Counting calories

I was browsing at the NTUC Fairprice just the other day and saw a bottle of stewed mushrooms going for $1.50. I love mushrooms. This came in a nice bottle and the contents looked quite tempting as well. At $1.50 it's really quite cheap.

Actually, I thought it is amazingly cheap. When I looked at the nice bottle, I could not help but wonder about all the resource that went into making the bottle, the metal lid, cooking the mushrooms and then transporting it from China to here. Are all these resources worth just $1.50.

It's not that I have anything against cheap food. In fact, I hate inflation and would like to see food prices remain cheap. But I think we are really not paying for the real cost of the food. $1.50 really does not cover the environment costs and social costs involved in making that bottle of stewed mushrooms.

I remember there was a documentary years back (it was when I was in Junior College, so that's like almost 20 years ago. I remembered that because my JC classmates laughed at me when I brought up the topic) which pointed out the gross inefficiency in the way we gain energy from our food. The irony is that the calories we derived from canned food, for example, is really a fraction of the total calories that is used to get it to our dining table. Energy was used to mine the tin ore, refine the ore into tin, manufacture the tin cans, cook the food, package the canned food and transport it -- the total energy used in the whole process far exceeds the few calories we derived from the food in the can.

I had a good look at the bottle of mushrooms and then put it back on the shelf. I decided that eating fresh is healthier and less demanding on the environment.

冬季到台北来看雨

直到定票前，我还一直犹豫不决。定了机票之后，开始找台北的资料，才发现，原来台北有这么多东西可看和玩，这才后悔没计划多呆几天，现在要改期却太迟了。

这是暂时的预定行程：

第一天:抵达、晶晶书库、师大邻里、师大夜市。
第二天：龙山寺、希望广场假日农会、晶晶书库、二二八和平公园、重庆南路书店街、士林夜市。
第三天：故宫博物院、孔庙、重庆南路书店街、五分铺、成品敦南店、敦化夜市。
第四天：九分、淡水、渔人码头、华西夜市。
第五天:农禅寺、北投普济寺、北头泡温泉、猫空。
第六天：国父纪念馆、中正纪念堂、返回！

《西风颂》

记得几年前看过这么一个同志故事，故事里的其中一个主角绝望地这么说：

人们说，冬天来了，春天还会远吗？
但我问，这个冬天已经形成，要我如何度过这个严冬？

的确，如果度不了眼前的严冬，春天再近也没用。
有时，我们以乐观的态度看某些事，却忽略了正在困境中挣扎的人的感受。

之所以想起这段故事是因为最近发现原来“冬天来了，春天还会远吗？”这一句是出自一首英文诗《西风颂》 （Ode to the West Wind）。这诗的最后一句是：

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

棋局

人生在世，千谋万虑，赌胜争强，奇奇幻幻，死死生生，无非一局围棋。
只因参不透这座迷魂阵，所以为它所误。

《镜花缘》

真正的艺术家

白求恩（Norman Bethume） 的那一篇 A True Artist 要翻译的话实在是不容易。

这一篇是挺不错的翻译，值得参考。

真正的艺术

真正的艺术家狂放不羁。他自由自在，悠然自得地在自己个性的川流中畅游。他倾听自我，尊重自我。

他以深海巨鲸的姿态，浮现在日常生活中的阳光下，打破人们习以为常的平静生活的洋面，轻松愉快、严肃认真、嬉笑自若。他酷爱生活，拥抱生活。他渴望与各种人物同命运，共呼吸。他成了所有人都化身。

艺术家的职责就是要惊世骇俗，唤醒沉睡的人们，震撼那些自鸣得意的社会中坚。他提醒世人不要忘记在黑暗中摸索的往昔岁月，向他们昭示当今世界，并为他们指引新生的道路。他既是时代的产儿，也是时代的先锋。在他亮相后，人们始感困惑，开始对那些本来深信不疑的事物产生了怀疑。他令静止、固定、僵死的一切开始躁动起来。在一个惧怕变革的世界里，他公开宣扬，变革乃是生活之本。他是一个鼓动家，一个打破平静生活的人物--聪颖敏捷、充满渴望、坚定果断、不知疲倦和引发不安。他是活跃于人类灵魂中富有创造力的精灵。

摘自《译心译意》

The True Artist

The True Artist by Norman Bethume

The true artist lets himself go. He is natural. He swims easily in the stream of his own temperament. He listens to himself. He respects himself.

He comes into the light of every-day like a great leviathan of the deep, breaking the smooth surface of accepted things, gay, serious, sportive. His appetite for life is enormous. He enters eagerly into the life of man, all men. He becomes all men in himself.

The function of the artist is to disturb. His duty is to arouse the sleepers, to shake the complacent pillars of the world. He reminds the world of its dark ancestry, shows the world its present, and points the way to its new birth. He is at once the product and preceptor of his time. After his passage, we are troubled and made unsure of our too-easily-accepted realities. He makes uneasy the static, the set and the still. In a world terrified of change, he preaches revolution -- the principle of life. He is an agitator, a disturber of the peace -- quick, impatient, positive, restless and disquieting. He is the creative spirit working in the soul of man.

I came across this a few days ago. Thought it's rather interesting and thought-provoking.

I thought the first paragraph is precisely about being authentic, something I wrote about yesterday.

At first look, it is an exaltation of the the artist. However, I think there is much here that we can inspire ourselves to strive for. Not so much as trying to be the true artist who changes the world, but rather, to arouse ourselves from our slumber and complacency -- instead of waiting for the passage of a true artist.

Being Authentic

A friend told me once,

You are more than what you appear to be. You have a lot of opinions, emotions and thoughts, but you do not show them. You have too much inhibitions and restraints. You can't let go of yourself and express who you really are.

In a manner that only validated his observations, I only smiled and said nothing, giving no indication of whether I agreed or not.

Sure, I keep quiet on a lot of stuff people say about me. However, in most cases, I felt misunderstood. But for this one, I knew he spoke true. This is perhaps one of the keenest observations I ever heard a friend made.

I do want to be more authentic. I think that means being a little more expressive, a little more frank, a little more spontaneous, a little more earnest and be willing to share a little more.

Sometimes, I think I hide too much, projecting only a nice, if somewhat artificial and superficial image.

But after all these while, it's not easy being authentic. It is not easy to overcome the fear of being easy to read and hence vulnerable. It is not easy to overcome the fear of being thought of as less when the weaknesses are revealed.