Eric Tian

I have set a goal to run a marathon next year. Naturally, I looked online to find training plans and some advice – how many runs to do per week, how many workouts vs. slow runs, what pace etc., and was surprised to find that there is no real consensus.

Emil Zatopek, the first person to win the 5km, 10km, and marathon at the Olympics, famously did most of his training through 400m repeats. On the other hand, seasoned marathoners like Josh Sambrook swear by the benefits of slow running, and rarely ever do track sessions. While there are some workouts that find themselves in most training plans, there appears to be no “golden formula” in running, despite it being one of the most fundamental activities for our species.

Which is liberating, albeit a bit scary. When there is no clear path laid out, there is freedom to write your own story. Making mistakes doesn’t feel as bad, because you couldn’t have known – nobody knows. And if something works for you that seems to match another training plan, maybe that can be your guide in the right direction.

Doing what feels right to you, noting but not following collective opinion, appears to be the most natural mode to be in.

I have had a concussion this past week and have found writing difficult.

Or anything, really. Focusing, reading, talking – things I could fluently do are now strenuous, to the point where a patient asked if I was drunk because I couldn’t think of the word “house”. Not to mention the persistent headache that plagues me from morning to sleep.

The worst thing is the amnesia though. When I got hit in the head, I lost all memory of that night’s events. Going through my texts, notes, and journal the next day was like reading another person’s story. It is startling how fragile our brains can be. Now that I have partially recovered, the ability to remember yesterday’s events feels like a blessing.

If it wasn’t for the written word, these memories would have been lost forever. Which would be shame, because I write some really weird stuff when concussed.

Another reminder to invest in note-taking and journalling to etch our lives into history.

“Maybe a survivor is nothing but the last one to come home, the final monarch that lands on a branch already weighted with ghosts.”

– Ocean Vuong, A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read

Rush hour in the city. A young boy raises a violin to his chin, and says, I’m sorry to bother you all but I just want to play a song. His apology saddens me – as if the gift of music was something to be forgiven.

He pauses, checks his microphone, and smiles to his parents holding a camera. Then he plays the first stroke and something shifts in the air. The man beside me has put down his phone, the baby has stopped crying, the birds stop their singing. His tune penetrates our skin, reminding us that there is beauty around us. We notice the magic.

As he finishes, the universe holds it breath, letting the music seep into the corners of the Earth. He lingers on the last note, sweat pouring down his face, then lowers his instrument and smiles, not knowing the cosmic shift his performance had created, and then the world speeds up and resumes its pace.

Consider these two quotes:

1) In the movie Gladiator, there is a scene where Maximus’ plan to escape Rome and unite with his legions is ruined. His plan had been leaked to the young Roman emperor Commodus, who ordered dozens of Roman soldiers to surround and attack the gladiators’ barracks at night. In one last act of treason, the gladiator trainer Proximo hands Maximus his keys that will ensure his freedom. As the soldiers barge in, Maximus says to him, “Proximo, are you in danger of being a good man?”

2) In a conversation with Jocko Willink, Jordan Peterson says, “A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.“

Both these quotes have subjects of good and danger but approach them in different ways. In the first, danger is attributed to the consequences of a good deed. Proximo’s act of freeing Maximus would likely – and in fact, did – end up with him being killed. The message is that in the face of injustice or pressure, it can be dangerous to do what is right.

Yet in Jordan Peterson’s case, we see the very nature of goodness intertwined with being dangerous. To be good is not the absence of terror or evil – rather, goodness arises with one’s capacity to cause great harm but deciding against it. This is why all the most engrossing heroes in stories have recurring motifs of overcoming themselves. We see that characters like Harry Potter, Achilles, and Batman could use their powers for evil and struggle with this. Part of what makes them a hero is fighting and overcoming this battle within themselves.

These two messages, at first glance, appear contradictory. The first warns of the danger in doing good. The second asserts that goodness is fundamentally tied to being dangerous. One cautions against danger and the other promotes it.

Yet they are two sides of the same coin. Behind each good person walks a long shadow and the expression of goodness risks inviting more shadows in. And this is a necessary state, for without being dangerous, a good person would be unable to deal with the danger that awaits. Danger and goodness, in the end, are inseparable, linked together by both nature and consequence.

Tonight at boxing I sparred with a guy much smaller than me. He was slim and was no taller than 160cm – it felt like I was going against a child.

The round started and I landed a cross to the body.

“Sorry,” I said, feeling bad. He grinned sheepishly.

Out of nowhere, he unleashed a combo on my ribs that I could barely see. As I tried to counterpunch in desperation, he was already out of striking range. Frustrated, I began trying harder and harder to hit him, but he would effortlessly dodge my punches and hit me while I was vulnerable. When the round ended, he was barely sweating, while I was physically and mentally drained. My one punch at the start was the only punch I had landed.

After class, I approached him.

“You’re pretty amazing,” I said. “Must be hard being shorter than everyone else.”

He stared at me for a while and laughed.

“I think my size works to my advantage, actually.” He waved at the other people. “I’ve always been the smallest guy in class, and have had to adapt to keep up. So I think my speed is actually because of my size, not in spite of it. If I get hit, it’s over. So I’m much more cautious than other boxers.”

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.” While true, he could have also added the converse: “Underdogs are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to limit them are often sources of great strength.” That the Davids in the world don’t succeed in spite of their disadvantages, but because of them.

As we left, the small boxer revealed he was competing in a competition next month.

“Good luck,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied. “But I think I’ll be okay. People always underestimate the small guys.”

When I first read Stephen King’s On Writing, I was surprised to learn that he only writes in the morning, eats lunch, then spends all afternoon reading. A serious writer, I imagined, would spend most of their day writing, only stopping for sleep or food. But Stephen King realised that when he was exposed to other books and ideas, his own writing got better as well. His writing improved because of his reading, not despite of it. His inputs determined his outputs.

It makes sense in other domains, doesn’t it? Hard exercise grows muscles; deep conversations drive insights; quality sleep promotes rejuvenation. The stimulus drives the results. But for whatever reason, the idea of reading as an equally necessary input for thinking and writing seems a bit odd. Maybe that’s the product of a society that rarely reads.

Yet in my experience, the lesson holds true. Whenever I’m in writers block, a useful antidote is to stop writing altogether and just read until something interesting appears. The new input usually leads my subconscious towards some output which I can then work with. This is ultimately why I read and journal and take notes – to capture ideas to build upon later.

I like what the writer Ted Gioia said on the Conversations with Tyler podcast:

“I think the most important skill anyone can develop is time management skills. How you use your day. But there is one principle I want to stress because this is very important to me. When people ask me for advice — and once again, this cuts across all fields — but this is the advice I give:

In your life, you will be evaluated on your output. Your boss will evaluate you on your output. If you’re a writer like me, the audience will evaluate you on your output.

But your input is just as important. If you don’t have good input, you cannot maintain good output.

The problem is no one manages your input. The boss never cares about your input. The boss doesn’t care about what books you read. Your boss doesn’t ask you what newspapers you read. The boss doesn’t ask you what movies you saw or what TV shows or what ideas you consume.

But I know for a fact I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life. That’s why I spend maybe two hours a day writing. I’m a writer. I spend two hours a day writing, but I spend three to four hours a day reading and two to three hours a day listening to music.

People think that that’s creating a problem in my schedule, but in fact, I say, “No, no, this is the reason why I’m able to do this. Because I have constant good-quality input.” That is the only reason why I can maintain the output.”

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While googling around, I came across this blog post I wrote on this topic from over three years ago! I forgot this existed and the writing is almost unrecognisable. Fun throwback.

My Dear,
It has been six weeks since you left.
How are you finding heaven?

They say the hardest task in life is
to live only once,
Yet when I replay your songs and laughter,
Your story still remains, in a way
Continuing to live,
Just not you.

I may regret saying this,
But when you left,
Your suffering didn’t disappear, no it
was carried by the world.
That night, you carried a bomb into a room
With us all inside
And burst a hole to the heavens.
Eighty of us attended your funeral, injured and limping.
If you knew, would you still have done it?
Would the weight of that burden paralyse you?
I’m sorry for asking.

Your song will continue to be heard,
But through the voices of others.
How the world misses your voice.

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Related: Ode To a Life

There once was a man who believed he was Jesus Christ. He simply woke up one day and declared that he was the Messiah, here to save mankind. To his wife’s horror, he preached to cashiers at the shop, gave away his life’s savings to strangers, and declared he could heal people through his touch. It was not long until he was brought into the psych ward.

There, his delusions persisted. Every day, he would rise and hurriedly tell the other patients about his message. He wrote bible verses over the walls, wore his bedsheet as a robe, and would preach sermons in front of the television. His sermons were initially to nobody but himself, but gradually, people began to listen. His enigmatic nature rubbed off on people, it seemed. Those who heard him seemed to be affected by the message, for they would tell others to come and listen, and within a week, his sermons had a routine attendance.

It did not matter that the sermons were incoherent, nor were they even from the Bible. His messages brought followers, and they soon began to quote him and practice his messages of self-sacrifice and worship. They began to eat together and share stories about themselves in details that one would only tell a close friend. One night, a nurse reported that in the common room there were eight patients sitting together, quiet in meditation, with the man in the middle. It was one of the calmest shifts she had ever had.

But gradually, the medications took their effect and the delusions faded. The man, less sure in his identity, began to preach less, and the daily sermons soon became a thing of history. Each day, the man would reject his previous identity more emphatically, to the nods and approval of his psychiatrists. He began to fear those who knew him as Jesus Christ, and spent his days locked in his bedroom.

The day he was discharged, the doctors and nurses were overjoyed. He had made a full recovery and his wife welcomed him with open arms.

But back in the ward, the patients he had preached to still gathered in front of the television each morning. They ate together and tried recreating his teachings, but soon disassembled without any guidance. His writings on the wall remained for many years, the only evidence that there was a man who believed he was Jesus. And so, the ward returned to a previous time, filled with people a shell of their selves, waiting again to feel delight.

This week was a week of missed opportunities.

Missed the deadline for an abstract submission. Missed the deadline for a short story submission. Procrastinated on an overseas clinical elective and got rejected – it was a first-come-first-serve basis.

While I wish there was some valid excuse for these failings – some cataclysmic event or medical tragedy – the truth is that the fault was all mine. The deadlines were clear and I had lots of time to prepare. There were even people reminding me to submit them on time. But I procrastinated, thought I could do it all in the last moment, as I had done for so many other things, and paid the price.

One of my deepest early regrets is not spending more time with my dad when I could. I thought, despite medical warnings, that he would live forever; that seeing him at hospital wasn’t as important as homework or playing computer games. There would always be time later. I think in some gentle way he encouraged that illusion; he never sat me down and told me that our window of time together was rapidly shrinking. I think he didn’t want to hurt me.

The day he died and the illusion shattered, I cried for a long time. There were so many opportunities to hug him, tell him I loved him, to ask about his life. The saddest windows close when the people you love slip away.

You would think his death would be a lesson to wake up and not let life idly pass me by. But I guess I’m a slow learner.

Paul Graham writes in Life is Short:

“The usual way to avoid being taken by surprise by something is to be consciously aware of it. Back when life was more precarious, people used to be aware of death to a degree that would now seem a bit morbid. I’m not sure why, but it doesn’t seem the right answer to be constantly reminding oneself of the grim reaper hovering at everyone’s shoulder. Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from the other end. Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do. Don’t wait before climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother. You don’t need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn’t wait. Just don’t wait.”