Okay so this is going to be a new kind of vomit, inspired by my twitter threads. I’m basically going to pick a tag, and then go through all of the posts in that tag \u2013 and use this post to “thread” those posts together.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
0052 \u2013 should you motivate yourself by comparing yourself with others?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “When I read books, I often stop halfway to write because I start having thoughts that interfere with my enjoyment of the book. It’s almost like I can’t read without getting involved.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I believe in the value of re-reading things. You’re never the same person twice, so approaching the same text again is a good way to figure out where you’ve been and how you’ve changed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “When a dust has been kicked up, I think clarity comes from deciding what you want to focus on. Everything is a mess, sure \u2013 so what do you want to do next?” I want to diminish human suffering and increase human well-being, and I want to do this so I can feel like I’ve earned my seat at the table of humanity. And make great friends along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conditional self-esteem is unhealthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0241 \u2013 revisiting “on purpose” from 2009<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Did I not do a single “review your stuff” word vomit between 0052 and 0241? Seems unlikely.<\/em>\u00a0But I’m going to keep going.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2009 I was somewhat obsessed with this idea of becoming some sort of badass. I think I’ve since learned that badassery, like happiness, is incidental \u2013 it happens while you’re busy doing other things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I also thought that I ought to worry about getting other people out of their boxes, but really, that itself was a sort of box for me. It’s interesting to contemplate how and why I was so obsessed with other people. It’s probably a natural social thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0363 \u2013 revisiting the origin of @1000wordvomits \u2013 I want to be a better version of myself<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I started this project because it seemed like I would learn a lot about myself, and about writing as a craft. I imagined it would give me some sort of legitimacy and street cred. I want to be like Wait But Why, Aaron Swartz, Ray Dalio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t want this project to be 600,000+ words of me saying I wish I slept better, I wish I did my work, and I wish this and I wish that. The time for wishing is long past. My writing has to reflect that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0383 \u2013 review your principles regularly<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I should follow up on these with next steps.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0385 \u2013 schedule revisions for learning through repetition<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I like sleeping well, meditating and meeting people for conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spaced repetition is important in learning. Was thinking about this in the context of learning the guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I need to revise every day. I need to revise my daily revisions every week, and revise my weekly revisions every month. I need to do this more than others \u2013 without it, I lapse into a general-wilderness-wandering lifestyle that doesn’t always serve me well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If I had done 1 vomit a day, I would’ve been 90%+ done by now, instead of 38.5%”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0418 \u2013 do periodic reviews at multiple timescales<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’ve been writing word vomits pretty regularly because I want to be done with them as quickly as reasonably possible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s important to make sure a review task fits the context \u2013 major life reviews can’t be daily or weekly. You want to be able to look at each review and see actionable steps that need to be taken.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Check your personal todo list every day. Why am I not already doing this? Maybe I’m not sufficiently precise about what exactly I need to be reviewing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s something I’m missing here about experiencing and enjoying the utility of reviews…<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0489 \u2013 take memories of yourself that you like, and make them more vivid<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’ve been cleaning and tidying up my house. I’ve been moving all books and papers into the study, which is now a centralized place for all books, papers, bills, everything. It feels great.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’ve also made progress in cleaning out my Workflowy. All of these things make me much happier.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s so interesting and beautiful to be able to reimagine and re-witness old conversations, old struggles and challenges, and to see how they should’ve been dealt with differently. It’s clear that I had all sorts of problems that I wasn’t adequately equipped to address or manage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “High self-esteem isn’t necessarily a good thing, it can be outright damaging.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “People who’re constantly seeking validation from others usually have some sort of self-concept that they’re uncomfortable with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Refine and improve your self-concept along lines that direct you towards becoming a person that you’d be happy becoming.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Pick and choose things about yourself that you like, and make those things stronger in your self-concept. Recall instances in which you behaved in a way you liked, and make those memories more vivid. Recreate and revisit them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0498 \u2013 commit to perpetually upgrading your software (Push The Big Red Button)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I suppose sometimes it feels like I\u2019m not in the right mood. But there\u2019s never going to be such a thing as \u201ca right mood\u201d. And one of the cool things I\u2019ve learned from this writing experiment so far is\u2013 if you commit to a process regardless of circumstances (except maybe morbidly critical ones), you start encountering all sorts of different versions of yourself<\/strong>. You find that the way you write when you\u2019re optimistic is different from the way you write when you\u2019re depressed (I tend to question my own motivations, interests, purpose when that happens). You\u2019ll discover that you\u2019re much broader than the person you think you are<\/strong>, and the person you\u2019ll get to know if the data points you collect about yourself are all collected in the same context, same mood, \u201cwhen you feel like it\u201d. Doing things when you don\u2019t really feel like it is incredibly powerful.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “So I suppose if I could have the red button do one thing, and I had only one button, it would be this\u2013 commit to a daily process of refining my own software, from first principles. Meditate and reflect and act and review. I\u2019ve written this before, I\u2019ve known this all along, and it\u2019s nice to have more data that backs it up, but the data I actually need isn\u2019t \u201cout there\u201d, something that I need to read (though that\u2019s always nice). What I need is to do the work, and use those results as evidence that I can do so much more than what I\u2019m doing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0501 \u2013 regularly revise your personal narrative and self-concept<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “There\u2019s a lot of sciencing that I can still do to improve the quality of my life. One of the slightly frustrating things\u2013 which is just another way of saying \u201cchallenge that I haven\u2019t quite been able to solve yet\u201d\u2013 is that a lot of the things are interrelated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It seems weird at first to think that\u2026 after over 2 years of work, almost 3, I still haven\u2019t developed a fundamental routine that maximizes my output. And I don\u2019t mean \u201cmaximize\u201d in an absolute, crazy sort of way. I mean just past a reasonable threshold that I know within myself that I am capable of doing, day after day. Let\u2019s call it the 10 pushup threshold. Any reasonably fit individual should be able to do 10 pushups. It doesn\u2019t require some insane force of will, it doesn\u2019t require anything magical.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Similarly I think there are some minimum work thresholds that I still haven\u2019t entirely internalized. I still approach my work in a sort of messy, piecemeal way, constantly reinventing everything all over again, over and over. Why do I do this? It doesn\u2019t make much sense.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I still need to keep learning to listen to myself better. That\u2019s one of the big lessons of the past couple of years. There\u2019s a certain internal wisdom about the body and the subconscious mind that should be attended to.” I think the big thing is\u2026 I need to learn to see work as play. I need to learn to see it as fun. I remember having a conversation about it with my boss several months ago, and he said something along the lines of, \u201cDude, I would be disturbed if you found every single thing about work fun. There\u2019s a reason why work is work\u2013 some significant proportion of it is difficult, tedious, uncomfortable, annoying, and you\u2019re going to have to learn to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do I know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0502 \u2013 set aside time for scheduled personal software debugging<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n So\u2026\u00a0 It’s another reminder to keep revisiting peak consciousness as often as I can afford to, which is more often than I think. What are the costs and benefits of attaining peak consciousness? There\u2019s a virtuous cycle there\u2013 while it\u2019s a little costly (energy-wise) to reach, the benefit typically outweighs the cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\u2026\u00a0 It’s another reminder to keep revisiting peak consciousness as often as I can afford to, which is more often than I think. What are the costs and benefits of attaining peak consciousness? There\u2019s a virtuous cycle there\u2013 while it\u2019s a little costly (energy-wise) to reach, the benefit typically outweighs the cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if I\u2019m serious about living a good life, and I\u2019d like to think that I am, then I\u2019m going to have to be more methodical with regards to how I manage my consciousness. How I upgrade my cognitive software. And coupled with that is hardware. To have a good life, you need to have a good software, and to do that you\u2019ll find that it helps to optimize your hardware, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I keep putting them off, perhaps because I haven\u2019t yet felt that each individual review makes much of a difference.<\/strong> I need to track them the same way I track my word vomits. I need to analyze carefully to see what I did right, what I did wrong, what the contexts and circumstances were, and how I might do things better the next time around. I\u2019m too old now to keep dicking around and repeating the same old patterns over and over again. I am so bored of that stuff, I am so amped and ready to be more than I am now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0518 \u2013 refactoring my personal library<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “One of the things I want to do this year is to really start getting to know the books on my bookshelf better. Spend a little time with each one, figure out which are worth getting to know better.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I still haven\u2019t gotten through Linus Pauling, maybe because I don\u2019t have enough context about why he\u2019s interesting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I think actually I have been wanting to get some new books to explore, but I\u2019ve been feeling really guilty about that because I\u2019ve basically filled my bookshelves to the brim. And the problem is that I\u2019m not sufficiently clear about what each book is in the bookshelf for. If I knew, then I\u2019d be able to sort and\/or prioritize them as appopriate and see where things fit, and whether or not it actually makes sense to get any new books. So I\u2019ve been sort of \u201cdeadlocked\u201d in my information consumption because I haven\u2019t gone over my existing collection thoroughly enough.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I also just want to quickly remind myself that I actually really did enjoy spending time holed up in my study, with the air conditioning on and the sunlight coming through, just sitting around poring through books. It\u2019s a cheap pleasure that I\u2019ve been neglecting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0526 \u2013 revise and refine your personal algorithms (they’ll set you free)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “When you play a game such as Borderlands or Diablo, your character starts out with practically nothing\u2013 maybe a really crappy pistol or dagger. You start out in a really crappy region, too”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I wanted to meditate on the fact that I often get stuck in old patterns, old routines, thinking old thoughts, remembering old gripes. We know that we literally live in the past by a few microseconds because of the way our brains work, but I also literally live in the past of a few years. I\u2019m haunted unnecessarily by my younger self. The books I wanted to read then. The people I hung out with then. The habits I\u2019ve had since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be the equivalent of playing Borderlands or Diablo, and constantly going back to the older parts of the map, using old weapons and fighting old enemies, just because it\u2019s familiar, simpler, easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “if I spend Visa-26’s time doing Visa-18’s quests, then by the time I get around to doing Visa-26’s quests I’ll be Visa-35 or something. So it’s a constant catching up. I need to let me go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0530 \u2013 first monthly review<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “So the first month of 2016 is over. I\u2019ve done a few good things. I\u2019ve met some friends- I remember 4 specific meetups in particular. I\u2019ve worked out, broke a PR or two, even went for a (crappy) run. I watched a couple of good movies and even an entire TV show with the wife. We had a couple of dates, which were pleasant. Woke up early a few times. Didn\u2019t read any new books, but did some re-reading. Kept track of maybe half of the things I wanted to keep track of- diet, books, Internet habits. I think I spent a little less time on Reddit and Imgur and FB. Had a productive and challenging meeting with the boss. Feeling challenged in a good way about the month(s) ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What didn\u2019t go so well- I didn\u2019t read or write as much as I would\u2019ve liked. I feel like I could\u2019ve been more productive at work, which will be my 3rd priority this month after health and writing. I\u2019m going to try and publish a vomit every day for the month of Feb. I\u2019m going to be out of the country for a week so that means I\u2019ll have to do double the writing in another week.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019d like to read less crap and spend less time responding and reacting to crap. To tend to my \u2018mind-garden\u2019, to build relationships with people that make me happy. To eliminate obligation-debt. To be more disciplined, and yet to avoid the trap of fetishizing it. I think I spent a lot of time in that trap. Feeling anxious and guilty about not meeting unfairly high standards, and then collapsing and giving up altogether. The challenge is the same as always- baby steps, incremental progress. To have manageable gradients rather than an insurmountable, discouraging cliff.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I recognize that fewer things deserve my time and energy. Earlier on the Uber ride home I was scanning through Facebook for a few minutes and I noticed things that, 3 years ago, I would have tediously responded to. Take the latest current affairs in Singapore\u2013 that a 14 year old teenage boy committed suicide by jumping to his death after being accused of molesting a girl, and being questioned for 3 hours by the police. I don\u2019t know the details. I don\u2019t know what actually happened. I know that it\u2019s complex and complicated. And I know that people are emotional, hurting, upset. I know that there are political points to be scored, essays to be written. But I\u2019m not going to be getting involved in that. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t care anymore. I do. But I now recognize that it\u2019s much better for me, and by extension, for the people I care about, and everything else that I want to achieve, if I start by focusing on the things that I can make a substantial, lasting difference to.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0587 \u2013 begin the day with a review, not social media<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Facebook feeds have basically replaced the morning paper, and to some degree, after-work drinks. My parents used to ask “why are you on the computer all the time” \u2013 but they read the papers every morning too.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Screens are getaways for people who can’t afford better. Judging people for wanting to get away from the bullshit of everyday life is a special kind of shitty, IMO.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Anyway I\u2019m done with this morning\u2019s shitty commute. Looking forward to the TL;DR comments. I probably wouldn\u2019t read this either if it appeared on my feed. But this is what I enjoy doing when I\u2019m crushed against other humans. I\u2019d like to make a living as a writer someday.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0608 \u2013 commit to reviewing your calendar<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I was doing a calendar review yesterday (I know it because I put it in my calendar). I went to the start of 2016, and then scanned through my days week by weeks. I didn\u2019t always keep great records \u2013 sometimes I\u2019d have weeks at a time where I didn\u2019t fill in anything, and can\u2019t exactly be sure of what I did.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s also a little shocking how short a year really is. It seems like a long stretch of time when it\u2019s laid out in front of you. But you\u2019re going to spend a third of it asleep. You\u2019re going to spend large chunks of it eating, showering, using the toilet, walking from place to place, and so on. The reality of it seems to be that after everything else, I only have a couple of hours \u2013 maybe up to 4 hours \u2013 that I can reliably count on to be productive with. And when I look at my calendar, I see that I wasn\u2019t nearly as productive as I wish I was. And I don\u2019t even think I was as productive as I assumed I\u2019d be. That\u2019s the scary part.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0615 \u2013 measure your time<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I should be writing a vomit as quickly and early as I can before my mind gets cluttered with other information that I wasn\u2019t actually interested in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I have made a lot of grand promises and gestures over the past decade, and most of them have not worked out. So I know that I cannot grand-promise my way out of it. I cannot spend my time and energy looking forward indefinitely. I DO have plans \u2013 I\u2019ve had them for years. The thing is not to focus on the long-term but to focus on what I\u2019m doing right now in service of that long-term goal. It\u2019s not necessarily short-sighted to focus on the present. I think there\u2019s a limiting belief there that I need to correct. Something about the distinction between being long-sighted and short-sighted. I\u2019d like to think that I\u2019m long-sighted but I\u2019m really short-sighted, and I\u2019ve been avoiding things that I think are short-sighted but would actually help me achieve my long-term goals. It\u2019s all about each boring brick, one by one.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I chronically underestimate things.<\/strong> I underestimate how long it takes to write a word vomit. I overestimate how much time I have. I underestimate how much time I spend when I get distracted by things. I overestimate my capacity to do things. I need to write these things down in more concrete, examinable terms and then really internalise what that means to me. I\u2019ve been \u0004navigating using flawed instruments that have consistent, systematic errors about them. So they\u2019ve been leading me away from my destination, reliably.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I need to make better decisions. I need to make decisions faster. This is so that I can achieve my goal of being more free. Freedom has a price. It\u2019s worth paying. I need to redo my assessments of my own effectiveness and efficiency. I need to do this every single day so that I develop it. It\u2019s like a muscle. I have to use it over and over so that it becomes a thing. I have to write on my whiteboard that this is a thing. I have to set reminders so that this is a thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0625 \u2013 consolidate your thoughts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I feel a slight increase in mental clarity after finalising my thoughts on a project that I want to work on. I know it seems counter-intuitive that a new project might be mind-clearing \u2013 the reason this works is that the project draws upon existing raw material in the junkyard of my mind. It\u2019s kind of like one of those puzzle games where you have to connect the dots \u2013 I just figured out a way to get rid of a lot more dots in smart, elegant way that makes sense to me, and so I\u2019m quite proud of that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I was thinking that I\u2019d really like to do a sort of \u201cOperation Clean Slate\u201d, and really wipe out as many things as I possibly can. I\u2019m sitting in my study now and looking at my thick stack of books and I\u2019m wondering how many of them I\u2019m ever actually seriously ever going to read. Probably less than half. Maybe less than 25%. Why am I keeping so many around? It\u2019s just this weight of obligation that\u2019s a little too much to bear after a while, seriously. And I\u2019m also thinking of all the remaining detritus (this is my new most reused word) that\u2019s lying around \u2013 my notebooks from my teenage years. Haven\u2019t I taken pictures of them over and over again? How many times do I have to do that? Why don\u2019t I just get rid of them? I suppose I want to have them kind of represented in some sort of \u201cone touch\u201d format. Meaning\u2026 I want to get, at a single glance, all of whatever I wanted to get out of 2010, 2011 and so on. Kind of like a really good summary that\u2019s evocative and makes me think. I think I was overly fixated on making that public-facing, which again isn\u2019t really necessary. I can really just do it right here in Evernote. I could start by having a notebook for each thing, with separate notes for the sub-parts inside it. Once all of those are done, I can get rid of the thing. Then, I can see how I\u2019d like to consolidate the notes. In a sense every book is a sort of book of book of books, in terms of how the information is organised.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That\u2019s another thing I\u2019ve learned while going through my massive trail of vomits. That everything should have a comment for later<\/strong>. That\u2019s how you have decent code, too, right? You\u2019re going to forget what you were up to so you want to remind yourself and leave waypoints and signposts for yourself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0628 \u2013 review your stuff hyper-regularly and do a little bit every day<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Books: “Afterwards, my wife and I spent some time in our study. We had just cleaned it out, so we put all of our books on the floor. It was quite an interesting experience, and one I wish we had experimented with earlier. It\u2019s something that Marie Kondo recommends \u2013 put all your stuff out on the floor, and then touch it with your hands and see if it sparks joy. I didn\u2019t exactly follow that formula \u2013 rather I used different colored post-its to sort them into different categories \u2013 books I love, books I WANT to read, books I\u2019d LIKE to want to read, and \u201c#shrug\u201d. I\u2019m eliminating a lot of the #shrug books, as well as many of the \u201cI\u2019d like to want to read this\u201d books. I might give some of them away, and maybe keep the top 20-30% of the \u201cwant to want to read\u201d books.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Frequency: “there\u2019s definitely utility in going through things over and over again. I used to feel bad about this, and so there would be a considerable length of time between each review. If I wait too long, I\u2019d have forgotten a lot of whatever it is that caught my attention and interest, and so each new session ends up feeling like I\u201dm just re-doing what I had done the last time. And it feels very wasteful, like there\u2019s no progress. I suppose a close analogy would be \u2013 it\u2019s like going to the gym once every 3 months and feeling really unfit and weak each time, like you didn\u2019t make any progress and like you shouldn\u2019t have bothered at all. Your feelings and observations are correct, but the conclusion is misplaced. You SHOULD have bothered, you just should\u2019ve bothered in much smaller amounts at a much higher frequency. This is what I want to get better at.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I want to remind myself to revisit everything \u2013 all the basics \u2013 at a much higher frequency. Ideally I should be doing it every single day. Every single morning and every single evening. There are only a few basic things in life that I need to care about. Breathing, posture, hydration, diet, sleep, exercise, social relations, work done, todo list, goals, chores, bills and so on\u2026 it can sometimes seem like too much to bear, but when I\u2019m writing myself a word vomit every day, it becomes clearer that actually it only seems too much because I haven\u2019t sufficiently broken things down into bite-sized components that I can deal with at my own time, at my own leisure.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Squats: “Also I just simply have this silly habit of taking way too long to start doing anything. The way around this might be to just circle around the task itself \u2013 and have a sort of ritual or routine for the circling. I find myself thinking now about how I instinctively do a bunch of fast, deep breaths before doing heavy squats. There\u2019s something about it that calms me down, that seems to give me the strength I need. I wonder if I could just do it without \u2013 like just breathe normally and start squatting. I think it could be done, but a part of me feels like my core might not be braced tightly enough (I\u2019m pulling this stuff out of my ass) and I might get injured or something. I guess I could experiment with lower weights and see how it goes. I don\u2019t know.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “revisit your shit over and over again so that it remains fresh \u2013 that way you can pick up where you left off and actually start exploring new territory. Set aside a short amount of time to do it. You don\u2019t need to spend hours and hours on a thing each time you do it. Just pay attention to how it feels right now, to have published one word vomit per day of 2017. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0654 \u2013 do reviews regularly so you can have more fun<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I have a sprawling to-do list that\u2019s just full of things that I haven\u2019t gotten around to. This is an interesting challenge and opportunity. Some of these things are dated and I should just say no to them. But really what I need to do is to get to a meta-level. To recognise that I\u2019m trapped in a box, with my limitations keeping me in, and that I\u2019ll have to carefully examine my situation in order to transcend it. I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll ever be possible to get to \u201cinbox zero\u201d with a bunch of todos. So I need to find some better way of feeling happy and fulfilled. It has to be a measure of flow, a measure of progress, a rate of change sort of metric rather than an absolute one. I know I need to be writing every day. If I\u2019m not writing, I\u2019m stagnating, and if I\u2019m left stagnant, I start to get a little\u2026 decrepit. It\u2019s not a good look, and it doesn\u2019t feel fun either. I want to have fun. Life is short, we should all have as much fun as we can before we die. And to have really great fun, we have to be imaginative. All the \u201clots of fun in the short term\u201d options are uncreative, and often destructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How can I have more fun? I find myself thinking about my guitars, which are hanging on my wall, that I haven\u2019t really touched in a while. I find myself thinking about the youtube videos that I want to make. I\u2019ve made a couple of videos recently \u2013 they\u2019re really just word vomits in video form. I want to do this partly because I think it\u2019s such a shame I don\u2019t have more videos of myself from the past \u2013 there\u2019s something that gets captured in a video that mere writing and photographs can\u2019t quite capture. And also I want to get more comfortable speaking to an international audience. I want to get better at communicating, at being understood. Doing this on more than one medium definitely has its uses. I don\u2019t intend to be a famous YouTuber \u2013 I just want to get into the habit of publishing videos of myself. Maybe at least one a week? I should do one tomorrow. Adding a todo for that now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s funny, how hard it is to maintain this habit. On a daily level I think I just tell myself that oh I\u2019m so tired, I\u2019ll do it later, I\u2019ll do it tomorrow. But then it doesn\u2019t get done. And if I\u2019m not doing regular reviews of my everyday life, then how do I know if I\u2019m getting better at living the life that I want to be living? Some people might do this without writing, but just by reflecting and meditating. I think I could use some of that too. What am I waiting for? I don\u2019t want to obsess about this too much \u2013 the point is to act. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n Self-sabotage: “Sometimes I wonder if I deliberately make my own life a little difficult because some part of me feels like I need to suffer, atone for my sins. It seems a little far-fetched in writing, but think about how sometimes people who\u2019ve been abused, continue to seek out new abusers to abuse them. It\u2019s sad, silly, all of those things. And yet I am like that in my own way. That\u2019s just a bug of the human mind. We\u2019re only sort-of conscious. We\u2019re only sort-of able. We have to accept that, and integrate that into our dealings with reality.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0665 \u2013 keep going, do reviews and improve yourself<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “One thing I want to get better at is partitioning my writing in a way that is presentable. That means being more reader-centric. I unshackled myself from being reader-centric when I first started this project back in 2012, because I was trapped in a very performative sort of voice. I was writing with too many words, and my sentences were overwrought. As I write this, I can sense quite clearly that I have a superior sense of rhythm now. I don\u2019t make palatability a priority in these vomits, because the original intent was just to get everything out of my head. But I think now it\u2019s time to revise that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel like most of what was in my head is now out. This statement is probably not factually accurate \u2013 but it feels accurate because there\u2019s just so much material here. I have written down my thoughts, but I have not really taken the time to read them. As a result, I find myself repeating my thoughts over and over again, which is boring. To make progress, I\u2019m going to have to re-read my thoughts.<\/strong> To edit and consolidate. This stuff is \u2018boring\u2019 compared to the heady feeling of just writing like a maniac. But I had also said in a much earlier vomit that I didn\u2019t want to fill up my vomits with non-stop drivel. I want my vomits to reveal progress on my part. I am my own arbiter here. I am writing to satisfy myself, to please myself, to win myself over. So if I feel that something needs to be done before I can continue writing like a maniac, then I need to do it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two Minds: “I have been in two minds over what exactly needs to be done. A part of me felt like I should pause the entire project and just switch into editing mode. And I think I definitely did that for a while. But it became clear that editing the material en masse was going to be an endless task. If I had stayed on that path, I would\u2019ve gotten anxious and frustrated. That will not do for the context of a personal project. This project is supposed to be challenging, but it\u2019s also supposed to be rewarding. I can be a little bit of a masochist, but I\u2019m not going to be insane about it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “So what next then? I\u2019m going to have to do two things at once. I\u2019m going to keep writing at a steady tempo \u2013 1 a day would be good. And then I\u2019m going to have to make reviews a part of my everyday process. My god, I\u2019ve definitely said this at least a dozen times. What stops me from doing it? I know \u2013 I probably have some sort of deep rooted issues, maybe from childhood, that keeps me from doing it. My brain keeps coming up with elaborate excuses for avoiding the truth about the necessity of reviews. So I need to sit with myself and do some therapy with myself and really just made daily reviews a serious, critical part of my every day life.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0667 \u2013 revisit, review and re-reference your work<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 0683 \u2013 if writing is important to you, write<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “if writing is as important to me as I say it is, why don\u2019t I have a precious, fixed time every day saved just for writing? How much would I have written already, if I had to write a vomit every morning when I woke up? Every night before I went to bed? What if I had to write a vomit just to \u201cunlock\u201d my computer, or to use the Internet? Would I have completed my word vomit project already? I think I would have.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Which kind of brings me to the latest conversation I had with my boss \u2013 we\u2019ve really been having the same conversation for years now, at a regular monthly interval. The theme is always the same \u2013 how can I do better? How can I grow and learn and be more tomorrow than I am today? I know what it takes, intellectually. It takes planning. It takes some will to execute on those plans. That much seems obvious. The hard and messy part is learning to cope with failure. Failing gracefully, and recovering quickly and well where possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I often feel a sense of superficial relief when abandoning my plans. When I go into the dark playground. This is a misleading feeling, and I need to rewire my brain to feel differently. Abandoning my own plans usually leads to frustration, missed deadlines, missed obligations, unease, discomfort, failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was talking with another colleague about how to calibrate feelings of frustration. I notice that sometimes I experience more \u201ctension\u201d when I\u201dm doing something difficult, but I do feel better about it these days. I\u2019m not panicking or overwhelmed anymore \u2013 at least, not as badly as I used to. This is progress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “While I\u2019m writing this, I keep getting impulses to open up my browser and start wandering around the internet. This impulse is probably the single most destructive impulse that I have. It has robbed me of years of my life by now. And yeah, sometimes it\u2019s led to fun and interesting things. But most of the time it\u2019s led to frustration and anxiety. And yet I do it again and again. Why? Because it feels novel and interesting in the short term, I suppose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Sleep is always the main #1 issue. I slept stupidly late throughout the weekend. I slept early and well last night. I would like to sleep early and well for the remainder of my life if I can. But it seldom seems like a good idea to plan your entire life ahead. So let\u2019s just try to do this for the rest of 2017. I\u2019ve been fairly disappointed with my handling of 2017 so far \u2013 I feel like I should already have written some good essays, already had a goo time meeting some friends, and so on. I feel like I\u2019ve been coasting through the year. This will not do. I need to do more. I know I have a lot on my todo list and I\u2019m procrastinating on it, probably because the deadlines don\u2019t seem very real, they don\u2019t seem very pressing. Well I need to rewire my mind to be able to do things and get pleasure out of them even then they aren\u2019t very pressing. I want to reject the sort of \u201chaha nihilism nothing matters why do anything\u201d perspective. I think that\u2019s not very healthy. I want to be an exceptional person. To do that I have to behave in exceptional ways. I have to have exceptional habits, take exceptional measures, and so on. I can\u2019t let randomness just kick me down the road into becoming somebody that I never chose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0689 \u2013 do reviews to measure your progress against the ceaseless sands of time<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Daily and weekly updates would be good to do, but a little unrealistic to have to trawl through on hindsight. Monthly updates, on the other hand, seem perfectly sensible to me. On the first day of every month, at 12 noon, Singapore has an island-wide test of our emergency warning system. It\u2019s tested with a pleasant chime that sounds like bells. (The actual use case is for warning sirens, in case of air raids and whatnot.) It\u2019s a useful cue and reminder that a month has passed. And it\u2019s a good moment to stop and reflect on the past month, and the month ahead. After all, if we live to be 80, we only get 960 months. That\u2019s less than a thousand months. And you can discount the first 20 years or so when you\u2019re still figuring out who the hell you are and what the hell is going on. So you get maybe 60 good years if you\u2019re lucky. And I don\u2019t feel very lucky. I feel like I should think about my life as though I\u2019m only going to live to, say, 40. I don\u2019t know why I have that feeling but I just do, even though my father and grandfather both appear to be aging very nicely. My grandfather is in his 90s now. Still, when I am still, I feel this sense of urgency. Like I\u2019m being complacent when I should be moving forward. I don\u2019t want to be in a total panic, I don\u2019t want to be rushing, but I feel like there\u2019s this adjacent reality where I\u2019m moving purposefully. That\u2019s what I want to be. Moving purposefully.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “So what then? What then? I was watching the video of myself in 2013 and I found myself embarrassed, cringing. I was less graceful then than I am now. I was louder, more obnoxious, more annoying. I\u2019m still generally loud, I suppose, but I think I\u2019ve learned to tone it down over the past 4 years. I think I\u2019ve gotten a little bit more sensitive to the feelings of others. I think I\u2019ve become a little bit more considerate, a little bit more temperate. As I say these words, of course, I find myself flooded with recent memories of instances in which I have failed to meet my own standards. And I cringe again. I still have a lot of work to do, and I hope I will continue to say that for as long as I am alive. I want to be a constant work in progress. That\u2019s what I want to define me. Sometimes I encounter people who I find impressive, but after a couple of years of getting to know them, I find that they\u2019re pretty much stagnant in some way. I\u2019m sure I am too, and the thought troubles me. This is why I think it\u2019s really important to do regular status updates. To keep growing and learning and reflecting. I am 27.5 years old now. I\u2019m thinking back to all the milestone years \u2013 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25. They all felt like important milestones, they all felt like thresholds that I had to cross. And yet sometimes it feels like I haven\u2019t even started. I suppose it will always feel that way. All the more reason to get more focused, more disciplined, more rigorous, and to articulate my development more precisely.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n