几分耕耘,几分收获?

工作兼喝茶完毕，开夜车回家的时候，在电台听到一句很有意思的话。

以前，我们都听说，“一份耕耘，一份收获”。

但那句话是这么说的：“一份耕耘，一份累积；五份耕耘，五份累积；九份耕耘，九份累积；十份耕耘，才有百倍的回报。”

确实，我们想要的收获，往往并不是在你付出的开始，便可以得到的。像挖掘一口井，第一次下锄头的时候，怎么会见到水？半滴都没有。得重复地做，不停地做，恒心地做。终于，挖了第十次，水源涌现，源源不绝，以后再也不须辛苦挖井，百倍的收获，这时，才降临。

耕耘的过程，累积的是知识、经验、缘份，这些不能轻易被认出来（identify）的东西，往往受人忽略，像手握一个珍宝，自己却不知道，只当它是很重的石头。

所以，给自己明年的座右铭恨简单，“去学，去做”，如是而已。

女孩男孩，结婚了。

女孩和男孩在中学那段青涩的时期就已相识，并很快坠入爱河。

中学毕业了，女孩只身到吉隆坡这个大城市念大学，男孩则继续在家乡念书，俩人正式面对远距离感情的考验。

女孩大一。感情初次受到磨练，俩人常为大事小事吵架。

女孩很生气，这个男孩总让她伤心。火烧心头时，总是狠狠地把手机关掉...
男孩也很生气，这小女子总爱刁钻地为难他，要劝说和解的时候却偏偏不让人联络上。
于是，男孩只好硬着头皮打给女孩身边的朋友Y，才找得上她。

一天打雷一天下雨三天放晴，过不了多少时间，又会看见女孩甜蜜蜜地聊着电话了。

龙卷风来袭，女孩情绪很是低落，抱着一箱饼干，和朋友Y坐在宿舍楼梯口上，说两个人在一起，总是争执不休，只好分手了。那大概是第一次吧。

男孩气急败坏，打电话给Y的时候，还骂说，是不是Y怂恿她分手，让Y啼笑皆非。

过了一阵子，话说俩人又和好了。女孩羞愧地说，啊，真不好意思。

女孩大二。周五去上课，她总是一并带着行李，准备一下课，就搭巴士回家。回家的路程须费3小时余，每个礼拜周而复始，风雨不改，只为见上男孩一面。

一次，朋友Y三两人去女孩的家乡玩，见着了电话那头传说中的男孩。俩人关系曝光显得有些腼腆，喝茶的时候，男孩还悄悄地在桌底下握女孩的手，女孩却惊叫起来，深怕被人看见似的！结果被朋友揶揄一番，大家嘻哈笑翻。

后来又后来，女孩说，这次比龙卷风更烈，看来已无可挽救。这时，朋友Y估计应该也是暂时性的吧...女孩坚定地说，“不，这次，是真的...是真的...“ 后来Y发现，那么多次了，幸好没有一次是真的。

以后讥笑女孩的时候，她说，男孩对她说，因为他太了解她了，知道她生气以后，怎么挽回她的心。言语中有些委屈，却也有些莫名其妙，似乎冥冥中已被他套牢。

女孩大三。男孩该决定要去哪里继续升学了。女孩不知道男孩会不会选择来吉隆坡，心中仍有些不踏实。男孩后来终于也来了吉隆坡，女孩总算安心了，不再须要常常长途跋涉，来返家乡大学。

这时，女孩和一屋的女室友们同住在外边。女孩闹别扭关机的时候，男孩还是打给大家，但是女孩又不愿接电话，大家夹在当中，为这对可爱的couple感到无奈。

终于大学也毕业了。女孩和男孩在外租屋子，必须学习同住在一个屋檐下。工作了几年后，女孩说，现在情绪已经不会大起大落，吵吵嘴，闷个气，转头就得说，“喂，去吃饭了...” 成了习惯，或一种形式－ 俗语说的，“老夫老妻”的相处模式。

由嫩稚的怀春时期，到圆熟的成人时期，女孩男孩的恋情终修成正果，这个周末即将举行婚礼，履行这一生相守的承诺。看起来像故事的结局，其实又是人生另一段旅程的开始。

十年的相伴，怎么说，实在不容易。男孩一次又一次地坚定，女孩一次又一次地包容，为的是什么，心里很清楚。缘分很奇妙，少了上述任何一件事，故事的结局或是另一番风景了。

希望婚后接下来的日子，继续修行，继续幸福。

Y 祝福你们，新婚愉快，下一个十年，下下一个十年，每一个十年，都在累积快乐和幸福。:)

简单一点，丰富一点

转载自朋友的部落格。在无聊的日子里，这样的话，或许是最好的的礼物，最好的勉励。

让外表简单一点，内涵就会更丰富一点。

让需求简单一点，心灵就会更丰富一点。

让私心简单一点，友情就会更丰富一点。

让挫折简单一点，经验就会更丰富一点。

让情绪简单一点，人生就会更丰富一点。

让环境简单一点，空间就会更丰富一点。

让爱情简单一点，幸福就会更丰富一点。

11月

11月尾要到了，我须要好运，须要很多很多好运。

Howard Suber - WHY THEY HATE OUR FILMS

In forty years of teaching at the UCLA film school, I've often had discussions with filmmakers and critics from other countries about the fact that, since the late 1920s, American films have generally received 85 to 90 percent of all the revenues from film distribution around the world. (What other major American industry has been that successful for that long?)

On a teaching trip last month to Europe, I once again heard the explanation that people outside the United States so often give for this remarkable fact: "You Americans spend so much money on your movies that it's impossible for us to compete."

Although few in America dare to speak his name any more, things are different in Europe, so I responded to my hostile audience member by saying, "That's vulgar Marxism. The capitalists who own the industry - about half of whom are not Americans - would gladly pull their money out of Hollywood and put it into some other country's films if they were as commercially successful. So much money is spent on American films because so much money is made on them."

Why do people around the world continue to prefer American films after all these years? I don't think it's because our films are "better"; I think it's because most American films sell something that people want, something they're hungry for, and can never get enough of.

What they're selling also explains why today, as always, there are a significant number of people who hate our movies. What American movies are selling is the Unstated State Religion of America: Individualism -- the belief that the most important power in the world lies within each person.

In the history of the world, the belief in the centrality of the individual is quite new and, as we are learning once again, quite tenuous. Orthodox believers of several religions, like orthodox Marxists, Nazis, Fascists and others, have told us for a very long time that that the most important power lies outside of the individual. Their belief systems say we must tune our attitudes, actions, and aspirations to the power of God, Jesus, Allah, History, The State, The Fuehrer, Il Duce, etc. Although they differ enormously from one another, such belief systems agree on one thing: the most important power in our lives does not lie within.

Not surprisingly, the orthodox followers of such anti-individualist belief systems have seldom produced great drama. This is because film, like drama since at least the Elizabethans, depends on individual will, action, and responsibility. It is also not surprising that the orthodox believers of many religious or quasi-religious "isms" have prohibited their followers from seeing popular American movies. Because they locate power within the individual, American movies offer a competing belief system.

Orthodox followers of religions and ideologies often see the individualism that is the bedrock of American popular films as self-centered, narcissistic, materialistic, shallow, decadent -- without any sense of obligation to Higher Things. Unrestrained individualism can indeed be all of these, as real life in America, especially lately, so often demonstrates.

But the memorable popular American movies - the ones that millions of people responded to when they first came out and continue to respond to -- do not encourage the attitudes and actions that the orthodox fear. As I demonstrate in my book, The Power of Film (thepoweroffilm.com), memorable popular films from America agree with most of the values of orthodox religions. They disagree about where the most important power lies.

For decades, I have asked a wide variety of audiences to name the most memorable dramatic works in history -- those that, if they are plays, continue to be produced, or if they are movies, continue to be watched by later generations. People most often mention Oedipus Rex, Medea, and Antigone, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Death of a Salesman, Citizen Kane, and The Godfather.

What do these stories have in common? They are all about a single individual, around whom all the action, as well as all the other characters, revolve. More often than not, the work itself is named after this character. This is individualism in action.

I also have asked audiences for several decades to name the memorable films that have come out of Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler, Russia under Stalin, or China under Mao. I usually receive blank stares, and it's not simply that there's nobody in the audience with knowledge of these countries' film histories. It's because, with a few exceptions, there aren't any. If you deny power to the individual, as these dictators did, you make it almost impossible for memorable films to emerge.

Societies that deny the power of the individual ironically tend to gravitate towards a single all-powerful individual who is allowed to hold the power of the nation in his hands. When this happens, there is no need to create heroic individuals in fiction because public squares, news broadcasts, postage stamps and flags all emblazon the image of the same hero on them.

Paradoxically, societies such as our own that trumpet a belief in the power of the individual seldom allow any single individual to acquire much power in real life. As popular culture in America demonstrates, there is an inverse rule that dictates that, the more power someone in real life has, the more there seems an urgent necessity to cut him or her down to size.

Individualist societies are uncomfortable with heroes in real life, and often don't know what to do with them. Perhaps, as a compensation, they produce a multitude of heroes in their movies and other popular media.

Everyone knows that American Individualism means that each person is expected to "look out for #1" -- himself. And yet, no memorable popular American film gives us a protagonist who is only concerned with himself throughout the film.

At the beginning of Casablanca, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) utters that famous line, "I stick my neck out for nobody" but by the end, he's given up the only person he's ever truly loved for "The Cause." In Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), makes it clear early in the film that, "I'm the only cause I believe in," but he becomes a hero by running the Northern blockade to aid his countrymen, and joins the army even though he knows the Confederacy is doomed.

Early in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey (James Stewart) tells his father that he wants to get out of the small town he lives in and scorns, but then he devotes his whole life to it. Early in On the Waterfront, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) says, "Me? I'm with Me" and he advises Edie (Eva Marie Saint) that his philosophy is "Do it to them before they do it to you." By the end of the film, however, he is beaten nearly to death fighting on behalf of his fellow workers. Finally, early in The Godfather, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) says of the story he has just told his girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), "That's my family, Kay -- it's not me." But Michael then joins his family's violent business in order to save his father's life.

The pattern here is clear: characters often begin their story being concerned only with themselves; but by the end, they sacrifice themselves for their family, community, or cause. This is not that different from those with orthodox religious or political faiths, who also believe in the importance of sacrifice.

The difference lies in where each thinks the most important power lies. When Orthodox Muslims talk about their plans, they usually say, Inshallah, just as Orthodox Jews say, "God Willing." For the religious, the power to make something happen lies outside individual will or control. But where in America's memorable movies, aside from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ - about as orthodox a film as has ever been made - does a central character rely on God, Jesus, Mohammad, or some other force outside himself?

The sad fact is that, throughout history, and in much of the world today - even in so-called advanced societies - people do not feel they have power as individuals. It is no wonder, then, that they hunger for films that tell them that a single individual can matter, can be in control of his or her own destiny.

It is not surprising that those who believe the most important power lies in a deity, the state, or some idea should hate American movies. They are correct to see in them a competing belief system. What is surprising is that so many people who share the belief in the power of the individual fail to realize how powerful it is.

"The Power Of Film" by Howard Suber, 让我看电影的视角有了翻天覆地的改变，也对电影有了崭新的解读。我庆幸，学海无涯...学海无涯...

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-suber/why-they-hate-our-movies_b_29396.html