Three? Yes, right. Most of you guys come to this blog might hear that there is a secret swing in La Jolla, San Diego, CA, USA. To be more specific, in the La Jolla cove region. Like most of the enthusiastic explorers,  today with two of my friends, I decided to find the secret swings.

However, after some research, I found that there are actually three of them!  As a responsible blogger, follow me to see what I’ve gathered for you!

Secret Swing No.1

The first swing is near the Scripps Institute. You could easily park at the cross of La Jolla Shore Dr and Discovery Way.

At the cross, look into the woods you can easily spot the gate as I shown below(bottom-right). Don’t follow the road behind the gate (of course you can walk the road, just a little detour, but you will find another interesting house)  just turn right.

After you arrived, just enjoy the view.  This is a really big palm tree, and I tried one shot.

Secret Swing No.2

The second secret swing would be the one that most of you might find on Instagram (#lajollasecretswing). This one is more like a graffiti, you could find some sentence on that. Since it’s more famous, it’s more crowded. Be sure to come there early, if you don’t want to be upset by a photo session wait line.

To get the second swing, park at Birch Aquarium and climb up. Usually, you should see a crowd upwards.

Some pictures from there.

Secret Swing No.3

Well, I would really call this one secret. It hides behind an amazing palm tree grow on the cove and the swing is actually a tire.

To get there, you’d better have a pair of outdoor shoes. It’s dangerous, and maybe not try when the mud is slippery, there is no safety facility!

The bonus of this spot is a really beautiful trail! Even though I get there on a foggy day, it’s still amazing!!!

Hope this would be helpful!

This is a script is a book review for When Breathe Becomes Air as well as a blog script.

It’s lucky that I could come across with Paul, the author of the touching memorial, through his gentle, beautiful and incisive words. It attracted me at the first sight since both of us, and like many other people, who are actively seeking the meaning of life.  For Paul, after learned medical, biology, English literature and philosophy, finally, he chose to be a doctor which he found the best way to experience life and death.

Paul is a neurologist at Stanford medical school,  the superstar in his area that once his advisor said to him: “you will be their number one choice for every place you’d like to go.”.  He is the kind of man has the brightest future and happiest family, all he needs to finish his residency and became an actual doctor. But fate always plays a miracle way on people, just one year before he can finish his decades of training, he was diagnosed with, 4th stage lung cancer.

But unluckily, after treated hundreds of patients, this time he is the one that has to traverse the line from doctor to patient.  Actually, Rather than a path,

Paul wrote, “I saw instead only a harsh, vacant, gleaming white desert. As if a sandstorm had erased all familiarity. I had to face my mortality and try to understand what made my life worth living, and I needed my oncologist’s help to do so.”

Perception of time changed

Every dream he had for his future disappeared you’re always thinking about five years down the line what are you going to be doing and that number has no meaning for me anymore. Each minute clocks used to rule everything are now kind of irrelevant to him when you having a terminal illness. That kind of thing forces you to think about your life and what matters to you most.

” The tricky part of illness is that, as you go through it, your values are constantly changing. You try to figure out what matters to you, and then you keep figuring it out. It felt like someone had taken away my credit card and I was having to learn how to budget. “

Now, many of us just thriving towards the future, we always have a plan for the future. We are likely to delay gratification since we know the delayed future would come. But, who knows? That’s the tricky part and also one of the reasons I started to write blogs. I feel like the best way to live a life is find a harmony among everything in your life (not a balance!), your work’s gonna fill a large part of your life as well as your family, I would try to live to fulfillment each day of my life, and determined to say no to anything that not follow my inner core.

Quality life and the identity of your patient

One of the most impressive ideas through this book is a word identity. Through Paul’s life, he experienced this word both from the angle of a patient and a doctor.

“The call to peotect life – and not merely life but another’s identity; it’s perhaps not too much to say another’s soul – was obvious in its sacredness.”

Each time before he operated on a patient’s brain, he would first understand the mind of the patient: his identity, his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that life end. In human’s brain, the Broca’s area is for understanding language and Wernicke’s area results in an inability to understand language. If a patient suffered a stroke and damaged both areas that often restrains the surgeon’s impulse to save a life. What kind of life exists without language?

To every people,  we should ensure our health care matches your values, and we have the right to check and say no! living means more than just staying alive. 1/4 people received unwanted or excessive medical treatment would you want to be on life support if it offered any chance of longer life, are you most worried about that quality of that time rather than quantity.

Suffering is another blessing

To have a baby at the end of life:

Another impressive sence is when Paul discussed with his wife whether to have a baby at the end of his life, this is a hard decision months to a few years meant Paul was not likely to see her grow up. But he had a good chance of being there for her birth and for the beginning of her life.

When his wife asking Paul if he thought having to say goodbye to a child would make dying even more painful. And his answer is:

“Wouldn’t it be great if it did?”

Life wasn’t about avoiding suffering,  we need to accept the sadness and joy of the time, to uncover beauty and purpose.

Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional:

Famous Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once wrote in his book “What Do You Think About When You’re Running?” that “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.”

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr Frankl also wrote that

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

He was once a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. His mother, father, brother, and pregnant wife were all killed in the camps. The only thing that the Nazis were unable to take away was his choice as to how to respond to the deprivation, degradation, and trauma to which he was subjected.

Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher who lived nearly 2,000 years ago, who said, people are not disturbed by things but by the view, they take of them. Pain and suffering come from the stories we tell ourselves about the consequence, we cannot choose our external circumstances but we can always choose how we respond to them.

An free soul in a blocked body:

Here is another very touching story from Kitra CAahana, a documentary photographer, whose father has a extreme beautiful and optimistic soul in face of death. I was so touched onced I watched the Ted talk from her, here I’ll post the link；

Finally, a vivid short footage of the book:

写在前面：很高兴我在这个时间点看了这部电影，近几个月断断续续都在思考相关的问题，感谢电影用一种显性的方式，具体的场景去唤起人们的思考。好的电影如同任何好的公式，定理，理论：他们简洁又会给人留下无限的遐想空间，用最精简的方式展示自己的核心却在无数领域和场景一次又一次被重现。我们看到一个简简单单的信息熵（或熵）定理在从分子（如折叠，稳定态）到整个宇宙的宿命（热寂）；费马大定理的证明对应（巴赫）乐曲的无损降噪；希尔伯特空间与傅里叶变换（你能想到的现代科学 经济学 都有他们的身影）；贝叶斯思想；EM与em算法思想（数值与几何，同费马大定理最终的证明过程）；特征值特征向量；质数数论群论集合……. 为什么，为什么好的思想能在不同时间不同场景，一次又一次地被重发现。是我们build up things based on them， 还是它们是不小心跑到人类的头脑里，被上帝施舍了一些我所谓的“宇宙意志”。

近一年来，随着学习的知识的爆炸性增长以及求知欲的增长，已经数不清多少次自己感叹道“人类群星闪耀”，感叹生命的神奇，数学纯粹地美妙….. 又觉这个世界太复杂，一个人又太渺小。很多事情很难想明白，想多了就累了，老师说：“我想了十几年，得出的结论是别想了”。这也不是无不道理，就像人永远无法抓起自己的头发，将自己从地面提起。仅用自己的认知我想也不可能解决我内心的各种困惑。《集异壁》中还提到这么一段精彩论述（第七章-命题演算）：

“一个理论推理理论可以与他自己的元理论是同样的，只要它是仔细的做出来的。这似乎是说，所有的层次都将压缩成为一个层次，从而，关于系统的思考就将成为在系统里边的一种工作方式！但是这并不那么简单。即使一个系统能够“对自身进行思考”，它也仍然不是在它自身之外。你站在系统之外去观察它，与它观察它自身的方式是不同的。所以，仍然还有一个元理论——站在外边所做的观察——即使是对一个这样能够在他里边“对自身进行思考”的理论也是如此。”

即便如此，我仍旧有充足的欲望想与身边的人交流我每天脑子里面产生的乱七八糟的新想法，有趣的是，同一个想法每天给5个不同的人讲完之后，每一次说出我的观点时常常会审视并修正，这也是非常有趣了。所谓的辩证法，关键在辩，当你与别人沟通的时候，就是在辩自己，有益的便是自己与自己对话然后思想进步了。

废话太多，开始正题：

先说说这部传说中无差评的电影《我不是药神》，好了。看完了电影在回过头看这个题目的时候。我个人觉得，导员想说的大概是《我不是神》，I’m not a savior! 神是什么，电影里非常有趣的引用了两三句佛家常说的话。佛教也分小乘佛教与大乘佛教，那么请问药王是属于哪一种呢？

电影的主要情节大概是(from my own point of view)：一个靠卖保健品为生的上有老下有小的父亲，不堪生活重负，决定走私卖一种国内禁止销售的印度仿制的治疗一种白血病的药物Gleevec（仿制品与真正的药疗效一样但价格大概是500/40000），一开始他是为了缓解生活的压力而去冒险，后来考虑到孩子的未来自己也不愿意冒着触犯法律危险去赚钱，于是他转行办起了服装厂生意风生水起。然而，当初为了很多病人能够吃上更便宜的药，他把假药代理权交给了一个纯粹的假药贩子，贩子为了利益抬高价格，最后被人举报。没了相对便宜的假药，很多病人就处于生死边缘了。这其中包括了主人公的朋友，最后因为不堪重负不幸去世。主人公虽然办厂挣到钱了，但看着这些人他心软了，最后倒贴卖便宜药给病友。最后，在正规药厂的利益诉求的压力，法律约束下，主人公入狱却获得了病友们的称颂，当他出狱时，该药被纳入医保体系。

（故事中的关键药物：Gleevec  其原理是 stopping the Bcr-Abl tyrosine-kinase，Bcr和Abl是一种错误的融合基因，融合导致本来好好的开关坏了将会一直处于打开的状态。当然没记错的话，这个位点的抗药性应该突变起来也挺快的，也就是另一个开关很容易坏掉然后出现类似的问题）

随意想到的一些点：

• 本文主线：情感线。God bless us, 很高兴 人心还是软的。故事里很多情节的推动都是“家庭”。人最棒的就是“empathy”共情能力，共情能力高可以理解为情商高，你善于从别人角度思考。简单说，事儿做得漂亮是让每一个与你交往的人都很舒服。对家庭的爱，对长辈，子女，爱人等等是推动人们做出了很多选择和改变的关键因素。如果你很难体会救世主的感觉，不妨想想 每个人都可能是孩子 都是父亲，母亲，爱人。他们也都是你，你是他们，我们都是人。

• 我最爱说的第一个问题来了：怎么理解一个人的角色，怎么定义一个人。不同时期不同场景下你对这个问题的答案将决定了你对世界运作的认知。我来说说随意想到的一些层次：
  • 人种（homo sapiens）中的一个个体，就像一个培养皿里的一个小细菌。你的观察层次是整个地球上的一个小物种中的一个小个体。
  • 成员个体：组织可以是国家，地区，企业等。 简单一点：社会分工体系下的一个小螺丝。
  • 工具：可被剥削的劳动价值，被另一群人，另一个人利用的工具。
  • 角色身份：父、母、子、女。
  • 电池块：黑客帝国里面负责生物发电的电池。
  • 需要被保护的一种文明规定的权益：缸中大脑，欧洲福利体系供养的人

• 病人举报假药贩子，病人没了药吃，药贩子没了钱赚。貌似连零和博弈也不算，是lose-lose situation（双方都损失）, 诶，谁获利啦？

• 上门推销可不是一种好策略，熟人传销感觉还不错。更相信陌生人才能让社会分工更高效，但是哪样的社会让我们会愿意更相信陌生人而不是“亲朋好友”？社会要发展，个人企业如何建立自己的信用体系。在美国从小就有了各样记录，在中国呢？好像A股市场IPO是一个不错的建立信用的方式，呵呵。

• 有效市场理论，套利的机会会一直存在么？如果一直存在是什么在维持这个价格梯度？要享受水的重力势能，我们可以修建一个大堤坝，维持一个非法商品的价格梯度，只需要政府政策就够了。无形相比于有形也这么有力量，可谓顶级掠食者是战略制定者。

• 情感与法制，我们见过太多有关原则与情感两难状况下选择的讨论。 “原则”~ 好大一个词，好重一个词，提起“原则”，不是因为2017达里奥的书《原则》火了，而是每个人组织社会都要想的一个东西，什么是个人的原则，指导行事的内核。扯远一点，“物”也有自己的原则，或者是追求。例如追求熵最小，平衡态等等。原则是一种内在的外推，或者内核系统的表征。那么在遇到两难问题的时候大概是一群人的原则和另一群人的原则进行冲撞，或者与社会的原则冲撞。这样看起来就十分复杂了，所以为了社会的稳定，文明的传播，千百年来人们都在做一件事情：通过教育或者武力尽可能让我们的原则趋同，不能趋同也至少要能够对话。

电影里面说到的正经事：

• 电影里面最精彩的一句话大概是“兄弟，这世界上有一种病治不好——穷病”。

我的理解：

• 贫穷到底是什么？是一种状态，是一种思维模式，是一种属性，还是什么？在如今贫富差距巨大的时代，贫穷真的还有可能被改变吗？
• 我们当下的社会是一个有效的社会吗？ 换句话说，财富不均匀，资源不均匀，巨大耗散，能否通过更加合理的顶层制度设计实现社会的更高效呢。
• everything都有他们自己的属性，
  • 人的属性：
    • 如果您也赞同《自私的基因》里面所说的，人类一切行为都是被我们的基因操纵，那么人的基本属性就是奔着将基因传播下去。由此，人们会意识到，竞争也是一个基本属性，因为社会资源是有限的。物竞天择，适者生存这真的是一种正确的逻辑吗？竞争很大程度上会推演出自私，当然每个人都是有目的的为了保证自己的基因有最大概率传递下去的时候，我想这个社会就不会太好了。换一个思路，你的基因和别人的基因有绝大部分都是同源的类似的，整个人类种族中一定有人持有你的基因片段，那么这么看来是不是就好多了，如果我们放弃竞争的思路转而去关爱他人，去保证人类群体的生存概率最大化，那么很多执念是不是就可以放下了呢。
  • 宇宙的属性（热寂，熵最大）：
    • 当我们还在讨论人与人的相处的时候，宇宙已经在暗自嘲笑了。如果物理学家没有错的话，宇宙说，我的属性和梦想是达到热寂。随着时代的发展，除了人类，如今宇宙有了新的想法。去年10月分左右，MIT的教授 Max Tegmark 出版了一本新书：《Life 3.0》，也许是当今世界讨论AI最深刻的一本书。他说，human being只是生命2.0的一种形式，而AI，我们可以认为是生命3.0. 为什么人工智能的到来或者说未来掌管我们的生活可能是一种必然？ 因为他们更加符合宇宙的属性，他们能更快地帮助宇宙达到热寂。这里也许已经没有人类与AI的共存，合作，竞争了。最后的宿命大概是一同走向灭亡。

小结：

写得非常的散乱，最后简单小结一下：1.我很欣赏这样能留给人们无限讨论思考的电影。2.不管人类未来如何，我们的社会到底如何。想得更多不如做得更多。

Elon Musk’s Ultimate Advice for young, for you

So what, what advice do I have for college graduates?

Certainly, I do want you to apply for a job at solar city or Tesla or SpaceX and if not then, if that doesn’t work for whatever reason then apply to jobs at other companies in that arena or try starting a company. If you study engineering and you figure out how to design new things then it’s relatively easy to start a company.  You just need to get a few like-minded people with you. I have to say that the space business is quite it’s quite hard it’s such a capital intensive business. So it may be better to do something in Solar power or if you’re gonna do it in cars do it in, as kind of a component supplier for cars or something like that.

How did you get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of a rocket ship company?

Well, I do have a physics background, that’s helpful as a foundation and then I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of, a lot of smart people. don’t just follow the trend you may have heard me say that it’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles which is rather than reasoning by analogy you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine and you reason up from there and this is a good way to figure out if something really makes sense or if it’s just what everybody else is doing and it’s hard to think that way, you can’t think- think that way about everything it takes a lot of effort but if you’re trying to do something new it’s the best way to think and that framework was developed by physicists to figure out counterintuitive things like quantum mechanics. So it’s really a powerful powerful method.

And I want to know what is the one thing that has surprised you about your life?

Well, I simply I’m surprised about the whole thing honestly I certainly didn’t expect to be, to be, for any of these things to happen, honestly Yeah, I just you know, I know I wanted to be involved in technology and in fact the only reason I started a company back in 95 an internet company was because I couldn’t get it there were only a few internet companies and I couldn’t get a job at any of them. I tried to get a job at Netscape and I sent my resume and I tried hanging out in the lobby, but I was too shy to talk to anyone and it was like okay, well I guess I’ll have to start a company cause I can’t get a job anywhere. thank you

I wouldn’t say I’m fearless in fact I I think I fear, I feel fear quite strongly but I if the if what we’re doing isn’t if what I’m doing I think is important enough then I just override the fear so, but it’s not as though I don’t fear, I feel fear like more stronger than I would like. I think also people tend to overweight risk on a personal level it’s one thing if you’ve got you know a mortgage to pay and kids to support and that if you were to deviate from your job than well, how are you going to feed your family and pay the rent? Okay, that’s understandable but let’s say you’re young and you’re just coming out of college or coming out of high school or whatever What do you- What do you risk? You know you’re not gonna starve, I mean… It’s really, certainly not in any kind of modern economy It’s so easy to earn enough money just to live somewhere and eat food. I don’t know what other people- what they are afraid of they are mostly afraid of failure I think. People should be less risk-averse when there’s not much at risk.

What is education like?

you’re basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain and it’s it’s actually amazingly bad in conventional education It’s like it shouldn’t be like this huge chore like the more you can gamify the process of learning, the better. I always had sort of a slight existential crisis because I was trying to figure out what does it all mean? like what’s the purpose of things? and I came to the conclusion that if we can advance the the knowledge of the world if we can do things that expand the scope and and scale of consciousness Then we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened and that’s really the only way forward.

What drives you? what is it that when you wake up in the morning do you see a problem and you want to solve it?

The thing that drives me is that I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that so that, you know we’re doing what we can to have the future be, be as good as possible to be inspired by what is likely to happen and to look forward to the next day. So that’s that’s what really really drives me is trying to figure out how do we, how do we make sure that things are great? I’m gonna be so and that’s the unlined principle behind Tesla and SpaceX is that, I think it’s pretty important that we accelerate the transition to sustainable generation and consumption of energy. It’s inevitable, but it’s- it matters if, if it happens sooner or later And then SpaceX is about helping make life multi-planetary and doing what we can to continue the dream of Apollo and ultimately make contribution to life becoming multi-planetary. Let’s talk a little more about that I think everyone is very interested that when you say making life multi-planetary yeah that’s exciting it is exciting So what’s your vision there? You know, I think particularly for Americans you know, like if you think about it America is a nation of explorers. People came here from other parts of the world that you know chose to give up the known in favor of the unknown. So I think exploration like the United States is a distillation of the human spirit of exploration and So that’s why it appeals to Americans so much you know you can see this when there was a shuttle tragedy and seven people died and that’s that’s terrible but, you know a lot of people die all the time but why do we care so much? because it was the dream of exploration that was dying along with those people that’s why.

I mean I thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail at the beginning You thought? Yeah, sure really? of course nevertheless you put all your money in them I expected to lose it, and well technically what I thought was well I’ll take half the money from PayPal and if I lose half of it that’s okay but then of course the companies encounter difficulties and then, I have a choice of either like let the company die or put you know all the money into the companies and so I really don’t want the companies to die so I put all the money in the companies yeah and then I had to borrow money from friends to pay living expenses yes you know just looking just for evidence of exceptional ability and if there’s a track record of exceptional achievement then it’s likely that that will continue into the future. Well, it really depends on the stakes if the stakes are high, if it’s really important then one should, then I, you know overcome the fear and just do it anyway I essentially I mean I just drive overrides fear, but I feel the fear It’s kind of annoying, I wish I didn’t I wish I felt it less.

曾有“盲维”一说，讲的是我们的认知范围内常常出现“致命盲区”，这种盲区往往会让我们陷入认知陷阱。

对于盲维不妨讲一个简单的故事：一个杀手冲进屋内准备刺杀某人完成任务，他环视一周发现屋中空无一人，他确信自己眼睛看到的场景于是转身离开，搜索下一个目标。当他走出门后不久，天花板上传来一阵急促的喘息。

我们总是在以自己的视角去观察这个世界，并不断吸收外界信息证实我们的想法，强化我们的认知。
这不由得让我想起来，这个世界是怎样不断被现代科技所“链接”，同时又不断“割裂”。
说“链接”很容易理解，说“割裂”也很容易理解，当facebook向你定点投放广告时，当google assistant不断记录你“爱好”时，我们每个人，在这个信息时代，被无数隐藏的学习系统贴上了数不清的标签。 而后，我们又将凭着这些标签被“分类”。
未来，我想世界上的人与人之间 也许不再是依靠国籍来划分和界定，希望更不是肤色。而是当我对某个事情wow的时候，你也能wow~ 我们有共同的认知，兴趣，类似的世界观。

那么问题来了，上述的情况有绝对的好坏吗？我们自己如何能够察觉到我们已经陷入了某种思维的陷阱（或者不是陷阱）呢？ 更高维度的认知是什么样子的呢？ 对的你可以提出很多问题，我也有自己的答案。 在日后有机会也许我会再专门谈谈延伸出来的各种问题。

而今天，我想讨论的是，有什么样的方法可以帮助我们更好的看清自己？
一言蔽之，“环境”

山本耀司说过这样一段话：” “自己” 这个东西是看不见的，要撞上一些别的什么反弹回来，才会了解自己。”

所以，跟很强的东西、可怕的东西、很有棱角的东西相碰撞，你才知道自己是什么。蝙蝠：发射一个超声波，反射波回来，蝙蝠就能够知道猎物在哪儿。

从战术层面来看，即是建议不断地接触体验陌生的世界，了解陌生的人。与环境接触的过程你才会更好的“认识你自己”。这个话题展开仿佛有太多了，不如就此打住吧。祝千万个“你”看到了千万个“哈姆雷特”。