20230322

Fell asleep much earlier than yesterday, but also woke up later. It was nearly 4 when I woke up, and I didn't get out of bed until almost 5. Grabbed a coffee to drink, then did the running exercise once I felt less sleepy. Played piano after having breakfast. Headed to the study room at 9, practiced English and did some job-hunting. Played FIFA after lunch. Afterwards, practiced English again and played Fitness Boxing. Wrote summary for a section of "A Study of History" then. When did I read this section? During my dad's first cataract surgery hospitalization. It was almost four months ago. After finishing this, I asked ChatGPT to improve my writing. But before that, I asked it to guess the book title. It guessed "The Rise of West", "Civilization and Its Discontents", "The Challenge of the Environment: An Exploration of the Causes and Consequences of the Modern World" and "The Guns of August". Since the last two seemed quite irrelevant, I asked it to stop guessing. Completed 11 pomodoroes today - one for piano, two each for English, job search and exercise and four for writing.

Although we didn't find a challenge that nobody answered successfully, we discovered that when two comparable parties faced similar challenges, the one with less difficulty generally responsed less. The question then arises as to whether a third party facing the same or a similar challenge with greater severity would respond more. In the previous section, we found that Iceland achieved the most in literrature and politics, surpassing Norway, Sweden and Denmark, due to oversea migration and its harsh environment. However, what about Greenland? Would a country much bleaker than Iceland, with Scandinavian seafarers be better at literature and politics? The answer is not in doubt. Similarly, we had seen how New Englanders outperformed all their rivals in Virginia and Carolina. But within New England, Massachusetts was always a leading English speaking community, while Maine remains relatively unknown. We can say the hardness of the environment is optimal at Massachusetts, but it was too severe at Maine. Along the Atlantic seaboard of South America, the ideal climate is located near Rio de la Plata estuary. However, if we go south, we will find greater pressure and fewer responses. Let's examine a challenge that is not purely physical. Southern Ireland was essentially an agricultural country, in which Ulster was one of the busiest workshops. The Ulsterman had to respond to two challenges, oversea migration and competition with native Irish. They were not the only oversea Scottish settlers. Some descedents of them re-migrated to the Appalichian Mountains, where they encountered more formidable challenges in both aspects. Today, these people are no better than barbarians. With regard to war, we had two cases in where challenge was successfully met: Athens responded to the Persian invasion, and Prussia responded to Napoleonic invasion. However, the invation of Hannibal so shocked the Roman Commonwealth that a hundred years later, Augustus became a permanent dictatorship as a drastic remedy. Another example is, the Chinese in Malaya and Indonesia are generally richer than those in Australia and California, where immigrants face greater challenges. At last, let's consider the challenge presented by civilization to barbarism. The Slavs were immune from this kind of challenge by ensconcing themselves in the Pripet Marshed, before the nomad Avars became their herdsmen. The Achaeans received the optimum challenge and bacame the fathers of the Hellenic Civilization. The Teutons successfully responded to the challenge of the dying Hellenic Civilization, as we discussed before, but when they faced the challenge of Catholicism, they failed to respond. The Celts had to face the Hellenic Society in its prime and were overwhemed by it.

Sent from my iPhone