Looking at the insignificance of man from the perspective of time and space

King David lamented to God in Psalm 8: I look at the heavens that your fingers have made, and the moon that you have set out. The stars then said: What is a man that you care about him? Who is this worldly man that you care for him? Indeed, human beings are too small in the entire universe. If you have the opportunity to fly, when you look down from an altitude of 30,000 to 40,000 feet, the fields and houses below look like toys. At night, when we look up at the sky, we can see countless stars, many of which are stars. They are many times larger than the earth. The distance between planets is often calculated in light years [that is, the distance traveled by light in one year. According to one second, light can travel 299,800 kilometers. The distance traveled in one year is multiplied by 86. 400 (the number of seconds in a day) multiplied by 365], so compared with the entire universe, the space occupied by humans is really too small.

From a time point of view, life is also very short. Moses said in Psalm 90:10: “The days of our life are seventy years, and if we are strong we may reach eighty years, but the boasting in it is It’s just labor and worry, and it flies away in the blink of an eye.” The life span of ordinary people is only seventy or eighty years at most. Although some “human beings” can live to be more than a hundred years old, they are still very few. Few examples. Even if a person can live to be more than a hundred years old, what is it compared to the universe that has a history of hundreds of millions of years? It’s just a drop in the ocean. The history of the universe is also very short before the eternal God. Moses said in the same psalm: "Before the mountains were born, before you formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you were God" (Psalm 90:2), He also said: “To you, a thousand years are like yesterday that has passed, and like one watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). Indeed, when humans look at nature, they feel the longevity of nature and the relative shortness of human life. Facing the turbulent river, Confucius sighed and said: "The dead are like this, and they don't give up day and night." In ancient times, poets looked at the majestic Yangtze River and wrote a famous line: "The great river goes eastward and the waves are swept away, and the romantic figures of the ages are found." Now Zhou Yu, Cao Cao, and Kong Ming have all passed away, and the following dynasties of Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing have also disappeared, but the same Yangtze River is still flowing there. Therefore, from the perspective of time, life is really like the dew in the morning, which evaporates as soon as the sun rises.

What is life

What is the content of life? Moses said that a person can live up to seventy or eighty years, but what is there to boast about during these seventy or eighty years? It is nothing but "hard work, pain, sorrow, and troubles." However, everything that a person has earned through hard work in his life is "empty in the blink of an eye" and "flying away" when he dies. What a true portrayal of life! A person begins his journey of hard work as soon as he is born. Although there was no need to work as a child, studying was quite hard. After growing up, marrying a wife and having children, they begin to work hard for themselves and their families. Although the so-called "white-collar class" does not have to work hard, they do have to work hard. In addition, they have to experience various pains in life. "Birth, old age, illness and death" are inevitable. In addition to physical pain, there is also mental torture. The three major misfortunes in life, such as the loss of parents in youth, the loss of a spouse in middle age, and the loss of a child in old age, are all common occurrences. In addition, due to the limited energy and physical strength of human beings, subject to various restrictions in the environment, people often feel that they are "out of power" or "incompetent". People will encounter various problems or difficulties when they are born. Due to the above Due to various restrictions, coupled with limited human wisdom and knowledge, we often don’t know how to solve these problems or how to overcome these difficulties, so sorrow arises. And troubles are commonplace. As the saying goes: "Every family has its own scriptures that are difficult to recite." This means that everyone has troubles. The ancients said: "Nine out of ten things in life are unsatisfactory." It can be seen that in the world It's impossible to find someone without worries.

Human beings are created in the image of God

The above view of life from the scientific and philosophical perspectives can be summed up in three words: short, small, and bitter. Human life is very short, only seventy or eighty years; human beings occupy a very small position in the universe, really like a grain of sand in the Pacific Ocean; the content of life is very bitter, and it is full of labor and sorrow. In the end, it just ended up being "empty in the blink of an eye." However, the purpose of Psalm 8 is not to say that people are unimportant in the eyes of God, and Psalm 90 is not to prove that life is meaningless. The theme of Psalm 8 is: "Man is so insignificant, yet God cares about us and even sent his only begotten Son to die for us so that we can return to his arms." If you delve deeper into the reason, you can find that among all creation , only man was created by God in His own image and according to His own likeness (Genesis 1:26).

So God has hope in man. What are God’s “image” and God’s “likeness”? There are several different explanations for this. Among the theologians of the early church, some believed that "image" refers to the shape and appearance of God, while "likeness" refers to God's spiritual and moral characteristics. According to Augustine, image refers to the knowledge of truth, and style refers to the taste for morality. These explanations all believe that "image" and "style" are separate and refer to two different things. Universal theologians agree that the "image" and "likeness" mentioned in Genesis 1:26 do not refer to two different things, but are two synonyms, referring to the same thing. In other words, Genesis 1:26 simply explains that when man was created, he was created in the image of God.

So, what does God look like? In other words, in what way do humans resemble God? This problem can be divided into two aspects: narrow sense and broad sense.

In a narrow sense, God’s image and likeness refer to His truth, righteousness, and holiness. When man was created, God also endowed him with the knowledge of truth, the character of righteousness, and unblemished holiness. However, these qualities were lost one by one after humans sinned. They cannot be restored until people repent and believe in the Lord, are reborn and are saved, put off the old man and put on the new man. In a broad sense, the image and likeness of God refers to his spirituality, reason, freedom and dominion. God is a spirit, and man is the only one among all things that has spirituality, so he can communicate with God. This is exactly what the saying goes: "Man is the spirit of all things." God is rational, and similarly, humans are also rational and have the ability to think, analyze, and summarize. God is free, and so are humans, who can freely choose to obey or disobey God. Finally, God has the authority to rule. In the same way, God also gives man the responsibility to rule, telling him to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock of the earth, and over all the earth” (Genesis 1:26). These characteristics in a broad sense, It was not lost by Adam's sin. Therefore, after the fall, we still carry the image of God with us.

What parts does a human being consist of?

What is a human being composed of? Scientists use chemical methods to analyze the various elements contained in the human body, such as oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, calcium, etc. It is said that if these elements are added together, they can only be sold for more than thirty dollars at the current market price. Can we use this method to calculate the value of people? Of course not. Scientists cannot mix these elements in a certain proportion to create a person or any other living thing. It can be seen that only objects or bodies cannot constitute life, because in addition to these material elements, humans also have a spiritual dimension, and this spiritual component is the truly precious part of human beings.

There are two main Christian views on the composition of man. One is dualism and the other is ternaryism.

According to dualism, human beings are composed of both material and spiritual aspects. This argument seems to be more biblically based. First, let’s look at how man was created. From Genesis 2:7: “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul, and his name was Adam.” This. The verse mentions that when God created man, he only used two materials: "the dust of the ground" and "the breath of life." The dust on the ground is of course matter, and the breath of life refers to the soul. In Hebrew, "spirit" and "breath" have the same root. Jesus also used wind to represent the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is life, so Jehovah God blew His breath into the man's nostrils. There, he became a living person with spirit. There are many passages in the Bible that mention that humans are composed of body and soul. After man sinned, God pronounced the sentence in Genesis 3:19: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This refers to the human body. Ecclesiastes 12:7: "The dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." The Lord Jesus taught his disciples: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Matthew 10:28). The body refers to the material part, including human limbs, facial features, and various structures. The soul refers to spirit and life, including human thoughts, emotions, and will. The relationship between the two is very close, so the argument of dualism has more biblical basis.

The other school believes that human beings are composed of three parts, namely body, soul and spirit. They have two biblical bases, 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12. They believe that the spirit is the place of "divine awareness", the soul is the place of "consciousness", and the body is the place of "material awareness". The body is the material part of human beings. , the soul is the conscious life of human beings, including thoughts, emotions, and will, while the spirit is human spirituality and is immortal. Through the human spirit, man can communicate with the Spirit of God, and man’s feeling and knowledge of God also come through the spirit. When a person dies, his body will decay and the life of his soul will cease, but his spirit will continue to exist. If the various abilities of the spirit and soul are normal and the same as when they were created, then the person's body will Can live forever. If God's "uncreated life" enters the human spirit, this life will penetrate into every part of the soul. As a result, the person inside will be changed, and the soil of the body will also be changed, eliminating the effects of death and corruption. possibility.

Three ways of saying about the origin of the soul

Jesus said in John 6:63: “It is the spirit that makes people live, and the flesh profiteth nothing.” So, where does the human soul come from? Woolen cloth?

People don’t know much about the soul, because the soul cannot be seen, touched, or scientifically proven. But from God’s revelation, we can know that only God is self-eternal. Apart from Him, everything was created by God. Of course, the soul was also created by God. As for how God created the soul, or how did the soul in each of us come from? There are three different theories as follows:

1. Pre-existence theory This theory holds that the soul already exists before the body is formed. In other words, God created many souls a long time ago, even before Adam and Eve were created. From then on, every time a person was born, God took a soul and put it into the body. This argument began with some ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. Some of the early church fathers also advocated this doctrine. Few people in the church today can accept this view.

2. The Theory of Reproduction This theory holds that only the earliest soul was created by God, and that everyone’s soul in the future comes from his parents, just like the body comes from his parents. In other words, the entire human being, including soul and body, is the result of natural reproduction. Therefore, not only are some physical characteristics inherited from our parents, such as skin color, appearance, and even some diseases, but the characteristics of our soul are also affected by heredity. For example, a person's personality, temper, ambition, etc. are somewhat similar to his parents. The advantage of this statement is that it is easier to explain that human sinfulness was inherited from Adam. However, it has a loophole. Christ's humanity cannot escape the contamination of sin. In addition, it is ignored that the soul is not material and cannot be divided. It is impossible for parents to give a part of their soul to their children.

3. Creation Theory Whenever a person is born, God creates a soul individually and unites it with the body to become a new life. This statement seems to be consistent with the records in the Bible. According to the records in Genesis, when God created Adam, he made his body from the dust on the ground, and then breathed "life" into his nostrils to serve as his soul. , it can be seen that the body and soul have different origins: the body comes from the parents, but the soul comes from God and is given by God. Therefore, the author of Ecclesiastes said: "The dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Zechariah said about God's inspiration: "Spread out the heavens, build the foundations of the earth, and create man." “Furthermore, if we have a physical Father who disciplines us, and we respect Him, how much more should we obey the Father of spirits and live,” says the Lord of the Spirit within…” (Zech. 12:1). ?” (Hebrews 12:9). Here, the biological father refers to our parents, and the father of all spirits refers to God, which means that our bodies are born from our parents, and our souls are given by God. Therefore, it is obvious that the testimony of the Bible is biased towards creationism.

The situation at the beginning of the creation of mankind

What was the situation of Adam and Eve, the ancestors of mankind, at the beginning of their creation? That is, what was the period from the time Adam and Eve were created to before they sinned? To sum up, there are three possibilities:

1. Human beings were mature and perfect when they were created. Adam and Eve were not created as babies and then gradually grew into adults. They did not go through a developmental process. , the process of growth not only refers to their bodies, but also their minds. Perfection refers to the creation of the first ancestor without any defects, disease, aging, or death. These two points apply not only to humans, but also to everything created by God, because everything created by God is perfect and beautiful. The common notion that primitive humans were ignorant and no different from animals actually has no basis in the Bible.

2. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, so when he was first created, he possessed knowledge of the truth, righteousness and holiness. This can be seen from the names Adam gave to all living creatures. The wealth of his knowledge. The Bible says: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. What the man called each living creature was that’s its name.” ( Genesis 2:19). Righteousness means that there is a perfect and harmonious order of master and slave in all parts of the human being. For example, his body obeys his soul, his emotions obey his will, his will obeys his reason, and his reason obeys God. Holiness is the moral perfection of human beings, without any stain of sin, so that there is no obstacle to communication between man and God.

3. Man became the ruler of the world as soon as he was created. In fact, before man was created, God had already decided to give him “ruler over the fish in the sea, over the birds in the air, over the livestock on the earth, and all the earth” (Genesis 1:28). It can be seen that God created man to rule the world and “put all things under his feet” (Hebrews 2:8).

God’s test of man

God created man for a lofty purpose, and the life He designed for man is also extremely beautiful. It is not just that they spend seventy or eighty years of labor, suffering, sorrow, and trouble in this world, and then fly away, and everything becomes empty in the blink of an eye. He was to become their Heavenly Father and share in His immortality and glory. Although these attributes were included in man at the beginning of his creation, God required man to undergo testing to prove man's obedience to Him and thereby confirm and confirm these attributes. Just like a car is manufactured, it must go through a test drive process before leaving the factory. After passing the test and being stamped and released by the inspector, it can be sold out of the factory. Therefore, after God created Adam and Eve, he also required them to go through a testing stage, which is called the "covenant of works" in theology.

Although there is no obvious covenant format found in the records of Genesis, like what God would later use when making covenants with Noah, Moses, and Abraham, the content and essentials of the covenant are all present. Therefore, it is certain that God’s testing of Adam and Eve constituted the fact of the covenant. Next we talk about the covenant between God and man.

First, the parties to the covenant. The parties to the covenant usually include Party A and Party B. In this matter, the two parties making the covenant were God and Adam. Since all human beings are descendants of Adam, it can also be said that Adam made a covenant with God on behalf of the entire human race.

Second, the covenant must be accompanied by conditions. On this occasion, God’s condition was obedience—absolute obedience. God said to Adam: “You may freely eat of any tree in the garden. But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17).

The form of this covenant is like a strict command, and the condition is that God must be obeyed. This obedience must be proved by his actions. If God does not allow it to be eaten, Adam will not eat it.

Third, the covenant must have a promise, that is to say, when the other party meets the required conditions, he or she will be rewarded. In this covenant, there seems to be no promise, but from the opposite side of punishment, we can see the promise of eternal life, because God said: "In the day you eat of it, you will surely die." In other words, if he does not eat, he will not To die and not to die is to live forever.

Fourth, the agreement must have penalties, which means that if the other party fails to fulfill the conditions, he will be punished. Remember this very clearly: "In the day you eat from it you will surely die." If Adam breaks the law, he will be punished by death. Death does not only mean the death of the body, but also the eternal separation of the soul from God.

When man was created, according to the covenant of works, man was also obliged to carry out God’s will, manifest God’s image through his actions, and fulfill his responsibilities before God. However, because man failed to pass God’s testing has affected all of this.

What is a person?

Einstein once made the following confession in his later years:

It is difficult for a person to know what is in his own life. It is meaningful, and of course it should not be used to disturb others. What does a fish know about the water it swims in all its life?

However, Einstein gave a clearer answer from one side:

Bitter and sweet Strength comes from the outside world, while strength comes from the heart, from a person's self-efforts.

For more than 20 years, this answer that teaches people to strive for self-improvement has always been like a lighthouse standing on the foggy sea at night, looming, sometimes bright and sometimes dark, illuminating my life journey.

In many other places, Einstein used very clear language and conclusions to answer the eternal question "What is a human being?":

We eat the food grown by others. , wear clothes made by others, live in houses built by others. Much of our knowledge and beliefs have been taught to us by others, through languages ??created by others. …The individual is what he is, and his existence has meaning, not so much by his own individual strength as by his being a member of the great human society which governs him from birth to death. with his material life and spiritual life.

I think that Einstein’s simple insights on “what is a human being” can be readily accepted by us.

Different people have completely different answers to the question "What is a person?" Even the same person will have different answers at different times. For example, the answers given by Hugo, the great French writer in the 19th century, were sometimes very melancholy and bleak. Hugo said, we are all sinners; we are all sentenced to death, but we all have an irregular probation period; we only have a short period, and then the place where we stay will no longer have us.

Later, Hugo’s answer full of pessimism intentionally or unintentionally became one of the forerunners of the French existential trend of thought in the 1940s, because Camus also regarded people as ancient Greeks. In the myth, Sisyphus, who spent his life in hard labor, was destined to push a boulder up a mountain forever. When the boulder approached the top of the mountain, it rolled down again, and then he pushed it again, and so on.

However, when Goethe talked about Sisyphus, he almost had a different tone. Because the poet's life was indeed a life full of great creativity and made great contributions to human culture. On January 27, 1824, when the dying Goethe was talking to Eckermann, he reviewed his life:

People usually regard me as the luckiest person, and I have nothing. What I can complain about is that I am not picky about the journey I have experienced in this life. My whole life has been basically just hard work. I can say that in my seventy-five years, I have never lived a truly comfortable life for a single month. It's like pushing a stone up a mountain. The stone keeps rolling down and being pushed up again. My chronology will be a clear illustration of these words.

——Reader, this is human being!

Answering the question “What is human being?” is also very important in Kant’s philosophical system. In his later years, he even asserted that the entire philosophical enterprise can be reduced to the answer to this question. At the age of 75, Kant gave the following answer not with words but with his lifelong creative mental work and his hard work in the spiritual field of philosophy: Man relies on his amazing ability—imagination— —creatures that create culture. "Achieving (absolute) satisfaction in life - this in itself is a symptom of an idle tranquility in which all motives have ceased and the sensations and the activities associated with them are dulled. But such a The state is like the heart stopping working in an animal body, which is incompatible with human spiritual life. "In Kant's view, people are constantly engaged in creative work; work is the best way to make people happy.

Not long before Einstein passed away, he said to a friend: "As long as one day you get a reasonable thing to do, your work and life will be a little strange from now on."

Indeed, the reason why Einstein was so energetic and prosperous in his life was because he always did reasonable things.

For him, the difference between life and death is only whether he is studying physical problems, whether he is thinking about the unified structure of nature, and whether he is constantly approaching "him", that is, approaching Spinoza's God-nature.

Goethe, Kant and Einstein worked hard all their lives like Sisyphus, which naturally reminded me of a conversation between Confucius and his disciples:

Zi Gong was tired of studying and asked Zhong Zhong Ni Ri said: "I wish I could rest." Zhong Ni said: "There is no rest in life."

The fact that Eastern and Western philosophers have such consistent views really impressed me deeply. In an era when we are striving hard for the Chinese nation to take off in the world, we might as well give a new meaning to the motto "life is endless" and write it on our flag.

I think people are made up of three parts: the memory of the past, the grasp of the present, and the longing for the future.

When people reach middle age, they probably think this way. An 18-year-old young man probably only has longing; an 80-year-old man probably only has memories; as for a middle-aged man in his forties, he often swings back and forth between longing and memories. However, no matter who it is, grasping the present moment should be the focus; as the second component of the whole, as the intermediate link, its proportion should account for 95%.

"Life is like childhood." Who has not had the experience of reliving childhood dreams? The youthful days when you came home from school and called "Mom" when you entered the house; the spring in the autumn of the Old Summer Palace, the forest trails The tryst and walk on the road, through the vast night, the lover left and never came back...

Reminiscing about the past has several meanings.

On some touching occasions, the memories of the past that have never been eroded by rain and rain are really a deep-rooted manifestation of human nature. It is an irresistible psychological impulse, just like the coming of spring and the seeds breaking through the ground. The sprouting is irresistible.

When a person sometimes feels alone and lonely in real life, he will get some indescribable comfort and happiness from some sweet memories; this happiness is probably no less than that of historians and historians. Geologists derive pleasure from tracing the rise and fall of a certain dynasty and the evolution of nature. Because these scientists believe in the motto: "Resurrecting dead things is no less pleasurable than creating."

Moreover, "resurrecting dead things" has another, more significant meaning: The purpose of stringing together the long-lost pearls in memory is to use the reflecting mirror of the past to illuminate the path of current life and enhance the confidence and courage to look forward to the future.

I don’t believe it, but the pain in life (as long as the pain is sincere and kind-hearted), once I recall it, I will often feel that it has a faint sweetness and turn into a deep poem. Pushkin wrote: "And what has passed will become a kind nostalgia." This is just like withered vines, old trees, dusky crows and other sad objects once become the subject matter of poetry and painting, they often become People enjoy it with the highest aesthetics. ——I call this highest aesthetic enjoyment sweet melancholy or melancholic sweetness.

Why can Chopin's 19 nocturnes touch your heart and enchant your soul? It is because this sentimental "piano poet" used melody and sound to create a poetic state of "sweet melancholy" .

Why do Niu Xiji's two poems "Remember the green skirt and pity the fragrant grass everywhere" have immortal artistic charm? One of the reasons is that it creates a "sweet melancholy" in your heart. "This state.

Memory is undoubtedly one of the psychological motivations for the creation of many outstanding literary and artistic works, and it also constitutes a major content of them. It can be said that without memories, literature and art will lose their luster. So shriveled.

One of the reasons why a piece of music often moves us to tears is because it reminds people of the past. The episode "Spring Dawn on the Green Bank". "When We Were Young" has this function best, because its lyrics and music are full of memories, which evoke memories:

When we were young, on that wonderful May morning, you once said. , you loved me when we were young

You once said, you loved me, ah! We are in love, we laugh, we cry, and then the time comes when we break up, don’t forget, you love me. , when we were still young.

Who doesn’t have youth? Who doesn’t have the love of the past? When you are standing in the setting sun with your hair full of white hair, you suddenly hear something coming from the distant woods in late autumn. How can you resist the emotional power of this song? How can you resist memories?

How can a person with feelings resist feelings? How can a person with memories resist memories?

< p>People without memories are incomplete and dry people; human beings and individuals are essentially historical. Human historical consciousness gives human beings wisdom and makes them aware of their current situation, which is conducive to looking forward. The future. Memories are personal historical consciousness activities. People who do not have this kind of activity cannot even appreciate many literary and artistic works, let alone engage in literary and artistic creation. For example, some adults actually commented on the film "Old Things in the South": "Children's movies are boring!" The person who says this is a child himself, because children don't have many memories.

One of the psychological backgrounds of the creation of Tang poetry and Song lyrics is also the reminiscence of the past. :

How many old memories of Penglai can be looked back in vain, and there are mist everywhere. Outside the setting sun, jackdaws are counting, and water is flowing around the isolated village.

Reminiscing about the past is also a kind of fantasy and a "daydream" by its very nature. Their function is often to use fantasy to make up for the flaws and deficiencies in current life. Freud said that night dreams are the fulfillment of wishes; daydreams are fantasies and the fulfillment of wishes. Poetry and dreams (night dreams and daydreams) are often the same thing. There is no shortage of works about dreams in Tang poetry and Song lyrics. Su Dongpo's eulogy "Jiang Chengzi" (Dream Recorded on the Night of the 20th day of the first lunar month of Yi Mao) best illustrates this point of Freud's theory:

Ten years of life and death are so vast that they cannot be forgotten without thinking about them. Thousands of miles of lonely tomb, nowhere to say desolation. Even if we meet, we should not know each other, our faces are covered with dust and our temples are like frost. At night, I suddenly returned to my hometown with a deep dream. I was dressing up outside the small window. They looked at each other without words, only a thousand lines of tears. It is expected that the broken part of the intestines will be cut off every year, on a bright moonlit night, there will be short pines.

This poem, which expresses the emotions of a couple who are separated from each other, is an intertwining of dreams and poetry (the poet was originally a person who was awake and dreaming), from the poet’s creative motivation to its content. This shows how deep-rooted the reminiscence of the past is in human nature!

As for hope and longing for the future, they are essentially illusions and dreams.

Voltaire, the famous French thinker in the 18th century, said it well: God gives man two things - hopes and dreams - to alleviate his suffering.

A person without hope is a desperate person, a lifeless and lifeless person. No one can live without hope for a day. The roots it has taken root in human nature are deeper and stronger than memories of the past. It is the spiritual cell, the white blood cell and red blood cell of the spirit; it is one of the signs of a person's strong vitality.

Among the old people who say "The sunset is infinitely beautiful, but it's almost dusk", there are also many people who are full of hope. These are some real people, people who never grow old:

The old man is helpless, but his ambition is thousands of miles; the martyrs are ambitious in their old age.

Beethoven died suddenly while he was full of creative plans. (He said that he planned to write a few more major works, and then bid farewell to the world like an old child.)

In April 1945, Einstein retired as an emeritus professor. A few months before his retirement, he had a heartfelt conversation with Professor Stern. Einstein said that he was painstakingly working on certain changes to the theory of relativity and that his retirement would in no way interrupt this work.

In this regard, Stern commented: "Retirement does not mean that Einstein has given up all future scientific activities. A public servant can retire, but a talented person cannot retire. ”

I think this is the true meaning of “the martyrs are full of ambition in their old age”. This spirit is naturally very dear to our nation, which is facing the rising sun and moving toward rejuvenation.

Hope is ideal and pursuit.

Lesing, the famous German thinker and writer in the 18th century, said that it is more noble to constantly pursue the truth than to possess it. This was Einstein's favorite motto. He made it his life's motto, from which he gained strength and comfort.

Indeed, what makes people truly happy and satisfied is constant pursuit and the process of pursuit. The journey (process) full of hope is better than reaching the destination.

I believe that this is the most fundamental psychological principle that governs all human activities.

People who are constantly pursuing and full of hope are exactly what Confucius said is a strong person who lives a life without rest. Picasso is also such a great artist. He learned printmaking technology at the age of 60 and potter at the age of 70. His never-ending passion for pursuing artistic beauty is amazing. He said: "There will never be a day... when you can say, 'I've done my job,' 'Tomorrow is Sunday.' Once your job is over, that means you have to start a new one. ... You never You can’t even say the word ‘end’.”

Let’s talk about the most important part of being human—the grasp of reality!

“Reality” is. What?

Modern Western logical positivist philosophers and operationalist physicists have pondered this question. Einstein also struggled with this problem. Einstein believed that "present" experience is something unique to humans and is essentially different from the past and the future. However, this major difference does not and cannot appear in physics. This kind of experience cannot be grasped by science. To him, it seems to be a painful but helpless thing.

For those of us who are not physicists, there is no need to be uneasy about the physical meaning of "present".

We are only satisfied with the understanding of "now" as daily experience: "now"