also a present idiom in our ancient literature. "Chu ci, chapter nine, bosom sand" : " xi space locations, Kong Jing humor." Humor is to describe the mountain high valley deep desolate quiet meaning, you is deep, quiet. What we are going to talk about now is a profound and intriguing temperament, which seems to be quite close to the meaning represented by the word "humor". Now, when people mention humor, they immediately think of the original meaning of the word "humor". The kind of temperament represented by the word "humor" has its own special meaning and history in the West. According to ancient physiology, the human body has four kinds of fluids: blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile. These liquids, called humours, are closely related to the four elements. Blood like air, damp heat; Yellow bile liquid like fire, dry heat; Slime like water, wet and cold; Black bile liquid like soil, dry and cold. When certain elements are particularly strong in a particular liquid, or when the balance between several liquids is out of balance, people become ill. The liquid evaporates into gas, and rises to the brain, whereupon the physical, psychological, and moral characteristics of man are formed, which is called his temper, or his humor. Intact character is that no humour dominates him. Happy people are vigorous, kind, happy and affectionate. Bold people are angry, anxious, stubborn, and hold grudges. Sticky people are dull, pale, and cowardly. Melancholy people are greedy, cringe, and sentimental. The abnormal state of humor can further lead to exaggerated features. During the Elizabethan era, the word "humor" became synonymous with "disposition," followed by "mood." By 160, humor was often used as a criterion for character classification. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, humor in English has been reserved for the kind of language that causes people to laugh. The humorist often uses an eye to point out the absurdity, contradiction, absurdity, hypocrisy, and inventiveness of human behavior in a way that is sharp and concise. Humor differs from wit in its empathetic euphemism and sharp sarcasm, and the two are often indistinguishable. For example, among Shakespeare's characters, Falstaff is one of the best examples of a mixture of humor and warning. Although the word "humor" is translated from English, every nation has its own sense of humor. It is often said that we Chinese lack a sense of humor. In an orthodox society with Confucianism, humor may not be encouraged. However, we can also read "The Book of Songs · Wei Feng · Qi 'ao", and it is still regarded as a virtue to "be playful and not cruel". Dongfang Shuo and Chunyu Kun are both funniest males. Tai Shi Gong said, "The law of heaven is slow, but how great is it? Even through small talk, we can resolve disputes." To create a comic biography. Compared with Western literature, humor in our literature is not late, nor is it despised. In the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, neo-Confucianism flourished and taught people to live in sincerity and respect the poor reason. It seemed that humor could not be tolerated. However, literary writers, especially those who wrote dramas and novels, never gave up the element of humor when writing their articles. There is hardly a novel without a knockout character, hardly a play without a clown gag. As for the popular joke book in the late Ming Dynasty, such as Feng Menglong "laugh Fu preface" the so-called "the ancient and modern world a laugh house, I and if are in it for the story, not words not adult, not laughing not words, not laughing not words not the world," the joke and the history of the book, not to say. We Chinese are not necessarily humorless than other people, but we show it in different ways. Our national language has only four hundred and twenty affixes, and no fewer than four thousand words (so says Gobenham). That is to say, there are too many homophones, and yet there are plenty of opportunities for word play. For example, the two words "clear" and "love" in poetry are related, and the common saying "sheng" is related to the two words "sheng", which means "birth". All these can become word games. Can you call it humor? There is so much pun in English literature that in the sixteenth century it became fashionable to pun. Word games are not good humor, inspired by inspiration, occasional, not necessary, abuse is annoying. The essence of humor lies in the truth contained in it, not in writing Bo people charm. The humorous and the so-called humourists, among others, must be very knowledgeable and compasseful, have an understanding of the ways of the world, and their natural intelligences are queasy. In 1851, the English novelist Thackeray gave a series of lectures -- "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century", published in 1853, a review of the thoughts and writings of Seift, Stern, etc., focusing on their whole personalities rather than on their fragmental epigramms. Humor makes people laugh, and the people who laugh are not necessarily humorous. People's sense of humor is a gift, and can not be forced. When Wilde visited the United States and was asked by a customs agent if he had anything to declare, he said, "Nothing to declare, except my genius." This answer is humorous and proud. He could say so, for he had his share of genius. It is inconvenient for others to imitate him. We appreciate his words, not to appreciate his arrogance of talent, but to appreciate his satirical view of the world's value of property over intelligence. I believe he was not prepared in advance, and when the time came, he blurted out his clever words to the world. Sarcasm and irony often have humorous flavor, both at home and abroad. I once quoted an old story: a monk complained to people to usher in too much trouble, people advised: "If the dust, why not become a monk?" The editor of the journal thought I had a clerical error and changed "Why not become a monk" to "why become a monk". He didn't realize that irony was often used as a means of humor.

But it is in such a world, I say now, that what is most valuable is the nerd. The basic principle of the contemporary world is materialism. What is the measure of a man's life achievement in such an age? In terms of capital or the connection between his career and capital. We have to be smart in this day and age, and a nerd is the opposite of smart. Why aren't nerds smart? I'm talking here mostly about humanities nerds. If you work hard with a computer textbook, you are not a nerd, because you will be able to exchange money at the command line in the future. If you hold a copy of Schopenhauer's The World As My Will and Representation, you are definitely a bookworm. The world is not your will or your image! The world is constructed in computer language. So, I'll define a nerd as someone who lives, moves, and lives in a world of literary texts. They keep enough distance from reality. Is such a man ridiculous? Poor or not? Sad or not? That's what I want to talk about today. Why on earth would you live in that world of literary classics? The answer is that it is a world in which all the thoughts, all the actions, all the beliefs, all the encounters, all the struggles of a nation in the course of its history are contained. All works can be listed as humanistic classics, indeed record the historical destiny of a nation, as well as the nation's thoughts, beliefs, actions, encounters, struggles, sufferings. Such records imply spiritual experiences in which liberal arts nerds indulge. We ask: if you like this spiritual experience, and can understand these books, can you be judged as "do not know life"? If it is said that understanding life only means that we have a clear understanding of the interests and causality in the real society, then this is a degraded statement about "understanding life". Does not a person who has a deep experience of the historical process of his own nation, and can understand it, understand life in a deeper sense? This is the crux of the whole problem.

When we are immersed in a piece of music, we will feel that it is the most real world, and when we exit from it, we will feel that we were just in a dream, and now we come back to the real world. We often think of art this way. That's not true. Art is more real. When an orchestra is roaring on the stage, it is so real. The timpani, the gongs, the woodwinds, the brass, the strings, the flow of sound they play, is all real. Here, at this moment, if there is a choir of a thousand singing here, it is a world presented to you. You can't deny that it exists. It's so real, so much more real than the real world that we live in. In our daily life of fame and fortune, the real world is only an object of knowledge, a logical thing, and only by acknowledging this can we have a proper attitude towards music. Music is an opening to the truth that lurks in our power and our happiness in life. In these great works of music, our fates are expressed, our hopes are expressed, our possibilities are elucidated, our faith is expressed, and a real world is opened up. When I heard the children's chorus, I felt the angel take off! Indeed, it was a flock of angels, in the silver bells of children's voices to fly! It is a moving image of the truth of human life. I love philosophy, literature and music, which are the needs of my life. Each of us is small, in the final analysis is small. But we are engaged in a universal concern for the fate of the nation, for the foundation of the Chinese people's livelihood, which is also a concern for ourselves. If we make even a small effort in this kind of care, if this effort actually has a positive impact on others, it is the greatest luck of our life. We are alone, but we are not alone. We are not alone through philosophy, through art. For this, we should be grateful to philosophy, grateful to art, grateful to music. Individuals are always weak, but we always want to have a strong. The quantitative strength of the present age is something I despise. For example, how much capital I have, whether I can excel in the business arena, or how many academic papers I publish each year, all these are just quantitative competition. We cherish our one life. We plant the wisdom that makes it meaningful for rich and poor. In great music, we get the pleasure of the mind, this pleasure is indescribable, it fills our mind with fullness and greatness. True greatness belongs to the mind.

How is the fear response triggered? How exactly are these reactions triggered? What's going on inside our heads? I'm going to show you now how fear is triggered. Possibility 1: Sensing your "five senses" makes you feel something that scares you. When you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch something, what is it that ultimately scares you? Do you question your fears first, or are you just subconsciously feeling afraid? Feeling something triggered, in which case, you feel fear. It follows the action so quickly that some people are almost never aware of the feeling. Reaction Once you realize or think that something is making you fearful, the following happens: • The hypothalamus \[illustration] is aware that there is danger. • The amygdala \[illustration] (fear center) is activated. • The amygdala's "central gray zone" triggers a fear of death. • The "lateral core" of the hypothalamus triggers the sympathetic nervous system \[illustration]. • The activation of sympathetic nerves improves the function of organs necessary for stress (heart, lungs, muscles) and inhibits the function of those less important organs for stress (stomach, intestines). • After the danger is over, parasympathetic nerves \[illustration] are activated, sympathetic function returns to normal, and organ function returns to normal. Possibility 2: Thinking Thinking can also trigger a fear response. For example, if we think about our own boss yelling at us, the same fear response is triggered, as described in perception, and our brains are unable to decide between a life-threatening situation and a non-dangerous one. So we need to help it make the leap. The following exercises are only suitable for people without anxiety or panic disorder. If you suffer from any of these symptoms, then I ask you to skip this section because you already know that a single thought can cause you fear. Many people think that fear comes first, and then they think. That's not right. For people with panic or anxiety disorders, even thinking about a fear situation that has occurred in the past can trigger immediate fear. This effect has become "conditioned". To show you this, I now ask you to do the following: • Close your eyes after reading the exercise. • Imagine a situation that scares you, enter the situation as if it were happening, and describe exactly what is happening and how you feel. • Describe the situation. • Watch your body react. How do you feel?

Once, I went to New York to see an exhibition of Pompeii, where bodies were carefully transported thousands of miles away from Italy, from the ruins of the ancient city, wrapped in statues of ash and molten rock. The remains of an ancient civilization, buried for more than 2,000 years, were quietly placed in the bustling center of modern civilization on 44th Street in New York, as if our own civilization would not suffer a similar fate. Pompeii was a fertile coastal city in the Roman Empire, similar to today's Los Angeles, and there was no word for "volcano" in Italian until the eruption of Vesuvius on August 24, AD 79. When I said I was going, my friends thought the exhibition was too gloomy, but it wasn't death and loss that attracted me. It was the need for us to come to terms with everything in our lives, neither to escape it nor to indulge in it. People tend to get caught up in one emotion or another: shutting off their senses out of fear, or following their feelings at any cost, fearing that if they don't, life will lose its passion. I just want to see people in their last positions on their deathbeds. Everything on earth lives on and on, between destruction and rebirth, but that touch of love is forever between heaven and earth.

One is that it can save our lives. From time to time, for example, we have an inspiration, an Epiphany about life that is refreshing and exhilarating, but can easily be forgotten if we don't keep track of it. Some time later, the experience pops up again and I'm like, "I thought of that last time!" Once there is such an exclamation, it means that we have wasted this period of life, because although the inspiration is a flash, but behind it is the accumulation of a life experience. We didn't catch it last time. We have to do it again. If we don't catch it again, it will come back again. Therefore, when there is any idea or idea in your head, you must write it down in time, even if it is a key word or two. Then you can finish and polish it and enlarge the cognition, which is equivalent to saving a period of life. The other is that it can improve our ability to perceive detail. In January 2017, I learned about this concept -- the ability to feel subtle changes -- from Li Xiaolai's "A Different World" on Zhihu. He says this ability is especially important everywhere. When I knew about this concept, I didn't start writing about daily Reflection, but I thought it made a lot of sense. But when I practiced Daily Reflection, I realized how true it was. The essence of metacognition is to examine one's own feelings and thoughts, and then find the shortcomings and improve them, so as to correct one's cognitive biases at the lowest cost. And writing "daily reflection" is the process of self-examination. In reflection, we can spend enough time to review the short thinking process at that time, find the shortcomings, optimize it, and find a better understanding Angle. At the same time, we can activate the rational brain, eliminate the fuzzy zone of emotions, change the default choice of instinct, so that we will not fall into emotions when we encounter similar problems next time. Unable to extricate themselves or make better decisions. Long-term practice can greatly improve our cognitive level, emotional level and decision-making ability. Metacognitive ability is the ultimate human ability. Once it is turned on, self-awakening will be initiated. I was fortunate enough to move from chaos to awakening with the help of "daily reflection," which helped me open up metacognition. The third is to follow the principle of "deliberate practice". One of the keys to deliberate practice is to learn with a clear purpose. For example, when practicing the piano, we should not play it again and again without thinking, but we should think about it repeatedly with very clear problems. Only in this way can we make rapid progress. It's the same with our lives. If we just drift through the day without thinking, we grow older at best, but if we live with the essentials, we grow up fast. As mentioned in the previous driving reflection, when we refine the essentials of driving to keep relaxed, we can remind ourselves before the next driving, and then continue to pay attention to this problem throughout the whole process, and eventually develop good driving habits, and people who do not reflect on the attention to these essentials, can only habitually maintain a tense or stiff state, always emergency stop, brake without awareness. This kind of growth is applicable to any situation. As you can imagine, people who don't get the point and people who get the point grow at very different rates. We may all live similar lives, but the former stagnates and the latter keeps changing. Within a few years there will be a huge gap between the two. These three principles are enough to acknowledge the power of daily reflection, but there are at least three other benefits of reflection that can be explored. One is that it can save our lives. From time to time, for example, we have an inspiration, an Epiphany about life that is refreshing and exhilarating, but can easily be forgotten if we don't keep track of it. Some time later, the experience pops up again and I'm like, "I thought of that last time!" Once there is such an exclamation, it means that we have wasted this period of life, because although the inspiration is a flash, but behind it is the accumulation of a life experience. We didn't catch it last time. We have to do it again. If we don't catch it again, it will come back again. Therefore, when there is any idea or idea in your head, you must write it down in time, even if it is a key word or two. Then you can finish and polish it and enlarge the cognition, which is equivalent to saving a period of life. The other is that it can improve our ability to perceive detail. In January 2017, I learned about this concept -- the ability to feel subtle changes -- from Li Xiaolai's "A Different World" on Zhihu. He says this ability is especially important everywhere. When I knew about this concept, I didn't start writing about daily Reflection, but I thought it made a lot of sense. But when I practiced Daily Reflection, I realized how true it was.

Although it looks the same as punching a clock,and allows you to focus on the activity rather than completing the task. Of course, there is no need to worry that the lack of a time-out limit will make you slack off. After all, everyone has a good heart, and who doesn't want to do better each time than the last time? As long as we focus on the learning and growth activity itself and experience the fun, we can maintain a strong learning motivation and turn passive learning into active learning. Clocking and recording, it seems, is just the name of the difference, but the difference is very subtle, need to be carefully understood. At the same time, we will use a new policy in the task setting: set the lower limit, not the upper limit. For example, you had to memorize 20 words a day to punch a clock, which was the upper limit of the task. Assuming that it was not easy to do, you would breathe a sigh of relief as soon as the task was completed, thinking: Finally, it is done.

Cognitive closure, reduced effectiveness Relying solely on punching a clock not only diverts the motivation to act, but also reduces the effectiveness of the action. This stems from another important psychological mechanism -- the need for cognitive closure. The so-called need for cognitive closure means that when people face a vague problem, they have the desire to find a clear answer to it. For example, in ancient times, people did not know why it rained, so the problem of rain was not closed, which would make people very uncomfortable. Therefore, the ancients used the thunder Lord, the electric mother and the dragon King to explain the cause of rain.