Eric Tian

I once asked a friend from the uni athletics squad what he thought about when he was racing. Did he tell himself a story or have a motto to help him run faster?

He replied, “When I’m racing, I try to imagine I’m terribly hungry, and at the end of the race there’s a feast waiting for me, and I’m just trying to reach the feast as fast as possible. If I’m too slow, all the food will be gone!” We both laughed at that. Then I told him what I thought. “When I race, I think of a tiger breathing down my back. A real fast one, and one that needs to feed his family, and if I look back, or slow down, he’s going to eat me.” Then he replied, “Wow. Maybe I’m the tiger chasing you!” And we both laughed again.

Both stories were, obviously, untrue. But despite knowing they were make believe, we adopted them for a purpose. The stories made us feel a certain way, which prompted action in line with our goals: to make us run faster when it was hard.

They were useful, in spite of their fabrication.

I recently saw this instagram post by Brazillian Jiu-jitsu champion Mikey Musumeci (@mikeymusumeci) that I wanted to share:

It is a little crude, but touches on an important point: that nouns or titles don’t matter nearly as much as what we have done with our lives. It doesn’t matter that you are an author if you haven’t written an honest piece of work; it doesn’t matter that you have a medicine degree if you don’t heal the sick; it doesn’t matter that you won a prestigious award if you carried yourself in a manner that fails to inspire.

Lionel Messi won’t be remembered as that Argentinian that won nearly every football award possible, but for the magic he could create with the ball; for his beautiful assists, for his way of weaving around world-class defenders with ease, for his ability to carry mediocre teams to world-class performances, all while in good conduct, on and off the pitch. If he hadn’t done these things, his awards would be meaningless.

At the end of our lives, it is not our titles that will matter, but what we have done, and how we have touched others, that will be celebrated.

I’ve been thinking recently of how trauma impacts people’s lives, having witnessed instances of abuse, neglect and sudden loss, and the pathologic consequences of these, in patients and friends. In searching for a metaphor, and failing, I began to read, and found this passage from Murakami’s After Dark that provided an insight:

“Well, finally, once you become an orphan, you’re an orphan till the day you die. I keep having the same dream. I’m seven years old and an orphan again. All alone, with no adults around to take care of me. It’s evening, and the light is fading, and night is pressing in. It’s always the same. In the dream I always go back to being seven years old. Software like that you can’t exchange once it’s contaminated.”

Software is defined as “a set of instructions, data or programs used to operate computers and execute specific tasks”. It isn’t a perfect metaphor, but it captures two things: that software is used in conjunction with hardware, which is, in our case, our bodies, and that software is used to execute tasks from this hardware. Which means that ideal software created with love and stability, tend to be more functional compared to damaged software which is marked by the lack of these things. It is hardly surprising then, that the majority of male felons tend to have experienced abuse in early childhood, that abused children are far more likely to develop a range of mental illnesses, and that the sharp decline of crime in the ’90s was caused by abortion being legalized two decades prior (meaning potential criminals, raised in unideal circumstances, were not being born).

The crucial difference, and where this metaphor falls short, is that our software isn’t as easily replaceable as that of a computer’s. As much as the fields of psychotherapy and psychotropics have progressed, there is only so much that can be done to heal early traumatic experiences, most of which involves understanding one’s history, and managing the wounds that have come as a result. We are a long way off from removing the software of trauma and its consequences, and installing a new one in its place.

It is one of the greatest blessings and curses of being alive – that our experiences, good or bad, are uniquely ours, and ours to manage; unable, as Murakami wrote, to be exchanged.

So – you are thinking of taking a leap.

Leaps come in varying sizes. Some leaps are relatively small, like joining a gym or starting a blog; some are bigger, like asking out your crush or quitting your job. But whatever the size, the decision really comes down to two questions: what are the pros and cons, and which one outweighs the other? This will predict whether you end up in a net loss or net gain.

What is a pro or a con and how much something matters, is, of course, circumstantial and subjective. The gym fees might not matter so much if you are already rich. The ordeal of learning an instrument might sound fun to one person but a put-off to another. Despite this, I want to argue for why taking the leap is generally a better idea than you might expect, and in many cases, quite a sensible thing to do.

Let’s begin with a story: the birth of this blog.

When I started my blog, I wrote out a pros and cons list. My pros list looked something like this:

1. Something fun
2. Will make me write better
3. Might be useful to other people

My cons list looked something like this:

1. Fear of social judgment
2. Have nothing worthwhile to share

When I started, the pros that I predicted would happen, happened. Indeed, I had some fun, started to write better, and occasionally received a few encouraging comments. But then, over time, something weird occurred. Stuff I didn’t predict started happening.

First, I started realising that writing made my thinking much clearer. You can’t write a good post if it is not already clear in your head. Second, I found that writing more made reading much more enjoyable. When you are constantly editing sentences for clarity and elegance, reading clear, beautiful sentences becomes inspiring. And third, in the process of writing online, I began to connect with a network of readers and other writers that I could learn and draw inspiration from.

In summary, after a few months, my pros list looked something more like this:

1. Something fun
2. Will write better
3. Might be useful to other people
4. (!) Make thinking clearer
5. (!) Reading will be funner
6. (!) Connect with readers and writers

And note that there are countless more pros I could list, almost none of them I could’ve foreseen before taking the leap.

Through it all, the main concerns I had pre-leap – that I might be socially judged and I would have nothing important to share with the world – remained the main concerns post-leap. Despite the unexpected pros, there were no cons that arose after I started writing that I hadn’t considered already and couldn’t prepare for. This leads to my main point:

While you can easily predict the cons of making a leap, there is no way to predict the countless rewards that await you on the other side. There is a fundamental asymmetry of risk and rewards at play.

Provided the chief concerns you predict you can manage, it thus makes a lot of sense to make the leap. By not doing so, you are giving up unimaginable future rewards for a few concerns you can predict and prepare for today.

I have used starting this blog as an illustration of this asymmetry, but there are many other examples I could’ve used as well: my YouTube channel, starting a running club, or asking my partner out. In each of these examples, the challenges I experienced I had largely predicted, but the rewards from these far exceeded my expectations. There was an asymmetry of manageable concerns and unimaginable rewards.

With this asymmetrical nature at play, taking the leap, then, is no longer an emotional jump characterised by reckless passion, but a logical next step toward a more intentional life.

Credits to More To That for this idea.

I’ve been flirting with this for a while now, but have never really committed, mostly because it was too intimidating and I couldn’t be bothered, but I’ve decided to bite the bullet. From today onwards, I’m going to write a daily post.

On inspection, there is no reason to not make this leap. The benefits of writing online are enormous, and maintaining this blog is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And by following the advice from my previous post, quantity can only lead to better quality, which may, with enough work and luck, culminate into better ideas, clearer sentences and even, potentially, a book.

Onwards and upwards.

Merry Christmas all. Here’s an excerpt from David Bayles and Ted Orland’s Art & Fear: 

“[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorising about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

From my experience blogging, quantity, or the frequency of writing, matters far more than the quality of any individual post. When I began posting three times a week instead of just once, my writing became noticeably quicker and smoother and my ideas came out more clearly. There is something powerful to be gained by constant repetition and incremental improvements across time.

I’m sure that this also applies to other domains. Ali Abdaal has said that the first 50 YouTube videos you create will be terrible, and this is part of the process; the Beatles famously performed over 1000 times on stage before their first great success; and the generally accepted 10,000 hour rule, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, is testament to the power of showing up. Small things every day lead to something big.

Quantity leads to quality.

One of my favourite things to do in Perth is to look through my old journals. It always amazes me how differently I saw the world and how I carried myself in particular situations, while comparing to myself now.

While it’s fun just revisiting old memories, the best part of reading old journals is tracking how I’ve changed over time. We sometimes think of our values, personality and priorities as being unchanging, for if we fail to record events down, we usually forget them, and then there is nothing to remind us that we came from somebody different to us now. Yet it only takes a few honest, historical entries to remind you that you were once addicted to games, perhaps a little too much of a people-pleaser, and embarrassingly awkward. And when I journal nowadays, I too am aware that my “deep” thoughts and emotions will be looked back upon with a similar sort of gentleness and amusement.

This blog, too, acts as a journal of sorts. Every so often I’ll read some of my earliest posts, which I don’t edit, despite me desperately wanting to, for that would be tainting the piece, and it is always humbling seeing younger Eric write his heart out, wrestling with the topics that he found valuable, remembering how these posts shaped his thinking. And witnessing this is beautiful: it helps connect the dots backwards, to look back and see the path behind us.

It only takes a minute or two every day to write down the day’s thoughts and events, maybe more if you’re overcome by passion or emotion. But this habit provides a piece of evidence, evidence that you did things and said things and thought things and generally existed. And with enough pieces of evidence, it begins to show your transition across time, as a portfolio of sorts, but instead of displaying art, or achievements, you are showing an account of yourself – and that is a precious thing.

We all understand the importance of moving fast. In business, completing deadlines builds trust and invites the next step. In school, completing exams before time is up allows you to check your answers for any mistakes. In relationships, fast and open communication generally outweighs slow and reserved.

But in some contexts, moving fast doesn’t make as much sense. Watching a movie at 3x speed strikes us as wrong: the purpose of the movie is to be immersed in the visuals, the music, the dialogue, the way the director intended. Watching it faster gives us time to get on with the day, but then what? What are you looking forward to that is more important than watching it properly? Another movie that you don’t fully experience?

Alan Jacobs summarises this dilemma well on his blog:

“My question about all this is: And then? You rush through the writing, the researching, the watching, the listening, you’re done with it, you get it behind you — and what is in front of you? Well, death, for one thing. For the main thing.

But in the more immediate future: you’re zipping through all these experiences in order to do what, exactly? Listen to another song at double-speed? Produce a bullet-point outline of another post that AI can finish for you?

The whole attitude seems to be: Let me get through this thing I don’t especially enjoy so I can do another thing just like it, which I won’t enjoy either. This is precisely what Paul Virilio means when he talks about living at a “frenetic standstill” and what Hartmut Rosa means when he talks about “social acceleration.”

I say: If you’re trying to get through your work as quickly as you can, then maybe you should see if you can find a different line of work. And if you’re trying to get through your leisure-time reading and watching and listening as quickly as you can, then you definitely do not understand the meaning of leisure and should do a thorough rethink. And in both cases maybe it would be useful to read Mark Helprin on “The Acceleration of Tranquility.”

Airports are filled with magic.

It is a place of farewells and reunions; hopes and crushed dreams; beginnings and endings. A woman going overseas for a new job could be sitting next to a man going overseas for his son’s funeral, both waiting to board the same flight. There are so many stories, each person at the airport with their own reason for flying.

As I was waiting for my ride in the pick-up zone, I saw a woman and two kids waiting next to me. They were sitting on a bench in silence, staring at the cars pulling in, not moving, as if in a trance. After a few minutes, a man got out of a car and began running towards them. When the first kid saw him, he cried, Daddy! and the other kid got up and they both ran to him. They collided and the dad picked them up, one in each arm, with the biggest smile I had ever seen. I didn’t know smiles could be that wide – it seemed to stretch on forever. He hugged his kids like they were the most precious things in the universe. When he finally put them down, he went to his wife, who was taking a photo, who put her phone down and they met for a hug. The two kids came up and the hug opened to let them in. What a sight to behold.

Not too far from me, I noticed a man staring at the family as well. He was middle-aged, with a beard and a red cap. We made eye contact and smiled, recognising the magic.

From East of Eden by John Steinbeck, my favourite novel this year:

“A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we’re at it, what’s the story about?”

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one… Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too — in a net of good and evil… There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

[…]

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”