It is said that when scientists gave one monkey a grape in exchange for its pebble, and gave the second monkey a slice of cucumber for its pebble, it caused a little row. For monkeys, grapes taste better than cucumber slices. The second monkey, when observing the better deal the first monkey received, rebelled immediately and threw the cucumber slice at the researcher.
Somehow one is enticed to imagine that the scientists involved in this research haven’t revealed the second part of their research: their failed attempts to indoctrinate the second monkey. They tried everything. They tried to teach the second monkey to develop certain value system so that it could accept its cucumber slices without protests. For example, they tried to convince the second monkey that the first monkey has a different color of monkey hair, longer limbs, higher pitched howling voices, purer pedigree, better temper, and variety of other qualities, all of which should be considered more worthy of grapes. However the second monkey was impervious to any form of training and was adamantly insisting on his original view of equality.
There were two researchers working on the project, one writing in the lab report: stupid monkey, and the second writing in the report: clever monkey. I wonder what they should write as their conclusion for this joint project.
I wrote this one several years ago–how time flies–for a website that I haven’t used much. Now I am thinking of moving all the content here and modifying them to show my improvement during the intervening years. But alas, I have no improvement. I am just the same old me. I am not growing older and wiser. I am just growing old. How sad. This is sad because I actually read some books and supposedly become clever, but that’s not the case. I guess it’s because I only read for fun and never read for usefulness. That’s the problem, isn’t it? One has to suffer in order to grow, which is what my education has instilled in me. Although I have misgivings about any theory concerning the necessity of suffering, I abide by it and consider it as a commonly accepted rule.
Haoyan Do 