Eric Tian

The biggest lesson I have learnt in writing: simplify.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Omit unnecessary words. Avoid adverbs that add no useful meaning to its verb (“smiled happily”, “yelled loudly”). Don’t use a long word when a shorter one will do. You want to strip down each sentence to its core meaning, free of ambiguity or wasted breath.

But Eric, you might say, this style of writing looks awfully boring, and I’m rather quite exciting like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, so this does not apply to me.

It does.

While I am sure you have a wonderfully creative mind, you can only add style when you have built your prose on a clear, precise foundation. If your writing is messy at its core, adding style is like adding decorations to a house built on quicksand. There is no point in making the house look pretty. It’s going to crash and burn regardless.

Only once you have built a strong foundation, can you move onto decorating your work. You may experiment with punctuation, catch-phrases and tone. Maybe you love to use dashes or semicolons. Maybe you like writing At all costs, or Albeit and wish to include these in every piece. If you find appropriate ways to use these, then by all means.

But they must be hung on a solid base. And the best way to ensure a solid base?

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Yesterday was a bad day. It was one of those days where one bad thing happens right after another and never ends. When the first two bad things happen you think Sure, it’s just one of those days, on the fourth or fifth you think, Come on God, this must be a joke, on the seventh or eighth you’re on the verge of breaking and by the ninth or tenth you’ve finally snapped.

After I snapped it was 7pm and I sat alone on a chair in the city. There were many people and cars about but I felt little inside. I opened my bag to read a book, hoping it would cure my depression, and two oranges fell out onto the floor. One of the oranges rolled onto the ground two metres in front of me and the other orange disappeared from sight. I slowly went to pick up the orange I could see and looked around for the other one. I looked all around me but couldn’t find it. The orange had vanished. I sat back on my chair, defeated, on the verge of tears.

Then a man came up and said, Hey man, you dropped it there, and he pointed to the road. And there it was – my orange hiding behind the curb, underneath a parked car. I said, Oh, thank you, and went to pick it up and when it was in my hands I held the orange like it was my missing child. When I turned around the man was gone.

In that moment I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It was a very small act of kindness over a simple orange but the man’s actions had touched me. We were both strangers to each other and he probably had nice, interesting things to do on a Saturday evening yet he made the effort to help me in my moment of need. And in that simple gesture, all my day’s stresses and burdens quietly disappeared.

It is incorrect to call small acts of kindness small. Though they take minimal effort, these things that we do for each other – a smile on walking past, a Bless you on a frightful sneeze, a You first when lining up – make our interactions divine. They can be the rope that rescues one from the depths of insanity and the gates of hell.

It only takes a tiny star to illuminate a dark sky.

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“Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris:

“I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress

to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

“August in Waterton, Alberta” by Bill Holm

Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off
the aspen tree a month too soon.
No use wind. All you succeed
in doing is making music, the noise
of failure growing beautiful.

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I found this poem in “Bird by Bird“, a part-memoir, part-guide on writing by Anne Lamont, an American novelist. The context was that one day, one of Anne’s students had received honest but harsh feedback from another writer that left him distraught and in tears. This poem is what Anne wanted to send to this upset student.

Here are two takeaways from this poem.

1. Harsh wind is inevitable

Above me, wind does its best / to blow leaves off / the aspen tree a month too soon.

It is one of the universal truths: life is suffering. We see this concept in books, many of the world religions, and most importantly, in our personal experiences. In the best of times, these hardships will seem like mere nuisances; in the worst of times, they will threaten to blow our leaves off and tear us to shreds.

In the poem, the phrase “Above me…” indicates some divine providence, or a force beyond man’s control, being the cause of this suffering, further adding onto its inevitability. “…a month too soon” also nods to the unexpected timing of suffering – that we may never predict the next tragedy around the corner.

2. Suffering is beauty

No use wind. All you succeed / in doing is making music, the noise / of failure growing beautiful.

Upon first reading, I thought this section was describing how beauty is often shaped from suffering. We all intuitively understand this – there is no muscle without breakdown, no jewel without heat, no wisdom without mistakes.

But if you read those lines carefully, this is not what it means at all. This poem is saying that suffering itself is beauty. Whether it is a quiet heartbreak, a tear streaked face or eating giant tubs of ice-cream, moments of suffering are inherently beautiful.

Why the poet takes this stance is unknown and I would love to ask him. But from my experience, there is a certain magic taking place within failure. In these moments of embarrassment and frustration, we experience more of the world in its entirety, for failure and suffering is all around us and this is beautiful.

Let us create music in the noise of failure.

I used to assume that when writers sat down to work, they all knew what they were going to write about. They must have all outlined their ideas, characters and plot twists perfectly in their minds, and all that was left was to transcribe them onto paper.

When I began writing I was terribly annoyed to find out this wasn’t the case. From my own experience, and from reading other authors’ stories, this almost never happens. We might set out to write with a general destination in mind, perhaps a scene or an idea we hope to convey, but we are most of the time half-blind, flailing around, tripping over tree branches, scrambling for a reasonable point. We can only see as far as the next sentence, the next logical thought. There is no master plan.

Thankfully, like driving at night, we can reach our destinations by seeing only as far as our headlights allow. We may make a few wrong turns, swerve suddenly to avoid roadkill and feel quite lost, but with enough time, our headlights will guide us to our destination. Going on wild tangents, creating abysmal roadkills of ideas and feeling overwhelmed are all part of the process. No one has the whole journey mapped out. Besides, it’s more interesting if you figure it out as you go.

The point is to keep moving. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

A repost from an old favourite.

In many domains, the moment you get good at something is when you start breaking conventional rules.

In chess, beginners are taught principles such as control the centre, develop minor pieces before major pieces, and don’t trade your queen for a pawn.

But in many situations, these rules must be broken. Some positions require an attack on the edge of the board rather than the centre. Some positions require moving a major piece instead of a minor piece. And some of the most spectacular games in history involved queen sacrifices to push for a positional advantage (examples). These defy all the principles taught to newer players but grandmasters recognise that sometimes, obeying general principles is not always the best move.

When you reach a certain level of competency, you realise that some rules are meant to be broken.

The moment we begin to outperform is when we begin to innovate, push and find tactics where general principles don’t apply. The best students study more efficiently than the rest. The best athletes do better workouts than the rest. The best companies are more innovative than the rest. Following the status quo is ironically the best way to remain mediocre.

Pablo Picasso summarised it well when he said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

“The stories of our lives, far from being fixed narratives, are under constant revision. The slender threads of causality are rewoven and reinterpreted as we attempt to explain to ourselves and others how we became the people we are.” – Gordon Livingston

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” – Robert Frost

My biggest lesson from moving out of home: at some stage of our lives, we begin to make the rules. At some stage, nobody will force you to study, sleep, eat or exercise. You get to decide to do whatever you want. You get to define how you spend your days, and consequently how your life will play out.

It means everything we do, good or bad, is our responsibility. Our actions now have serious consequences and we can no longer hide behind others.

It’s simultaneously liberating and terrifying.

This morning, while at a traffic light, I locked eyes with a man across the street. He was middle-aged, in his 30s or 40s, and wore a dark suit with a black overcoat on top. We were separated by about 20 metres, me on my bike on the road, he on the pedestrian crossing on the other side, us both waiting for the light to turn green.

I do not know why we locked eyes. When I stopped at the red light, I glanced up and my eyes just happened to land on him, first his clothes, then his posture, then his face. When I arrived at his face I found that he was already looking at me. I simply stared back. He never dropped his gaze and neither did I. We must’ve held each other’s gaze for at least five seconds, maybe even ten, but it felt like an eternity, for when the lights turned green and the green man yelled PIIIUUUdududududu, I felt as though I was forcefully removed from a reverie. Our gazes dropped at that moment.

I will forever remember his eyes. They were deeply observant. I felt as though he was studying every part of my being, from my clothes to my skin, down to my morals and deepest secrets. His eyes never wavered, but just rested on me, burning a hole through my being, studying me like a scientist studying a bug. His eyes also possessed a deep sadness. It seemed he was mourning over something or carrying a deep burden. Perhaps he was shouldering a responsibility that was on the verge of crushing him. Perhaps he had just lost a friend, a loved one, and was dwelling in regret or depression. I will never know why his eyes were that way, for our paths crossed only for a split second, before diverging off, without a word. Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said, “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.” Maybe, in that moment, I was looking at at someone quite extraordinary.

There is great power in locking eyes with someone. Much can be expressed in complete silence: one’s general mood, honesty, level of presentness, bits of personality, and more. Our hesitancy to do so, whether out of politeness or cowardice, is a bit of a shame. There is much to be found in this organ.

To my friend across the street, I hope you had a wonderful day.

It’s 2am. My circadian rhythm is screaming at me to sleep, but here I am, staring at my blank screen, trying to figure out which idea to write about tonight.

Why not give up? The temptation is very real – I think over the last hour I’ve drifted off into sleep a few times already, only to wake up in a few seconds – and honestly, nobody would really notice if a post was missing. Heck, I don’t think many people even noticed when I didn’t post for two months straight.

But the reason I’m up is simple: I believe in the power of just showing up. I write posts on Sundays, and today is Sunday, so something must be written.

In my experience, 80% of any good habit formation comes from just doing something related to the desired outcome, no matter how small or terrible. Want to exercise more? Just start with a five minute walk. Want to learn a new language? Just revise one word. Want to be a better writer? Just write one short post.

I have a few hypotheses why showing up is so critical, but the one that matters the most is this. In our lives, there is always a gap between the person we say we are, and the things we actually do. And if this gap is too big, like saying you are smart or responsible, when you never actually study or take ownership over your duties, there are consequences. Every missed day is evidence that you aren’t the person you say you are, but instead a liar, quite delusional, and perhaps a bit of a loser. The more times you don’t show up, the more this accumulates. The gap between your image of yourself and reality breeds shame, untrustworthiness and disgust.

But when you show up, even for just a moment, it sends a vote in the other direction. Your body says, yes, I didn’t have to do this today, I sure damn didn’t feel like it, but here I am anyway. And if I can do this enough times, then maybe I do deserve this title I have given myself. You begin to trust yourself more, since you have built a reputation of being quite reliable with your promises, and this serves as confidence for future progress. Every act of showing up pushes you forward. Every act of giving up pushes you back.

There are many times when it is quite appropriate to give up, of course. Maybe you used to be a people-pleaser, or wanted to learn an esoteric hobby, but now find that these aren’t quite a priority anymore. It is fine to let them go, to gently kill off previous and aspirations.

But when you come to the many crossroads in life, where you must decide to either march towards an ideal, knowing that it will be difficult and painful, or fall back in response to this challenge, I pray you remember that giving up will be also painful, in more crushing and gnawing ways, and that one step forward, just one millimetre of progress toward a better future, is infinitely better than nothing at all. We are, after all, not what we think, or what we say, or how we feel. We are what we do.

Time for bed.

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.” – Charles Bukowski

This challenge, this impossible task, this painful endeavour that lies before us – we’ve seen this before. These demons are familiar. These emotions – fear, hesitancy, doubt – are a childhood friend.

Yet, here we stand, still alive. Not necessarily well, but alive. We’ve survived the drowning waters, the burning fires, and the fall from heaven. And if anything, this should give us confidence that we can survive this task ahead as well.

This too shall pass.

Here’s one of my favourite rules from an amazing blog post called 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known (would highly recommend reading the whole thing):

“At a restaurant do you order what you know is great, or do you try something new? Do you make what you know will sell or try something new? Do you keep dating new folks or try to commit to someone you already met? The optimal balance for exploring new things vs exploiting them once found is: 1/3. Spend 1/3 of your time on exploring and 2/3 time on deepening. It is harder to devote time to exploring as you age because it seems unproductive, but aim for 1/3.”

I’ve been experimenting with this recently. When buying sushi, I always get two rolls I know I’ll enjoy (salmon avocado and grilled salmon), then experiment with one other I’ve never tried before. Some experiments have been pretty awful – anything with chicken is a nope – but I’ve also discovered some new favourites like tempura salmon or seaweed. Through experiencing different sushis, my world has expanded just a bit.

I think this novelty fraction can be different across different contexts. For high-reward, low-stake activities like food, reading or travelling, I’d push it closer to 1/2 or 2/3. In higher-stake activities like choosing your partner, or giving a talk, however, it may be wise to stick with what you know and have perfected.

Whatever it is, it’s critical some sort of novelty is present somewhere. You won’t remember the 100th tempura salmon sushi you ate. But that amazing seaweed sushi that blew your mind, or that terrible chicken avocado sushi that made you gag, despite it costing $4 and looking spectacular?

Now that’s an interesting story.