Those who were educated by the thoughts of Confucius, remember this? When we were smaller, we didn't play King Lear and Cordelia, but we had to recite this: "Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father and the son son (君君臣臣父父子子)" (Analects, XII, 11) Ideally, an old school like me still wishes the world could function this way: everything has to conform to its essence and role. However, nowadays, the reviving idea of the rectification of names (正名) has become so fashionable and indispensable. We have explored our creativity to everything else. Don't get me wrong! I love this. I love that everything needs to have a name. The interesting part is how a name becomes a name. It doesn't really matter if the name fits a thing, a person, an animal, a service...It is a matter of interpretation. My pet needs to have a name for the sake of intimacy. My pet's pet of course needs to have a name, too, to serve the purpose of distinguishing the difference of intimacy between my pet and its pet. Not only this, I need to let the names known, and make them more meaningful, or profitable in most cases. For instance, for a scientific study, an animal psychologist bought a parrot and called it Alex, which is an acronym for Avian Learning Experiment. It has nothing to do with the Greek origin, Alexandros, which meant "defending men". When a parrot has a name, psychologically, it has become one of a kind. It becomes a character, more than a bird. Let alone this psychologist proved that Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old human. It could identify fifty different things and tell seven colors and five shapes. It had a vocabulary of 150 words. Not only could it spoke so many words, but it also appeared that it understood what it was saying. Okay, a smart parrot. It has a name, Alex. The whole world knows about Alex, the smart parrot, because it was promoted in a successful scientific experiment.

I was requested to give a title to my blog. I didn't try to resist against the flow. As I am a person who is not used to revealing myself, I started thinking how to give a first impression of myself and intentionally but indirectly presenting what I think through this modern instrument. Hence, this title, "wunschloses Glück". It is a German idiom, which means "more happiness than you could wish for".(Jeffrey Eugenides' translation) Most people prone to engaging with positive energy, such as happiness, let alone happiness beyond imagination. When someone encounters you and asks how you are, it would be natural that you respond with a positive go instead of bad news if there is any. However, in the real world, life is nothing but suffering. Hence, my thoughts are on the hidden side of the title, "wunschloses Unglück". (a wordplay by an Austrian novelist, Peter Handke) It replaces "happiness" with "misfortune", so it becomes "more misfortune than you could wish for". It is not because I am living in a misery, therefore I would have dark thoughts. The reason I count "misfortune" a bigger deal than happiness is because I am able to comprehend the former more. Perhaps because it interests me more. I think it is just a matter of personal preference. If I grow a little more, perhaps I would be able to reach the other side. But, for now, it is okay for me to be like this. It might suck a big time, but it is okay.