“Aha, I’m Just Kidding.”

Of course, I'm just kidding.

Updated: 2026/09/10

Quotes

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” ― Taleb

“Understanding is the thing. Being able to exercise judgment is the thing. Taste is the thing, and understanding, judgment, taste, these come out of having real problems and then solving them and then finding the commonalities.” — Naval

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” ― Alan Kay

“Know something of everything before you know everything of something.” ― Unkown

Memos

♦ Ask Yourself

The questions you can ask yourself:

  1. When buying something, are you acting out of need or desire?
  2. How can we view the world without the perspective of human existence and will?
  3. When I am old, will I regret my life?
  4. (When seeing an advertisement, ask yourself) What does it imply? Who is its target?
  5. How to resist literature with literature?
  6. What kind of relationship are you in?

♦ What Is Hidden Knowledge

♦ Greece

In my imagination, Greece has no rainy days, always basking in the bright sun, with no winter, and it is perpetually summer. The Greeks are strong and agile, as clean as marble.

♦ A Summer Afternoon

Recently, I often think back to a summer afternoon during my childhood (around middle school). I lay on a wooden board and slept for a long time, feeling hot, drowsy, and powerless. It seemed like the world had stopped at that moment. How carefree I was back then!

♦ Of the People, by the People, for the People

The phrase “of the people, by the people, for the people” (民治、民有、民享) has a wonderful rhythm, both in Chinese and English.

♦ 2666

Before reading “2666,” I happened to reread “150 Years of Modern Art.” It seems I have an understanding of so-called modernism and postmodernism, but I can’t articulate it clearly.

In the past, novels pursued telling a good story, while modern novels focus on the way stories are told. Past art sought realism and the emotions evoked by beauty, whereas modern art pursues the expression of concepts and the forms of that expression.

While reading this book, I often think of those I liked and loved; these people have become a part of my life.

Because the truth is this: the world is always the same; what changes is the way we view it. (This sentence actually comes from Knausgård’s “My Struggle.”)

♦ Beware of Self-Sentiment

We waste our lives in being moved and in moving ourselves.

Be true to others, but truer still to yourself.

Cherish those around you, for the unexpected is always closer than we imagine.

♦ You Already Have Enough

No new hobbies, equipment, games, or books are allowed during this year. Instead, you have to find the value in what you already own or what you’ve already started. You turn to the wealth of options already in your house, literally and figuratively. You improve skills rather than learning new ones. You consume media you’ve already stockpiled instead of acquiring more. Go Deeper, Not Wider

Spend a year truly organizing and cherishing what you already possess. Try living this year by buying only the essentials for daily life — and nothing else.

Go deeper, not wider

Use what you have. Master what you know. Buy only what you need.

No new hobbies. No new gear. No new books.

♦ Create, Don’t Consume

When you’re not creating, you’re defined by your tastes rather than ability. Taste alone makes people narrow-minded and exclusionary. So create. ― by Naval Ravikant

Do not let consumption define you; instead, let creation define you. A message to all of us living in the era of mass consumption.

♦ A Cheng on Go Seigen

A Cheng once remarked about Go Seigen, saying that he did not respond to hints. I really like this comment. We ordinary people are often driven by hints: PUA, advertising, the tides of the times, short videos, movies, TV dramas, books — any information we receive is constantly hinting at what we should do and how we should do it. And yet, we tend to go with the flow, seldom pausing to think about what we truly want.

♦ Nonviolent Communication

Pay attention to what happens, and then:

  1. Clearly express the observed results without judgment or evaluation.
  2. Express your feelings, such as happiness, anger, hurt, fear, etc.
  3. State the reasons or needs that led to these feelings.
  4. Make specific requests (or offer solutions).

Then, reciprocate by listening to others’ observations, feelings, needs, and requests.

♦ The Monks of Shu

In the countryside of Shu, there were two monks, one poor and the other wealthy. The poor monk said to the wealthy one, “I wish to go to the South Sea; what do you think?” The wealthy one replied, “What do you rely on to go?” The poor one said, “I have a bottle and a bowl, and that is enough.” The wealthy one said, “For several years, I have wanted to buy a boat to go down there, yet I have not been able to do so. What do you have to take with you?”

The following year, the poor monk returned from the South Sea and informed the wealthy one. The wealthy one showed signs of shame. The distance from Western Shu to the South Sea is unknown, but it is certainly thousands of miles, and the wealthy monk could not reach it, while the poor one did.

Isn’t it true that a person’s ambition is not as admirable as that of the monk from Shu?

♦ Notes from Zhihu

Here are what I have noted from Zhihu.com:

Readings

♦ Lists

♦ How to Improve Self-control

  1. Strengthen ideological cultivation. A person’s self-control is partially dependent on their ideological quality. Generally, those with lofty ideals are unlikely to act impulsively over trivial matters. Therefore, the most fundamental way to enhance self-control is to establish a correct worldview and outlook on life, maintaining an optimistic and healthy emotional state.
  2. Improve cultural literacy. Typically, a person’s cultural literacy is proportional to their capacity for endurance and self-control. Individuals with higher cultural quality can often comprehensively and accurately understand things, recognize their relationship with others, and consciously engage in self-control and self-improvement.
  3. Stabilize emotions. Use methods such as reasonable venting, attention shifting, and changing the environment to express and release emotions that may trigger impulses, maintaining emotional stability and avoiding impulsivity.
  4. Strengthen self-awareness. Stay calm in the face of challenges, think independently, eliminate external distractions or suggestions, and learn to make autonomous decisions. Completely rid yourself of the mindset of relying on others, overcome inferiority, and cultivate self-confidence and independence.
  5. Strengthen practical exercise. On one hand, enhance learning, accumulate knowledge, broaden horizons, and arm yourself with knowledge to improve your ability to analyze and solve problems, while also expanding your decision-making capacity through learning from others’ experiences. On the other hand, actively engage in practical life experiences, train diligently, continuously enrich your experience, and improve your adaptability.
  6. Strengthen willpower. Cultivate good qualities of independence in your character. Be highly self-aware of your goals. Once you have recognized something through your own practice, you should pursue it resolutely, finding ways to achieve your intended purpose. There’s no need to strive for perfection in everything, nor should you be overly harsh on yourself for any failures, or overly concerned about how others might judge you.
  7. Adjust your needs structure. When needs cannot be met simultaneously, suppress some unrealistic needs. As the ancients said, “I desire both the fish and the bear’s paw, but I cannot have both; I will give up the fish to take the bear’s paw.”
  8. Strengthen positive thinking. As the saying goes, “Preparation leads to success; lack of preparation leads to failure.” Regularly reflect on issues to enhance foresight, so that you can make timely, decisive, and accurate choices at critical moments.

♦ How I Read

by Slava Akhmechet

I try to read a lot, though I’m not nearly as voracious a reader as people who have a reputation for it. I have no idea how Marc Andreessen or Patrick Collison read as much as they do, especially given the enormous demands on their time. The most plausible explanation is that they’re aliens with ungodly information processing abilities. I’m human, so I shoot for 40 pages every day, and fail maybe a third of the time. That works out to about 10,000 pages or ~20 books every year.

Reading twenty books a year gets you a lot. Consider: one book gives you more knowledge about a subject than almost every other person on the planet, because people don’t read. Two books on the same subject give you more knowledge than almost any reader, because people don’t read two books about the same thing. How many people who read The Power Broker went on to read a second book about Robert Moses? I’d wager not many.

Beyond two books on a subject, there is a long utility dip. People who bothered to read more than two books about Robert Moses, are either obsessed with him or study him for a living, which means they’ve read much, much more about him. So two books on a subject, at least with respect to competitive edge, is an inflection point. After you read two, you get diminishing returns.

There is a way to get around this limitation. A single book is a pinhole view of the world set up by the author. You have no input into its contents, and therefore cannot change the orientation of this view. But you do choose the books you select. That means you can stitch together multiple pinhole views into a unique lens to examine the world — one that no one else will have unless they use the same list of books to stitch together the same lens.

For example, you can look at the world through history of technology that became ubiquitous. Here is one possible list of books to stitch together this lens: The Victorian Internet, Empires of Light, The Wright Brothers, The Network, Hackers. Very few people in the world read all five of these books. Even within Silicon Valley, where everyone’s living depends on creating new ubiquitous technology, your understanding of how technology becomes ubiquitous will be in the 95th percentile (and likely higher) if you read these five. You will now be armed with a unique instrument that few others possess, and assuming twenty books per year, it only took you three months to acquire.

Another example is to look at American history and the dynamics of failure by studying biographies of U.S. presidents who sought reelection and lost. There were ten: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, William H. Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and now Donald J. Trump. It may be difficult to stomach ten presidential biographies in a row, but it’s doable to read five. That’s enough to pick up a new lens. Another three months; another sophisticated instrument to examine the world at your disposal.

I settled on clusters of five and almost never read a single book in isolation. Less than five feel lacking; more than five gets repetitive. Every cluster has a goal of the form “study X through Y”. Study American history through technological expansion, or study failure through one term presidents are just a few examples. I try to be creative and make Y unusual. For instance, everyone likes to read about presidents who are believed to be successful. A simple trick is to inverse it and read about unsuccessful ones instead. Or skip the presidents altogether, and read about vice presidents. It doesn’t matter what Y is because you’re trying to study X, and it’s more fun to make Y unusual.

I don’t bother diversifying books within a cluster by time period, cultural or linguistic background of the author, or anything like that. I simply try and find the best books on the subject. Sometimes they turn out to be diverse along some axes; other times they’re homogenous. I never read forewords or prefaces and always finish every book in a cluster. I prefer paper to digital, and used books to new ones. I never take notes or, god forbid, create flashcards. My goal is to suck the juice out of a book, not to hold on to pieces of the carcass. If I ever need to remember a specific detail, it’s always waiting for me on the shelf.

This system gives me four new instruments per year, each capable of inspecting the world in a different way. Rather than pick the instruments at random I try to be strategic and collect them into a mental lab. I visualize the lab as a room with multiple stations. Each station has a collection of related instruments on it. When I’m faced with a problem I can go to the right station and examine the problem through the instruments available on that station. All this is physically materialized on my bookshelf. Some day when I become less mobile, I plan to dedicate a literal room to it.

I don’t maintain lists of books I want to read, and don’t plan a sequence of instruments to acquire in advance. Once I’m done reading a cluster of books, I ask myself: what instrument can I add to double the utility of my lab? Another way to phrase this question is “what is the most important subject that I know the least about?” It’s easy to think of many possible answers to this question; I then pick the answer that seems the most interesting, construct a new cluster of five books, and recurse.

Four instruments per year may not seem like much, but consider: in five years you will have about twenty mental instruments, all of which interrelate and reinforce each other. In ten years you will have an impressive lab of forty instruments. And it will be unique— no other mental lab on the planet will be able to inspect the world in the way that yours can.

Because the instruments are constructed from books, they are endlessly upgradeable. Sometimes you might choose to upgrade an existing instrument to increase its power and get higher resolution, rather than acquire a new one. You can do that one book at a time. To use the examples above, you can read another book about ubiquitous technology, or another book about a one term president.

If you organize your reading this way, your bookshelf won’t be arranged by genre like a typical bookstore. Rather than having sections for e.g. biographies, essays, novels, military history, all sorted by author, you will instead have sections for addressing different problems, likely sorted by clusters of books in order that you encountered them. The arrangement won’t make sense to anyone except you. But you’ll be able to find what you need instantaneously, and your capacity to examine the world from different perspectives will dramatically increase.

Waiting five, ten, fifteen years to build a mental lab may seem like an impossibly long time. But you don’t have to wait. It’s a pleasure to read about the Wright brothers, or proliferation of the telegraph, or early computer culture! And in a measly three months you’ll have acquired a fresh way of looking at the world. Already you will be a different person. Then you keep going, and keep looking for new instruments to double the utility of existing ones. And in one year? You will look back at today’s version of yourself and find it unrecognizable.

TL;DR: Read ~40 pages/day, assume 30% failure rate. That’s 10k pages and ~ 20 books annually. Pick a problem, and read clusters of five books to study that problem from a unique perspective. Visualize each cluster as an instrument to inspect the world. Collect instruments into a mental lab, with various stations for related instruments. You can upgrade the instruments one book at a time. Have your bookshelf reflect this mental image. Win the decade, not the day. Start now and never stop.

♦ Cherish Your Attention

Note: The source is unvisited now.

I once believed that time was the most precious resource. You cannot store it for future use; with each passing day, the time you have is less than it was yesterday. It cannot be manufactured or bought; it is finite and fleeting—that is time.

However, I now realize that there is something even rarer than time: your attention. Attention is a subset of time, making it even more precious. Therefore, how you consume your attention is more important than how you consume your time.

Attention is a state of focus, detail, and thought.

“Quality time” is valuable, but I believe “quality attention” is priceless. Giving someone your attention costs more than giving them your time.

Great things are accomplished when you invest 100% of your attention. Make a list of what you are currently doing and ask yourself where your best attention is being spent. You can waste time, but you must consume your attention wisely; how you consume your attention may be the most important thing.

When you are about to “do” something, consider what “doing” means: is it “I can do it” or “I will focus on doing it”? If you do not wish to spend your attention on this task, is it still worth doing? It may be worth it, or it may not be, but it’s always good to think about this question.

♦ The Day You Became A Better Writer

visit: source

I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.

Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.

Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.

Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink” when you can say “swill.”

Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.

Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think. Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball” quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.” Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work”?)

That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome.

Articles

♦ How to Learn

Learning how to learn is a fundamental skill that is needed in almost any industry and position. How do we learn? Through hands-on practice, analyzing feedback, adjusting strategies, and then practicing again. It’s as simple as that; I believe that the vast majority of the learning process operates this way.

For example, when learning programming, we write code and try to run it. If we write it correctly from the start, the terminal or interface will give us the expected output. If it fails to run or the result does not meet our expectations, we receive corresponding negative feedback. We need to analyze this feedback, adjust our code or the way we run it, and try running it again. This cycle continues until we achieve the expected results.

Our world is designed in a similar way. We first take action, which produces results, and these results serve as temporary feedback. Sometimes, the feedback aligns perfectly with our expectations, but more often than not, it is negative feedback, and the results are not what we anticipated. Therefore, we analyze this feedback, adjust our action strategies, and through repeated cycles, we can continually understand this world and everything in it.

This method is the most fundamental and important approach to learning anything and understanding the world. There are several key points to this method: First, be brave enough to take action and personally experience things to gather feedback. Many people want a ready-made result instead of testing things out and collecting feedback themselves. Second, analyze the results of the feedback. Many people, when faced with results that do not meet their expectations, do not analyze the results but instead rush to seek help or simply give up. Third, accumulate methods for adjusting strategies. Adjusting strategies often requires considering previous feedback, but many times it can also be based on prior experiences. Therefore, those who learn more often learn faster because they know how to draw analogies and have a cognitive framework. Fourth, have perseverance. Many times, after multiple rounds of feedback and adjustments, it is easy to become disheartened if we still do not see the expected results, leading to giving up on further exploration. In such moments, it can be helpful to pause, engage in other activities, or seek help from others (this is often the right time to ask for assistance).

Hands-on practice, analyze feedback, adjust strategies, and practice again. Remember this cycle, and you will master the most fundamental method of learning.

♦ How to Live a Good Life

Can a person only pursue one profession in their lifetime? Wang Xiaobo was not only a well-known writer but also a top programmer. He won the Best Screenwriter Award for “East Palace, West Palace,” yet he was also a mathematics teacher and conducted sociological research with his partner, being a pioneer in LGBTQ studies in China. Remarkable individuals often do not showcase their exceptional qualities through a single achievement; true greatness can manifest in various fields.

How can one live a good life? First, make yourself interesting. “Knowing the name of a flower makes you feel closer.” The more a person knows and experiences, the more they can appreciate the beauty of life and truly feel it. Therefore, do not be afraid to embrace new things; be willing to try new experiences and give yourself opportunities to engage with what you once feared. An unintentional attempt may lead you to discover your true interests. 😉

Next, become an expert in a specific field. Being an expert means having the ability to independently solve problems within that field, grasping issues from a systematic perspective, and organizing a set of independent theories. Only by becoming an expert can you have true value and the ability to gain insights.

Furthermore, cultivate a love for art. Develop the ability to appreciate beauty. Being able to appreciate beauty will foster a love for life and enable you to truly experience joy. Regardless of the type of art, as long as it is a genuine passion, it can purify your heart, enhance your taste, and elevate your demeanor.

Be a “slash youth,” embrace life, and view yourself as a precious gem that requires careful polishing. Maintain your reputation and do not overspend your credibility. Bring joy and strength to those around you and be gentle with the world. All of this begins with a love for life and attention to detail, gradually and steadily improving yourself.

Remember to view yourself as a precious gem and then carefully carve and polish yourself.

♦ What Did I Create Today?

People always ask the wrong question. They ask: “What should I learn?” instead of “What should I create?”

The difference between these two questions is bigger than it appears. The first makes you a consumer; the second makes you a creator.

Consumer thinking works like this: Collect information, bookmark articles, follow experts, take courses. These are all fine, but if you’re only consuming, you’ll always be at the end of someone else’s value chain. Worse, modern society makes consuming so easy that we mistake consumption for growth.

Creator thinking is completely different. Creators ask: What can I build with this technology? What problems can I solve? What value can I bring to the world?

This difference in mindset ultimately shows up in one simple question: When someone asks “What have you built?” what can you show them?

The shift isn’t easy. Creating is much harder than consuming, and much lonelier. But once you start creating, even small things, you gain real freedom: you’re no longer dependent on other people’s evaluation systems, but have your own standard of value.

This is why people who actually change the world share one trait: they’re obsessive creators, not clever consumers.

The best way to learn isn’t taking classes, but doing projects. The best resume isn’t credentials, but work. The best security isn’t a stable job, but the continuous ability to create.

If you’re only consuming right now, ask yourself: What did I create today?

Works

Bookshelf

About

Hi, I’m 在下李思普之弟 / haotrr(dot) / dj gandalf, a programmer living in Shanghai. I like rock ’n’ roll and jazz, and of course I like reading.

Email: haotrrdot@gmail.com

Real artists steal. —— Steve Jobs