Monday, August 29, 2022

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Oliver Burkeman
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AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal

The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society―and that we could do things differently.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

人生思考題 : 哈佛教育學院院長提出的5+1個人生重要問題 (Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions)

詹姆斯.萊恩 (James E. Ryan)
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《紐約時報》暢銷書 Amazon.com空降排行榜
哈佛大學給畢業生最棒的禮物‧感動全球900萬人精彩演說
你看過後,也會重新思考自己的日常溝通

5個平凡問題 串出非凡人生
如果你希望自己被愛、被珍惜、被尊重
就應該試著問,也試著答

網路上瘋傳的畢業典禮演講
哈佛大學教育學院院長剖析人生最重要的5+1個問題

不管在會議室或在教室,我們花了太多時間和精力在尋找正確答案。事實上,問題和答案一樣重要,甚至可能更重要。好問題能讓我們超越有限的認知,勇敢面對困難、未知、令人尷尬,甚至不愉快的處境,讓我們對人際關係和世界有更深入的了解。

哈佛大學教育學院院長詹姆斯.萊恩在本書指出問與答的奧妙,帶我們領略美國首席大法官的思辨過程,提醒我們經常詢問人生最重要的五個基本問題,包括:

• 「等等,你說什麼?」,是所有了解的根源。
• 「我想知道……?」,是所有好奇心的核心。
• 「至少,我們是不是能夠……?」,是所有進展的開始。
• 「我能夠幫什麼忙?」,是所有良好關係的基礎。
• 「真正重要的是什麼?」,能夠幫助我們找到生命的核心。

本書充滿許多幽默、動人的小故事,從美國最高法院、哈佛大學、殘障兒童之家到急診室,還有作者的身世。只要我們經常詢問這五個問題,就能夠回答人生加分題:「即便如此,今生今世,你是否已經了無遺憾?」本書妙趣橫生,說理深刻又感人,將永遠改變你對問題的看法。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Monday, August 22, 2022

2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything

Mauro F. Guillen
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The world is changing drastically before our eyes - will you be prepared for what comes next? A groundbreaking analysis from one of the world's foremost experts on global trends, including analysis on how COVID-19 will amplify and accelerate each of these changes.

Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees, and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. Companies didn't need to see any further than Europe and the United States to do well. Printed money was legal tender for all debts, public and private. We grew up learning how to "play the game", and we expected the rules to remain the same as we took our first job, started a family, saw our children grow up, and went into retirement with our finances secure.

That world - and those rules - are over.

By 2030, a new reality will take hold, and before you know it:
There will be more grandparents than grandchildren
The middle class in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will outnumber the US and Europe combined
The global economy will be driven by the non-Western consumer for the first time in modern history
There will be more global wealth owned by women than men
There will be more robots than workers
There will be more computers than human brains
There will be more currencies than countries

According to Mauro F. Guillen, the only way to truly understand the global transformations underway - and their impacts - is to think laterally. That is, using "peripheral vision", or approaching problems creatively and from unorthodox points of view. Rather than focusing on a single trend - climate change or the rise of illiberal regimes, for example - Guillen encourages us to consider the dynamic inter-play between a range of forces that will converge on a single tipping point - 2030 - that will be, for better or worse, the point of no return.

2030 is both a remarkable guide to the coming changes and an exercise in the power of "lateral thinking", thereby revolutionizing the way you think about cataclysmic change and its consequences.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

樹木教我的人生課 : 遇到困難時, 我總是在不知不覺間, 向樹木尋找答案

禹鐘榮
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「只要閱讀一次,就會愛上樹木,
閱讀兩次,就會熱愛自身的生命。」
★療癒韓國人民的年度之書
★15萬冊作者的最新力作,入選韓國最大連鎖書店「上班族必讀書籍」


樹木,是信仰,更是人類的心靈慰藉......

「努力、厚實實力,才能成功」——杉樹
你知道嗎?小杉樹要長得跟其他大樹一般,需要經歷百年的漫長歲月。但它們並未放棄,仍然在漆黑的土地中生根發芽,因為它們知道唯有等待並厚實根部的力量,才能有長高的事實。 ——如果是人類,也許有人早已放棄,但也有人如同小杉樹般,為了獲得成就,在別人不知道的幾千個日夜中努力。

「想獲得什麽,就得付出什麽」——樺樹
因為強風而無法向上長高的樺樹,取而代之的是往下深深扎根。而比起其他樹木,樺樹需要更多陽光才能生存,為此,它們放棄一起成長的朋友,選擇獨自在高聳的岩石上成長,這樣才能盡情獨享陽光。
——人也是如此,許多人都貪心得想要擁有全部,但兩全其美並非易事,需要取捨,才能獲得,如果糾結於失去,最終只會兩頭空。

「與樹木學習如何漂亮地退場。」——紅豆杉
樹木的空隙是老病樹木的傷口。古老的紅豆杉,隨著歲月的流逝,體內的空隙越大。而空隙就成為了被寒冬折磨得疲憊不堪的動物們之藏身處。如今已邁入人生下半場的作者,在一次與年輕後輩前往救治樹木時,學會了老樹戰勝傷痛,擁抱微小生命的人生智慧。
——無論是誰,到了某一瞬間,都要在該退後時退後一步,漂亮地讓出自己的空位。

作者照顧樹木已超過三十年,與樹木的相處遠比與人的相處還多,身為治癒樹木的樹木醫生,作者卻總說「是樹木治癒了我。」他相信樹木給予的力量,爲了和更多人分享樹木的智慧,於是寫下這本書。而人類身處於世界中,為了生存總是竭盡全力,正如同生長在條件惡劣中的樹木,不畏風寒,仍然在每一瞬間向下扎根,開拓它的生命。

樹木,世界上最古老且最有智慧的人生哲學家,它們用生存智慧教會人類生命的真諦。


(摘錄自博客來網路書店)

Monday, August 15, 2022

Barbarians at the Wall: The First Nomadic Empire and the Making of China

John Man
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The people of the first nomadic empire left no written records, but from 200 BC they dominated the heart of Asia for 400 years. They changed the world. The Mongols, today’s descendants of Genghis Khan, see them as ancestors. Their rise cemented Chinese unity and inspired the first Great Wall. Their heirs under Attila the Hun helped destroy the Roman Empire.

We don’t know what language they spoke, but they became known as Xiongnu, or Hunnu, a term passed down the centuries and across Eurasia, enduring today in shortened form as ‘Hun’. Outside Asia precious little is known of their rich history, but new evidence reframes our understanding of the indelible mark they left on a vast region stretching from Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia deep into China.

Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, Barbarians at the Wall traces their epic story, and shows how the nomadic cultures of the steppes gave birth to a ‘barbarian empire’ with the wealth and power to threaten the civilised order of the ancient world.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

The “Hunters, Warriors, Spirits: Nomadic Art of North China” exhibition presented by the City University of Hong Kong tells the story of the nomads through the diverse lenses of archaeology, art history, and anthropology. It features over 250 artworks from the early 1st millennium B.C.E. to the “golden age” between the 10th and 13th centuries C.E. These include everyday objects and weapons from the early nomads of northern China, such as the Orochen, Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Rouran, presenting not only the ideal relationship between humans and nature but also the nomads’ superb arts and artisanship. READ MORE

“Hunters, Warriors, Spirits: Nomadic Art of North China” Exhibition:
Date: 23 July – 23 October 2022 (Open daily, except Mondays)
Time: 10am to 7pm
Venue: Indra and Harry Banga Gallery at City University of Hong Kong , 18/F, Lau Ming Wai Academic Building
Admission: Free of charge, prior booking is required

草原王權的誕生: 斯基泰與匈奴,早期遊牧國家的文明

林俊雄
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匈人是匈奴人嗎?匈奴人和斯基泰人又有什麼關係?
漢王朝如何被迫和親匈奴?它的復仇戰爭成功了嗎?
探尋中央歐亞草原的騎馬遊牧民──「斯基泰」與「匈奴」在世界史被忽略的意義!

騎馬遊牧民是野蠻和破壞的化身、而與文明無緣嗎?
這不過是留下文字記錄的定居農耕社會單方面的看法!


鼎盛期的波斯帝國也無法征服的部族集團──「斯基泰」;與漢皇帝具有對等軍事戰鬥力的遊牧民族──「匈奴」。他們跨越了「東方」與「西方」地理分界,串聯起整個歐亞大陸。

「斯基泰」是目前所知最古老的遊牧民族,約在西元前八至前七世紀的時候登上歷史舞台。而「匈奴」確切在歷史上出現,則是西元前三世紀的時候。雖然兩者的存在時間有落差,且看似一個存在於西洋史、一個存在於中國史,然而從考古挖掘的資料可以發現,兩者文化上非常的相似,屬於同一系統。同樣身為馳騁在草原之上的霸主,「斯基泰」與「匈奴」是同一群人嗎?他們又各自如何影響東西方的歷史呢?

本書首次把橫亙東西方的騎馬遊牧民合併而寫,探尋古代草原世界的王權形成和它們的文化,藉此思考遊牧民在世界史中的積極角色。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)


正於香港城市大學舉行的《獵人‧戰士‧神靈:中國北方游牧藝術》展覽,結合考古學、藝術史及人類學等多元角度,呈現中國北方古代游牧民族世界。是次展覽展出250多件藝術品,由公元前千年追溯至公元10至13世紀的「黃金時代」,包括中國北方古代游牧民族如鄂倫春族、匈奴、鮮卑、柔然的日常用品及武器等,不單呈現古人與大自然的理想結合,同時反映游牧民族的卓越工藝。閱讀更多

展覽詳情:
日期: 2022年7月23日至10月23日 (逢星期一休館)
時間: 上午10時 – 下午7時
地點: 香港城市大學劉鳴偉學術大樓十八樓般哥展覽館
費用: 免費入場,需預先登記