A Brief Talk on Commitment, Creativity, Lisbon and a Week of Thoughts

When I participated in the private book club of the well-known best-selling author Mark Manson (Mark Manson) last year, I asked him a question about how to solve the “commitment issue”. The answer he gave me was fucking make a commitment and stick with it.

The theory is understandable, but it is difficult to practice. For me, a free-spirited and curious person of all things, making a commitment seems counterintuitive. After wandering the world for the past ten years, trying all kinds of new experiences, meeting hundreds of friends, I never felt like I wanted to settle down or commit. So everything you do is a three-minute hot topic, changing jobs frequently, changing dates frequently, and moving houses and cities frequently.

Maybe it’s aging, or maybe it’s heightened awareness, but after returning to Europe again this year, it dawned on me that commitment is what gives me ultimate freedom. Commitment keeps me from being distracted by unimportant and trivial things, allowing me to focus more of my time and energy on the people and things that help keep me healthy and happy. Additionally, commitment has also made my decision-making easier, removed the feeling of nervousness and anxiety about missed opportunities, and allowed me to focus on just a few very important goals, leading to greater success than I would have otherwise.

Here’s what I can commit to, at least for the foreseeable future:
– Based in Lisbon
– often back to Manchester to support our city
– CrossFit training three times a week without traveling
– Working at OSV
– Build a CY Circle
– Chinese and English podcasts are kept updated (frequency to be discussed)
– One book per year (mainly in English)
– If I and my current crush can renew our relationship this month, then I will definitely not give up or run away easily in this relationship.

That’s all for now, and I’ll review it at the end of the year to see if the above commitments I made will add to the happiness index of my life!

Attached is a compilation of Mark Manson’s article on “How to Cultivate Creativity in Boredom”:

In fact, creative workers do not live a life on a roller coaster every day as ordinary people imagine, and they are always full of exciting and novel experiences. Their creativity is born more out of boredom.

So, how to cultivate creativity in the midst of boredom?

1. Creativity is not a moment of brilliance, but a persistent labor day after day, year after year. Inspiration belongs to amateurs, while masters show up at the place of creation every day, and then spend their time working. Instead of “finding” inspiration, you take the time to “nourish” it. Great writers and artists have created countless works throughout their lives, and only a few of them are known to the world. One minute on stage, ten years of work off stage. Behind the greatness is hard work that can stand the test of boredom. Einstein once said, I am not much smarter than other people, I just sit longer than them to solve problems.

2. Have a regular job that will support you. Hemingway worked as an ambulance driver and a war reporter; Andy Warhol worked as a designer in a magazine, and the masters all had some experience of normal life before they finally chose to do creative work full-time.

3. Enjoy boredom without distraction. People are prone to anxiety when they are bored, and they always want to find some distracting things to give their brain something to do. Anxiety is actually the muse of creativity, if the distracting process can be overcome. When you are no longer distracted by trivial matters, your brain will generate some unexpected ideas and inspirations.

4. Find someone you can learn from. Picasso once said that good artists borrow, great artists steal. Creativity is not about creating something new, it’s about putting new wine in old bottles and adding value to it.

5. Treat ideas as investments, buy low and sell high. When grunge first appeared, others dismissed it until Kurt Cobain promoted it; when personal computers first appeared, they were ridiculously expensive until Bill Gates popularized it. Many creative ideas don’t have mass support at first, but you can see them as investment opportunities, gaining a niche in a niche market and working your way to make it mainstream.

Finally, I recommend Mark Manson’s best-selling book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”. Generally speaking, “self-help” books often teach you how to maintain a positive attitude at all times, pursue happiness and joy, and pour you a lot of chicken soup so that you can live in a beautiful world that you weave. Mark tells you in straightforward language that lasting happiness and joy only exist in fairy tales, you need to face problems and pains, and accept the fact that life is a hard journey.

People need to have a good awareness of their own limitations and weaknesses, so that they can know what to face when adversity comes, instead of avoiding or forcing themselves to be optimistic. People have limited time and energy, so they need to decide the priority of their own life, say yes to the things they care about, and say “fuck off” to those things and people that don’t matter.

In Old English, the word “genius” was used not only to refer to individuals, but also to groups.

Music philosopher Brian Eno said that if “genius” refers to a group of creative intelligence, then “Scenius” represents the environment and age of the genius group.

The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, England, is a typical example, where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien gave birth to the best-selling fantasy novels of all time, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings;18 The Scottish Enlightenment at the end of the century gave birth to intellectuals such as Adam Smith and David Hume; Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century trained artist Gustav Klimt, physicist Ernst Mach, philosopher scientist Ludwig Wittgenstein, psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and economist Frederick Hayek; and the early Y Combinator, which hatched Reddit , Dropbox, DoorDash, Airbnb, and Stripe.

As Patrick Collison, the founder of Stripe, said, looking back at history, it is often the innovative efforts of a small group of people in a specific period, which has improved the development process of the entire human society.

The leap forward in the progress of human society depends on changes in the way of thinking about the world. Leon Battista Alberti created the conditions for the Renaissance. In an article called “Painting”, he expounded the principles of linear perspective and promoted the cultural status of painters. After that, from 1310 to 1510 During the period, artists learned how to paint in perspective, which led to the outbreak of the Renaissance.

Today, these small groups that can lead the progress of human civilization to the next stage may exist in Discord forums, private group chats and online schools. Members inspire each other by exchanging ideas and grow together through collaboration. Their circle cannot be too open, otherwise they will be swallowed up by the existing group culture; nor can they be too closed, otherwise they will lose touch with the real world. Only by ensuring the dynamic and balanced development of the circle can we develop a set of core principles and produce a lot of positive content to promote human development.

I wonder if Lisbon, the capital of digital nomads and web3, will become the representative city of Scenius?

By the way, to answer the readers’ questions, why do I have the feeling of “my hometown is where my heart is at ease” in Lisbon:
– Good size and sunny residence with easy access
– CrossFit gym within walking distance
– Several healthy and nutritious restaurants that I frequent and small cafes where I can write and work without interruption
– I have a group of like-minded friends who can not only chat about literature, history and philosophy, but also accompany me to drink and dance until dawn
– It can support the urban infrastructure and transportation that I can walk away
– Sun sun sun?

1. Maybe you and I will eventually disappear, but you should know that I was emotional because of you. Don’t fantasize about a stage well, and then fantasize about the result after waiting. That kind of life will only be full of dependence. For whom to stay, and for whom the heart always beats.
— Baudelaire

2. I went to explore a newly opened cafe in Lisbon this week. While waiting for the meal, I took out a small notebook to write and draw. The waitress suddenly came over and asked me if I was Chinese or Japanese, saying that she saw me in Write Chinese. I told her that I am Chinese, so she happily showed off her bad Chinese, and said that as a Spanish-Portuguese mixed race, she was very fluent in English after learning English for a month, but after spending several years learning Chinese, she could only speak a few words in the end. Just a word.

I shared with her that my trick to learning a language is dating. Learning a language with love is much faster than memorizing words and learning grammar, and what I learned is a very practical language for communication. Before leaving, the young lady gave me two coupons and chocolates, saying that I haven’t found a Chinese who can speak Chinese for a long time, and welcome me to come again next time!

I said before that my task this year is to deal with people more and learn more about every human being who is full of vitality. After all, in the foreseeable future, I will definitely spend a lot of time playing with AI. Now I will enjoy people and people more. The relationship between it!

3. Recently, I have heard a lot of comments about my smile: cute and radiant. So I thought of a classmate who sat in the back seat of me in high school, and I especially thanked him for the words he wrote to me when I was at a low point: “It is impossible for a person to be born with ten perfect things and everything will be smooth sailing, but no matter what setbacks you encounter, Please face them all with a sunny smile, because I heard that girls who smile sweetly will be happy when they grow up.”
That’s right!

4. At this week’s party, I met a young Portuguese brother who chatted with me about birth date horoscopes and five elements and gossip. Unfortunately, I am a poor student, and I feel that his understanding of “Book of Changes” is much deeper than mine. My brother also recommended me a test website to understand myself. If you are interested, you can test it: https://www.mybodygraph.com/

My test result is Manifesting Generotor, which can explain why I am always full of energy and easy to make decisions based on emotions, and every time I patiently respond to the signals thrown by the universe, there are always unexpected special gains .

I found that European and American friends around me who are chasing spiritual growth prefer to use Human Design and Gene Key. I recommend you to search and test it yourself. Just like Type 16 personality and Big Five, you can’t be without books, and you can’t believe in them. There’s no harm in doing a little testing and drawing up patterns to get to know yourself. I also specially created a notion page to summarize the tests done over the years. Welcome to refer to: https://www.notion.so/62b82145e84943ec9c9a67514ad0b9d0
​
5. All conditioned dharmas are like dreams and bubbles, like dew or electricity, and should be viewed in this way. – “Diamond Sutra”