经过深思熟虑，我决定用“意志的胜利”来命名贝多芬的不朽的第九交响曲。无论是富特文革勒的不屈，尊严，和愤怒；还是卡拉扬的张扬，华丽，和霸气；还是伯恩斯坦的睿智，沉稳和尊贵，都是对意志的美和永恒的歌颂和对胜利与热情的赞美。

没有目的，
没有方向，
飘荡，飘荡，
来路扑朔，
去路迷茫，
彷徨，彷徨。

休息休息，放松放松，消遣消遣，忽悠忽悠。

明治元老出身武士，洋务重臣出身地主。

    Such is the nature of the pathetic human faculty of perception that whenever we speak of obstruction, we fancy a gigantic stone sitting in the middle of a narrow trail, or, if we went a bit further, a crossroad barricade set by the tyrannical police; whenever we come across the phrase “others”, we have in our mind images of unacquainted strangers first, then perhaps, as an extension, of our close kinfolks; and whenever we think of the concept of “not free”, our minds suggest that stinky prison cells or chuckling chains and fetters would serve as perfect visual rendition of it.
    Is a man really free when nothing seems to be blocking him, nobody identifiable is chaining him, and nowhere encircled is confining him, at least when he should so perceive? Common senses seem to approve it. However, I have doubts. Myriads of sparks in my senses go beyond these interpretations based upon mediocrity, of which I regret only a small portion am I able to bring forth below.
    Vision based upon visibility is essential to human perception, yet many a time a materialist rendition is not sufficient or of primary importance in some cases. Forces from the internal mind can be sometimes much more momentous than from the external universe, and serve as good invisible barricades. Fear intimidates people from confession, distrust from cooperation, shyness terminates great expectations of some careers, and rage bars senses and sensibilities. We can easily expand this list ad infinitum if necessary. As we can see, these forces, if we go for the plain explanation of the multitude, are not easily considered blockades. People don’t know they are obstructed because they can’t perceive the obstacles. However, if we go further to see where these mental boulders come from, we can easily find out that they come from others who impose such feelings on them. Fear from cruelty, distrust from wickedness, shyness from jeering, and rage from disrespect, so on and so forth. When we come to the internal forces that blocks us from something desirable, we call them internal obstructions, as Taylor put it, though they can also keeps us away from the undesirables. And we also admit that such obstructions are installed by opinions. Classical liberalist argue that persuasion and opinions are more justifiable than chains and fetters.             However, isn’t persuasion also a kind of reign rope and opinions whips? Likewise, chains and fetters can also be metaphorical rather than real.
    We can dodge visible chains if well trained in gymnastics; invisible ones, external or internal, however, cannot easily dodged unless one is well trained in will. Sometimes, however, chains come along with whips. They enter into us and bring about inflictions whenever we believe that we have sinned. We call them a superego, i.e. an avatar of public inspector, accuser and avenger planted deep in our souls. What is a superego? It is opinions of society branded on our minds, and internalized as part of our personalities. We can perceive it as an avenger, but also a guardian, since punishment is a way of prevention. Then we can see that such a guardian stands with virtues against sins in our minds. However, if we think again over what virtues and sins are, we can find out that they can both be called freedom, the former positive, and the latter negative, by Berlin’s terminology. Therefore, as we see, we can be our own informers and cops, witnesses and jurors, judges and avengers, and of course, wardens, finding our hide, arresting us, testifying against us, convicting us, sentencing us, imprison and inflicting us, and coldly watching us locked, without bothering others, as “prisoners of our own device”. 
    O, prison, what a terrible institution for the multitude, yet sometimes endearing to some wanderers? Imagine that an entire settlement is built on oasis and surrounding it, wilderness. Inside and outside, which would rather you call a prison? We sometimes do need to curtail and deprive part of our desires for freedom, voluntarily, for the desire for companion, even if they should be persecuting us, or for self-chastise. Locked in a prison, we can at least find company of accusers and avengers, (for some reason I omit fellow inmates) and through suffering inflictions come to the illusion that each whip on the soul carries away a bit of sin. But if, abandoned into wilderness and imprisoned outside of humanity, what do we have? Vox Clamantis in Deserto?  Most people won’t become John the Baptist since they are not voluntary exiles. If we hold that none-interfering is freedom, then to hell with such kind of freedom, since they are banishment in disguise. Social Alienation, excommunication, or else, does not bang the door at your face, but simply keeps it, as it were, closed.  No barricades, no chains, no prisons, yet it brings about not freedom, but “unbearable lightness of being”  in the wilderness of humanity.
    At last, we find out, sadly, that although we tried to disapprove a common view, we ended up acknowledging many conclusions of that view in our process of sabotaging the old reasoning system, a futile journey ad absurdum. Is a person free to the extent that no one interferes with his affairs? I don’t know. What I do know is that many people might not be able to realize that they are blocked from freedom, to know that such barricades are internal, and linked with external net of society, or to perceive themselves as self-sufficient accusers and avengers over themselves without others’ interference, or to be alerted that none-interfering has the peril to lead to something look like freedom but turn out to be the opposite. Truth is always uneasy; still, we can maintain that so long as the interferences came in a human and humane way, so that enlightened people would perceive them as vehicles towards higher levels of freedom, Freedom is not dead.

You can feel isolated amongst a great horde of people, you can feel hot in winter, chilly in summer. No much difference unless you mind tells you that there is some.

You can write great pieces in the library, in your dorm, in the basement of a crowded noisy fraternity house, in a haunted graveyard, in a horny brothel filled with fast men and loose whores, or,  in your dream.

Write in no where, write in anywhere.

Why minding those glittering, shining, dazzling combinations of letters, which is a meaningless craft derived from the very essence of human vanity?
Why imitating those so called illustrious gurus of letter, who are but no more crafty than children playing with pits of dominoes?
The are not great because of their skill of manipulating words, no, my friend.
Concision is virtue, form is virtue, peculiarity is virtue, simplicity is virtue, accuracy is virtue, variation is virtue, repetitions is virtue, yet are they not all contrary to each other?
Language is evolving, yet not out of correctness, but errors. Language is, as it were itself a baby of myriads of incestuous intercourses of errors.
Let those scholar spend all their life on my weird erroneous language, that's what exactly the scholars do for a living.
Yes, your excellency, your majesty, your grace, your honor, your what-fucking-ever virtue, that's it.
 If, however, you insist, hire an editor for me, at your expense of course.

Why reason? Reason is absurd. There is madness in reason, yet in madness is there reason.
Disagree as if agree, agree as if disagree.
When one is wise enough, he will not seek more wise, because when he seeks more wise, his is not wise enough.
Reasons can only explain a probable solution, yet, your highness, the fucking probability cannot be reasoned.

Why quote those illustrious philosophers? Are they wiser? Do they have more reason? Behold, a drunkard or a madman can utter words of wisdom in multitudes! Of course we admire philosophers, because they can utter drunk phrases when they are sober.
Why quote those illustrious philosophers? Are they the first? No, millions of primitive men, even though they know not letters or languages, expressed same ideas, only they are unknown to us?
Why quote those illustrious philosophers? Are they the original? No, though their mouth, millions of dead predecessors speak.
Don't quote, let others quote you!

阿黛曾经写道：
“你是个一个绅士，虽然常常不修边幅，你总显得孤独寂寞，却难掩饰你内心的桀骜不羁和花心难驯。”
我的记忆已经不能寻回当时的文字，因为那些文字的存在是如此短暂，短暂得在我反应过来之前，已无迹可训。我只能从回忆中，尽可能得重现当时的意境。
两年前那个心血来潮的电话之后，你在你的博客上留下了这段话。在你意识到我发现了你得博客后，又悄悄地把它抹去。
记忆却抹不去，曾经的半个月亮。

草庐已立小亭台，志蕴双恃将相才，先主不能三顾问，卧龙安肯下山来。
潜迹隐名，待时坚守，意从心生，必能久候。
三年了，时至否？

We have plenty of explanations of the world. Yet, each of them is possible. We can surely do statistics, but we cannot get it straight for any single case.

无谓地漫步在街头，闲瞅风流云散，人来客往。相像的着装，相似的神色，相近的脚步，也许还有，相同的梦？

人总是有着无尽的欲望，似乎他们就是为欲望而生，抑或是他们本身就是欲望的化身。欲望是生命的动力，生命的源泉，却又是如此的狂野不羁和桀骜难训。于是人们便在欲望的驱使之下，开始无谓得奔跑。

人总喜欢自命清高，却又无比害怕孤独和冷落。人需要别人的关注，肯定，追捧，崇拜，谄媚，哪怕是嫉妒。人们为了能让更多的人看见自己，仰视自己，顶礼膜拜自己，选择向高处攀登。于是，整个世界就成了一道道巨大的台阶，而世间众生，便成了参与这个攀登的游戏者；他们的一切奋斗，努力，牺牲，换来的，便是一个个更高和更高的位置。

台阶两边有着一个个路牌，上面标柱着一个个头衔，荣耀，路标旁边放着一堆堆玩具，有图章，有刀剑，有金银，有珠宝，有Rolls & Roys，有长岛豪宅，甚至还有凡尔赛宫，宫中依稀可以看见一些俊男靓女。

无尽的台阶，望不到尽头，也没有人相信这台阶有尽头。环环相接，即使一段台阶可以走完，也总有下一段。也没有什么人在意这个尽头问题，他们只是默默地专注地赶路，攀登。有些人似乎更在乎绝对的高度，有些人貌似着意于乎领头的位置。棱角分明的们总是渴求第一，棱角模糊的却不会，因为他们很清楚，那样的代价太大。他们更愿意仅仅满足于超越眼前的那个人，夸上另外一个台阶，然后得意地听者身后传来的抱怨或哀叹。或是奋力站上眼前的最近的一个平台，然后回头接受底下的仰视。

有些人是如此留恋于那个给他们带来欢呼的第一个平台，他们选择尽可能久的驻足，因为他们不知道，自己是否能够到达下一个平台的，也许他们不会，但他们仍然选择继续赶路。

攀登，攀登，匆匆的脚步，茫然的眼神，心，却始终停留在同一个高度。

Smart men are all alike, each stupid man is stupid in his own fashion. Women, however, are incomprehensible.

A man's past forms his identity, A man's present is his evaluation of the past, his judgment made at the very moment, and his anticipation of the future. A man's future is most complicated, for it is both the consequences of his present judgment, but also the fornication of fate, between which he shall be unable to distinguish.

七中新校区南面的土坡，Dartmouth东面的山，青藏公路，清华校区，Boston地铁跨河段，Boston地铁Harvard站转弯，抱犊寨索道

It is a disturbing and pathetic tendency that people who are familiar with various conpeting moral philosopies at last resort to nihilism. Nihilism itself is not horrible, as darkness and emptiness can serve as havens to restless minds instead of as something abhorable. What matters, it seems, is how to cope with nihilism, so that people can live a life without the benevolence of some endeering light and warmth that other sets of moral philosophies deem indispensible and without which the only consequence is suffering and doubt. May the wanderers be blessed.

无边的荒原，埋葬着文明的尘埃，粗犷的落日，诉说着失落的岁月。

天地苍茫之间，一只雄鹰孤傲地飞翔。

自由飞翔的勇气，纵览天下的高傲，你可曾想过，多少地面上不能飞的万物无时不刻得在嫉妒你？是的，他们总是害怕有翅膀的灵魂。但是你不在乎，他们的嫉妒成为了你的荣耀。

然而，在那漫无边际的天空中驻留是多么的孤独？飞的越高，看见的越远。但是那世间的千罗万象，人间的悲欢离合，却离你远去，远去，遥远得化作了遗忘的尘埃。

哦，自由的代价。

你可以驻留在空中多久？一时？一世？总有一刻，你会飞不动，或者不愿再飞，要落下，回到这片荒原上，永远不再飞翔，直到归于于遗忘。

到那时，你会为付出的代价后悔么？

如果你后悔了，或者累了，或者怕了，想要离开荒原，回到红尘之中。那么，请你接受平庸，学会收起翅膀，学会行走于万物之中，接受他们平视的目光。

孤独是一种特权，却无法保证荣耀。孤独是一种代价，却不保证回报。想要飞么？请你先拥抱着荒野中的孤独和寂寥。

真正勇敢的人，不会惧怕孤单，不会在意误解，讥讽，甚至是迫害。
真正勇敢的人，会走进荒原，化身为鹰，享受那短暂的飞翔的荣耀。

荒原，不在远离人世的地方，而就在人心中，仅仅隔着一层红尘的帷幕而已。

Vox Clamantis in Deserto, Parate Viam Fati, Rectas facite Seminas Veritatis.

总有一天，荒野之上将会开满鲜花。


注：为4C写的一章书稿的第八节。清心居士监守自盗，盗版文稿先贴出来。