Eric Tian

Two weeks ago, I started reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It’s a book that I’ve always wanted to read since it has a rich history and the title is great. My Russian in-laws have also proclaimed it as one of the greatest literary works of all time, so that’s hard to ignore.

Yet, War and Peace is tough. In the first five chapters, there are over twenty characters introduced, all with particular titles and quirks. Various people share the same first name and there’s a grandfather and grandson that share exactly the same name: Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky. Some people even have multiple names – Natalya is also Natasha, while Yelena is also Helene.

As a result, War and Peace initially stumped me. After reading ten chapters, I had to restart the book, defeated. However, as I really wanted to read this book, I started again and followed the first five chapters with pen and paper, taking rigorous notes to remember the characters. It was an unusual way of reading and frankly, pretty tough.

But then something beautiful occurred: a breakthrough. Suddenly, I became immersed in the story enough that I could naturally follow the plot. I cannot describe the beauty of this moment; it’s like listening to a phone call between two strangers and realising what they were talking about. Your world is transformed.

And now, War and Peace is one of the most extraordinary stories that I’ve ever come across. Tolstoy really is an amazing storyteller. I’ll probably make another post once I’m finished with this epic, but here’s to fighting past difficult texts and finding breakthrough moments.

It seems in many areas, the hardest hill to overcome is the one at the start.

Yesterday, I was flipping through an old journal entry from age 17. The question I was pondering then was, “what is my identity?” of which I wrote:

Table tennis athlete, musician, student.

Reading this entry startled me, for now I wouldn’t recognise two of those three titles as my own. I stopped playing competitive table tennis two years ago, and last touched my viola around the same time. Only being a student has remained the same, albeit now in a different time and place.

It’s interesting to see how our identity shifts with time. Someone who played football in high school can’t call himself an athlete forever. Someone who left a business two years ago can’t keep calling himself a businessman. At some stage, we pick up new interests, spend our time in different ways and give ourselves new identities.

Discarding old titles can hurt. A lot. One of the most traumatic events of my childhood occurred when I removed the title of having a father. It’s natural to want consistency in our identity. Change can be a real disorienting pain in the ass. Yet, short-term trauma is often necessary for long-term progress so for the sake of growth, we endure.

Now, five years later, my answer to the identity question is something closer to:

Reader, writer, explorer of ideas.

Today I caught up with a close friend, spent time with loved ones, learned something new, read a book, exercised a bit and had meaningful conversations. As a whole, it was wonderful.

Time has made me realise that good days always look pretty similar. They all have some combination of the above elements, plus a few other things.

Crucially, good days also don’t have certain elements; things that threaten to make the day a little less bright. These aren’t immediately obvious but can be noticed with enough effort. Some of these forbidden elements include excessive social media, gaming or spending money on material goods.

Once I know what good days look like, perhaps it’ll be easier to recreate more good days.

Here’s to many more good days in the future.

We were born naked, blind; unable to read, speak or type and yet here we are.

Every day provided food for spiritual, physical and mental growth until we grew to the people we are today.

As a kid, you might’ve thought walking was impossible. Then when you walked, you might’ve thought running was impossible. Then when you ran, you might’ve thought jumping was impossible. But within a few years, you’re now walking, running, jumping and doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

We were not born ready, but we can sure learn to be ready for anything. The possibilities are exciting, yet a little frightening.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed I tend to be the opposite to my surroundings.

When people are happy with the world, I think of reasons to be sad. When people talk smack about others, I think of the great traits they might have.

When someone gives me a piece of advice, I think of reasons why they’re wrong. When everyone is following a trend, I look at the trend left behind. When I catch myself doing something ‘normie’, it gets eliminated.

In other words, I have a proclivity for chaos.

Why am I like this? Do I subconsciously desire balance? Do I want to see the other side properly represented? Or perhaps I’m just very disagreeable?

Whatever the case, it seems to do more good than harm. For instance,

• Seeing someone with an illness motivates me to be healthy.
• Seeing someone freak out motivates me to stay calm.
• Seeing someone despair at the world motivates me to count my blessings.

Interestingly, the inverse of these cases don’t bother me so much. Seeing a great body doesn’t motivate me to eat junk food, but I think of the sacrifices one had to make to create it. This makes me respect them and I love the world more.

Being an anti-chameleon is strange, but fun.

Cheers to my brilliant fellow anti-chameleon Derek Sivers for this idea.

Sometimes, it feels like the world stops you from doing what you want.

Perhaps you’d like to start a business. Write a blog. Start a YouTube channel. Rekindle old friendships. Or maybe it’s time for those six-pack abs you always wanted. But frustratingly, there’s just not enough time right now to do them all.

The solution to this dilemma can be found in Buridan’s ass.

Imagine a donkey that is placed exactly halfway between a bucket of water and a stack of hay. Because it is no closer to either option, it keeps looking left and right, unable to choose one. This goes on until the ass – paralysed by indecision – dies of both hunger and thirst.

Buridan’s ass can’t plan for the future. If it could, it would realise that it could first go to the water, then go eat the hay.

We can avoid Buridan’s ass. We can do everything we want to do with foresight and patience. The solution is to plan things one at a time. If you’re twenty and there’s five things you want to do, try doing one thing at a time for ten years. You’ll probably live until seventy to get them all done. This way, you can fully focus on one pursuit at a time without feeling conflicted because you know you’ll get to the others.

Most of us overestimate what we can do in one year, and underestimate what we can do with ten.

Let’s think long-term. Don’t be a donkey.

Credits to Derek Sivers for this idea. Buridan’s ass is also traditionally used for discussions surrounding free will. If you’d like to read more, here’s a skeptical article towards Buridan’s ass’ illustration of free will.

Let’s do some maths.

The average book has 60,000 – 100,000 words. Let’s go with 100,000.

The average reading speed is 250 – 300 words per minute. Let’s go with 250. Note that this range is for mental readers; auditory or visual readers can read up to much faster speeds.

So if a book has 100,000 words, then reading at a pace of 300 words per minute means you’ll finish a book in 100,000 / 300 = 333.33 minutes, or roughly 5 hours and 30 minutes, or 11 blocks of 30 minutes.

That means if you just spend half an hour reading each day, you can pretty much finish most books in two weeks – and that’s if you’re reading a biggish book and reading slowly.

This reading pace of 30 minutes each day results in finishing The Great Gatsby in five days; Life of Pi in twelve days; and War and Peace – one of the largest classics ever written – in just over two months. Not much time at all, considering these texts have single-handedly turned societies around and changed people’s hearts.

Often, it’s the small practices done consistently that drive the biggest results.

…is taken from the most important blog.

Yours.

It doesn’t matter if no one but you reads it. The blog you write each day is the blog you need the most. It is a compass and a mirror, a chance to put a stake in the ground and refine your thoughts.

The most important post is the one you will write tomorrow.

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This short piece above was inspired from Seth Godin’s blog – a place filled with wonderful ideas.

Sometimes, it’s tempting to give up writing. Some days are busy, tiring and you just want to rest. Other days, you reread something you’ve written in the past and realise how painfully mediocre you are. On the worst days, you question why you’ve written anything at all; that you wish on nobody the torture of reading your rambles and feel sorry for those who have already witnessed the full brokenness of your spirit.

But this was a good reminder that who I write for is nobody but myself. That no matter how chaotic or mediocre my musings, it is an opportunity to refine my thoughts and to find some order throughout this life; a pursuit that seems worth fighting for.

So here’s to another post and many more to come.

Recently, I came across this beautiful word from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

agnosthesia

n. the state of not knowing how you really feel about something, which forces you to sift through clues hidden in your behavior, as if you were some other person—noticing a twist of acid in your voice, an obscene amount of effort put into something trifling, or an inexplicable weight on your shoulders that makes it difficult to get out of bed.

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In a world full of noise and opinions, it is easy to feel lost in a void. From this void comes uncertainties, and over time these uncertainties begin to evolve and weigh on you until you are paralysed with the curse of not knowing. In these moments, it is tempting to put aside critical thought and resign to popular opinion.

However, perhaps we should consider alternatives to desperately filling this uncertainty, for while uncertainty is painful, it is also the mother of creativity. And the great thing about creativity is that one never knows where they might end up. One might uncover a profound realisation about themselves, or the people around them – a discovery that might make all uncertainty worth the struggle.

Thus, while agnosthesia seems like a curse, it might just be a blessing in disguise. That while defaulting to popular opinion seems enticing, perhaps wrestling with impossible questions is a better alternative to sacrificing critical thought. As O. Carl Simonton suggested,

In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope.

2020 has been a crazy year. Yet, chaotic times tend to be fertile ground for precious lessons and this year was no exception to the rule. To wrap up the year, here’s 3 new lessons, 3 quotes and 3 resolutions for 2021.

3 New Lessons

1. Contradictions are normal and that’s okay. (post here)

My biggest takeaway this year is that people can be irrational and contradictory and that’s totally fine. This was quite the revelation, as I used to be short-tempered and quick to call out inconsistencies in behaviour. I can thank many factors for this lesson, but the two main inputs are:

• A podcast episode between Jay Shetty and Malcolm Gladwell; and
• Fantastic characters found in literature. Tt’s amazing how much detail and complexity some authors can give fictional beings. Reading dilemmas and faults in literature has been illuminating in making me a less angry person overall.

2. Action breeds motivation, not the other way around.

This one is simple but has been a game-changer for getting stuff done. In my pathologically neurotic period, starting tasks would be a chore as I would always mentally prepare myself for the hard effort required to do a task.

This year, I’ve found that the easiest method of doing hard stuff is just to dive straight into it without thinking, kind of like diving into an icy-cold bath. The hardest part of doing something is usually just getting started.

3. Words are works of magic.

2020 had a record number of books read and difficult conversations had. These experiences have illustrated the power of both the written and spoken word.

Words can elevate people to the realms of the heavenly angels, yet equally plunge people into the depths of hell. The Four Agreements describes this dichotomy as white magic vs. black magic, and I’ve found this to be very true. In 2020, I’ve learnt to be more mindful of the things I say and write and to prioritise values of love and truth above all others.

3 Quotes

1. We aren’t uniquely awful, we just know ourselves unusually well. – The School of Life. Note: this quote quite literally saved my life in some of my darkest moments this year.
   
2. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. – Life of Pi.
   
3. One of the painful things of our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid; and those with any imagination or understanding are filled with doubt and indecision. Let doubt avail. – Bertrand Russell.

3 Resolutions for 2021

1. Keep reading and writing.

I’ve tried many habits in the past, but the two that have stuck are my propensities for writing and reading. These have helped me find order amongst apparent disorder and have been reliable punching bags for my heavy emotions. If these are the only good habits that I take to my grave, then so be it.

2. Limit phone use.

Aim: <2 hours per day as a weekly average. I’ve set a challenge for this with my partner to keep me accountable and I hope to keep it.

3. Cultivate good relationships.

The best moments of my life have consistently been times where I’ve had strong and healthy relationships – times where there was a mutual and beautiful understanding that two people had each other’s backs, no matter how crazy things got.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to let relationships slip, so in 2021 I’m making a conscious effort to schedule catch-ups with friends, family and loved ones.

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So, that’s a wrap for 2020. Finally, dear reader, if you’ve made it here I’d just like to give a big thank you for taking the time to follow along with my musings. I don’t think I’m that interesting and it constantly amazes me that I get visitors every month on this site. If you’ve been lurking for a while, feel free to leave a comment – feedback is always appreciated.

Otherwise, I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. I can’t wait to see how crazy 2021 will get.

Cheers,
Eric