此刻，我坐在布达佩斯一家旅馆的房间里，望着窗外。巷子里，小饭店前微亮的灯光下有人在谈笑用餐。
刚才从外面回来时，看到大厅里灯火辉煌，饭厅里人影交错，小乐队优美地演奏着。
厚重的墙壁，古典的样式，见证着奥匈帝国昔日的辉煌。
服务员带我上楼的时候，说了一长串儿有关这家旅馆的历史：一九零六年由英国一家保险公司建造，二战后苏军指挥部设在这，一九五六年匈牙利暴乱的时候还有枪战。九八年投资商花了一亿美元［难以想象］把它翻修一新，再看不到了革命的痕迹。
穿过门外的绿地，就上了有名的链子桥，那边是山上的布达城。白天我去了那边的老皇宫，还有多瑙河两边的名胜，包括有名的马伽实教堂，议会大厦。路上还看到里根总统的雕像，迈步走过不远处的苏军纪念碑，似乎在说：把那该死的墙拆掉吧！
以前儿子弹李斯特的匈牙利狂想曲第二号，我曾和他这样说：从慢到快Friska刚出现的那段真美，似天籁之音。而Friska结束那段，节奏越来越快，似撒缰的野马，踏上不归路，却嘎然而止，象是想起所来之处，于是回到Lassan的主题，美的经典。如果闭上眼睛，你能听到匈牙利那个国家的情感： 欢快－基于其民族性格；忧伤－为其历史所致。
不是所有人都喜欢李斯特，比如傅雷。也许老爷子觉得他不够古典，或者对李斯特那据说动作夸张的表演方式不称道，犹如今天人们对朗朗的微词。我对此倒是很宽容－只要表演者花了功夫准备，他就对得起观众了。我喜欢李斯特，主要还因为他写作，他有故事。喜欢写作的音乐家可以称为同道，因为在文章里，他们愿意向你倾诉感情，更何况是美妙音乐所蕴涵的感情呢！我喜欢傅雷，主要也是因为他的音乐评论。去年回国，在几层高的书城里寻觅，最后带走的有关音乐的书籍也还只有《傅雷谈音乐》。[words by Liszt: 1 "Without any reserve I completely subscribe the rule of which you so kindly want to remind me, that those musical works which are in a general sense following a programme must take effect on imagination and emotion, independent of any programme. In other words: All beautiful music must be first rate and always satisfy the absolute rules of music which are not to be violated or prescribed". 2: "The musician above all, who is inspired by nature but without copying it, exhales in sound his life's most intimate secrets。］
不过，匈牙利并不是我的音乐情人，我的音乐情人是捷克。匈牙利和我的情结在物理。
这会儿，我在想那些出生在布达佩斯的物理学家，冯诺伊曼，冯卡门， 尤金维格纳，爱德华泰勒，利奥齐拉特等等。这些“核弹链式反应发明人”，“氢弹之父”，“航空航天泰斗”，他们都出生在布达佩斯，后来都辗转到了美国。这些人，每人都胜过多个兵团。没有他们，美国也许不能赢得二战。
他们都是犹太人，后来都曾经在普林斯顿住过。而我在这普林斯顿住过多年，有些瓜葛，不免有些沾沾自喜。
后来我的沉思就转到别处去了。感兴趣的请看下面的英文。
Hungarian Rhapsody (of thoughts)
Sitting in the Four Seasons hotel room in Budapest, I'm enjoying this quiet moment, musing! During the day, I have walked to the old royal palace, the old neo-gothic style Matyas church, and the imposing world famous neo-gothic parliament compound. Of course the blue Danube river too.
However, not much excitement. Unlike a few years ago, when I first came to Europe.
Old, perhaps. But more likely because I have seen many part of the world now. There are a few places I'd like to visit: Africa, perhaps, as I haven't been to that continent yet, and a few old civilisations, so that I can have more personal feeling when I read books about them.
At this moment, I feel happier to muse in the hotel room by myself!
I'm thinking about the great physicists Budapest once produced: John van Neumann (1903-1957), Theodore von Kármán (b. 1881), Leó Szilárd (b. 1898), Eugene Wigner (b. 1902), and Edward Teller (b. 1908). We cannot say America wouldn't win World War II without them, but definitely each one of them is worth an army.
All of them were born in Budapest and left for the US later, several of them settled or stayed for some time at Princeton. I am a bit proud I have now connected to both places.
All of them are Jewish! I'm wondering, if it weren't for the Jews, Hungarian science arena would have been certainly a much poorer show.
When a man is musing, he is talking to his inner heart. That's the best way to produce ideas and write something. Someday I will write a book called Talking To My Inner Heart, with all those random thoughts I had over the years.
At this moment, I'm sitting here, trying to remember what I talked to my inner heart before. Then I remember one. It was about Zen, Tao, Buddhism, and aesthetics.
Although I am not a religious person, I like philosophizing! And I always ask myself to be patient with religious people and see how they become so religious. I read Tao and Zen sometimes, just to know more.
Tao is about the way, not the end, it says: live right in the moment, so a bit like "every moment is an impression" (see my essay
瞬间即为永恒）. No utilitarian thoughts. Life is simple and beautiful. But these can be luxury thoughts. People who are hungry for food or fame wouldn't be able to identify with them. Usually only those people who have achieved fame and do not need to worry about food anymore choose to live this way.
Even for people who are not hungry, not all of them want to philosophise. I can imagine how people are out of tune with my type when we keep talking about science and beautiful this and beautiful that all the time. People are all very different.
Tao talks about Yin Yang. If Tao talks about the way only, then its complement/opposite must be that the goal is the reason to exist, so 儒家孔子 is the Yang to Tao's Yin.
What's the difference between Tao and Zen in aesthetics? I once read a book or rather a long essay called "In praise of shadow" by Junichiro Tanizaki. I want to talk about more on that another time.
Among all the religion/philosophy, Tao must be the most aesthetic one. Zen, I guess focuses more on the inner spiritual world, or the heart? While Tao has more connection with the nature as it views everything as part of the great Tao?
Buddhist altitude is that this life is to prepare for the next one. All the sufferings we go through is because we were indebted in our previous life. Deciples of Budasism feel they need to clear all debts, now all they need to do is to accumulate virtue but not new debt. But to people like some of us, we've got only one life, although there are unpleasant times, it is still worth to live, to love, and to embrace whole-heartedly. (see Nietzsche, also my
相对论爱情)
Thinking more about Tao and Zen, although intersting/insightful/beautiful, I feel they are still trying to escape the daily life, or this world. In reality, I still believe in Adam Smith's individualism and against anything that's in its way.
Tao and Zen are not engaging and may not be used (or maybe yes!) to run a worldly organization. They may not be even a good attitude toward life when one is young. But they do help to bring a peaceful mind.
On the other hand, art/aesthtic requires something not always making sense or scientific.
Or maybe not. A beautiful life should be maintaining a balance between 入世 and 出世. 我们科大792 的肖强写过一篇文章叫＂aesthetics and life”。 when discussing aesthetics, he said “最大对称，最小破缺”. And on life, he said “既有出世的情怀，又有入世的担当。＂
What he said in that article is uniformity and conservation in a grand scale with minimal perturbation to introduce variations. Perfect symmetry can be boring, but too much violation will be a mess. All the artworks, music, poetry, painting have a structure, but sometimes it is deliberately broken to add flare.
Science can arouse mystique feelings too. Maxwell’s equation and Einstein’s theory of relativity are the epitomes of conserved symmetry. In the meantime, disrupted parity is fascinating. Biology is the same, genome has stability in general (we differ from monkey by only ~100 genes), while mutation introduces new spices. Mother nature is just majestically beautiful. You don’t need a religion to feel humble.
“The goddess of memory” was the mother of the Muses in Greek mythology. Ancient Greeks really has great insight and intuition about nature and life!
Thinking about these thoughts to be inner heart once, I know I'm old, I don't have those inspiration these days. When I had a better brain, I was too young. When I'm not too young, my mind is not that clear anymore. But as long as I'm thinking, life is beautiful.
