这种与利他主义相结合的个人主义，已经成为我们西方文明的根基。它是基督教的核心教义（“爱你的邻人” ，《圣经》 上说，不要“爱你的部落”）；而且它是诞生于我们的文明并促进我们的文明的一切道德学说的核心。

来自『开放社会及其敌人』里面的一段话，我立刻就把它摘抄了下来。在某种意义上这让我得以确认自己一贯行为方式的合理性。“与利他主义相结合的个人主义”，那便是我所要秉承的。

东西有别，我绝对不能声称西方文明就一定是最好的，现在这片土地上流淌的负面能量也许并不是土生土长。

• 柏拉图认为要阻止理想世界的衰败就得尽一切可能阻止一切“变化”，“战争”甚至是“人口灭绝”只要服务于这个目的也是合理的。
• 黑格尔认为进步来自于两个相互对立事物不断增强的冲突，最后合为一体，历史是“曲折前进”的。很多相反的观念也许同时正确。民族、国家、集体高于个体。
• 马克思与阶级斗争。我们的苦难来自于压迫。

上述都不是我喜欢的哲学，也许我没怎么懂，但我能“感觉”出它们的坏。

让人讶异的事情是，尽管我们从来都不屑于从小到大的思想政治教育，但还是有很多潜入了我们的头脑，需要付出很多努力去把它们换掉。

杨威利说：“宁愿要昏庸的民主政治，也不要开明的独裁统治”。社会所谓的“进步”，最重要的不是“效率的提升”，而是赋予了人们“更多的选择”，如同Matrix里Architect对Neo所说，问题关键是“选择”。人类的幸福无法用功利来计算，也许自由意志最终只是我们的幻想，但一切的努力，只为制造出更多的选择。

一篇登在项目组Newsletter上的文章。本来犹豫是不是该发到博客上，不过好久没写英文了，贴在这里纯属做个纪念，还可以添寥寥数笔。写之前有些不情愿，觉得是政治任务，发出来之后得到了一些同事的称赞，挺开心。归根结底，文章里我认为是写进去了一些真实情感，尽管也许只是很少的一部分。

Last week Sam said to me: “You’ve been nominated to write an essay talking about your growth here.” I said: “OK.” Hmm.. Looks like I’m “mature” enough to share my story with the others.

When I first came to CS, I had been assigned to Support Team. Back then, I had totally no idea what a support is. The very first word I learned is responsibility. No matter how sweet the dream is, no matter how cold the winter is, once you get the phone call from Helpdesk, you just give a prompt and calm reply: “Something went broken? Got it. I’ll be online in 5 mins.”

Being a support has taught me to think in customer’s perspective. It is the external customer who eventually uses the system. They don’t care DB, OC4J, EMS at all, they just need the system to be “fast and convenient, good to have more features”. It is such a mind shift for a computer science graduate, to rethink “technology”, – It should be intersected with humanity.

I’ve been lucky enough later to experience the rotations, to several different teams. Some are one release short, while some are quite long, lasting to now.

The most crucial perspective of rotation is, believe it or not, feeling the pain. People tend to think others’ job is easy, but only when you actually work among them, you get to realize everyone’s work is not simple. You start to understand the so-called “process”. Here is the bottleneck, and there’s the threshold, those things just emerge naturally. I would say I look more like a team-player after the rotation. Plus you’ll be much closer with lots of people, which not only make your work smoother, but your personal life happier.

1 or 2 years ago, I may still feel IT means Dev. Now I’m confident to say I quite love operation job. I especially love the feeling of holding a certain goal: deliver the software, then just keep fine-tuning the process, make it faster, safer, more reliable, and more visible. It feels so good to see downtime shrunk release by release. Some time before I may envy the “fashion company” who can use those shinning new technologies. But hey, we’ve successfully switched from ClearCase (aka dinosaur) to Git in one release; We have fully replaced BuildForge by Jenkins and even written our own sophisticated plugin; We uses Redmine(written in Ruby on Rails) to manage our daily tasks, and are already thinking about adopt it as the official channel between us and Hosting. We can be fasion as well.

What is growth? It seems a little bit “official” but here’s the truth: When you come across something bad, what first pops into your mind would be “Oh that’s no good. Let’s fix it anyway”, instead of “Damn it! How could this ever happen? I cannot handle this”.

To be honest, I did want to leave sometimes during the last 4 years. But right now, I’m obviously happy and calm, writing this story that you may or may not read. Someone would say, ha, maybe you’re no longer young! NO, THAT’S NOT THE CASE. I’m still full of curiosity, and ready to challenge myself at any time.

我的大学生活非常的糟糕，除了收获了一位人生伴侣外近乎溃败。工作这几年，读了一些好书，如果说我现在还稍微像是一个向上的人，全拜阅读所赐。我觉得英文和计算机仍然是当前最有用的两项技能，很幸运现在的职业每天都能够加强这两项。昨天看到以前的高中校友余倩同学居然在读”Artificial Intelligence – A Modern Approach” ，颇有些触动。接下来的日子里， 希望英文能上一个台阶。

有时候会有人说我有距离感。虽然这对有的人来说不算负面的评价，但也着实会让我愣那么一会。

但是我觉得自己是真正希望别人好的人。我几乎从来不对谁保有实在的恶意，对他人即使有短暂的厌恶，也总是很快烟消云散。我自认为发现美的能力还不错，人格上的美也算其中之一。

实际上，我对人与人之间的关系感觉敏锐，能察觉出细小的情绪变化，能感受出微妙的不妥情境。但我确确实实不爱一对一的交谈，尤其是当面。我几乎很少能容忍自己开始自认为无聊的对话。当我认为对方有些不感兴趣时，就会知趣的终止。

我喜欢各种知识，也经常跟别人复述。但我会不时提醒自己不要显得很卖弄（可能有时候会得意忘形）。我倾向于向他人提供切实有用或者至少有趣的信息，而不是仅仅满足自己的表达欲。我的表达欲不算太强，以我自己的量度来说。

无论如何，我仍然希望自己能够与更多人自如的交流。不过总体来说，目前我在这方面没有什么困扰。