In the previous article, we have already known that as a species in the natural world, we are unable to fully understand the objective world we are in, and can only understand the world mapped out by our subjective cognitive model. Since we cannot have complete knowledge of the external world, does it mean that we will forever drift in the chaotic world and get lost in the wilderness?
Of course not. The shining individuals that have appeared throughout human history have provided an answer. It is precisely because we cannot fully know the true face of the world that we are filled with curiosity about the unknown, constantly exploring and advancing. This process has truly propelled human progress and development. Before countless moments of darkness descend, it is the shining stars that illuminate the way forward.
So, in today's era, where we face countless changes and constantly encounter whirlpools and quagmires that can easily devour lives, how should people in the present construct a new framework for survival to lead us away from these dangerous threats to life? The result of my current thinking is the following two points:
One core: Long-term value
One key point: Nearby construction
Long-term value#
The external environment is constantly changing, and various complex and diverse information bombards our attention. Today there is one hot topic, tomorrow there is another trend. If you are always being pulled by these things, you will never have the energy to make judgments and analysis, and you will easily find yourself trapped in a quagmire, thus ruining your life. The root cause of this situation lies in not having a clear direction for life, not knowing where the goals of life are. In work, if there is no long-term and reasonable planning, and in life, if one just goes through the motions day after day, without any intellectual reflection...
The core of breaking free is to establish a principle of recognition, that is, to realize and practice long-term value. In work, find where the value of your profession lies, and continuously enhance your own value. This will generate a positive feedback, and you will become a valuable individual rather than just someone with work experience. This value will not only bring individual independence, but also trigger a sense of value that extends to other aspects of life. Gradually, the overall quality of life will undergo subtle changes, and a long-lasting and gentle life energy will be born.
In my view, this long-term value recognition has the following characteristics:
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Long-term effectiveness
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Continuous growth
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Transferable
Long-term effectiveness#
The so-called long-term effectiveness means that the values we choose to recognize should have long-term effectiveness and not be easily overturned by the tides of time. To achieve this, we need to start from the basic phenomena, delve deeper, and discover the underlying principles and structures.
As shown in the above figure, the various things we face every day are specific events at the first level. We invest countless efforts every day to do things, but the more things we do, the more exhausted we become. Over time, we become trapped in this cycle: work hard -> things don't decrease -> mental exhaustion. In this situation, we trap ourselves because our value does not grow much while we age.
To solve this problem, we need to dig deeper and analyze the reasons behind things. At this point, we will find that many things, although they seem diverse, are actually caused by only a few reasons. We just need to prescribe the right medicine to solve many problems at the source. By solving many basic problems at this step, we can lay a solid foundation. However, if we want to have insights into a problem, break through the limitations of time and space experience, and achieve deep analysis, we need to continue digging deeper to find the underlying principles that support the existence of events. As for how to dig deeper layer by layer, it is actually done through a series of analytical methods. These analytical methods are tools built on logical principles. The logical principles and analytical methods will be elaborated on in the future.
At this point, it is easy to understand that to enhance our value and maintain its long-term nature, we need to continuously dig deeper into events and find the underlying principles. It is also easy to understand that, for example, there are many paid courses on "writing explosive articles in 30 days," but those who truly dominate the field of content are those who have been engaged in high-quality and in-depth article writing for a long time. The value accumulated through long-term writing is the real competitiveness.
Continuous growth#
The long-term value we choose should have the attribute of continuous growth and not remain at a constant level. If we invest our energy into long-term value, we also require this value to grow continuously along with our investment.
As for how to achieve continuous growth of value, we need to take the opposite action from the previous step, starting from the underlying principles and applying them to the analysis of specific events. This will guide our judgment of specific events.
Transferable#
The solutions we have used for one thing can only be called experience. When a new event occurs, we will search for similar situations from our accumulated experience and use them to deal with the new event. However, there are two problems here. First, you need to accumulate enough experience to deal with enough new events. However, the speed at which information flows today is several orders of magnitude higher than the speed at which we acquire experience. Obviously, relying on experience to live a good life in the business world is not reliable. Second, experience cannot be reused because every event is influenced by multiple factors, and a previous solution cannot effectively apply to a new event.
Therefore, to solve the constantly emerging new problems, our accumulated value must be transferable, able to provide effective value for future events based on previous value. We need to abstract the process of problem-solving, the process of analyzing underlying principles, and the process of analyzing specific events into a thinking model. This model should be continuously optimized while being used to solve new problems. Taking a factory as an example, we can see that the thinking model we abstract is a production line, and the new events are the goods on the production line. These events will be processed and solved through the production line. The difference between a thinking model and experience is that the former analyzes and processes events through systematic analysis, while the latter transfers solutions. In comparison, the latter lacks the breadth and depth of analysis and mastery of subdivided factors, so the resulting solutions are inevitably limited in utility.
Nearby construction#
After choosing long-term value, we invest our energy to make the value grow and form a thinking model, continuously improving our underlying abilities. This pure rational exercise is painful, and few people persist in it in the long run. In the process of understanding ourselves, we also realize that all value growth is for the fulfillment of personal life and the improvement of life. So, besides value construction, what else should we do? And what can contribute to the construction of value?
I believe it is a kind of "nearby construction," which is the opposite process of value construction. Nearby construction is a development-oriented process. If value construction allows you to continuously transform yourself into a precise analytical machine in a rational way, nearby construction allows you to explore your true existence as a person in a subjective way. In my opinion, nearby construction is a crucial measure of how much a person can become a person and how far they can go (from a historical perspective, not just the present).
Here, "nearby" refers to the whole formed by individuals and their surroundings. Individuals refer to the external body and internal self of a person, while the surroundings refer to the environment and people that individuals come into contact with. Nearby construction mainly includes the following points:
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Individual care
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Surrounding care
Individual care#
Individual care is the process of discovering oneself as a person, which is the starting point of nearby construction. In this part, we need to accomplish two aspects of work. First, care for the inner self, and second, care for the body.
Care for the inner self: We need to reflect on ourselves, discover ourselves, and awaken self-awareness through continuous questioning and reflection. I firmly believe in Socrates' saying, "An unexamined life is not worth living." However, the fact is that the vast majority of people grow old in lives that have never been examined, and at least I don't want to be one of them. Care for the inner self is difficult for beginners, not only because of the lack of methods, but also because of the conflict in consciousness and cognition. The most practical method for self-care is to study classical philosophy. The most direct way is to read the works of philosophical masters.
Care for the body: As mortal beings, we are only a tiny part of the natural world, and all our actions are constrained by this body. In order to better realize life, we need to care for the body. The key to this care is restraint. We need to overcome certain resistances and achieve reasonable exercise, the realization of reasonable desires, and a reasonable diet, among other things.
Surrounding care#
Paying attention to the surroundings helps us better realize ourselves and enrich our perception of life. There are two key aspects here: attention and warmth.
Attention: We need to maintain continuous observation and attention to the people and environment around us, not just for our own advancement, but also for a kind of attention to the friends, relatives, colleagues, and even the people who accompany us for a period of time. We should care about their actions and lives. In this process, our perception of the world and life will become more abundant and profound. This establishment of perception will lead us out of mechanical indifference. This is the brilliance of being human. At the same time, this continuous attention will enable us to have deeper thinking about the surroundings, giving us an advantage in business exploration.
Warmth: Paying attention to the surroundings should not just be about observation. We should not be indifferent bystanders. We should have warmth towards the environment. We hope that society will become better and more just. To achieve this, we need to believe that this outcome will be realized and then invest ourselves in caring for the surroundings. It does not mean that we have to engage in various charitable activities, but rather that we should refrain from doing harm and contribute our own efforts for a better environment. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." This warmth will spread among different individuals and gradually accumulate into a force that drives society towards a better direction.
(Of course, the above content is not definitive. As I mentioned in the "About" section, all knowledge grows independently, just like life. Different stages will have different forms of life, but they are consistent in terms of core values and continuously optimized and developed during growth.)
The length of a person's life can be long or short, and the individual's life is extremely small compared to the scale of thousands or billions of years of evolution. Think about the fact that there have already been 110 billion people who have passed away on Earth. The things we are currently obsessed with, fixated on, and suffering from have also happened to past individuals, with only slight variations in form. If we are driven by desires, material possessions, and the surroundings during these few decades, our existence as a body will appear lonely. It is time to truly contemplate the meaning of life and the goals of life, discover our own long-term value, invest continuously, and experience the true existence of being human!
Reading List
"The Secret of Efficient Writing"
"One Day in Life"
"Salt of the Earth"
"Behind the Product"
"A Small Blue Logic Book"
"How to Think Systematically"
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