Word Vomit is 1000 words in 15 minutes, unedited.

Today’s thoughts are about recurring insights, and about changing yourself versus changing the world. Da Vinci said that no man can have any dominion greater or lesser than over himself. That’s a pretty cool idea- the idea that you can’t control anything beyond yourself, but that in itself is the greatest achievement you could possibly make- all else is secondary. I think it was Osho who said that men often talk about changing the world, but few often talk about changing themselves. I’m guilty of that. I remember thinking “I’m going to save Singapore”. But as Les Brown says, you can’t change people, it’s a full-time job changing yourself. A lot of the time I focus outwards and think “This gotta change, that gotta change,” I neglect to look at myself first. (Speck in his eye, plank in mine, etc.)

Why, though? Is that important? Or shall we go straight to the what? If I am to allow my narrative-constructing mind to take a shot in the dark, I’d guess that it somehow feels more noble and “right” to focus on the world than on yourself- focusing on yourself seems selfish, egoistic. But that’s not entirely true. Thinking you can change the world is egoistic, thinking you have a right to do so is even more egoistic. Maybe it’s just a matter of boredom- changing yourself doesn’t seem like a particularly exciting task. Power over self doesn’t immediately seem as appealing as power over others, until you really sit down and ruminate about it.

So that should be a clearer aim, huh? Power over self. Self-mastery. He who will not obey himself will be commanded. It’s a pretty clear warning signal that emerges from many different philosophers and thinkers, if you pay attention.

I’ve been spending some time trying to distill some signal from the noisy data I have of my life. I was tracking my life through much of my NS life, through the 90 week project. I was hoping it would change me completely- and I think it did, to a large extent, but not nearly as dramatically as I hoped. I think that’s another recurring motif. Positive dramatic changes are rarer and less dramatic than we’d like them to be.

Other recurring motifs: The importance of sleep and hydration. I’m drinking an ice-cold glass of water now, but it seems to me that for most of my life, dehydration was an unnecessary ailment. Sleep deprivation is possibly the biggest problem of all, because being sleep deprived leads to being less conscious, and you’re less proactive when you’re less conscious, and everything else just starts falling apart from there.

The importance of time management. This one goes way back to my schooling days, where I’d never do my homework, spend too much time watchnig anime, think that I’ll be able to do everything in a few minutes, fail miserably, wake up tense and nervous, copy what homework I can, get scolded by teachers and parents… it was a life of great anxiety. I convinced myself that it was exciting, challenging, interesting- and to some degree it was, but in another sense I was really just a victim to my habits and routines. There was no true freedom there.

Importance of letting things go, of staying peaceful and calm, to not get entrenched in lengthy arguments, to avoid taking things too personally, to avoid getting combative. Avoid heartbreak warfare. These are things that I have to learn and re-learn from time to time. Life is a long lesson in humility. That’s a good one.

I was thinking about how these insights need to be close to our hearts and minds at all time- and to make that happen, it makes sense to engineer our environments to maximize that. I was writing back in 2010 or 2011 about how I need to engineer my circumstances to ensure that I write as much as possible- and I’m still thinking the same thing today. When I get my own home, I’m going to engineer the hell out of it- every item, every decoration, every choice I make must elicit some sort of beauty, it must inspire me and remind me of what is beautiful, what is good, what I need to do, what needs to be done. I need quotes from my favourite thinkers, pictures of things and ideas that inspire me. I need to surround myself with these things.

Right now I’m in a bit of a clutter. Writing like this helps. I know I haven’t done this for a couple of days, but I don’t even feel like I’ve fallen off the wagon or anything like that- first because I did have a lot going in my life and I didn’t have time for this, and second because I kept thinking about how much I wanted to get right back on this bitch. But excuses and explanations are tedious and unnecessary. (I notice I have a habit of using two or three terms instead of one. To me it feels like two terms allows you to capture a broader idea, but really, this shouldn’t be an instinctive habit, it should be a conscious choice- I should only do it when I feel that it is absolutely necessary, otherwise I should stick to one term. I think this is a weak point in my writing that I can work on.)

So what have I learnt here, what have I thought about- I’m thinking about how you can dig into the past for some useful insight and direction- whenever you dig yourself out of the trenches, and your mind is clear and whole, you can set buoys in the sea for your future self to look back upon and navigate with. I am thankful to my past self for writing, sometimes, and I think my future self will feel the same way. Sleep. Hydration. Meditation. Exercise. Reflection. Writing. Practice. Humility. Gratitude. Awareness of death. Companionship. Conversation. Time management. Resource management. Clarity. Strength.