On Reason and Belief by Jenn Zhu

• Reason And Belief

• The Relationship Between Will, Reason

And Belief

• Smartness, Intelligence And Reason

• The Destiny of People

Author Jenn Zhu

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Education on Cultured Way of Life

Published in Toronto Canada in May 2021

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On Reason and Belief

Jenn Zhu

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By Jenn Zhu April 18 th , 2021

It is commonly said that people without reasons are like

beasts in the season, which indicates the importance of

reasons in a humane world. Reasons technically means the

capacity of consciously making sense of things, and it needs to

apply logic. Can we say that animals have absolutely no

reasons? It is hard to define. Animals, as just humans do, can

think and plot in order to hunt for food, who should follow

certain logic and acquire some skills, which would be taken as

one way of reasoning in a broad sense of this concept. Then

how to distinguish the human reasons from animal reasons?

Human has some things that animals don’t have, that is the

self-consciousness and belief, and make their reasoning

upgraded to a higher level. Reason is not only applied to the

knowledge, institutions, science, language and art, but also to

ethics and beliefs. The self-consciousness led to the formation

of some basic human morals, while the belief led to the

common will and empowered human activity, with the former

to steer the latter and either noticeable or unnoticeable

penetrated into the latter.

The primitive people have discovered the power of belief and

started worship totem which developed into religion or other

types of belief later on. Those totem didn’t just come out of

imagination, but also from observation of the nature in their

many years of fighting against the adversary environment.

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From the archeological discoveries on ancient Chinese bronze

ware, or in cave and tomb mural paintings, and mural graphs

of the Pyramid in Egypt, we could find quite some of those

images which might indicate a totem worship. Coincidently,

The ancient Egyptian language contains part of iconographies,

besides the syllables and other scriptures, and Chinese

language is originated from a pictography characters, which

made their culture printed with totem belief. China doesn’t

have its own religious belief according to rigid definition of

religion, and that’s why Chinese had to borrow a religion,

Buddhism, from India during the first century AD, in order to

satisfy the need of some people who didn’t have a chance to

engage a deep study of Chinese culture or couldn’t easily get

along with Chinese totem culture. To understand a inland

totem belief, it takes meditation and cultivation, while

Buddhism also requires meditation, and explains why it could

so easily adapted to Chinese culture and evolved to some new

schools such as Zen Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism, for

intellectuals and ordinary people. The Pure Land Buddhism

may involve some repeated lip reading of the name of the

Buddha to show their desire and determination to a place full

of bliss, technically speaking, for life enlightenment. Western

religion is somewhat different, as it is originated from a

sound-inclined culture. Public speaking,oral debate,and

theatre plays have played a very important role in western

culture since ancient Greece, notably during the three saints

period of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The Opera, featured

with that penetrating voice of soprano, which no singing art of

other cultures is a match, has long become a very prominent

feature of western culture. In Christian churches, the oral

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preaches of priest, the hymns of the chorus are the major

plays, who want the divine hear their praise to God; and

understand their faith on the belief through the voice and

music, as many people have believed that music has some

tribute that could connect the human to the universe; while in

a Buddhism temple, it was the meditation and various

cultivations including some martial arts such the Shaolin

Kongfu in China, in the play, without much oral work needed.

So for those Asian people, their belief focus on achieve

enlightenment through God by meditation and cultivation, or

finding the unity with the spirit of heaven as some of them

believe that they can stay in where they are and become the

Buda themselves, in another way to say it, everybody have the

nature of Buda; or become immortal to be unified with the

nature according to the indigenous Chinese culture. And for

Christian believers, they are working toward finding the path

to reach for God in order to be saved since they believe that

everybody is born as a sinner and can only be saved through

Jesus, by loud singing, voiced preaching and incessant

exploring and experimenting, the result of which act, however,

turned some of the believers to something else, or led to

reinterpret some of the contents of the bible and develop the

new schools of Christianity. All the ways are good in their

creating the spiritual world of themselves, and there are no

reasons for those Gods or spirits to fight with each other, just

as the lions don’t need fight with tigers as they are the “kings”

of different territories.

After the ancestors of humans started to stand up, they would

clearly saw the sex parts in the front of their body, which not

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only let them to realize the difference between females and

males and started to feel the sense of shame, which is the

original meaning of shame and is the basic instinct of human

as a biological being. and also come to understand the

importance of them and take them as the sacred part of life,

on which they depend on passing on their own kind, and even

started to worship them in some cultures. This was the

beginning stage in the development of self-consciousness,

which further developed into a more complex system of

human morals under the assistance as well as the guidance of

their belief. This was generated from the instincts of a

biological being craving for life and continuance of their

existence on earth. First, they have understood the

significance of their sex organs, which they then found out the

importance to protect and respect, and triggered the behavior

of putting on clothes, starting from protecting their genital

parts; then, they realized in a harsh physical environment,

they needed to work together as group activities are usually

more successful than single ones, not only just for fighting for

territories with other groups, during which they discovered

some rules of nature, and found out some things are closed

related to their survivals than other ones and led to the

creation of totem belief. The totem is a combination of

realistic thing with picturing of some logic thinking and

imagination, the later of which could be regarded as the

precedent of some abstract concepts in certain Asian

languages. So the relation between the self-consciousness and

belief is a two-way interplay. Reasons came out first to

prepare for the creation of belief, and the belief came back to

enrich the reason, then the reason continued to energize the

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belief, and the belief came to empower the reasoning of

humans. The emotional shock such as a feeling of awe to the

nature caused by the cruelty of the environment and the joy

created by the successful experience led people to rely upon

certain things associated with their experience while related

to the totem. Consequently, the connection between the

emotional devotion and spiritual trust was established

between the human and the believed symbols, and made the

worship became instrumental in human history, which was

truly a transcendence of human spiritual and mental activities

over primitive lives, and made them apparently stand up, not

only physically, but spiritually from the animal kingdoms on

earth, and made them become the preferable ones of the God

or the Heaven. Thus, they never need to craw on earth again,

not like some animals which may temporarily or occasionally

stand up in order to accomplish some goals.

However, will the spiritual standing- up last for ever? Humans

are clever, and quick learners also, but they have a problem

which can never be fixed, that is easily forgetting things they

have learned before. It is said that a fall in pit, a gain in wit,

which is true and will work for a short period of time, but

people could seldom keep the wisdom for a life time, and can

never pass those lessons to their off-springs through genes

which would develop into a biological mechanism. Those

lessons would be coded into the library of this civilization and

could only be inherited by those who are willing and ready to

learn. The human civilization is founded on reasons and have

developed into many different disciplines so far. and only

those who are capable of consciously making sense of things

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would have chance to learn those wisdom. No doubt, it is not

an easy endeavor to become a sensible being. In modern time,

most people have chance to go to school for education, and

going to college for young people is becoming a phenomenon

in many countries. People are not lack of opportunities to

learn things, and most educated people could become a

sensible being if they want to, and at least demonstrated so

some times and in some particular occasions. The difficult

thing is to become a reasonable person all the time and in all

circumstances.

Current society is at an age of information explosion and

technology sky-rocketing, with various new disciplines rushing

out like bean sprouts that could make people feel

awe-dropping. No one can expect themselves to learn the

knowledge of all disciplines. It takes a lot of hard work to

become a talent in some specific area already, let alone to

study two or more disciplines. That’s why we don’t use the

word sage or saint in now days, as the ancient sages were the

ones who were supposed to know everything and address all

the questions of their tribes or their people. However, reasons

applied its charms practically to all disciplines, and it is

obvious that if the people are better learned, they are likely to

become more reasonable in dealing with issues and other

people. Reasons basically rules all things. They are the light

and guidance of human life. If this civilization wants to

continue and develop to something of higher level, human

needs put more effort to its fundamental work which is to

enhance the reasoning capability of people. It is not just the

logic training in some specific area on which the graduates

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depend for looking for a job, but the logic development for

necessary areas that related to their daily life. A man is wise

only if they have learned what they need for their living. Some

people may say, schemes and knavery may work better than

reasons many of the times, but only to some small portion of

people, and in the underground of this world. In general

speaking, and in the open air of accepted cultures, reason is

still the sunshine boulevard, and which is the only way to

make this civilization to continue and to grow for long term.

Learning is a life-time thing, and the determination to become

a reasonable person should stay on for a life time also. By

learning, we become a reasonable person. Needless to say,

leading an easy life by having fun and laying back would be

more alluring to some people, which is not irrational way of

life, however, only when you could and you were allowed in a

tolerable and cooperative social surrounding, in a strong

economical situation, and in an amiable political environment.

The truth is that human society has always its downturns and

twists during its course of development. Two or three decades

of good life usually followed by bad times. No matter you

accept it or not, bad times would come upon anybody’s life.

Lucky ones may get by running into unfortunate experience

once or twice, unlucky ones or the ones with long longevity

probably would get into more troubed times in their life. How

to deal with the bad situation with healthy mentality oneself,

or get along with others, for the politicians, extended to get

along with those of other countries, would be a very

important thing. As said above, reason is the light and

guidance of human’s life, which wouldn’t exclude the religion

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out, since many religions claimed that they are the light and

guidance of life, because, as also mentioned above, reasons

are applied to human beliefs too. Thus, it is not one’s own

choice whether or not they should be a reasonable person,

the fact of being a social being requires them to be reasonable,

otherwise, either they would have problems to cope with a

nicely set system which is supposed to be founded on reasons,

or fail to get along with others. A good system based on good

reasons could make people easily become a reasonable

person, while an outdated or failed system would make

people have hard time to follow reasons. So the society need

truly reasonable people to constantly update the system and

make the general public to cope with this reasonably

established system with easy-to-follow procedures and make

the less reasonable to become reasonable and the reasonable

ones to become more reasonable, then everything could run

smoothly, and things would meet at the right place and

eventually work out of their ways.

The current phenomenon is that the quasi -reasonable people

easily lose their reasons or even fall into madness, while the

supposed-to-be reasonable people are forced to give up the

reasons. Why? because the system or the reality is making

them to do so, otherwise, either things wouldn’t work out for

them or they would just stumble into troubles. For the system

part, it is due to its outdated setup, as the economical and

political environment have changed dramatically due to the

rapid advancement of technologies during the past decades;

for the reality part, there are always some people in any era

who don’t want to follow reasons in order to gain personal

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favor, while some people don’t have good education and

failed to learn about good reasons, or some people are simply

not born as reasonable beings due to some abnormal

biological factors, So it seems that the good education on

birth for infants, secondary school for youth and continual

education for adults in more expanded areas should be

emphasized. And at last, but not least, a good main-stream

culture which promotes a cultured, reasonable and

cooperative social environment is extremely important.

Diversity is necessary, while a pillar of main-stream culture

should be erected to attract all other cultures to it, which

wouldn’t shun the latter, but make them more comfortably fit

into a new cultural environment and become the effective

supporting elements to make a diversified, however, stronger

and unified culture with greater capacity and better influence

among nationalities.

Theoretically speaking, reason is the key to open the door of

problems and fix the problematic relationship among humans.

Probably no one would object that.. The issue is whether or

not that the “reason” held by you would be the same as by

theirs. Everybody would argue that their reasons make more

sense than others’. The solder has reasons of weapon, the

politician has reasons of policy, merchants has reasons of

business, the lawyer has the reasons of law, the educator has

the reasons of education. When people fall into argument,

they are standing on different grounds. Is it because the

grounds of the reasons are different? Probably not, reasons

need apply logic, while the logic of humans are pretty much

the same, as the logic inherent in the mathematics is

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universal. So the fights are not originated from difference of

reasons themselves, but by the different understanding of

reasons. The different education and life view could cause

difference in people’s understanding of reasons. This life view

which is part of the religious or other type of beliefs concerns

about their attitude to the things and other people. Would

they want to solve the problem or want to satisfy themselves

above all other things. If they place themselves above all

other things, then their reasons have partially skewed,

because logic has no preferences. Logic smoothes the

movement of thinking, which is the movement from one

concept to another concept, as long as the definition of the

concepts are commonly agreed upon, the reasons should do

well, and things could be settled down to the satisfactions of

related parties. However, as the personal or emotional factors

are attached to their logic thinking or sometimes to the

concepts in their mind, then the movement could be deterred,

and makes their own reason fail its job. So, if we need reason

to work out as a key to problems, then we should first erect a

good attitude before starting off the task, especially put aside

the emotional and discriminatory factors.

Almost all populations of humans developed their own belief

during the development course of their civilization, except

that the way of practice and degree to the belief are different.

Nevertheless, however the beliefs present differently to their

followers, they share a lot in common, firstly all, they are the

spiritual activity of human beings, secondly, they may contain

supernatural elements, however, never alienated reasons,

thirdly, they try to promote positive side of human nature,

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fourthly, they empower the humans of its mass activities and

help to put the society in order. Look through the Bible, or the

Koran, or Buddhism scripts, or Confucianism classics, the

principles of their commandments, tenets, or preaching and

teachings are very similar, of course, the legends of the

creators or the Gods could be different, and the way of

practice are also not the same. It is not surprising, because

humans are all made of the same materials, they are basically

the brothers and sisters on earth and they share the same

universe which created all the things and lives according to

the same laws. Different geographical environment shaped

slightly different figures and tinted them with different color,

however, their biological composition is basically the same

which rendered their sense to the universe the same, then

leads to the mechanism of thinking almost the same, after

excluding the effect of the physical environment and life

experience on the manner of their thinking. Then why there

are always the conflicts with the confrontation of cultures. The

ancient conflicts originated from the needs of material wealth,

while the modern conflicts tended to generate from the want

of pride and greed. As more advanced high-tech weapons and

devices were born, the humans started to shift their inner

spiritual power to those exterior powerful arms, and shift

their belief on mass strength agitated by common will to

strength of individuals equipped with devices and weapons.

That led to the doubt on religions and neglect of legacy of

traditional culture, which means the belief have lost its

magnet. People become very practical, which is

understandable in a realistic world. However, people forget

that the realistic world which is mostly represented by the

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materialistic things, or things that could be obtained through

material wealth, was once empowered by the spiritual world

and whose true meaning only matters when the spiritual

world also admits them, and whose continuance only possible

when the spiritual world still exists. Current people are

confused by many superficial things and got lost in the

complexity, superiority, extremity and fantasy of a material

world created by the high technology, which could easily pop

like a colored bubble, then they would have nothing left,

without the support of a spiritual world. Constantly chasing

after the colored bubbles, playing on the computer games are

the things that could drive people into madness and lose their

reasons, as those things are themselves the nature of

unrealistic fantasy in a realistic world created by high tech or

virtual concepts that wouldn’t stand long in reasons, just like

the shots of electrons, which may give out a fancy beautiful

light of moment, however, vanishes a second later. Because

man-made things don’t have long-lasted natural source to

back up, not like the sunlight which is providing presumably

life-time energy to mankind( neither the longevity of sun, or

human species can be predicted for sure yet), and can be only

good enough to support their vanity, while vanity will blast for

sure in a short while. People may say that human have

acquired the ability to utilize the energy of all sorts of natural

resources, wouldn’t it be the same for them to play the

heaven or god themselves? The truth is that anything

obtained through second-hand will lose a great part of its

original power, and anything through man-made mechanism

has already slowed down the natural process of things. People

may say it is not quite right , since the man-made airplane

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obviously flies much faster than most birds, that’s because the

airplane has been energized by electricity converted from the

fuel, just imagine how much fuel has been consumed and

energy has been wasted and air pollution has been created

during the process while imagining the traveling speed of

electricity itself, then you come back to recall a human with a

mechanical flying device like a man-made wings, how fast

would he/she fly? So the comparison has to be made under

the same conditions. The insatiable desire of some humans to

overly and unreasonable use of natural sources will inevitably

lead to the destruction of the nature and the whole ecological

and even the galaxy system and made the available resources

shun away from people and made earth become the tomb of

the beings living on it. However, beliefs let people to learn

self-control as well as the basic principles of a living being in a

organic system of universe, and they are the things to connect

humans spirit and life to the inexhaustible universal resources

and make them strong and keep up their vitality. While the

path to the true belief is reasons, and better reasons improve

the practice of belief and make people to come closer to the

true belief.

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The Relationship Between Will Reason Belief Jenn Zhu

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The Relationship Between Will, Reason and Belief

By Jenn Zhu Monday, May 24, 2021

A proverb says, there is a will, there is a way. It tells if people

truly put their mind into something, and turn their ideas into

action, they would eventually find their way. Meanwhile, it

explains the importance of will to human’s life . Will, as a

power to make a firm decision, and act accordingly to the

made decision, can never alienate the reasons, otherwise it

would suffer in its power, and hence has always attracted the

attention of people with good sense of reasons.

Is will a physical power, or a spiritual power? There is a saying

about it too, good mentality comes from good health. It

means that one has to have good physical health in order to

have a healthy mind. So will is related to physical strength in

some sense. That’s why when people lose their physical

health due to various reasons, such as disease, malign life

style, bad habit, addiction to intoxicated items, or accidents,

they will usually become weaker in their will. It would

manifest as slow decision making, hesitation, un-decisiveness,

being forgetful, loss of self-control and loss of reasons. Those

people usually very easily fall prey to other people’s

manipulation and fall back into their primitive biological

mammal nature by acting selfishly and unreasonably. However,

physical health is only part of contributing factor to a good will.

In order to have a strong will, one has to have some spiritual

power to support them. Physical strength is useful to the

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extent that it can help to control the mental activity, and make

the person not to think in a bizarre way but to keep the logic

thinking in the right track of a normal person. However, to

make sure that made decision can be put into action in no

matter what circumstance, however other people try to stop

him from doing it, or try to scare him off it, pure physical

strength is not enough, except that the person is really

dog-headed due to genetic factors, that once decision is made,

he will carry it through regardless what consequences he may

face, which is not to be discussed here. In that case that the

spiritual strength will back him up, as long as somebody has

spiritual life, the spiritual strength will be there filled in his

mind that he doesn’t even need to think about it too much

before it comes out to his help. And that power will solidify his

will and help him to accomplish his goal.

Human’ s spiritual belief are backed up by reasons which are

the humane way of interpretation of the law of the universe.

The reasons will make sure the mental activity will lead to the

appropriate decision- making which is suitable for that

particular circumstance. As said before that reasons are

mental ability to make sense of things, and it need apply logic.

In another way to put it, it is to make a logical judgment based

on the specific situation, facts and factors, which is different

from will that is the power to make decisions, and be able to

act accordingly. Whether or not that power of will be strong

enough to finish its mission will depend on whether or not

this person is reasonable enough. A true reasonable person

will usually have spiritual life. As they obtained their reasons

under the enlightenment of the law of the universe, then they

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would at least believe the Heaven, which is an Asian way of

define the law of universe or the way of universe. For

people who prefer to establish their spiritual life with and

search for truth under the guidance of some divine power

contains a figured person, such as God, then they may believe

religion. In nature, the goal of most spiritual beliefs is about

the same, with largely the methods of practice and rituals are

different. Christians emphasizes the Trinity in their belief,

which is the God, the Son and the Spirit. According to a

popular version explained by them, the God sent his son Jesus

to humans to help them establish relationship with him, and

to let them have faith on him, then left the Bible to people

and send the Holy Spirit to coach and remind them what Jesus

had taught them before he ascended back to heaven. So, now,

it is the Spirit that is with Christianity believers helping with

their spiritual belief and help them to connect with God

and/or Jesus.

Humans inspired by the Law of Universe found out many

secrets of the nature and then established a set of rules to

reveal the reasons that help to connect humans with the

Heaven and build their spiritual belief. While spiritual belief in

return empowered their will in their search for more truth of

nature, and come out with better reasons which further

developed and strengthen their spiritual belief. So if one truly

wants the proverb ”There is a will, there is a way” to become

a reality, they’ve gotten to have spiritual belief behind them. It

seems that the Christianity has faced some difficulties in now

days and lost its past magnet to many young people who felt

what said in Bible can’t explain many things going on in

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modern world. The truth is that the original contents of the

Bible was written by the disciples when they just started the

Christianity according to their then understanding of what

preached by Jesus who is basically a divine person incarnated

in a human body, which is what all Christians have believed.

And it may be possible to modify those contents under the

guidance of the Spirit by those brilliant disciples who can

receive the revelation from the Spirit or God. And the similar

thing is with the Chinese belief in Heaven, and might in some

other spiritual beliefs. So it is the will of people that would

keep them on this course of tedious and continuing search for

truth to maintain their faith on their beliefs who will definitely

compensate them greatly in return.

As probably having been mentioned in other chapters, not

only human have will, animals would have will too. However,

since human’s will is empowered by their belief, so it could be

much more powerful than that of animals. The will would give

the power for human to make decision and initiate action, at

the same time, it tells their intention and plans to do things.

Thus, anything created by human or have received influence

from human will simultaneously come out the will of

themselves and go with own intentions, just as the Universe

created the human according to its own mechanism, which is

also indicated in Christianity that God created human

according to its own form, as well as in ancient Greek

mythology that Prometheus used the mud of earth to create

human since he knew that the mud contained the wisdom of

the god. So in this civilization, things created by humans

would possess their own will, and would go with their own

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will once it’s created. If humans don’t try to modify them in

time, then it would be out of control eventually. While, for

human themselves, if they alienated from the way of the

universe and don’t try to come back to its right track right

away, then will be in trouble themselves also.

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Smartness, Intelligence and Reason

Jenn Zhu

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Smartness, Intelligence and Reason by Jenn Zhu

May 20, 2021

Smart people are usually quick to understand and learn things,

and in doing things. That’s why people all like smart kids, who

is showing to their elders of their promising future through

their smartness. Smartness can be learned, and it is usually

easier to learn to do things in a smart way when they are

young, so the right upbrings, including the family environment

and neighborhood play a very important role in the

development of this type of character.

Clever people are quick learners too, but they normally

demonstrate their advantage by their able and effective

mental ability, who tend to come out with good and useful

ideas for things other people are doing or they are engaged in

themselves. There are many clever people around us, who

don’t necessarily have good education, but have that inborn

tributes for them to grasp knowledge and learn lessons from

life experience and surrounding people, and will be able to

understand some reasons through life patterns and effective

thinking.

Intelligent people have gone one step further than clever

people, that they are legitimate or serious clever people, who

possess high level of mental ability backed up by good

education, and are supposedly not only to understand things

at the superficial level, but to be prepared to understand

reasons systematically, the deep level and the nature of the

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things. The true intelligent people are suitable to offer

professional advice to others.

However, it doesn’t mean that intelligence equals the reason.

Intelligent people must have profound knowledge in one or

more than one specific areas, and have good common sense

about things of other fields. But if one is really good at

something, and has learned every bit of that domain, usually

it would be easy for them to get hand on other things. Still, it

is not an easy endeavor, in the days of information explosion,

each domain presents an ocean of knowledge with essentials

and non-essentials, so only those who are good at learning

things will be able to accomplish that goal. The true intelligent

people are generally ready to understand reasons, to receive

the enlightenment of nature or universe which enable them

to interpret the law of the nature, thus to further develop the

world of reasons of the human civilization.

Intelligence could include the information, the knowledge,

technology, various intellectual properties, the know-how, etc

al. Some skills and qualifications are the prerequisites for

people to become a competent social being to fit into a social

environment. People equip themselves with necessary skills

and qualifications through learning the knowledge,

technology and know-how and gradually develop their

understanding of reasons. There are people who happen to

have very good memory and can remember a lot of

information or things, but still can’t make sense of things. We

can’t say those people are knowledgeable, neither intelligent,

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as knowledge is a body of theoretic learning developed and

organized in a logic and systematic way which reveals the

wisdom and reasons of human society. Learning the theoretic

knowledge help people to develop the proper way of thinking,

while technology and practical lessons help people to truly

understand the knowledge learned and propel the

development of their sense of reasons.

We need all kinds of people in our society, as long as they are

deployed in the right position. Of course, it requires a very

effective system to run the every way of people’s life in order

to make that work. The society always need smart people who

can usually understand what others want from them and get

things done quickly and neatly. They may not have high

intelligence, and actually don’t need have high intelligence. As

a matter of fact, the more knowledge people have, the more

reasonable the people are, the slower they tend to act in their

doings. Because they have to process a lot of information

before they can reach a reasonable decision or a suitable plan

for them to proceed further, especially if that is a very

important decision, then they have go through all possible

plans by reasoning with different ideas coming out in their

mind. No doubt, the good experience would help people

make quick decision and get things done faster. Just as

practice makes perfection and also speeds up things, but life is

short, learning is long-time endeavor while people are tiny

and ocean of knowledge is vast. So we can’t expect some

high-intelligent people to always do things as quick as the

smart people do, neither should we expect generally smart

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Jenn Zhu

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people to think like high intelligent people. They are different

people who have their own separate strokes for survival.

Clever people could be smart or strive to be an intelligent

person through proper training and education. Those people

have that inborn fantastic mentality that make them think

faster and come out better ideas than ordinary people do. The

clever people could be a bless to the society or their own fate,

also could bring troubles or even disaster to themselves, or to

the society if they are put in a official or other important

position. When cleverness is backed up with modesty and

cautiousness, then it would be ok and could lead to success,

but when it is tied with arrogance and self-centerness, then it

could be extreme dangerous. There are numerous examples in

history to show how clever people had gotten into their bad

luck or even lost their life. In ancient China, there was a very

clever man whose name is Yang Xiu and worked for a famous

politician Cao Cao who was in an official position equivalent to

the current Primary minister at the end of East Han dynasty.

He was regarded as the most clever counsel among all people

who worked for Cao, and did have given many constructive

advice to his boss, and even helped out some people who

have run into troubles with Cao. However, Cao was a jealous,

suspicious and arbitrary man and have killed quite some

generals or advisors by various excuses, while Yang is clever,

and also arrogant and self-content, who thought Cao needed

him and would spare his life for no matter what reason and

never tried to modify his behavior. One night, Cao was

sleeping and accidently let his blanket dropped to the floor,

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Jenn Zhu

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while Yang happened to stay by the side, then went over to

pick up the blanket for him. Cao suddenly sat up and drew out

his sword and killed Yang, then went back to sleep again, as if

nothing had happened. The next morning, when he woke up

and people told him that Yang was killed by him, Cao

immediately started to cry, and said: I have warmed him that I

have tendency to kill people in my dream, why should he

come near my bed? It is a tragedy for both. Cao, as a high-rank

politician in a chaotic era of Han dynasty, with riots of ordinary

people, open rebels of states and spin-off generals rising up

one after another against the shaking empire, who is very

suspicious of everybody around him. Due to his exceptional

arbitration and unusual ambition to replace the crown, he

couldn’t tolerate any person around who is too clever for him

and would pose as a potential threat to him. Yang is clever,

however, is too self-content, and a bit naïve politically, who

shouldn’t have gotten into politics to risk his life. Cao’s

overdone in his occupational character made him lose to Zhu

Geliang, a famous advisor of a rising state, and finally led to a

political situation of three- state-power staying in China at the

same time to end the Han dynasty. While Yang’s overdone in

his cleverness cost his own life.

Hence, it is very important for clever people to choose the

right career, or constantly improve themselves to keep pace

with the change of the field they are engaged in. Otherwise,

they would be so easily carried away by their previous success

and his cleverness who may prevent them from listening to

others. In addition, clever people would usually have less

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Jenn Zhu

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chance to get honest advice from other people. There are

people who would envy them, or would be intimidated by

their cleverness and hesitate to do so in order to avoid a

situation of embarrassing themselves. That makes the quality

of being modest exceptionally important for clever people.

They should know there are always people there who would

be more clever than they are, and even the less clever people

may know something that they don’t know. Being arrogant is

deadly for clever people, more so than ordinary people. For

people who are naturally arrogant, or have that tendency of

being arrogant, developed from their upbrings, thus have very

hard time to change that way of behavior, they should be very

careful in choosing of their careers, or choosing people to

associate with. Another solution for them to avoid bad

situation is to find ways to go through more education, which

would help them to develop good reasons and possess some

common senses of things, to become a very learned and

intelligent person, thus more well-rounded. Then they will

slow down their decision-making in important things and

avoid unnecessary troubles. Clever people in politics should

try not to use their cleverness or smartness too much through

schemes or crafts, as any stroke has its limit and date of

expiration. Overly using those strokes would not only make

those tricks lose their effectiveness, but also will bring

backfire upon themselves. It is always wiser to do things in

reasonable ways.

People may think that if intelligent people are relatively

slower in their decision-making than clever people, then why

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Jenn Zhu

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bother to become an intelligent person? It has to be clear that

intelligent people tried to slow down in their decision-making,

doesn’t mean they are slow in creating good ideas. The reason

they are slower in making final decision is that they have quite

a lot of ideas coming out and it takes a higher level of mental

process to pick the optimal choice. The clever people without

good training come out with some ideas quickly, which,

however, may not quite suitable for that particular

circumstance. If they hastily apply that immature idea to their

action, it may not help things, instead make them to face

failure, or even get themselves into trouble. We can say that it

would be beneficial for all people to become more learned

and more reasonable, no matter they are clever or not.

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The Destiny of People ========================Jenn Zhu

The Destiny of People

by Jenn Zhu May 27, 2021

When each person comes into this world, they will be going

on different life courses. And no matter what type of life paths

they will embark on, either it is wide or small, bright or dark,

smooth or bumpy, straight or full of twists and turns, they will

stop somewhere and mark the end of their life. How they will

embark on that particular path, and how long they will travel

on that path, and where they will end at, are maybe the

questions that many people are interested in. In this world,

everything seems to happen very coincidently except the

noticeable and frequent manipulation is observed on that

specific matter, people, or thing. But to the viewpoint of

statistics, anything happens according to certain patterns or

laws. There is inevitability existed in any randomly happened

incident. That’s why many people believe in destiny. The

destiny has nothing to do with where he will end their life, but

tells which direction they can or should go, in order to make

their life meaningful, which is to leave something significantly

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important to the society or people around.

If we limit this subject to the life of one particular biological

person, then we may say people have completely no control

of his/her first possible destiny of this life, which is partially

decided by where they will be born. The fact of which family

they will give out their first cry and say hello to this world, is

going to make some suggestion about where their destiny

would be. Nobody can tell one person’s fate exactly at the

time they are born. Ancient Asian people tended to ask the

fortune tellers to tell the fate of the baby, especially if that

was a boy. That practice only manifested their adoration to

the children and great expectation to their future life, since

the family depended on the son to support the family and to

glorify their ancestors when they grew up. The sophisticated

fortune teller may be able to tell something of somebody

according to certain life patterns which is how statistics work

in this matter, and mostly likely would be to flatter the parents

who look for a good omen, and get some handsome reward

for doing that.

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When a person is born, then the first possible destiny led by

their early journey is proximately circled down. The difference

is that the distance of this early journey of everybody will not

be quite the same, which depend on the situations of the

family and the inborn tributes of the immature. Once people

leave their parents and started their own independent life

even before they get socially mature, they may make the

journey that would lead them to different destiny if they

realize that the previous path paved under the great influence

of their elders won’t take them anywhere. In current world,

people probably won’t get fully mature before the age of 30,

even though they may become biologically mature around 13

or 14 years old, depending on the region of the population,

and live an independent life without much problem after high

school at about the age of 18. Confucius at over 2000 years

ago, had already said that he started to seriously engage in

study at age of 15, and didn’t get himself established as a

mature career man until the age of 30.

The expected new destiny may match the goal of the early life

journey and make the same final destiny, but that is not

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guaranteed at all, as, in a lot of times, the expected new

destiny is quite different from the previous one, and made

their course of life come up with turns or twists and led to

another possible destiny. One may say that the final destiny of

people is not quite fixed at any point of their life journey, or

may even not be clearly known by the person himself in their

life time. There are many such examples in human history.

One of the most important physicists in history, the British

scientist Sir. Isaac Newton(1642 - 1727) was born prematurely

in a yeoman family, deprived of his own father three months

before the birth. He was tiny when he was born, and endured

a not very good health situation physically during his

childhood. Worse than that, his mother left him to his

maternal grandma and remarried an established local reverent,

which caused great negative psychological impact on a young

kid. People found that painfully hurt feelings of him in his later

memoir of confess. During his childhood, the people around

probably wouldn’t expect too much about this unhappy- look

kid with bitter feeling hidden deep inside his heart. Maybe he

would just follow his own father’s path and become another

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yeoman in Newton’s family. But obviously, he didn’t look like a

very promising farming man, who was often found curled on a

book under the tree. And when his mother lost her second

husband who left her a good wealth, she had expected that

maybe Newton would be able to manage the fortunes left to

the family. However, that didn’t seem to interest him at all,

which ended his second possible destiny. Finally, his mother

sent him to a school where he started to find his talent and

began the journey to go for his final destiny to become a

successful physicist and mathematician. It was a long, while

also very rewarding journey, during which he made many

scientific discoveries that impacted the field of physics for

centuries to come, including the famous Law of Gravity.

Surprising to all, even though, he was born premature as a

physically disable farm-boy, and didn’t get proper attention

and good care from parents during the childhood, he lived 85

years in his life. It may indicate that the strength of his belief

in what he was doing empowered him and that he had

selected a right path leading him to a relatively smooth course

of life after the early misfortunes of life. It once again tells that

the intellectual study on reasons could offset the defect of the

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physical body and compensate the person in another way.

Similarly, one of the greatest American inventor Thomas

Edison (1847-1931) also had some misfortunate life journey

during his childhood. He lost his hearing as a child, and had

very difficult time during his formal education at school, that

he had to quit the school and study at home. Normally, the

loss of formal education, especially the chance to go to the

universe would make people lose many good career

opportunities. That’s why Edison started to work as a

carpenter or mill runner, or in railway power center, then

landed a job in a telegraph office. Those jobs didn’t provide

him with comfortable life, but propelled his interest in

electrical equipment, and led to his invention of real electricity

power, and many other electrical devices that have greatly

changed the life of modern people.

Not only in scientific and technological field, there had

appeared many brilliant people who finally find their right life

path which lead to their final destiny that had really mean

something to their own life or to that of others, which would

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let later people to draw a conclusion of their life with a sense

of admiration. There are equally great number of outstanding

people who had made out their way in the journey of life in

other fields, such in art, in literature, and in education.

The well-known American novelist Jack London (1876-1916)

have written many popular novels, and gained him the fame

worldwide. One may say, that he had gotten what he wanted

in his very successful however, a bit short life journey. Just as

he said himself, that he wrote for the beauty of the things,

and for extra acre of lands in his ranch in which he shared with

his wife, for both of which he had been satisfied. And for the

people who had been fascinated by the world introduced in

his stories, would have a wonderful journey equally

meaningful to their life both emotionally and spiritually, which

they wouldn’t possibly make in the real life, but in the world

of words. Jack London was one of the precocious kids from

not affluent families, who was born in a family with biological

parents separated, and stayed in a foster home for some

period of his childhood. He started his own career as an oyster

pirate at age of 13, and then went to work as a sailor for a

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fishing ship after his oyster pirate business failed. It seemed if

he had hanged on to this business, he might make his position

to the capital of some ship. However, he decided to go back to

school, and find his interest in writing. He had also tried his

luck in the gold rush of then with his sister in law, and ended

of damaging his health. Even though, he didn’t finish his

education from the university, he luckily started off his writing

career because of his very rich life experience and great

insight about the society, also under the help of a situation

that the improved printing technology made the paper novel

becoming very cheap at the very beginning of 20 th century.

One can find the background and origin of the stories told in

the novels by him in many of his own life experiences, such as

his experience as sailor, or in gold mining. So, if he had gone

on with the fishing business, then the novel world would lose

many interesting stories and he would probably hadn’t

realized where was his true talent that had changed his

destiny.

Some very accomplished artists showed their interesting life

journey to later generation also. The French painting artist

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Maurice Utrillo(1883 -1955) was just one of those examples.

He was deserted by his father immediately after he was born,

and was fostered in a Spanish painter. He was never an

obedient child, and had become an alcoholic since he was a

very young man. He had tried a job in a bank, but was let go

shortly afterwards. The indulged life in drinking made him

become very unsteady psychologically, and he was sent to the

mental hospital for treatment again and again. Perhaps many

people would think that this guy’s life was finished. He might

continue his life in hospital in this way, where would be his

final destiny. However, since his mother, who had fallen in love

with painting and became a late painting artist from an

acrobat performer, found out that both hospital treatment

and adult reproaches didn’t work out for him, then she forced

him to engage in painting. It seemed that he was born to

associate with painting art, his mother changed her artist

career into painting, and he was fostered in a painter’s family.

And it was not surprising that after he got himself into this

new life endeavor, he immediately become very enthusiastic

about it. He painted the broken walls and the withered grass

and flowers of the poor neighborhood in Paris, or the

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churches and sceneries in the countryside. Even though he

still drank alcohol and might trade his painting work with

some cheap drinks, and was also sent to the hospital again

from time to time, he never wanted to give up painting again.

He realized that this was the life path for him and might lead

him to the destiny he desired and change his life style.

Perseverance and hard work finally paid off. The time finally

came at his forties, when he started to have his works

exhibited one after another in galleries and museums, and

sold his painting with very high bidding price at auctions,

which greatly improved his life situation. And he became a

very religious man in his late life.

When people are walking on the right path of their life, they

would usually feel it, as things would meet at right places and

the path that could possibly lead them to the final destiny,

would become brighter at certain point. Still, one can’t be

assured that there would never be twists or turns again in his

life course. Destiny is not just an occupation, it is actually

much more than that. A lot of people had embarked on the

right occupation at their very early age, and may still cling on

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that occupation in their late years, but it doesn’t mean that

they have reached their destiny. Occupation is majorly a way

to make a living, and functions as a tool or a path for people

to reach their destiny, but it won’t promise anything truly

meaningful to the person or with significant value to the

society. There are mediocre people in any occupation, it

doesn’t mean they have no chance to reach their destiny. It is

possible their destination doesn’t have anything direct to do

with their occupation. The not very successful financial

advisor may be a very devoted church guy who spend a lot of

time in advising people in their religious belief and gain him

the reputation in the circle of spiritual belief. And a lot of

women who didn’t have much enthusiasm in climbing the

corporate ladder, but were a very devoted mothers and raised

a brilliant son or daughter who become a giant in some field,

then the mother’s name would be associated with their

successful children, which also indicates a destiny.

Perhaps, one’s destiny cannot always be said by themselves,

but to be commented by later people, or it is something to

inspire people to keep good work at what they doing. Some

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people may seem to have made a good life or become

celebrated in their life time, but it is possible they actually had

failed their destiny. For an example, some very popular

journalist or novelist who had been brave enough to criticize

the loopholes of the system and pinpoint the problems of

society in a dictatorship regime, and made the authority feel

somewhat threatened by the publicity. The latter would try to

buy him out with a good official position or some attractive

compensation. If this journalist took the bait to stop what he

was doing, then he would fail his destiny. Also there are some

other examples. At the beginning of last century, there was a

politician also martial of military in China, named Yuan Shikai,

who seized the power of the Minguo government and became

the president after Sun Zhongshan who led the revolution and

overthrew the last regime of Qing dynasty. In order to protect

the fruit of the revolution, and end the chaotic situation

caused by all the warlords in China, Sun gave up his

presidency to Yuan shortly afterwards, since Yuan controlled a

great military power under him. If Yuan had kept his promise

to maintain a democratic regime in China, there would be

great for all. And both Sun and Yuan would have been highly

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regarded in Chinese history. However, Yuan couldn’t resist to

allurement of the power of a feudal emperor and soon

converted the government from democracy to monarchy

again, and made the democratic revolution come to its failure.

No doubt, Yuan failed his destiny, as he mistakenly estimated

the social and political situation of then China and led to his

demise later. Sun acted as a very noble man, but if he had

been more cautious to see the ambition of Yuan earlier, then

Chinese history might be written in a brighter tone. China

probably wouldn’t need to go through so many twists of

events during that period.

Thus destiny can’t be fabricated according to a model, and

nobody can guarantee that somebody would accomplish his

destiny. All the factors including the talent, the hard work and

the circumstances are important to make somebody reach his

destiny. Newton didn’t become a family estate manager,

either a farmer, but became a successful scientist, because

Europe had left the dark age of medieval history far behind

and had bathed in the sunshine of the Renaissance for about

four centuries, so, was ready to accept new scientific

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discoveries for the preparation of the development of a new

economy. In fact, about four decades after Newton passed

away, the Industry revolution started in Europe. It was a

similar situation for Edison, 100 years after the steam engine

was invented, this type of engine machines had run to its final

destination. The society waited for something more efficient

to satisfy the need of business and speedy growth of

population. That’s why Edison could easily patented so many

of his inventions. Jack London becoming famous in writing

novel also had benefited from the new effective printing

technology which helped to promote paper books to satisfy

the entertainment need of people at an age without many TV

shows. One could hardly imagine that there would be novelist

as popular as Jack London or Mark Twain coming out in now

days. Utrillo met an age welcoming for new style of artists .

When his painting talent matched the style of the art that fed

to the taste of the painting art collectors, he stood up among

others.

There are also people who had accomplished his destiny, but

they didn’t realize in their life time, instead, regretted before

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they died. The great philosopher and educator Confucius was

just one of the examples. Confucius studied all the ancient

learning very studiously, with an aspiration to serve the

open-minded king. He left his official post in Lu because he

felt the king wasn’t up to his expectation and neither ready to

understand his ambition to make a change to the nation. He

went on a journey to promote his ideas to all other states and

hope some clever monarch would take his ideas. Most of

them showed great respect to him, having heard about his

learning and reputation before. However, none of them had

offered him a right official position in order for him to

implement his plans. He and his disciples had run into some

great difficulties during the journey, and even gotten into risk

of life situations. Finally he returned to his home state Lu by

giving up his political ambition and started to compile books

and educate people. If he had landed a position to experiment

his policies somewhere, he probably wouldn’t succeed.

Moreover, there probably wouldn’t be Confucianism

appearing in history, but some other names in its place.

Because the economic and political situation of then weren’t

right for him to implement those ideas yet, as the Zhou

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dynasty had come to its end, which means the regime on

slavery system was hindering the progress of an agricultural

economy with all the individual states fighting for each of their

own interest, and was approaching its final stop, preparing for

a radical change of social system.

That was at the end of the Spring and Autumn Periods(770 -

476 BC), just before the beginning of Warring States

Period(475 -221 BC) of Zhou dynasty(Mid 11 Century - 256 BC),

when most states were in an anxiety to find ways to defend

the invasion of neighboring states, and the bigger states were

striving to become the supper power among all states, with

the emperor becoming basically a symbol of the dynasty. In

fact, the Zhou dynasty had officially ended in year 256 BC after

about 800 years of reign in China, when the Warring States

Period still continued until 221 BC, the year when Emperor

Qin Shihuang united China. However, inheriting the legacy

from their antecedent sages while influencing the current

people, raising the awareness of authority, as well as passing

them on to later generations by teaching and promoting those

ideas were very important jobs in any ages, especially at an

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era when the conflicts are heating up and morals are

degrading, and there is no current effective solutions for the

problems. Looking for inspiration from precedent wisdom is

always the easiest way to go. That was exactly what Confucius

did and led him to his destiny, even though he said in great

regret that he wasn’t born in the right era at his death bed. He

had always wanted to become an accomplished politician by

realizing his plans, just like Mencius who also thought that if

any king had let him to realize his ambition, he would make a

perfect nation for them. Nonetheless, the later generation all

felt it was their destiny to develop their philosophical ideas,

educate people, and influence others. The same scenario

would be for the great poet Li Bai who had always wanted to

serve the country in big ways, but only got him into trouble

again and again. But he probably wouldn’t know before he

died in discontentment that his poems have shined through

thousand of years and his name has been remembered by

uncountable number of people for the great achievement he

had made in Chinese poetry. Being a shining star in the

constellation of poetry under the cultural sky of Tang dynasty

marked his destiny.

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Current world is at a period when people are at both the

excitement and shock of the dramatic change of life style, as

well as of social, political and economic environment. They

have many advanced technological products to improve their

life as their previous generations had always dreamed about

before, that they can see friends and family members from

another city or country and talk with them through devices,

they can get anywhere in the world within one day, they can

reach any thing they want, which are listed in the sky shops of

internet, at a touch of their finger, and they can enjoy many

entertaining games and fantastic service which their ancestors

wouldn’t even think of. In short, they can make them the king

of a material world, but also dispose them at the siege of

technological menace. When anything is put into good use,

their side effect will start to come into play at the same time.

Obviously, it is not necessary for people to worry about where

to find their food any more in general concept. However, the

problem is that the system is getting just as confused as the

people. They don’t know how to handle all those newly

appeared gadgets and put them into the right use, neither

know how to deploy all the newly trained labors of human

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resource reservoir. So, right now, Economy isn’t a major

concern, politics becomes unreasonably powerful supported

by high-tech, and human resource is plenty due to the quick

growth of population, while there are many problems arising

due to great number of people losing of reasons and legacy of

traditions without a updated system to back up. So it is very

important for people to think about, by learning from the

lessons and experiences of previous people, what social

responsibility they should take in their life and career and thus

they would live a life truly beneficial to the society and won’t

fail their destiny. People can’t create their destiny, but they

can learn to steer it in a wiser way.

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On Reason and Belief by Jenn Zhu

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