duo

虽然这几天仍然在上班，但是几乎已经没什么可做的事情了。于是我用这些时间来读书，很闲的书。在其中一本书的序言里，作者问了如下问题：

1）你还记不记得你第一次学写的字是哪个字？
2）你还记不记得你第一次上小学跟男生坐在一起时，那个小男孩的名字
3）你还记不记得，你年纪很小的时候，曾经有过的那些梦想

我都不记得了。我记得第一次做作业的感受，因为那天是我第一天上学，很开心很激动。回家后完全忘记了要做作业。当天的语文作业是在练习本上写满一页自己的名字。我记得我很固执地问爷爷，为什么我明明会写，还是需要写？老师要求作业应该是给那些不会写自己名字的孩子布置的。后来到了很晚的时候，我突然惊觉，如果不写完的话，很有可能会被批评。于是马上开始写，但是夜已经很深了，那一页纸却好像总也写不完。当我写到一半的时候就已经开始自己在那儿流眼泪了。我觉得爷爷奶奶都不来帮我，很可恶啊。我很想要睡觉，但是被剥夺了权利，没人道啊。我还记得二婶可怜我过来问我要不要她来帮我写。但是我婉言拒绝了，理由是她写的字太容易被认出来了。当然最后我还是写完了，但是也流了不少眼泪。现在想起来，还真是没出息啊。

从小我的同情心就很泛滥。并不是说我像书里文字中写的那些同情心泛滥的女主角。因为那毕竟是书里面的故事。比如说，我不太可能在回家的路上看到瘸了腿的猫。当然如果真的遇到了，可能我也会去抱回家，但我等了21年，这种事情还没发生过。有一次比较接近的，就是路边看到死了的麻雀。我在树下面抛了个坑，然后把它埋了起来。我觉得这样很好，一来给树施肥，二来给麻雀一个死去后的窝。那第二个问题让我记起了小学班上一个男生，让我一度很同情。小学嘛，我基本上没跟男同学有什么沟通。所以在印象中没有什么交流过程。在班上我一直觉得有一次男生看起来很可怜，我也不知道为什么。他瘦瘦高高的，皮肤很黑。我总觉得他看起来很孤单。首先声明，我不记得自己在小学的时候跟任何人搭讪。小学时期的我很胆小，不爱说话。所以唯一一次主动开口，就是跟这位同学。那天我排队在他后面交作业或什么的。我问他看没看过新白娘子传奇。因为在我脑海里，这是谁都看过的，特别特别好看的电视剧。但是我完全没料到他的答案竟然是没有。于是乎，同情无比泛滥。在这之后我每次看到他都觉得他特别可怜。但我好像也没有做过任何实质性的帮助。说到底还是因为胆子太小了。

童年的梦想，我一个都不记得了。可能因为过得还是比较安逸的吧。虽然也不能说是无忧无虑，但是我被爷爷奶奶照顾得无微不至。当然了，一开始我还是有抵触的。我记得我不愿意睡觉，告诉爷爷奶奶我要等妈妈回来。爷爷奶奶告诉我妈妈很晚才回来，早上很早就去上班所以我见不到她。我坚持不睡觉，但是那个时候还没有熬夜的本领，所以最后仍然会睡着。早上起来后总是很失望，很难过，因为妈妈又走了。我忘记了多久之后我才发现，妈妈不在这里住。我从来就没有奢望爸爸跟妈妈复合过。我觉得一个就已经很可怕了，合在一起只会更加恐怖。所以啊，我的童年，似乎连一个梦想都没有呢。有点儿失望。也许以后会想起来吧，那个被遗忘的小孩。

一岁那年我还是个奶娃儿

两岁那年我看到了未来的离别

三岁那年我浅酌了烦恼为何物

四岁那年我品尝了刺猬蛋糕

五岁那年我命名了李阿姨牛魔王

六岁那年我投入了三干所的怀抱

七岁那年我遇到了撒谎的孩子

八岁那年我赞了钱给妈妈买生日礼物

九岁那年我发现了自己的特异功能（耳鸣）

十岁那年我从天堂上摔了下来

十一岁那年我祈祷了356夜，夜夜盼望可以回中国

十二岁那年我进行了偷书活动

十三岁那年我懂得了什么是坏人

十四岁那年我又从天堂掉了下来

十五岁那年我感到了自身的渺小

十六岁那年我尝试了恋爱

十七岁那年我计划了改造活动

十八岁那年我的期盼落了空

十九岁那年我放弃了改造计划，开始了新生活

二十岁那年我吃掉了面团

…to be continued

As I begin chatting to my childhood friend LinNan on MSN, bits and pieces of the past start to form vivid pictures in my head. The more I talk to her, the more I felt being left out of her world, the world I used to be in, that big yard with those three green buildings, the people living there. I could say that everything was out of my control to begin with. But ultimately, it was me who caused myself to miss out. I miss my grandparents, but I never call them unless there’s an emergency. I miss my dad, but I rarely write emails nowadays. I miss my friends, but I see them online and never talk to them. The thing is, I feel like if I don’t live in that world anymore, there’s no way to fit in just through a phone call, an email, or a brief chat on MSN.

However, I still like to think that we’re somehow connected, closely connected, can’t live without each other connected. If any one of them were taken away from me, I’d still feel equally as sad as if someone who’s currently living in my world being taken away. There is no difference underneath it all. Is there? I couldn’t help but to wonder, do they feel the same? What does it take for a relationship that’s been long held at great distance to remain the same proximity?

I was talking to Adrian yesterday about a long distance relationship that I sort of held responsible for. I introduced the guy to the girl. During that summer, they fell for each other. But guy left Beijing to NY and thus the long distance love affair began. I think ever since the girl told me over webcam that they got engaged, I started to wait for their relationship to fall apart. I’m not saying I wish anything bad to happen to them. I really don’t. She’s one of the closest female friends I have. Yet I couldn’t help but to doubt their relationship. They spend on average 2 months physically together every year and 10months apart but with a phone call on a daily basis. But here they are, four years later they’re still going at it. Is it strong trust in each other that lasted this relationship all these years or is it enormous ignorance? Or perhaps, it’s just because of what they guy said, “they clicked”? I really don’t know.

Perhaps their relationship is like what I described about mine. Even though they don’t live with each other, they still feel somehow connected with each other. Is it fair to define that the shortest distance is the reverse of what Rabindranath Tagore defined as the furthest distance in the world in his poem? I think there’s a debate about whether Tagore wrote it or was it just by 张小涵.. either way the original is not in English so I’ll have to use my judgement to translate the Chinese version I can find into English: The farthest distance does not lie within life or death, cannot be defined in terms of physical locations, it happens when I am standing right in front of you yet you don’t know I love you. It sounds a lot more romantic in Chinese somehow: 世上最遥远的距离，不是生与死的距离，不是天各一方，而是我就站在你面前，你却不知道我爱你.. if I were to state this mathematically, it would be something like this:

Let d = farthest distance, ld = life or death, pl = physical locations, y = the you don’t know factor, then (NOT(ld) AND NOT(pl) AND y) IMP d. I used the brackets for clarity, NOT and AND will be evaluated before IMP even without them. 

After a whole page of scribble, figuring out what the negate of the whole thing is by applying laws of logic, I realized that I simply can’t define NOT(d).. because NOT(d) is not the negate of the whole thing. I need to introduce something else to the equation. So I’m back to square one again.. it turns out I can’t define what the shortest distance is from what the farest distance may be.

As I stare at the coffee blankly, I feel that I should revisit my previous thought before trying to figure out what the shortest distance is. Why does it matter what the shortest distance is? Now it hit me, what I really want to know is when we have pl, is it possible to have NOT(d)? In logic terms: (NOT(d) IMP pl) EQUIV true? To look at the truth table for this, we see that despite what NOT(d) is, if pl is true, the result is true. Thus it is possible, at least by the laws of logic.

QED