千里之行

历史是什么
任何历史都是临时性的，面对极度复杂性时试图说些什么。

Every history is provisional, an attempt to say something in the face of impossible complexity.
大多数发生之事都是人们试图实现特定目标的结果，可他们永不具备足以预见其后果的洞察力。人们出于与当下相关的原因，在与当下相关的环境中行事，但他们的所作所为激起了波浪，超出其自身并向外扩展，又与无数其他人所激起的波浪相互作用。在这些相互碰撞的波浪所构成的模式中，历史就在某处发生了。

The pattern which I favour is that of unintended consequences:the most, if not all, of what happens is the result of people trying to achieve certain ends, but never possessing the perspective to see what the effects will be. People do things, for reasons and within circumstances linked to their own present. But the things that they do cause ripples, spreading outwards beyond their own moment. interacting with ripples from a million other lives. Somewhere, in the pattern formed by colliding waves, history happens.