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Recently, when I did something, I always thought about whether it is derived from my consciousness or unconsciousness. (I guess that I am unconsciously influenced by our recent topic.) Then, I found that for most of the time, conscious and unconscious is not that clearly divided. When I try to redefine an unconscious action or event, if I want, I can always find underlying consciousness which seems to be the true controller and make all my actions reasonable. The article The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail provides convincing explanation—“the reasoning process is more like a lawyer defending a client than a judge or scientist seeking truth.” It makes sense. When I intend to consciously look for explanation, what I find out is not truth but excuse. Or, is there a certain pool in our minds that contains our unconsciousness? Is it possible that our post hoc reasoning actually evoke our unconsciousness to jump out of the pool and have us be aware of it? Thus, we sometimes find hard to consciously define some unconscious behaviors.     

Also, I reminded of one of topics we had discussed before—whether we want to be totally aware of what is going on. The result of our discussion is that this depends on whether we prefer surprise to control. Actually, during the whole semester, we make progresses unconsciously. Gradually, I found that three-page weekly paper is not that difficult, weekly reading assignment may not have me stay up late to finish, and speaking out is not stressing. Those are what we gain from our unremittingly studying and unconsciously or consciously learning. We keep unaware of these until we look back the “identifying journey” we travel. We then get excited, inspired and motivated. If we are always conscious about everything, we will lose these positive moods—excitement, self-affirmation and so on. Unconsciousness enlarges our sense of satisfaction with consciousness. It reminded me of an old adage in China, “Diligently studying is like seeds in spring, without obvious increasing, grow everyday; Dropping out of school is like sharpening stones, without apparent decreasing, lose everyday.” Education is a continuous process which enables people unconsciously to make significant process and functions in people’s future life.