34 sentiments written before the age of 34

Original link: https://www.camelliayang.com/blog/34-things-i-learned-before-turning-34

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Concept art made by MidJourney
34. Every year in my birthday month, I will summarize my life perception and what I have learned in the past year (see 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ).

I will spend most of 2022 living in Europe, and I will return to China to visit relatives after three years away from my hometown near the end of the year. The same earth, a divided world, I have spent this eventful year under the impact of Eastern and Western cultures and ideas, as well as the collision of ancient traditions and modern technology.

American writer James Baldwin once wrote, “I have always felt that human beings can only be saved by their own kind. The earth keeps turning, the light keeps changing, the sea beats on the rocks endlessly, and generations of people are born on the ground. We There is a need to be accountable to others, because we are the only witnesses to each other. When we stop holding each other, we are swallowed by the sea and the light ceases to exist”. As a human being, the most important thing is to learn how to love others and to receive love. Love is the only rational act, it is what is human, and it is our only hope.

1. Life is a process for everyone to go to himself, follow the trend, and rule by doing nothing. Believe in yourself, believe in the power of life, allow objective failure to happen, but not allow subjective self-limitation.

2. There is only one thing that makes the work of healing possible, and that is the awe of others and our own efforts to survive.
The world is a big stage, and people perform their duties and play their own roles. What I am most afraid of is that you wear the costumes that belong to this scene, but go on the wrong stage, perform a scene that does not meet the environmental requirements, and then complain that the audience is not understanding the style.

3. Judging the situation and showing your versatility on different stages, the big drama of life is more interesting.

4. Human beings do not need to live efficiently. Efficiency is the patent of robots. Inefficiency is the normal state of human life: scientific research, artistic creation, and discovery are all inefficient activities. Humans should spend their energies on optimizing innovation, decision making and love.

5. No one knows exactly what they are doing, everyone is crossing the river by feeling the stones, and the road ahead is full of doubts and problems, but super self-confidence helps them overcome the inner devil, this is not Survivor bias, and more of a reality-bending force. Remember, there is no one else here but yourself.

6. Creating “good luck” subjectively is a way of thinking. Put yourself in a diverse and open environment, communicate with people from different industries, participate in various interest activities, travel to niche places, Then chat with the locals. Learn to ask questions, learn to listen, and gradually develop the ability to talk to anyone.

7. You may be thinking, why do I do such lofty and difficult things? Because these things are worth it, because you may not be able to bear the lightness of life without hooking your life to something bigger and nobler.

8. Creativity is not a flash of inspiration, but the result of hard work day after day, year after year. Masters, regardless of whether they have inspiration or not, will appear at the place of creation every day and insist on creating. Only amateurs will have the fantasy of looking forward to inspiration.

9. Instead of “finding” inspiration, you spend time “nurturing” it. One minute on the stage, ten years off the stage. Great writers and artists have created countless works in their lifetime, and only a few works are known to the world. Behind them is the hard work that can withstand boring. As Einstein said, I’m not that much smarter than other people, I just sit around longer than others.

10. Religion is at the heart of the human experience, and there is a major blind spot in the denial of it by contemporary elites and academia. Even if you are not religious, you should experience various religious rituals. Look back at the classic fairy tales. One of the reasons why fables and myths have survived through the ages is because they transcend the dimension of time. We can use recurring patterns in stories to understand human nature and build the future we want.

11. Design is not about embellishing the appearance, but about making the best use of things. Design is not what we do, but what makes it possible.

12. We perceive with images, think with metaphors, learn with stories, and create with fantasy. The meta-responsibility of creators is to express emotions and information that others cannot express in words through their works.

13. The core of “compound interest” is to maintain growth, even if the rate of growth is imperceptible. Although this process is slow, it will bring you a leap from quantitative change to qualitative change at a certain point. Only by patiently lurking in the dark can we have a chance to break through the siege when we see the light.

14. The impact of continuous incremental progress on our lives is truly incredible. If we put in 1% of our efforts each week to improve our lives, 2-3 years from now, we may not even recognize who we used to be. Assuming we start to organize our lives when we are young, fix the problems that can be solved, and keep it for 10-20 years, we will change our lives in unimaginable ways. God only knows what human potential is, and when we pull ourselves together, we are the most amazing creatures.

15. The information that humans can perceive and process through the left brain representing rationality and logic may only be 60 bits in size, but there are 11 million bits of potential information available for us to use, and what is even more frightening is that there are still 1 Trillions of bits of information are completely unaware of the brain. This reflects the limitations of the left brain: its ability to process information is limited, and our so-called rational analysis is only based on that limited information. The right brain, which represents intuition and creativity, helps us feel and collect the 1 trillion bits of information that we miss in the background. Whether it is relying on Zen meditation, or using natural animals and plants to assist in entering the flow of mind or unconsciousness, it can help us experience the infinite flow of information and let us see the reality clearly.

16. You need to look at history with warmth and respect, and don’t judge the behavior of people at that time from the perspective of modern people. Maybe you are placed in the environment of the characters at that time, and you may not be able to make a better decision than the person involved. Everyone will eventually be trapped by the original family and the environment they live in. With less judgment and more understanding, the world will be peaceful.

17. The more conclusions you draw, the less you experience.

18. It is written in the Gospel of Matthew: “Whoever has, more will be given, and he will have a surplus; and whoever has not, even what he has will be taken away.” There is a similar description in the “Tao Te Ching”: “The way of heaven damages more than enough to make up for the deficiency, but the way of man is not the same, and the damage is not enough to give more than enough.” In terms of metaphysics, what kind of signal you send to the universe will determine what kind of life you will have.

19. Life is so rich that there are countless things to experience and record. Record a little life trivial or emotional ups and downs every day, and feel that this day is not in vain, because you have seen it with your eyes, experienced it with your heart, and analyzed it with your brain… Over the years, your insight into life will continue to improve, and others can feel it Your life force that comes from within.

20. “Come on, get into an art that grows your soul no matter how bad you do it or how well you do it. That’s what makes art, you don’t do it to be famous or get rich, but To grow the soul. That includes singing in the shower, dancing alone to radio music, painting a portrait of a roommate, or writing a poem, or whatever. Do an art and have a transformative experience.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

21. When you are in conflict, please stay. If you stay you will see that the truth of things is not just two sides of opposites, it has a third part, which is reconciliation.

22. If you don’t tell your story, no one will tell it for you, because no one has experienced your real life.

23. “Don’t be afraid, the darkness you’re in is no stronger than the darkness in your own body, they’re just separated by skin. I bet you never thought about it, you’ve been living with darkness, but it’s also Not to scare you… My dear boy, you must learn to live with the darkness of the outside world, just as you learn to live with the darkness within yourself.
– Jose Saramago

24. Without the support of underlying life beliefs, our lives will be full of confusion and problems. We are only at the mercy of society and others, and live every day solving problems that have absolutely no interest in us. The best thing a man can do is learn to think for himself.

25. Always remind yourself to avoid three ways of thinking:
– Black and white, good and bad binary thinking.
– Simple attribution of the type Y because of X.
– Random labeling of people and things, or laziness and direct use of stereotypes.

26. Investigate things to gain knowledge, use falsehood to cultivate truth, the greatest ambition and ambition that people should have is to develop personal character, not to pursue power and status. All external things may leave us, but our character will always follow and help us to win in the face of adversity.

27. When I experience and try those seemingly impossible things again and again, and test the boundaries of my potential, my brain will get signals again and again, and gradually realize that “I can actually do it”. Of course, this process will inevitably involve hesitation, pain, setbacks, failures, and self-doubt, but as long as you are alive, it is not over yet. The satisfaction when seeing the light can far offset all the pain in the process, and being friends with time, there will be moments of peak pleasure experienced.

28. If you give up once, even once on a small thing, you open the door to giving up and let yourself know that it’s okay to give up.

29. When you want to be yourself, no one is your competition.

30. Desire can take you far, but if you keep following it, you become its slave.

31. Everyone’s way of looking at things is influenced by innate genes and acquired environment. What is reasonable to one person may be crazy in the eyes of another. We can’t just accept the part of geniuses that fits our cognition, but dismiss their crazy traits or shortcomings, and it is these strengths and weaknesses that are mixed together to shape them into individuals who can change the world on their own.

32. A work is a living thing that will change with the growth of the creator, especially in the Internet age, continuous output of high-quality content can be rewarded. Internet communication values ​​the content of B+, with the persistence of A+. We don’t need to produce perfect articles every time, but we need to persist for a long time. Everyone can make progress in continuous creation. Nobody creates 100 shitty things in a row and either he gives up or he improves. The important thing is to enjoy the process of creating so that you will be motivated to keep creating, year after year.

33. Living a minimalist life is not a constraint, but an opportunity for something better to come into your life.

34. Take the good things you have experienced as a source of energy, turn the suffering you have endured into interesting stories, and share them with others while joking. I really realized that there is no good or bad in anything, and the interpretation depends on the person. Everything happens for its own reason, and its meaning will eventually manifest itself through meditation.

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