<p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block">英文原創(chuàng)：蔡維忠</p><p class="ql-block">英譯漢：藍(lán)</p><p class="ql-block">此文（中、英文）發(fā)表于《紅衫林》2025號(hào)/第二期</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> 蘭擔(dān)憂她的腦力逐漸下降?！拔乙郧翱梢酝瑫r(shí)做兩件事，現(xiàn)在不行了。”</p><p class="ql-block">“同時(shí)做兩件事？我可以一邊吃飯一邊聽別人說話，或者一邊走路一邊聊天。這樣算兩件事嗎？”我很好奇。</p><p class="ql-block">“不完全是。必須是有挑戰(zhàn)性的，我以前可以同時(shí)做兩件挑戰(zhàn)智力的事情?！碧m這樣聲稱。</p><p class="ql-block">“比如？”我更好奇了。</p> <p class="ql-block"> 她舉了一個(gè)例子。</p><p class="ql-block"> 她讀中學(xué)時(shí)，有時(shí)會(huì)在課堂上和同桌同學(xué)聊天。有一次，她正和同學(xué)聊得起勁，語文老師決定讓她難堪，教訓(xùn)她一頓。</p><p class="ql-block">“我剛才講了些什么？”老師強(qiáng)勢(shì)發(fā)問。</p><p class="ql-block">“你剛才講了綱舉目張。”蘭脫口而出。答案正確，但并不特別令人驚艷。有些學(xué)生能夠復(fù)述老師剛講過的話，不管他們是否注意聽，是否理解。</p><p class="ql-block">“綱舉目張是什么意思？”這才是來真格的問題。</p><p class="ql-block">“這是一個(gè)成語。綱的意思是魚網(wǎng)的主繩，舉是拉起，目是網(wǎng)眼，張是打開。把這些詞連起來，成語的字面意思是，把網(wǎng)綱提起來，所有網(wǎng)眼就會(huì)立即打開。引申意義是，一旦掌握了事物的關(guān)鍵，其他問題就會(huì)迎刃而解。”</p><p class="ql-block"> 蘭完美地總結(jié)了老師用好幾分鐘試圖向全班灌輸?shù)膬?nèi)容，確實(shí)是無可挑剔的答案。全班都陷入了沉默，包括老師，只是她有些惱火。跟蘭聊天的同學(xué)更是目瞪口呆。由于聊得太投入，老師講的話她一句都沒聽進(jìn)去。</p> <p class="ql-block"> 哇，真是了不起！我娶了一個(gè)天才，至少是個(gè)準(zhǔn)天才。難怪她可以同時(shí)管理十多個(gè)項(xiàng)目，效率還很高。我希望我也能做到，但我只能一邊吃飯一邊聽，或者一邊走路一邊聊天。</p><p class="ql-block"> 現(xiàn)在，她卻說正在失去這種神奇的能力。</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block">（ 下圖） 四十年前蘭讀博時(shí)在實(shí)驗(yàn)室做試驗(yàn)的視頻截圖。此視頻在當(dāng)時(shí)NBC大學(xué)橄欖球賽直播中場(chǎng)時(shí)播放。</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> 通常，當(dāng)一個(gè)看起來很正常的人聲稱自己智力上出現(xiàn)缺陷時(shí)，我往往持懷疑態(tài)度。不久前，朋友L寫了一篇文章，詳細(xì)描述了她最近的記憶問題，并得出她患有阿爾茨海默?。ˋD）的結(jié)論。這篇文章寫得很好，結(jié)論不算。如果真的有記憶問題，她是怎么記住這些事情并寫進(jìn)文章的？</p><p class="ql-block"> 我決定做個(gè)診斷。一周后，我向她提出一個(gè)看似無關(guān)緊要的問題：“你什么時(shí)候把那篇文章發(fā)到網(wǎng)上的？”</p><p class="ql-block">“上周一?！彼⒓椿卮?。</p><p class="ql-block">“正確！你的記憶完全正常，你沒患AD?！蹦鞘俏业脑\斷。從那以后，她不再抱怨自己患有AD了。</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> 同樣，我對(duì)蘭腦力下降的說法持懷疑態(tài)度。</p><p class="ql-block">“別擔(dān)心。我就不能同時(shí)做兩件事，還不是活得好好的？”我試圖安慰她，消除她的擔(dān)憂。</p><p class="ql-block">“但我習(xí)慣了同時(shí)做兩件事，無法改掉習(xí)慣。”</p><p class="ql-block"> 同時(shí)做兩件事意味著其中一件可能出錯(cuò)。</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> 最近，蘭偶然看到我的博客，讀了其中一篇文章后覺得不太喜歡。她認(rèn)為文章的基調(diào)有點(diǎn)陰暗，決定反駁。她一邊開車從我家車道轉(zhuǎn)到主路，一邊構(gòu)思反駁文章。同時(shí)做兩件事，其中一件不順利。她和一輛從左側(cè)開過來的車產(chǎn)生了點(diǎn)小事故。所幸只是車表面有些損壞，沒人受傷。其實(shí)另一件事也不順利，她從未完成那篇評(píng)論。</p><p class="ql-block"> 也許她的擔(dān)憂是對(duì)的。也許她應(yīng)該適應(yīng)這種新的腦力，一次只做一件事。</p> <p class="ql-block"> 但這很難。</p><p class="ql-block"> 幾天后，蘭又回到同時(shí)做兩件事的習(xí)慣。在趕一個(gè)緊迫的業(yè)務(wù)項(xiàng)目的同時(shí)，她購買了股票。好吧，她可以聲稱購買股票也是有緊迫性的，因?yàn)槟鞘侵芪逑挛?，一兩小時(shí)后股市就要收盤了。</p><p class="ql-block"> 蘭最近萌發(fā)了對(duì)股票和期權(quán)交易的興趣。自從開始接觸股市后，她對(duì)世界的感觀得到了極大的拓展，對(duì)公司盈利、失業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)、債務(wù)上限、世界局勢(shì)動(dòng)蕩、中國崛起等等都有了解，一躍成為國家和國際政治、經(jīng)濟(jì)方面的準(zhǔn)專家。</p> <p class="ql-block"> 我們還是講這次買股票的經(jīng)歷吧。蘭在處理項(xiàng)目的同時(shí)也在操作股票交易，結(jié)果意外地多輸入一個(gè)零，導(dǎo)致交易金額變成原計(jì)劃的十倍。這是一個(gè)驚人的大數(shù)額，足以讓人徹夜難眠。幸運(yùn)的是，蘭并沒有經(jīng)歷太多的失眠，因?yàn)榈搅酥苋胀砩纤虐l(fā)現(xiàn)錯(cuò)誤。周一早上，她第一時(shí)間把股票拋出去。</p><p class="ql-block"> 股票出現(xiàn)小幅上漲，蘭賺了1萬美元。</p><p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"><span style="font-size:18px;"> 不管是否失去了一部分腦力，蘭顯然還保留著運(yùn)氣。有這樣的運(yùn)氣，誰還需要超強(qiáng)的腦力？</span></p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> （下圖） 攝于2019年國際生物科技組織（BIO）大會(huì)上。</p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"><b style="font-size:22px;">Brain Power</b></p><p class="ql-block">Weizhong Cai</p> Lan was concerned about her declining brain power. “I used to be able to do two things simultaneously. Now I can’t.”<br>“Do two things simultaneously? I can eat and listen at the same time, or walk and talk at the same time. Are they counted as two things?” I wondered.<br>“No quite. They have to be somehow challenging. I used to be able to do two intellectually challenging things simultaneously.” claimed Lan.<br>“Like what?” I was curious.<br>So she gave an example.<br> When she was a middle school student, she sometimes chatted with someone sitting next to her in class. In one occasion when she was engaged in an interesting gossip with a friend, her Chinese teacher decided to teach her a lesson by embarrassing her.<br>“What did I just say?” demanded the teacher.<br>“You were talking about Gang Ju Mu Zhang.” The answer flowed out of her mouth without any hesitation. <br>It was correct, but not impressive. Some students are capable of citing the last few words their teachers said whether they pay attention or not, whether they understand or not.<br>“What does it mean by Gang Ju Mu Zhang?” followed the real question.<br>“This is a phrase. Gang means ‘headrope of a fishnet’, Ju means ‘pulled up’, Mu means ‘meshes of a fishnet’, and Zhang means ‘open up’. Putting these words together, the phrase literally means that once the headrope of a fishnet is pulled up, all of the meshes open up right away. Figuratively, it means that once the key issue of a matter or process is understood or resolved, everything else falls into place.”<br>This was a perfect summary of what the teacher was trying to convey to the class in the last few minutes. It was an impeccable answer, indeed.<br>The class fell into silence, including the teacher, except that she was a little peeved. The little friend with whom Lan was chatting with was in awe. She didn't catch a single word the teacher said since she was chatting. <br> Wow, that's really something! I had been married to a genius, at least a borderline genius. No wonder she could handle more than ten projects within a single time period and be very productive. I wished I could do that. But all I could do was to eat and listen simultaneously, or to walk and talk simultaneously. Now she said she was losing that amazing capability.<br>Well, I am usually quite dubious when a person who seems to be perfectly fine claims to be mentally deficient. Not long ago, our friend L wrote an essay detailing recent events related to her memory, arriving at a conclusion that she had Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It was quite a nice essay except the conclusion. If she really had had a memory problem, how could she have memorized these things and put them in the essay? <br>I therefore decided to do a diagnosis myself. A week later, I approached her with a seemingly innocuous question, “when did you post that essay on the web.” <br>“Last Monday.” She answered immediately. <br>“Correct! Your memory is perfectly fine. You have no AD”. That was my diagnosis. She hadn't complained about having AD since then.<br> Likewise, I was dubious about Lan’s claim that she was losing brain power. <br>“Don't worry. I can't do two things at the same time. I turn out to be just fine.” I tried to dismiss the notion by comforting her.<br>“But I am used to doing two things at once. It’s a habit I can't stop.”<br> Doing two things simultaneously meant one of them could go wrong. <br>Recently, Lan stumbled into my blog and read an essay, which she wasn't quite fond of. She thought the tone was a bit dark. So she decided to refute it. She was conjuring up a critique against the essay while making a turn from our driveway onto the main road. Two things simultaneously and one of them did not go well. She ran into a small incident with a car coming from the left-hand side. Just some surface damages but luckily, there was no bodily injury. Actually, the other thing also didn’t go well since she never completed the critique.<br> Maybe what Lan suspected was true. Maybe she should adjust to this new level of brain power and just do one thing at a time. <br>But that's hard.<br>A few days later, Lan reverted back to the doing-two-things habit. She bought certain shares of a stock while working on a time-sensitive business project. Well, I guess she could argue that buying the stock was also time sensitive since it was Friday afternoon, a couple of hours before the stock market closed. <br>Trading stocks and options became her new hobby. Since Lan started getting into the stock market, her perspective of the whole world had greatly expanded: company earnings, unemployment figures, debt ceiling, global turmoil, China's rise, etc. She had quickly become a quasi expert in national and international politics and economy.<br> Anyway, let's not digress too much from this recent stock buying experience. Since Lan was working on her project when she executed the stock transaction, she accidentally keyed in one more zero at the end of the intended number, resulting in a tenfold higher transaction. It was an alarmingly large number, large enough to keep one awake in the middle of the night. Fortunately, she didn’t lose too much sleep since she didn't discover the error until Sunday night. She dumped the stock first thing in the morning on Monday. <br>Thanks to a small upward hiccup of the stock, Lan ended up gaining ten thousand bucks.<br> <p class="ql-block"><b style="font-size:20px;">Whether Lan loses certain brain power or not, she certainly keeps her luck. With that kind of luck, who needs super brain power?</b></p> <p class="ql-block"><br></p><p class="ql-block"> 蘭與此文（英文）作者攝于2015年加拿大班夫。</p>