Preface
This piece is a record and reflection of my life from August 16 to September 4, 2023.
Time has flown by, and two to three weeks have passed unnoticed. I comfort myself by saying that shifting each post forward by a week will soon restore the weekly updates. However, these weeks have not been idle. I’ve read some books, perused several articles that greatly impacted me, participated in some interesting activities, tinkered with many intriguing things, rebuilt my knowledge management system, and made orderly progress in both my main work and additional interests. There have been many interesting developments.
Personal Information Acquisition and Knowledge Management System
Since my post “Weekly Review #25 - Personal Information Output and Synchronization System Based on Crossbell (Reconstruction)”, I’ve been quite satisfied with my information output synchronization system. It has been able to drive input through output, thereby increasing the process of information filtering and reflection. However, as mentioned in that post, I only streamlined and filtered information sources, coupled with a simple tag system and limited bidirectional links. I hadn’t really done much digestion and reflection on the input information. When writing weekly reviews or articles, I often recalled based on titles. Due to the reflection I usually did while reading, it wasn’t too strenuous.
However, as I picked up many previously interesting directions and goals, the time and energy costs for processing and digesting this information have increased. Coincidentally, I saw that P.J. Wu had joined Heptabase, which led me to revisit his article “My Personal Knowledge Management System” from a few months ago, as well as Indigo’s “Feynman Learning Method in Practice / INDIGO’s Information Acquisition and Knowledge Output Methodology”. This inspired me to reconstruct my knowledge management system, especially on the input side.
The final result is very satisfying. I initially wanted to write some specific details here, but as I wrote, it became increasingly expansive. So I’ve separated it into another article, “Personal Information Acquisition and Knowledge Management System (Heptabase + Logseq + Readwise)”.
The Meaning of Choice
These days, I read an article by Justin Yan titled “Everyone Only Has 24 Hours a Day, I Hope My Choices Are Really My Choices”. It mentions several times the concept of “exploring inward, finding what you want”. This reminded me of the concept of “introspection and external seeking” that I had previously pondered:
As humans, our focus is often divided between internal and external aspects. Comparatively, external focus tends to dominate due to its stimulating nature and positive feedback, while internal focus is often easily overlooked.
External seeking always seems to have some answers, while introspection has no endpoint. But internal seeking is always accompanied by self-analysis and harm, a behavior that is more contrary to self-protection instincts and human nature. I used to fear this and worry about never finding meaning and falling into an abyss. But now it seems that as long as one is still questioning and thinking, everything still has meaning. Conversely, losing one’s inner core, losing the curiosity and drive to explore oneself, is what’s truly frightening and unbearable.
This way of peeping at other people’s lives through the small holes of social networks easily magnifies others’ real experiences.
I also saw a description of magnifying others, which is very real. This isn’t just true for networks. For a long time in university and afterwards, I tended to choose someone I admired at the time to catch up with, always feeling that they had what I desperately wanted. But after truly “surpassing” them, I realized it was all meaningless. What I was chasing was merely a magnified shadow. To fill this void, I had to choose again. Becoming someone else is ultimately a shortcut and laziness, and often takes you further away from who you truly want to become.
Reading and Book Notes
This week, I started reading and writing more. The main book I’m reading is “Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte, and I’ve also read many articles. Actually, I didn’t used to focus much on taking reading notes. I mostly relied on digesting information while reading, forming my own internal thoughts. The advantage of this method is that it makes me more focused when reading and increases absorption efficiency. However, I’ve been neglecting the review and internalization part. As time passes, it becomes less easy to remember. Now I use WeChat Reading + Notepal + Readwise to record my highlights and corresponding thoughts. At the same time, in Heptabase and Logseq, each book has a corresponding page for writing some more general or scattered related thoughts. Because it’s a card mechanism, it’s also convenient to retrieve and associate these note fragments.
“When you’re preparing to learn new knowledge, you must stand in the position of the instructor, assuming you’re going to explain this knowledge to others.”
Learning to output encourages our brains to use the second mode more: “Forcibly establishing connections between different concepts is also a specialty of the brain.”
I’ve been concentrating on reading about information acquisition and knowledge management, which has reinforced the concept of the Feynman learning method. This aligns closely with my approach of using output to drive input, which has indeed been a very useful method. It wasn’t until after seeing the concept that I realized I was actually practicing this concept.
In the current era, we’ve long since reached information overload. Logseq’s bidirectional links, P.A.R.A. theory, and Heptabase’s whiteboard are all trying to follow some of the brain’s thinking logic to achieve this. My practice is to create scattered card information from different concepts and information points, accumulate enough to modularize and organize frameworks from these information points, and start creating articles when the framework is clear enough. In the process of creating articles, I also review this knowledge and the connections between them, not only for current memory but also for future recall. As a description of note-taking that I really like says:
Note taking is building a relationship with a future version of yourself.
Personal Life Snapshots
I spent the Qixi Festival in Beijing. Due to being a bit busy, we didn’t go out to eat. My girlfriend made a simple meal, adding a little ritual to life. Then I set up Apple TV + Surge tvOS client for her, so we can watch YouTube and Netflix directly on the TV. We were very happy!
After staying for a week, I hurriedly returned to Hangzhou to attend a Rust event organized by a friend. I seem to have gotten a bit used to traveling back and forth to Beijing, and have started living a “tale of two cities” life. Emotionally, I’ve also relaxed a lot more, and am more willing to participate in various fun activities and try new things.
During the week, I went to Liangzhu for remote work with everyone. I met STRRL, Tuoding, Zhizi, and others. I regret a bit not renting a house there, it was too much fun!
I received my girlfriend’s Qixi gift only after arriving in Hangzhou, a super cool transparent power bank. I even brought it to show off (brag) to everyone when I went for remote work, haha. It felt like the childhood feeling of finally receiving a beloved toy.
My sister, who is currently on summer vacation, wanted to play with Nie Nie, so I didn’t bring her home that early. After coming back, she’s still very clingy. As I write this, I suddenly realized that Nie Nie has been with me for over 10 months now. Time flies so fast, she’s already over a year old, shedding some of her childishness. But time also passes slowly; it seems like yesterday when she was hiding in the cabinet, afraid to come out when I first brought her home. The days we’ve spent together have been slow, quiet, and beautiful.
Interesting Things and Objects
MuChiangMai
I applied to be a mentor for the MuChiangMai event. I can exchange teaching three workshop sessions for free accommodation! I’ll probably go to Chiang Mai to be a digital nomad for a few weeks in October. While I’m looking forward to it, I’m still a bit nervous about teaching in all English. I need to prepare in advance, it’s a new challenge.
Others
Input
Although most interesting inputs are automatically synchronized in the “Yu’s Life” Telegram channel, I’ll still select some to list here. It feels more like a newsletter.
Books
- Building a Second Brain, I’m building my own knowledge management system based on his theory.
Articles
- A Month Without Using Social Networks/Video Websites | Report · Tianxianzi
- Elegant Use of Cloudflare WARP to Address RSSHub Anti-Crawling Issues - DIYgod
- Positioning for the Cancun Upgrade, Which is the Better Choice Between OP and ARB? - Mint Ventures
- My Personal Website is My Social Network
- How the iMac saved Apple - The Verge
- Black Myth: Wukong Hands-On Preview | IGN China
- Free Personal Domain Email Solution - Just lepture
- Heptabase Introduction - A Powerful Knowledge Management Tool Based on Cards - Pin It!
- My Personal Knowledge Management System - Pin It!
- The Sound of Apes Doesn’t Stop on Both Banks, A Light Boat Has Already Passed Ten Thousand Mountains—My Quarter of Life - This Cute World
- 25 | Homura’s Blog
- How Do I Use Heptabase to Record Ideas and Inspirations? – Metaverse
- How Heptabase’s founder use Heptabase for learning, research, planning, and writing | Heptabase Public Wiki
- The 4 Levels of Personal Knowledge Management - Forte Labs
- Everything About TLS/SSL Certificates | Cowabunga!
- Why note-taking apps don’t make us smarter - The Verge
- Making Machines Understand the World / Human Leap in the GPT Era · Translator’s Preface
- Everyone Only Has 24 Hours a Day, I Hope My Choices Are Really My Choices | Justin’s Words
- Feynman Learning Method in Practice / INDIGO’s Information Acquisition and Knowledge Output Methodology
Videos
- A Place Called Cat Island, Where There Will Be No More Cats | Midsummer Kansai
- Learn Solidity, Blockchain Development, & Smart Contracts | Powered By AI - Full Course (0 - 6)
- Learn Solidity, Blockchain Development, & Smart Contracts | Powered By AI - Full Course (7 - 11)
- 300 Days, 40,000 Kilometers Across China, The Drifting Camera Finally Came Back!
- Chat with Web3 Practitioners #1 | Current Status of Algorithm Development in Web3 Industry | What Businesses in Web3 Need Algorithms | Impact Brought by ChatGPT
- To Complete Game Development, We Developed a Game? And Even Opened a Game Museum? — This is Gamker’s Most Important Video to Date
- 【2023】The Entrepreneurial Story of a Top 100 UP (2)
- Thirty Years of Russian Hackers
- Portable and Good-looking Retro Camera Strikes Again, Backstabbing A7M4? | A7C2 First Review
- Conversation with Nolan! Director Personally Reveals 6 Secrets of “Oppenheimer”
- Chat About Black Myth: Wukong: Media’s View on It
- People-pleasing Personality, Confrontational Personality, Solitary Personality, Which One Are You?
- Ten Questions to Understand Business 【Learn to Quickly Investigate (Part 2)】
- Why Does “Baldur’s Gate 3” Have to Be Turn-based? What’s the Significance of Its Hot Sales? 【Just Play Games 2023】
- Chat with Web3 Practitioners #3 | It’s So Interesting to Chat with Experts | Come and See What Experts Look Like
Podcasts
Anime
- Oshi no Ko, supplementary tag. I watched it when it was airing as a new series, couldn’t stop after two episodes. I really liked the pace and direction, and the whole emotion came up during the segment where love was imitated in the middle episode. Looking forward to the next season.
TV Series
The Long Season, supplementary tag. I watched this a long time ago. Chinese dramas often exceed my expectations. The plot rhythm and emotional tension were quite sufficient. I watched it in one go and still wanted more.
The Disguiser, I occasionally come across some mixed cuts on Bilibili. Because I like the cast of Nirvana in Fire so much, I intended to play it as background music for a few weekends, but was deeply attracted by the plot. I actually quite like that era and this theme. It has a bit of the feeling of “The Invisible Guardian” that I played a long time ago, but obviously I still prefer the settings and personalities of Zhuang Xiaoman in the game and Yu Manli in the drama, so I felt quite heartbroken and regretful towards the end.
The World’s #1 Web Celebrity, I recently set up Netflix to watch directly on Apple TV. I randomly clicked on this popular show while tinkering and eating. The female lead’s style and outfits are really nice, everything else is quite bad.
Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, I resumed my habit of watching documentaries during lunch. I randomly opened this, originally thinking it would talk about his glorious history and Microsoft empire. However, it talked a lot about poverty, charity, broken friendships, daily life. I was quite surprised to see this side. Overall, it’s quite worth watching.
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