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· WELCOME TO LUNA PAN'S NEVERLAND ·    Hello again. This book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life written by Jordan B. Peterson took me a longer time to finish than I expected. Since it's not a competition with anyone or even myself, I would just take my time, and enjoy whatever I do and however I do them.  Like Jordan B. Peterson's another book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, I've learned a lot. From time to time, I could echo the words of the author with the real life of my own and those around me as well.  When I was younger, I liked to say "life is hard" a lot, which was teased by my coworkers pretty often. I guess, life is always hard, and always will be. But it's never the case, because we ourselves can do much more than we could even imagine with our only one life. We're the ones who make choices.  I'm by no means a saint, but no matter what I've been through long ago or recently, good or bad, I still remain quite grateful. I choose to let some things go, and cherish what stays. And I can't say thanks enough to those who love and care about me when they could prioritize their own "everything" like others would do.  In the end of this book, as usual, the author thanked plenty of people including the readers for sure. He says, "I hope you are surrounded by people you love and who love you in turn. I hope that you can rise to the challenge presented by our current circumstances, and that we all might have the good fortune to eventually turn our attention to rebuilding the world after the deluge."  And my wish to my readers upon the coming Mid-autumn Festival is the same: "I hope you are surrounded by people you love and who love you in turn." It's the end of my monologue and the beginning of my extracts from the book. Hope you will be inspired by these as much as I am.   1. Every rule was once a creative act, breaking other rules. Every creative act, genuine in its creativity, is likely to transform itself, with time, into a useful rule. 2. Aim at something. Pick the best target you can currently conceptualize. Stumble toward it. Notice your errors and misconceptions along the way, face them, and correct them. Get your story straight. Past, present, future—they all matter. You need to map your path. You need to know where you were, so that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past. 3. Do not pretend you are happy with something if you are not, and if a reasonable solution might, in principle, be negotiated. Have the damn fight. 4. This is all a strange concatenation of the psychological and the real, the subjective and the objective. Is something frightening, or am I afraid? Is something beautiful, or am I imposing the idea of beauty upon it? When I become angry with someone, is it because of something they have done, or my lack of control? 5. You are stuck with yourself. You are burdened with who you are right now and who you are going to be in the future. That means that if you are treating yourself properly, you must consider your repetition across time. You are destined to play a game with yourself today that must not interfere with the game you play tomorrow, next month, next year, and so on. 6. And part of you must therefore die, so that you can change.  7. We are not hopeless. Even in the rubble of the most broken-down lives, useful weapons might still be found. Likewise, even the giant most formidable in appearance may not as omnipotent as it proclaims or appears. 8. Heat and pressure transform the base matter of common coal into the crystalline perfection and rare value of the diamond. The same can be said of a person. 9. If you aim at nothing, you become plagued by everything. 10. If you learnt to make something in your life truly beautiful—even one thing—then you have established a relationship with beauty. 11. As it is said, "Man shall not live by bread alone". That is exactly right. We live by beauty. We live by literature. We live by art. 12. Penny-wise and pound-foolish indeed. 13. And the lions are always there. If you stick your neck out, then the sword will come. 14. But art is not decoration. That is the attitude of a naïve beginner, or of someone who will not let their terror of art allow them to progress and learn. 15. "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." 16. You robbed them materially or spiritually. You cheated on them. Or imagine, instead, that you have been the target. 17. We are universally tormented by our consciences for what we know we should have done yet did not do. We are tormented equally by what we did but know what should not have done. 18. It is our destiny to transform chaos to order. If the past has not been ordered, the chaos it still constitutes haunts us. 19. "If you really loved me," you will think—or feel, without thinking—"I would not have to tell you what would make me happy." This is not a practical approach to a happy marriage. 20. But a relationship does not have to be and should not be a question of one or the other as winner, or even each alternating in that status, in an approximation of fairness. Instead, the couple can decide that each and both are subordinate to a principle, a higher-order principle, which constitutes their union in the spirit of illumination and truth. 21. "I am going to kill you. It is just going to take me a lifetime." 22. If you are going to set up a household in peace with someone you love and hopefully like, and wish to continue loving and liking, you are going to have to determine in some manner who is going to do what. This is the replacement for roles. 23. To begin with, there is not anyone out there who is perfect. There are just people out there who are damaged—quite severely, although not always irreparably, and with a fair bit of individual idiosyncrasy. 24. The arbitrariness of the world is always at the ready, preparing to manifest itself. 25. There appear to be two broad forms of deceit: sins of commission, the things you do knowing full well they are wrong; and sins of omission, which are things you merely let slide—you know you should look at, do, or sat something, but you do not. 26. So, you might love people despite their limitations, but you also love them because of their limitations. 图 / Luna 文 / Luna |
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