Once there was a scientist. He wanted to study how monkeys learn.

曾经有一位科学家，他想研究猴子的学习能力。

He put two peanuts into a tall glass bottle.

他把两颗花生米放进了一个高高的玻璃瓶里。

The bottle was completely transparent¹, one could see the two peanuts clearly from outside.

玻璃瓶是完全透明的，从外面可以很清楚地看到两颗花生。

Then he gave the bottle to a monkey.

然后，他把这个瓶子递给了一只猴子。

The monkey grabed the bottle and shook it methodlessly for a while. Finally, the peanuts fell out and the monkey got to eat them.

猴子拿到瓶子之后，乱摇了好久，终于摇出了花生米，这才吃到。

The scientist put another two peanuts into the bottle. This time, he showed the monkey that if you put the bottle upside-down² the peanuts will fall out easily.

科学家又往瓶子里装了两颗花生米，这一次，他向猴子示范，只要把瓶子倒过来，花生就掉出来了。

But the monkey still shook the bottle methodlessly after it grabed it. It didn't learn anything the scientist taught it.

不过，猴子在接过瓶子之后，依旧像之前那样乱摇，完全没有学会科学家教它的方法。

Why?

这是为什么呢？

The reason is that all the monkey saw were just the peanuts. Its brain could not handle anything else such as the scientist's example.

这是因为，猴子的眼里一直只有那两颗华生，它的大脑根本没有余地关心科学家的示范。

Sometimes, and quite often, when we encounter³ complex situations, we are just like this monkey. We don't calm ourselves down and try to find a solution for the problem. We merely fight a pointless fight methodlessly with the problem.

很多时候，我们在遇到复杂问题的时候，就像这只猴子一样，不去冷静地思考解决问题的办法，而只是单纯与问题做无意义的抗争。