When I was a child, I dreamed of being a famous man when I grew up. I recently celebrated my birthday alone here in Boston. That day I could not sleep; a deep thought kept me awake the whole night. Questions wandered in my head, asking what kind of man was I to become?
When I was 9 years old, I was pretty interested in the miracles of this world, like the miracle of
invention. Later, I read that most of the inventors were born in towns close to industrial life, but I
was born in the mountainous village of Kashgar, where people seldom go. The village had no
electricity, telephone or television, although it was the beginning of the 1980s. Thinking of Thomas Edison, and of inventors in general, I asked myself: “How can a small black box speak? Is there a man inside it? How can a small bulb give off light? How can a truck ‘walk’?”I remember I always asked these questions to my parents when I saw these wonderful “miracles” on our trips into town.
Their explanation was: “You’ll know why when you grow up.” On such occasions I always remained silent, hoping that I would grow up quickly. As time passed by, however, I knew my parents could not answer these kinds of questions — and I could not get a satisfactory answer from anyone else — because my parents were among the small number of “intellectual people” in their working unit who graduated high school. The other people were illiterate and semi-illiterate people.
So I thought to myself in those days, “What kind of famous man did I want to become?” After a long thought it seemed that I had discovered it. I wanted to become a scientist!
The next question came to me easily: “Could I, or can I become a scientist?” The answer is half yes, half no. I could not be Edison (though I wanted to be a man like him) — but not because I don’t have the kind of talent, or because he invented all the things and left nothing for others to invent. I couldn’t be a scientist because I did not have social and natural environment. Imagine: How could I become a man like Edison without having some condition?
Edison said “talent comes from two percent inspiration and 98 percent perspiration.” Now I also understand that without a clear goal, determination and objective condition, all the perspiration in the world can’t make a man a scientist. Everything has its own way of growing.
I also thought of being a man like Charles Darwin. I found that I absolutely could not be such a man. You see, I could not answer this question: “Is a chicken a bird or an animal?”
I also wanted to be writer as famous as Leo Tolstoy or as Qingghiz Aytmatov. I began to write something at age 12, but later I decided to give it up.
How about being Pierre Curie? I would need a Madame Marie Curie to accompany me. Oh! It seemed that I wasted a lot of my time singing this song: “I am looking at my around/no perfect Marie is being found!”
And unlike mathematician Johann Carl Gauss, I still remember that it took me several hours to add numbers from one to 100 as he had done in minutes, though I studied differential-integral quite well. I gave this up too.
Am I a complete failure then? No, I refused this point and admitted that I have not yet succeeded! I believe that there is always a way to go for everyone if he is determined to go.
We embrace a new sun in every 24 hours ....
Each of us could not be someone that we wished to be, but at least we can be ourselves, and this is the most valuable, most glorious thing in our lives!
-from Northestern News (student news paper of Northeastern University)