Eric Tian

A few weeks ago, I came across Ali Abdaal’s newsletter which talked about a reflective practice one can do at the end of each day. The idea came from a book called Storyworthy and the practice is essentially asking ourselves, “What’s the most story-worthy thing that happened today?” Then we should make a spreadsheet of these story-worthy moments and over time, we’ll build a bank of stories we can develop and share with others.

As someone who’s been journaling for a while and open to trying new things, this idea excited me a lot. So, every day for the last few weeks, I’ve been filling in a spreadsheet on Notion that’s titled, “what’s the most story-worthy thing that happened today?”. Looking back, this practice has been a lot more valuable than I initially thought it would be. Here’s two reasons why.

1. Looking back on past moments is fun.

Sometimes, it can be easy to reach a point where you sit up and realise you can’t remember what you did over the last few days, like you’ve just woken up from a coma. It tends to happen at the start of a new month or a new year (“man, where did 2019 go?”) and when it does, I find it very frustrating.

From the few autobiographies I’ve read and from the advice of others, recording down the present moment’s events can be incredibly valuable to look back on in the future. It can serve as a delightful reminder of a forgotten experience and remind us what we used to find interesting. The potency of these reflections is comparable to that of Ego in Ratatouille, when he tastes a special dish from his childhood and feels a palpable emotional rollercoaster. The stories that seem mundane now can be incredibly precious later.

2. A reflective practice forces you to find magic in the mundane.

In finding story-worthy moments throughout each day, we must look for moments of magic when none might appear to be. This pushes one to develop a higher level of awareness, looking out for moments throughout the day that are story-worthy. It’s essentially a variation of a daily gratitude journal where constantly reflecting on your blessings is supposed to make you more grateful and less anxious. Through doing this story-worthy moments exercise, I’ve begun to notice my mind unconsciously searching for interesting things in the moment and often, something comes up which makes bad days a little better and good days a little brighter.

There are very few restrictions to this practice: simply write something down each day that was story-worthy. Some moments I’ve written about have been during a run, doing groceries or simply while studying in my room. This practice requires very little effort, seems to be valuable and I’ll be continuing this practice for the foreseeable future. It’s pretty amazing how magical things pop up if you simply look out for them, even in the most unexpected of places.

Disclaimer: This post is taken from one of my journal entries last week and is thus more unstructured and personal than usual. Welcome to one of my more chaotic ramblings.

Neuroticism (noun): One of the Big Five higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology, defined as the tendency to experience frequent and intense negative emotions accompanied by a perceived inability to cope with such experiences. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody and to experience feelings such as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness.

If I had to plot my levels of neuroticism over the last 4 years, it’d look something like this:

2017 – The year of new beginnings. Entering a new city, starting a new degree, a chance for a new identity. And with that chance came a longing to prove to the world my academic abilities. I worked hard – harder than I’d ever worked before – studying until ridiculous hours and obsessing over assignments worth 5%. Although my desire to succeed at University was strong, I still carved out some time for extracurriculars and having a social life. I stood on the border between healthy and neurotic.

2018 – Despite my efforts, I disappointed myself with my grades in 2017. And so, 2018 brought along with it a greater dose of neuroticism. I gave up many extracurriculars from the previous year and devoted even more time obsessing over every detail in lecture slides. I devoured personal development books, tried every ‘study hack’ I could find and prioritised my grades over my physical, spiritual and mental health. My moods fluctuated heavily with my grades and an assessment mark <80% could ruin my week. And so, despite burnout, a lot of lonely nights and a non-existent social life, I continued to grind and became highly neurotic.

2019 – Finally, I’d achieved the grades I wanted. By 2019, I’d figured out the best study methods for me and as a result, the amount of time I spent studying slowly decreased.

However, the cost I had to pay was immense. I forgot how to socialise, be a friend and didn’t have anything worth to show apart from my grades. And so, I hesitantly ventured out to other activities. Being a better friend. Helping out in church. Joining the University athletics team. Starting this blog. Reading more. And for the first time in 2 years, my studies no longer took first priority in my life. I was content doing just well enough to be considered competitive for my post-graduate options, but nothing more. I began to develop wider interests and my neuroticism levels decreased into a healthy level.

Present – Now, my neuroticism levels have reached an unprecedented low. This was and is still surprising to me – I thought that starting the prestigious course of medicine would do something to make me become more neurotic about my studies. However, the exact opposite happened: the ‘just-good-enough’ attitude from my Biomed degree carried through and I’ve started studying the bare minimum to get a reasonable mark, not a scratch more. Of course, since medicine is a career which demands technical excellence and a strong grasp over many different topics, this level of apathy I’ve reached is particularly problematic.

As I’m writing this, my end-of-semester exam covering >120 lectures is less than 2 weeks away and I’m 4 days behind my study timetable. And the thing is, I don’t really care. The 2017 or 2018 me would’ve been freaking out by this point but my emotional radar is flat-lining. These days, I sometimes wonder if I’ve crossed the fine line between emotional stability and emotional numbness.

Buddhist teachings fascinate me for this reason. While most secular schools of thought would agree that a certain level of passion is required for a meaningful life, Buddhism promotes this idea of liberation and non-attachment which is contrary to the status quo. While I doubt I’m going to become a Buddhist anytime soon, I’d love to talk to a Buddhist monk one day and ask how their path to enlightenment is going. I imagine their levels of neuroticism are much lower than mine and their insight to the dilemma of balancing emotional stability and numbness could be valuable. Plus, it’s always fun to make a new friend.

So, I guess I’m on a quest for neuroticism. I don’t really know where this quest is heading: is the goal to reach my 2019 ‘healthy’ level of neuroticism or to reframe my current low levels in a different light? Who knows. But historically speaking, writing this down tends to be a step in the right direction. I guess we can only wait and see.

Dreams are pretty weird. While I could give a personal spiel about this, I think Matthew Walker in his book Why We Sleep breaks it down pretty well. Here’s five reasons why sleep is weird.

First, we see things that aren’t actually there – we hallucinate. Second, we believe things that couldn’t possibly be true – we become delusional. Third, we become confused about time, place and person – we become disoriented. Fourth, we have extreme emotional swings – we become affectively labile (a psychiatric term). And fifth, we wake up in the morning and forget most, if not all of this bizarre dream experience – we suffer from amnesia. If you were to experience any of these symptoms while awake, you’d be seeking immediate psychological treatment. In other words, every night, we become flagrantly psychotic.

Over the past few decades, much research has been done on the nature of dreams. Through this research, scientists have generated some findings about sleep which seem to explain some of the strange presentations during dreaming. For instance, we know that four main clusters of the brain light up during sleep:

1. The visuospatial regions in the back of the brain, enabling visual perception;
2. The motor cortex, enabling movement;
3. The hippocampus and surrounding structures, supporting autobiographical memory;
4. The amygdala and cingulate cortex – both of which are heavily involved in generating emotion.

We also know that there is a pronounced deactivation of the far left and right sides of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain managing rational thought and logical decision-making. This explains why in my dreams, I think it’s a good idea to fight a dragon whilst naked when in reality, I might be wary of a little dog.

Despite all this research, some questions still remain: why do we dream and more interestingly, what do these dreams mean? I mean, surely there must be a productive reason for mother nature to allow this routine psychosis to occur every night, given how ludicrous it seems objectively. Of course, theories have been proposed aiming to address these questions. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Sigmund Freud proposed that dreams come from unconscious wishes that have not been fulfilled and that when dreaming, repressed desires reveal themselves in the form of “manifest content”. The task of Freud and other psychoanalysists was to ‘decode’ this disguise and reveal one’s true desires.

The notion of dreaming has notable representation in religion and mythology as well. In the Biblical book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar had dreams which turned out to be prophecies regarding his kingdom. This contention is shared by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, who regarded dreams as visitations from the gods, offering divine information. There are certainly no lack of propositions aiming to tackle these questions: a simple Google search of “what do my dreams mean?” is a wild ride.

In the more scientific realm, explanations regarding the reason for dreams include the repair of emotional and mental health, as well as honing qualities of problem solving and creativity, the latter seeming to be in the domain of lucid dreaming *. But while an impressive amount of research has been done as to what happens during REM dreaming (neurotransmitters, cortical regions and the like), the question of the meaning of dreams seems to remain in the esoteric. What exactly does my dream last night of being a primary school student in Brazil mean? Why is there a constant theme of water in my dreams? And most puzzling personally, why and how do some events from my dreams end up manifesting themselves in reality?

Perhaps one day, science will progress to a period where these questions can be answered. But for now, dreams remain curious things we might ponder about for a brief moment when we wake, until we lose its contents to our psychotic, amnesic selves.

* If you’re interested in learning more about this, I’d highly recommend Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep.

It was bound to happen one day, but it’s finally occurred: the infamous writer’s block. For the past two hours, I’ve been sitting at my desk feeling as though I’ve lost the ability to write. It’s not that I’ve run out of ideas – I have a notebook with ideas for posts – but as soon as I sit down to type, my mind just blanks. Since it’s a Sunday and I need to post something, I’ve decided rambling and jotting this experience down is one of the few things I can still manage, so here goes.

In the anime Haikyuu!!, there’s a volleyball player called Bokuto who’s regarded as a top 5 ace in Japan. Meaning he’s the player that his team relies on to score when the going gets tough and is the player who the other team is most focused on shutting down. In one important match, Bokuto goes up to hit a cross shot – a fairly basic spike where the ball goes across the court diagonally as opposed to parallel – and somehow forgets how to. It’s an absolutely ridiculous scene, something akin to Gordon Ramsay forgetting how to chop an onion.

However, I’m kind of feeling this now. I’m not claiming to be a good writer by any means, but writing is something that’s always felt pretty natural to me, whether it’s journaling, writing essays or making these posts. But right now, it’s like some force has taken the neural network wired for writing and severed it. And the remaining neurons are desperately trying to form new synapses to fix this broken circuit. But failing.

Is there such thing as a writing fast? Fasting seems to be the new trend these days – whether it’s intermittent fasting, the ketogenic diet or good old week-long fasts, there seems to be some paradoxical benefit in restricting nutritional intake. The concept of fasting applies to domains outside of nutrition too, such as with the digital detox (social media) or taking a break from dating and enjoying the single life. I’ve even heard of productive breaks from religion. Are writers taking a break from writing a thing?

Perhaps God’s giving me a message – but of what? Is this a rite of passage like a runner getting injured? What a cruel rite of passage. Or more likely, I might just be fatigued and just need to sleep. Whatever the case, I’m just going to end this ramble here. I guess we’ll see what happens.

After I was caught returning at dawn from one such late-night escapade, my worried mother thoroughly interrogated me regarding every drug teenagers take, never suspecting that the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week.

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

One of my most vivid high school memories comes from a Friday afternoon with my literature teacher. School had just finished for the week and many of my peers were heading home, exhausted from two periods of literature class, but I stayed behind with a few others to ask a question regarding an upcoming assignment. As I was waiting in line, I overheard a question posed by a classmate to the teacher:

“Sir, what’s the most intoxicated you’ve ever been?”

While I thought this was somewhat inappropriate, my teacher laughed in response and smiled broadly.

“Believe it or not, my greatest levels of intoxication have never been from alcohol, but from literature.”

Those who overheard this comment erupted in hysteria, perhaps delighted by how well our teacher fit the book-loving, nerdy stereotype of a literature teacher. He had big, blue eyes under thin-rimmed, circular glasses and preferred turtle-neck sweaters and leather boots over the standard teaching attire of shirts and sneakers. I remember staring in disbelief by what I’d just heard. Being intoxicated on literature? In the modern era, there’s no place for books, I thought. The same quality of information can be found in more modern forms of technology such as YouTube videos or podcasts. The teacher’s comment was ridiculous, surely a joke. Either that, or he was just crazy.

For a while, I didn’t think much of this experience. But recently, I’ve begun to read more, thanks to being recommended some fantastic books and with the leisure of extra time freed up by the pandemic. And slowly, I’m beginning to understand what my wide-eyed literature teacher said with a grin all those years ago.

Good literature is hypnotising. They are often written in a way that borders on the edge of familiarity and unfamiliarity, inviting you to leave the world you think yourself to be in and to step inside another. And if you so dare to, the author then guides you step by step into this new world, revealing mundane ideas around you in extraordinary ways, forcing you to question the worldviews and narratives you hold. This can be dangerous, for when you find yourself back in reality, it can be disorienting on a systemic level.

Currently, I’m working through Life of Pi. It’s a beautiful book, with awe-inspiring portrayals of nature and humanity, scattered with golden nuggets on spirituality throughout. One afternoon, I sat down planning to read for 30 minutes, followed by some Uni work. The book ended up holding me for 2 hours, only letting me go due to my fatigue. When I finally put Life of Pi down, I sat up from my couch and walked around the house for 10 minutes in a daze.

The next morning, now acutely aware of the dangers of Life of Pi, I started reading The Three-Body Problem, one of the most renowned sci-fi works of the century, thinking I would fare better. Like the day before, the plan was to read for 30 minutes max, but I ended up spending the whole morning and the rest of the afternoon immersed in it. When I put the book down, my surroundings now dark, I was heavily intoxicated. My world was spinning, I wasn’t sure where I was and I imagine if my housemate asked me for my name, I would’ve hesitated before answering, unable to comprehend the question. It was ridiculous.

Literature, it seems I’ve underestimated you. The messages you hide cannot be compared to knowledge like any other, for the only way to uncover your secrets requires a departure from this world, a departure so visceral that time and space lose meaning in light of your potency. It’s clear without a doubt now: you are intoxicating.

A few days ago, I came across idea of the Input-Output Framework from Ali Abdaal’s newsletter. It’s been a while since I’ve come across a new idea in personal productivity – the main ones of meditation, pomodoros, gratitude and ‘eating the frog’ seem to have been done to death – but this one I’ve found to be new and quite effective for the few days I’ve experimented with it. Here it is:

How to make the most out of free moments: the Input-Output framework

There are many free moments throughout one’s day. These little moments could just be 10 or 30 minutes such as space between meetings and classes but they can accumulate into a significant amount of time. How do we make the most of these little ‘time pockets’?

1. Divide everything you do into either an input or an output activity.

Input is seeking to understand the ideas of others. For me, the main input activities are reading, listening to audiobooks/podcasts and studying. Output is creation. For me, the main output activities are writing, journaling and more recently, making videos.

2. Decide what your inputs and outputs will be.

As a medical student, a significant part of my inputs include content in the form of lectures, tutorials and textbooks related to the medical field. However, I also enjoy learning about psychology, spirituality and creativity. I learn about these in the form of books, podcasts and articles. These are my main inputs.

For my outputs, I love to write and journal. This gives me gain a sense of clarity in my thoughts, freeing up space for other random musings. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the notion of sharing one’s work and the intersection between psychology and spirituality. Aside from making videos, which is a less frequent activity, these are my main outputs.

3. Establish a hierarchy.

Within both inputs and outputs, there should be a rough hierarchy in the value of the task and the attention required. I’d rather read a book than listen to an audiobook, but it requires more attention. Likewise, I’d prioritise listening to an audiobook over reading short articles on my phone, which is above watching YouTube videos, with each level broadly requiring less optimal conditions than the previous one. There should be a similar hierarchy for output activities.

The next step is where productivity arises. Whenever a free moment arises, all I need to do is ask myself:

4. “Is my current priority input or output, and what is the highest task in the hierarchy I can currently do?”

If I’m at home, with few responsibilities and distractions, I can grab a book or my kindle and start reading. But if I’m on a noisy bus or out walking, I’d struggle to read a book. Easy: I can listen to a podcast or audiobook. If I’m catching up with a friend and waiting for them to arrive, I can take my phone out and read an article on The New Yorker or Brain Pickings, my recent go-tos.

The beauty with this approach is that it removes the need to make decisions in the moment. Free moments pop up throughout the day and when one needs to be productive, this framework makes it frictionless to decide what to do in these moments. If the context changes – perhaps a lecture is cancelled or a friend wants to call in 15 minutes – I only need to ask myself, “In this new context, what is the highest task in the hierarchy I can do?” And start cracking.

Of course, productivity isn’t everything – the need for time socialising, exercising and protecting one’s mental health cannot be overstated. But for the moments when work needs to be done, I’ve found this framework to be great at deciding what to do in those ‘pockets’ of time, where I would previously be scrolling through social media mindlessly.

From the base of the mountain, the summit can’t be seen. When you look up you instead see giant glaciers, the remains of bodies who’ve journeyed before you and black vultures which eye you with bloodthirsty anticipation. Glancing eastward, you see a great boulder falling down the mountain, toppled by an invisible but even greater wind. Your mission, for a reason you’re unaware of but doesn’t matter, is to scale the mountain. Looking down, you notice you’re dressed in nothing but shorts and sandals, yet this doesn’t bother you. As you take your first step, the vultures – as if on cue – jet down towards you in a black cloud, screeching in delight…

Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.

The shrill but familiar sound of your alarm forces you back into the world of reality. For a moment, you find yourself stuck halfway between the two worlds – neither here nor there – but after a while, the constant assault of the alarm pulls you out. You stumble out of bed, find the alarm clock across your room and hit the snooze button.

It’s 7am on a Saturday. A day with no scheduled online tutorials, webinars or responsibilities. In other words, a free morning. A day off. Rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you look down at your desk to find the to-do list you laid out the previous night staring back at you.

Of all the couples at the beach, one clearly stands out as being more in love than the rest. While others complain about the overcast skies and choppy waves, this special couple laughs as they exchange stories about their day, the unmistakable twinkle of love in their eyes. You smile as you hear the hearts of this couple beating in perfect unison, unlike the other couples on the beach. As you turn, a little Indian boy in a green bucket-hat stands in your way, holding a half-eaten pink soft serve towards you. “Wanna buy?” he asks with big, brown eyes and stained lips. “No, thank you.” You reply, smiling and walking past him to an unknown destination. In the distance, you hear the crackling of a thunderstorm and rain begins to fall.

Once again, a rude and intrusive sound forces you out of your dream. You frown as the sound fades, then hear it again. Clang. The sound of metal on a skip bin downstairs. More locally, you hear the sound of a shower running, suggesting your housemate’s awakening, and glance at the time: 10:03am. You somehow napped for another 3 hours. Like a familiar act, you groan, climb out of bed and stare down at the to-do list staring up at you.

“Alright,” you say to yourself. “Even though it’s a weekend, I think we’ve rested enough – let’s get some work done.” As you begin to convince yourself of this plan, another voice chimes in. Look, you’ve worked hard this week – you should give yourself a break. That’s what weekends are for, right? Recharging. Go on, you’ve already wasted 3 hours, just take the rest of the day off. Studying is for nerds.

You hesitate. Your autonomic nervous system seizes this moment to advise you that you’re cold and to go find some warmth, as your pajamas aren’t exactly the best at insulating heat. You look around for some socks to put on but realise your favourite socks are in the washing basket which is unfortunate because your feet are getting very cold. Out of desperation, you dive into the only fast-acting sauna you can find: your bed, still carrying the residual heat from your body. Your lazy voice whispers its approval. Good decision.

You know you can’t stay in bed forever, but while you’re in bed you jot down some of the strange dreams you had that morning. Something about a mountain, vultures… and an Indian kid selling ice-cream? How bizarre. A few moments later, you hear the opening of the bathroom door and decide to finally get up and do your business. You throw on some mediocre socks before you leave your room and go to the toilet, grabbing your phone on the kitchen table on the way. You open your phone to be greeted by an assault of social media and email notifications and as you start going through them whilst brushing your teeth, you take note of the time: 10:14am.

In your email, you see an interesting-looking article in your inbox. You take some time contemplating whether to read the article now or to start with your to-do list, now 3 hours behind schedule. Once again, your autonomic nervous system seizes this opportunity to advise you that you’re hungry and to go make some breakfast, as you didn’t eat much last night. Your lazy voice giggles in delight at having an ally as powerful as the hormones and neurotransmitters that govern your physiology on its side. You sigh and grab for your oats container.

When you first sat down to eat and read the article, you thought it’d only take 10, maybe 15 minutes max. But it’s now 11:21am, the oats bowl now empty and cold, and you realise you’re on YouTube watching a video called My longest yeah boy ever. You silently berate yourself, quickly wash your bowl and sit down at your desk. Your journal sits in front of you, waiting to be written on. “Okay,” you think to yourself. “I’ll quickly do these morning pages and then do some work.” After taking some time to write, you glance at the time: 11:45am. 15 minutes until noon. Your lazy voice pipes up.

Oh, just forget it. If you want to do work, just start at 12:00. It’s more legit that way, hey? You hate to admit it, but you find yourself agreeing with this advice. And as if on cue, your autonomic nervous system chimes in to thank you for feeding it, but now it’s sleepy again and would very much like another nap if that’s okay. You sigh, resigning yourself to these powerful forces and silently apologise to your last-night’s self for being such a failure. When you crawl back into bed, you promise yourself that when you wake up, you’ll do some work.

We’ll see about that.