Let's write about life. Life isn't just studying and working.

Hello~

I don't feel like writing a technical post today (actually I don't even know what to write about). The ones that don't take much time are too simple, and anything with a bit more substance takes too much time and energy. Lately I really don't have that much time to write and put together an article like that. (Once you run a WeChat official account, you'll find that producing an article every time is a feat.)

Lately I've been tinkering with my system. As a not-quite-standard geek, how can I get work done without the right tools? So I've always followed the idea that "sharpening the axe doesn't delay the chopping of wood" and tinkered away (or so I thought.

(A word of advice: whatever you do, don't tinker. This is a huge trap.)

For Chinese users, Linux has a lot of inconveniences that need tinkering. First and foremost is of course the Chinese input method. Installing and configuring a modern Chinese IME on Linux really isn't that easy (runs away. So for a while I tried my best to avoid anything that required typing Chinese. It wasn't that I couldn't type—it was just that the typing experience was bad, without that satisfying flow of typing normally.

Then over the past couple of days, after a long stretch of tinkering, I finally got Arch Linux (or rather its derivative distro, Manjaro) up and running and configured. Anyone who's been around the Linux community knows this is a very special distro. Pretty much everyone who's used it will say Arch is the way, and never look back~

At first I didn't believe it, but after using it these past few days, I have to admit it's true. So now I can finally type happily, and that's how this piece got started (yes, even rambling is a form of creation).

Alright, I said this post wouldn't involve tech, so I won't go into detail on tinkering with systems. Let's write about life. "Life" is what modern people most easily overlook; most of what they do can only be called "survival." Being alive shouldn't be hard for modern people. What's hard is living in a way that makes yourself happy, and moreover making the people around you glad that you exist. I think that's what "life" really means. Therefore, "life" starts with being happy yourself. Well then, how to be happy is another question, not to mention that everyone defines happiness differently, and everyone's threshold for feeling happiness is different. Since this is just a casual essay, I won't go into these highly controversial questions. How to find happiness—please explore that on your own.

Ever since Weibo in China turned into a marketing platform plastered with ads, I simply moved my life records onto paper—that thing called a "journal." And I find this little notebook pretty interesting. Every day I write down what I got done today, jot a small summary, then write a rough plan for tomorrow. Looking back after some time, you get a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

The following is excerpted from my journal, with some brief commentary.

May 17. I saw a line in my journal: "Forgiving others is treating yourself kindly."

The Avatamsaka Sutra says: "All the evil karma I have created in the past comes from beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance." Regarding "greed," "anger," and "ignorance," I recall the official account posted about this before—all the suffering people encounter comes from these "three poisons." "Forgiving others" here is naturally about keeping yourself from falling into "anger." Although this sentence looks quite bland, just an ordinary bit of chicken soup, it can actually resolve many troubles in interpersonal relationships quite well. "Forgiving others" isn't simply passively facing unpleasant things in relationships; it's about more understanding of each other, more positive communication, so there can be fewer misunderstandings. Furthermore, I think the idea of "yuan" actually makes a lot of sense. Everyone has different life experiences, which also shape different personalities. Generally, people with similar personalities tend to be "birds of a feather," so if you ask me what to do when someone has offended you and you really can't forgive them—that can only mean you two truly have no "yuan," your personalities don't mesh, and it's hard to resolve conflicts through normal communication. So don't make things hard on yourself; you can still choose to "forgive." This isn't choosing to compromise or admit defeat; it's just treating yourself kindly. Think about it: if you keep holding a grudge against someone who offended you, every time you recall it you'll feel unhappy, and then that unpleasant emotion will spread to other people around you—what's called "negative energy." That's bad for both yourself and others. So this sentence makes a lot of sense. Long live understanding. If it really doesn't work, just stay away. Don't force yourself. Being a person, the most important thing is to be happy.

May 19. "Psychology is really quite interesting Its greatest meaning isn't in reading other people, but in understanding yourself"

The previous entry mentioned that "forgiving others" plays a positive role in interpersonal relationships. I happened to have related books on hand, so I browsed through them in my spare time. Psychology is indeed quite interesting, and quite meaningful too. Of course its greatest meaning lies in understanding yourself. Is there any point in understanding yourself? Of course there is. The purpose of life—being happy. How to be happy? Of course you need to know what you want. As for specifically how to be happy, how to analyze your ideals and pursuits, that's also outside the scope of this post.

May 21. "Once you've mastered knowledge and look back at the basics, a lot of things you couldn't understand when you were learning them become easy, and you can also connect fragmented knowledge together"

This was a reflection after finishing a book, and I relate deeply. A simple example: I like tinkering with Linux systems. So did I learn anything in the process? Of course I did, but it's very fragmented, basically just some experience. Next time I run into a different problem I have to search again. Even with two or three years of experience tinkering with Linux, I might still not have as rich knowledge as someone who just started Linux and spent a few months going through Bird Brother's "Linux Private Kitchen" from the beginning. That's the gap between systematic learning and fragmented accumulation. It's also why I say tinkering is meaningless. (Feel like I could go ask Bird Brother for a bit of advertising fee)

May 22. "Everyone has their own most comfortable way of relating and their own distance, like hedgehogs huddling for warmth in winter. Even if you don't understand, you should at least respect it."

During lunch break I watched a movie recap and got this thought. I don't know what example to give. As the saying goes, "The friendship of gentlemen is as plain as water; the friendship of petty people is as sweet as sweet wine." But how do you judge which of these two ways of relating is better or worse? It should be pretty hard. Whether "the friendship of gentlemen" is truly "as plain as water," I don't know, because I'm not a "gentleman," and there's hardly a standard for judging whether someone is a "gentleman." Likewise, whether "the friendship of petty people" is "as sweet as sweet wine," I equally don't know. Since I don't even really understand them, understanding is even further out of reach. But none of this is a big problem—just maintain respect.

May 23. "If you only have one day's time, don't think about doing a week's worth of things."

The fact that I was able to sum this up still gives me a great sense of accomplishment to this day. Not because it's particularly enlightening, but because this sentence fits me too well. That's right, I've always been very "overambitious"—even if I only have one loach, I always want to catch all the fish in the whole pond. Of course, a lot of the time I catch nothing at all. So, to improve efficiency in work and study, you first have to count clearly how many "loaches you have." One loach, one fish. The result of greed is often coming away with nothing (of course you might be a bit cleverer and catch two fish with one loach, but you can't possibly haul up all the fish in the pond). Only by recognizing your own abilities can you better allocate your plans, and only then maximize efficiency. In limited time, don't even think about doing unlimited things, or you'll just keep putting things off, putting things off, putting things off, and let the deadline get postponed indefinitely......

One last thought: ReSharp is really quite useful. Friends involved in .Net development might want to check it out.

One-sentence summary: Writing a stream-of-consciousness log and rambling is when things are most relaxing.