Our Changing Way of Living with the TimesInitiative VS. Convenience_ourendofworld结局
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Our Changing Way of Living with the Times: Initiative VS.Convenience
by Ren Shujun
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,Ancient Chinese invented papermaking for the ease of recording and the invention of printing helped the diemination of knowledge.Initiatives of the Industrial Revolution in England made history 200 years ago and [have] affected our lives even unto today.indeed, initiative produce[s] conveniences, and conversely, the need for convenience ignites initiatives.However, there’s more that comes with the territory.The famous economist J.K.Galbraith once said “we are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machines we have created to serve us.” When is [was] the last time you climbed a staircase now that elevators are so common? Can you stand the unbearable heat of the Shanghai summer without air conditioning? Is it poible for you to survive an ordinary day without your mobile phone? An even more alarming fact is that convenience breeds crisis.I still recall those summers [that] were much cooler around a decade ago.Now, because of our unrestrained energy consumption and damages to the environment, global warming has resulted.The advancement of information technologies push [es] things to limits.Non-stop emails, phone calls [and] SMS inundate our daily lives, leaving us without a moment of peace.Even worse, with the advent of Blackberry, we are enslaved with endle work even when we are supposed to be on holidays.The recent financial tsunami has drowned many small fish(es)like some of us, all because financial products are conveniently made available to us with the marketing initiatives of our bankers.We are losing grips of our lives.What to do? Can we not use foil fuel and [but] use alternative energy? Can we replace a book with a computer? Can paper be substituted by an LCD monitor? Can meeting a real person be replaced by using Skype? Can we resist the temptation of the fanciful financial products? Can we slow down the pace of our lives? Why do we need to take initiatives for the sake of initiatives? Can we abandon the conveniences that is no longer convenient? Can we have the best of both initiative and convenience? Must we change with the times? Are there values that do not change? To find answers to all these question[s] is not easy, but we may look to the wisdom of Confucius who once said: “We must not indulge ourselves in material fulfillment and ignore the true meaning of life.”
Ladies and gentlemen, although we may have to change our way of living with the times, I don’t want to live in a world without a soul.Do you?
Thank you.
