歲末感言

俗語'一年之際在於春',但最能夠利用春的利益是有充分準備的冬天. 秋天是豊收的季節,冬天是思考冥想的時節. 冬至剛到,這是歲末總結和計畫來年春天的時侯.

Gradually we find that we are the oldest one in most of the social gatherings. We most of the time think the older people are those 15 years senior to us. However when we find that a lot of well known or accomplished people are not only younger than us, but also younger than our children. This is the time we feel in our soul that we are really quite old. The old is not necessarily bad, the Golden Age must be golden and good. Each period of our life has its own meaning and we must embrace it with positive attitude and fulfill it fully.
'健康是一切之本'. Without good health, we can't make decisions in a positive way. Health influences the way we think about life and so determines our life style. But like any other activities, it is an art to maintain the balance among various activities. If we forfeit all the enjoyments of eating just for the reason of health, it may just prolong our life but lose one of the basic enjoyment of our life. So every once in a while, we may indulge in some food without feeling guilty. As long as we have guidelines and stick to it most of the time, we should feel good. Life is full of trade-off and compromise.

In many early mornings of winter, I stand in my backyard & watch the blue sky. While the cirrus lines up in the blue background (藍天馬尾雲), I can never miss the upright redwood thrusting toward the sky. They are always green, erect & tall. they give you an awesome feeling of loneliness but elegance and loftiness (遺世孤高之感). Every time I watch them, I have an urge to measure their heights. Some of them can tower up to 250 feet & keep going up. The redwood species contains the largest and tallest trees in the world. These trees can live to a very old age, with some for hundreds to thousands of years. The most humble experience may be the one when we are near a redwood tree & know that it has been around here since the time of the birth of Confucius, about 500 BC. I once visited Sequoia National Park near Fresno. I have never forgot the experience the first time I saw 'General Sherman', the largest living thing in the world in volume & weight. 'General Sherman' is a sequoia, related to redwood & has a name Sierra Redwood. I am glad California adopts The Redwood as its State Tree. It is interesting to know that the redwood only found in the northern coast of California with a thin strip of about 50 miles wide. Somehow I think men should be like redwood, serene in mood, elegant in personality, erect in character and immune to a lot of violence and mistreatment.

Steve Jobs passed away this year. He left the company he founded with the most value of asset in the world. The more stunning fact is that he accomplished this feat in just about ten years though we have to trace it back to 1976. I consider he was a failure in PC business. Apple is never a major force or mainstream in the PC world although it started the Personal Publishing with Macintosh & laser printer. The three major products relive & transform Apple are iPod (with iTune), iPhone & iPad. The iPod rewrites the way music industry operates & is the more important than the iPhone & iPad. But to judge his position in history, we have to wait, only the time will tell. I think when time goes by, iProducts may not dominate for long as the competitions heat up. However, we can not judge Steve Jobs only based on the iProducts. We must judge him based on the impact of industry & activities influenced by him. Jobs's influence is in the area of Graphic Interface, Personal Publishing and Music Distribution. Many people adore him and shower an overwhelming admiration on him. Some even put him on the same pedestal of Thomas Edison & Henry Ford. I think people overreact. Jobs is more like Ford but Edison is in the another league. Although only time will tell who is more influential, Jobs is not a true inventor like Edison. He only repackages the existing technology with his aesthetic acumen to create a new market. Edison however truly invented the phonograph, motion picture and light bulb just to name a few. Each of the three inventions creates its own industry and continues for more than 100 years. Imagine even today we are talking & working on video, audio & lighting. Our PCs are still trying to optimize these three activities. One thing interesting is to find out how Jobs could accomplish the feat in just about ten years. I think it was the past twenty years from 1976 to 1996 that molded & prepared him to grab the opportunity that was matured to the state he could take advantage at the right time. The fruition of spring is from the seeding and budding of winter---最能夠利用春的利益是有充分準備的冬天.