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Is it still a Mountain?
It is said that there’re three levels of life. The first: when you see a mountain, you know it is a mountain. The second: when you see a mountain, you feel it is not a mountain. The third: when you see a mountain, you recognize it is still a mountain.
At first sight, I was puzzled. How is it possible that a mountain should not be a mountain when you see it? However, when I read it several times, I came to realize that it is the three stages of one’s cognitive development. We all experience such a process of understanding the world.
In the beginning, we learned that this is a dog or that is a mountain. However, as we grow older, we gradually get to find out that things are all different. And more importantly, everything is changing. You’re not the you several minutes ago. As Heraclitus put it, you’ll never step into the same river. You may doubt to such a degree that you no longer believe that the mountain is a mountain. As time goes by, you’ll probably discover that a mountain is still a mountain despite the differences or changes.
It is a wonderful example of how our cognition develops in an upward spiral. At first we tend to pay more attention to the superficial characteristics of things. When we come to know more and gain a better understanding, we may go to the opposite extremes. Some people never realize that things can be looked at from different perspectives. In many cases, there’s no such clear answer as yes or no to a certain matter. And many things just can’t be simply judged as good or bad. Similarly you can make things better or satisfactory, but you’ll never reach the state of being perfect. When we say everything is changing, we don’t mean that this world is not controllable at all. Everything has its own way.
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Post comment Comment (15 replies)
- Reply Soar
- When my mind is not changed by anything ,the mountain is still the mountain ,white is white ,black is black.
- Reply rich
- I'm not a philosopher. and I just set down some random thoughts. so very likely what i said could be wrong. there can be professional views, which i would welcome very much.
- Reply rich
- Soar: When my mind is not changed by anything ,the mountain is still the mountain ,white is white ,black is black.i was told that it is one of the famous sayings in Zen or Chan(禅). they seem a little mysterious and obscure, but actually contain lots of insight and wisdom.
- Reply ac2smart
- yeah, everyhting's changing and we are growing,for the mere advance of tme is a change
- Reply Soar
- rich: i was told that it is one of the famous sayings in Zen or Chan(禅). they seem a little mysterious and obscure, but actually contain lots of insight anSuch kind of saying is beyond of my understanding.
- Reply rich
- ac2smart: yeah, everyhting's changing and we are growing,for the mere advance of tme is a changeexactly. you said it. the only thing that is not changing is change itself.
- Reply XueHaiWuYa
- hehe, rich, I need to sleep on this topic.
- Reply Richardren
- Our life is full of up and downs, up and downs, but every repetition is not the same as the previous one, it is an upward spiral during our cognitive development. Just like the stage three level of life as you mentioned, the mountain still is a mountain but it is different from the one you saw at the first sight. It occurred to me that one phenomenon may have similar effect as this one. A person who is learning writing at beginning using simple word to describe simple ideas, then up to second level, using complicated words to describe simple ideas, then level three, using simple words to describe complicated ideas. I guess there must be some relevance between these two.
- Reply 逍遥飞吧
- very sorry ! because of my major and lack of life experience , l cant understand the idiom . the idiom is wrong judging from logic .
- Reply rich
- 逍遥飞吧: very sorry ! because of my major and lack of life experience , l cant understand the idiom . the idiom is wrong judging from logic .hehe, it's not logic in common sense as i see it. it is a saying that is used to interpret the cognitive development.
- Reply rich
- Richardren: Our life is full of up and downs, up and downs, but every repetition is not the same as the previous one, it is an upward spiral during our cognitiveexactly, i like your example. at the very beginning, we have much difficulty expressing ourselves. even nothing to write about sometmes. so we have to use simple words and can only write just a little. then we feel we're able to describe things and tend to use big words. the writings become longer, even too long. then one day suddenly it hits us that the highest level of writing is not determined by the difficult or flowery vocabulary. the best is use the simplest. as you said using the most simple words to describe the most complicated situations. with that said, i feel i have a long way to go. the more you know, the more humble you will become, knowing the exploring process is just endless.
- Reply rich
- XueHaiWuYa: hehe, rich, I need to sleep on this topic.i guess you know what i mean. hehe. actually i don't know much about this. i wrote it for fun. have a great day!
- Reply celina99
- Richardren: Our life is full of up and downs, up and downs, but every repetition is not the same as the previous one, it is an upward spiral during our cognitivewow, i'm quite amazed by your analogy. the ability to fully express oneself in simple words is such an attractive thing. as you said in your recent blog on perfectionism"write as much as I can before writing something more beautiful and more meaningful." i feel a long long way to go yet.
- Reply celina99
- we are different in a sense that atoms composed us have changed， but you never fail to identify the people around you, for we are still us since there're so much still there to make us us. quite a philosophic question, i'd better stop here. hehe
- Reply rich
- celina99: we are different in a sense that atoms composed us have changed， but you never fail to identify the people around you, for we are still us since thereyes we're all different but basically we're the same, being all humans. our understanding of the world is still developing. one's cognitiv power is infinite.
