Manhattan Reborn 1978

Texas.

Northwest of Houston, on the grass beside a wilderness road on the eastern outskirts of the small city of Hempstead.

Bright sunshine, comfortable breeze.

David spread a thick blanket under him, lay down on it and looked up at the blue sky, trying hard to control himself and ignore the presence of people in the distance and the roar of motorcycles speeding by~

Wearing a motorcycle helmet and many coats, and holding a hockey stick in her hand, Ida Pushk stood about three meters away from David.

"Hidden" in her eyes under the helmet, complex emotions of struggle, anxiety and vigilance flashed through her eyes. In the end, she did not take a step forward or get any closer.

David rested his head on his left arm very relaxedly. With his right hand, he plucked a few dead grasses from the grass above his head. He picked one that was "pleasing to the eyes" and held it in the corner of his mouth. He squinted his eyes comfortably against the sunshine and smiled.

"Hey~ Ada!"

"You come over and have a chat?"

"..."

"Ok."

"Then let me speak and you come and listen. How about it?"

"..."

"Okay~ If you don't answer, I'll assume you agreed!"

David tilted his head towards "weird cross-dressing girl" Ada, winked, and spoke in a louder voice.

"I have a great group of friends over there in New York~"

"One of them, Tom, was a veteran of the Vietnam War."

"When Tom was in the army, he formed a comradeship with a fellow soldier named Alex."

"Alex, an Italian soldier from Malden, Massachusetts."

“Tom met him on the first day he arrived in Vietnam and the two quickly became best friends.”

"They drive jeeps together, listen to the same music, read each other's letters..."

"They went to bars together to get drunk and chased the same Vietnamese bar girls."

"But happy time always makes people feel that it passes quickly~"

"When they were in their fourth month in Vietnam, at sunset one day, Tom led his team on patrol near a rice field."

"Suddenly, a burst of intense gunfire came from the surrounding jungle. People around Tom were seriously injured one after another and fell in the rice field."

"Tom watched with despair and horror as all members of his squad were killed or seriously injured within seconds."

"He will never forget that image: Alex flying with his feet in the air and falling face down in the rice field."

"Tom could only see the back of his head. He watched him struggle briefly and twitch a few times, then stopped making any movement."

"Tom, I felt so broken that I cried~"

"He recalled to me: Alex was my only true friend~"

"After that, Tom kept hearing his comrades screaming and seeing their bodies falling into the water in his dreams."

"Any sound, smell, or image that reminds him of the ambush...like the sound of fireworks going off on the Fourth of July will make him paralyzed, frightened, and furious."

"Because that day, he was the only one who evacuated safely from the rice fields with the help of helicopters supported by the army."

"Tom's rage over the death of his friend Alex in the battle triggered the tragedy that followed."

"It took him months to overcome the suffocating feelings of powerlessness and shame."

"But when he retired and returned to China, the nightmare came back!"

"He can only choose to live alone and let himself suffer the nightmare in silence~"

"But living alone is scary...!"

"The nightmares about the war tortured him every night with more than 10 times the power."

"Tom tried to keep himself busy at work, drank, and even took drugs to fend off the nightmares."

"But in the end he had no choice but to leave home and move to a motel for temporary living alone to ensure that he would not hurt his family and children when he was tortured by nightmares and almost turned into a madman."

David took away the yellow grass stick from the corner of his mouth, raised it and looked at the sky, and continued in a low voice.

"The nightmare that keeps chasing Tom, after I consulted several psychological experts, they believed that it was a mental illness called traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for short."

"Following a trauma, people may be haunted by memories that are cruel and unpleasant."

"Many people may not understand what is really going on, but there is just a feeling of being trapped that continues to invade their minds."

"They may also not be able to retain clear memories of the trauma like Tom did, and they may not be able to tell doctors or family members."

"If these traumatic memories are not adaptively processed, they can negatively impact the way people view the world and others."

“Subsequently, those internal symbols or signs of the traumatic experience are triggered repeatedly, with sights, sounds, tastes, thoughts, body sensations (physiology) or emotions that are as intense as when the person first experienced the trauma, leading to PTSD symptoms. It keeps recurring.”

"Until it tortures people to the point of being unbearable..."

David put the straw stick in his hand on his chest and waved to Ada, who was still standing there.

"If you want to continue listening, come and sit."

"If you are too far away, I will be very tired..."

Ada glanced down at the hockey stick in her hand, then quickly turned her head to glance at her brothers who were standing in the distance with concerned faces, watching.

She hesitated for a moment and did not move forward. Instead, she squatted down and opened the visor of her motorcycle helmet.

When David saw her action, he felt very amused and spread his hands, laughing.

"The distance between you and me has been reduced by dozens of inches~"

"This is a good start! Right?"

"..." Ada put her arms around her knees, blinked and looked at David without saying a word.

David was not annoyed by her performance and continued to follow his "script" and said.

"You may not understand why I am telling you Tom's story."

"Just now, what you heard was only the first half of the story, and what I said to Tom in the second half, which is the key point of the story!"

"After hearing stories about him, I approached him last Halloween to share some of my personal insights."

"In fact, in my opinion, all diseases defined as disorders by psychology can be simply summarized in terms of mental or psychological pain~"

“The six basic emotions that are widely recognized are: sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.”

"Among them, only happiness can make people feel happy, and the remaining five basic emotions will make people feel pain in varying degrees."

"And these emotions have always been in our daily lives and never left~"

"For example: When I was in seventh grade, if I hadn't broken all the windows in the neighbor's house just to vent my anger, I wouldn't have made my mother and her best friend strangers."

"If I remind my female classmate Lina and tell her that... her boyfriend is an irresponsible asshole, she will not become a single mother just after graduating from high school and put herself in trouble..."

"If I could be braver and tell the teacher that the milk and newspapers that were lost at home were deliberately hidden secretly by his youngest son... he would not fight with others and hurt an eye..."

"If I had warned Ashley earlier when I was working at the bar, she would not have been found in a putrid trash can by a homeless person..."

David clenched his fists, as if he wanted to "break" these if they were the same, hammered the blanket a few times, and sighed.

"Reality is never predicted or experienced in advance!"

"These memories are all inspired by life."

"Since the past cannot be changed, we can only take it seriously and cherish the present~"

"Even if you have been dealt a bad hand and cannot see any hope ahead, you must never give up!"

"As I just said, compared with the five painful emotions, joy and happiness are the hope that everyone is striving to pursue."

"Pain is like a long night, hope is like the fiery rising sun, and happiness is like the sun above our heads at this time, making people feel warm and comfortable all over~"

"Everything in the world will be reborn as the seasons change~"

"Good luck comes every day, why can't it be you?"

"As for the nightmare that has been bothering you and chasing you, it should be regarded as a regret in life."

"Most of us have endless regrets in our lives..."

"But it is precisely these extremely painful regrets that, while subjecting people to endless pain, also constantly remind us that we must cherish our time, our families, and everything we have now!"

When David said this, he suddenly turned to Ada and asked: "Have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?"

"..." Ada blinked her eyes and said nothing.

David did not "get used" to her anymore. He shut up and looked at the sky, crossing his legs~

3 minutes.

5 minutes.

ten minutes later.

Ada's legs suddenly weakened, she sat down, put the hockey stick across her knees, and shook her head slowly.

David observed her movements out of the corner of his eye and explained with a smile on his lips.

"Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment proposed by the famous Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger."

"He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 and is known as one of the founders of quantum mechanics."

"The thought experiment he proposed involved keeping a cat in an airtight container with a small amount of radium and cyanide."

"The decay of radium has a probability. If the radium decays, the mechanism will be triggered to break the bottle containing cyanide, and the cat will die; if the radium does not decay, the cat will survive."

"According to the theory of quantum mechanics, since radioactive radium is in a superposition of two states: decay and non-decay, cats should be in a superposition of dead cats and alive cats."

"Schrödinger attempted to use a thought experiment to test the uncertainties implicit in quantum theory."

"But he also said sarcastically to himself: According to the explanation of quantum mechanics, the cat in the container is in a superposition state of death and life, both dead and alive."

“Only when the lid is lifted can you decide whether the cat is dead or alive.”

David raised an index finger to Ada and said with a smile: "You may have also noticed my wording ~ I just said decision, not discovery or other words."

"In the study of quantum theory, many scholars believe that if the lid is not lifted for observation, we will never know whether the cat is dead or alive. It will always be in a superposition state of both dead and alive."

"But this turns the microscopic uncertainty principle into the macroscopic uncertainty principle. The objective laws are not subject to human will. The fact that a cat is both alive and dead goes against logical thinking."

"So when a cat in a closed container is in a superimposed state of death and life, only when we open the box and see it with our own eyes can this superimposed state suddenly end and see the final answer for sure."

"Just like Prince Hamlet's famous saying in Shakespeare's famous work "Hamlet" ~ To live or to die, that is a question."

David deliberately used a famous saying that was widely circulated to test Ada's reaction.

But he didn't find that Ada gave too much "feedback", so he could only continue.

"For traditional physics, as long as the relevant connections between things are found, the relevant physical data between things can be determined at every moment."

"For example, if we know how long the road is and how fast Leslie and the others are riding, we can calculate the approximate time it takes for them to reach the end."

"The quantum uncertainty principle makes it impossible for people to predict the future state of a microscopic particle, let alone find the correlation between them. They can only continue to conduct various experiments to verify the superposition state that violates logical thinking."

"And this superposition of uncertainty is also the biggest problem that troubles us ordinary people."

"For example: I like someone. Before I confess my love to her, I am in an uncertain superposition state of success and failure."

"Only when I decide to confess my feelings will I get a definite result from her."

"Similarly, when I wanted to chat with you just now, I was also full of uncertainty."

"But instead of letting this uncertainty linger, I moved right past the indecision and wanted a definite answer from you."

David sat up from the blanket, looked at Lilith and Laura standing in the distance, and spread his hands to Ada.

"Now, I'm going to answer the question I just asked..."

"Why am I telling you this?"

"The answer is simple because I want to try to help you."

"Cognition, you may have rarely heard of this word."

“It first appeared in philosophy.”

"British psychologist Freud explained human cognition as: unconscious internal processes."

“But I think it refers to the process of people acquiring knowledge or applying knowledge, or the process of information processing and processing.”

"It is also the most basic psychological process of human beings."

"It includes human feeling, perception, memory, thinking, imagination and language, etc."

"Human cognitive ability is closely related to people's cognitive process. It can be said that cognition is a product of human cognitive process."

"The knowledge and experience people obtain through sensory perception does not disappear immediately after the stimulus stops acting. It still remains in people's minds and can be reproduced when needed."

"So, the psychological process of accumulating and preserving individual experiences in life is called memory."

“People can not only directly perceive individual and specific things, understand the superficial connections and relationships of things, but also use the existing knowledge and experience in their minds to reason and judge, and solve various problems they face. This is thinking .”

"People can also use language to communicate the results of their thinking activities and cognitive activities with others and accept other people's experiences. This is language activity."

“The only reason I’m saying this now is to let you know clearly how the psychological disorder that has been plaguing you... gradually affects the way you see yourself, others, and the world.

"That is, your thoughts largely influence how you feel internally and how you behave externally."

"To put it more generally... I hope that in the process of chatting with me, you can understand what will happen next and what you will gain."

"The communication method I am using can also make you more sensitive to your inner thoughts and feelings, and determine how it affects you."

"After that, you can try to write it down and leave it for the next time we communicate. Let me help you analyze it, stop it, and solve it from a new perspective~"

"I just thought of a name for it."

"Stuck!"

David stood up from the blanket, opened his arms to the sky, and smiled.

"Stuck points are the source of getting you stuck in the quagmire and unable to extricate yourself."

"Finding it will help you see clearly how the life around you has changed~"

"What subtle changes have occurred in those beliefs about safety, trust, control, self-esteem, and relationships."

"In the end, you will feel the wonderful balance after spiritual rebirth, and then slowly and steadily enter your new life~"

David felt very comfortable and moved his neck a few times, waved to Lilith and others in the distance, and said with a sigh of relief.

"Ada!"

"Whether it is in the East or the West, butterflies represent a miracle of life!"

"Transform into a cocoon and become a butterfly, fly freely~"

"Let go of the past and start a new life!"

"Although these words sound too cliché, they have been passed down to this day."

"Tell me, why?"

"Hehe~"

David saw Lilith coming with a lunch basket on her arm and a smile on her face.

He took advantage of the situation and deliberately took two steps forward, walked to a distance of only more than one meter from Ada, and whispered.

"You have to try to feel the love around you, because it surrounds you every moment!"

"Compared to me, you already have the greatest luck in the world!"

"..." Ada sat on the grass, looked up for a while and looked at David, who had a calm expression but a bit "scary" eyes, and then lowered his head silently.

----

the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Island country, Tokyo.

After midnight~

Tokyo International Airport.

A family's private plane from Hawaii landed smoothly on the runway.

Marat and Yuri Orlov, who came specially to pick him up at the airport, successfully picked up Mag Ludwig and took him to his temporary hotel room.

. . .

In the living room of the hotel room.

Because of the jet lag, Ma Ge did not feel very tired. He was very energetic and continued the topic he had just talked about on the road.

"The chairman of the Security Council of the Great Bear Country is Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, who took office in 67."

"About him, there was a joke circulating in Washington a few years ago~"

"After he visited the Foreign Minister's home one time, he visited him several times within a month."

"His subordinates felt strange and asked him a question when he was in a good mood."

"After listening to the question, he told his subordinates: The coffee at the Foreign Minister's house is very good!"

"After the subordinate heard this, he silently remembered the matter in his heart..."

"Less than two weeks later, he discovered that delicious coffee that tasted almost the same as the foreign minister's home appeared in his office."

"So, he found the subordinate and asked about the reason in detail before he found out~"

"In order to satisfy his preferences and flatter him, his subordinates actually visited the Foreign Minister to ask for the secret of brewing coffee..."

"I found him a few more cans of coffee beans from the same origin and year..."

"This allows him to enjoy his favorite coffee while sitting in his office!"

Mager smiled and spread his hands to Marat and Yuri Orlov.

"But he never knew that the coffee beans brought back by his subordinates were part of the CIA's plan that had been implemented for many years."

"He doesn't even know how much those coffee beans cost the CIA."

Ma Ge raised three fingers to the two of them, and the smile disappeared from the corner of his mouth: "Thirty-five thousand yuan!"

"Those coffee beans are worth tens of meters at most, but the CIA came up with a sky-high bill of 5000 meters."

"Tell me, is this a profit or a loss?"

"Hahaha~" Marat and Yuri looked at each other with strange expressions and both laughed.