Self-violence
"Trying to improve yourself quickly is a form of self-violence."
That's a surprising bit of advice I learnt this week. I do not put it up here, but I am struggling with life reformation as much as the next person. Like everyone else, I listen to and (mostly) read Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport, David Huberman, David Goggins and (occasionally, God forbids) productivity slop-producers. Like everyone else, I have implemented glorious and big and beautiful overhaul plans that will turn me into da Vinci overnight. Like everyone else, the plans survived 3 days top.
Now, there have been changes, but they were painful, few and far between, and I am constantly in danger of slipping. Okay, I already slip, at least weekly. I know that the way I am doing changes is wrong, but I never really know what's the right alternative. So I ended up in the same cycle, trying again and again, in vain, punching the wall until it's too painful to stop, still convinced that I just need to try harder and harder and harder before I succeed. Or when I take on enough life "serious" commitments (e.g., mortgage) and stop and conform to this life where everything I do is dictated by other people.
Well, this thought is that alternative. A gentle, slow and steady approach. It came to my attention via an answer from the Chinese's Quora Zhihu (of course I don't know Chinese, but Google Translate exists, and someone also translated it to my mother tongue). The person has 2 years of "tang ping" ("lying flat" in Chinese), where they were unemployed and also stopped looking for job. The days were described in vivid details. Instead of the day-to-night eye-to-screen sesh of gaming and scrolling social media and watching livestreams more commonly described in the West, they enjoyed a tranquil existence.
I have nearly two years of experience lying flat.
I live alone, am introverted, don't use my phone, have a regular sleep schedule (go to bed around 10:30 pm and wake up naturally around 7 am), and have no financial pressure.
I get up, wash up, and make my own sandwiches if it's before 7 a.m. After 7 a.m., I eat rice noodle rolls from whichever restaurant I feel like.
I go swimming on Mondays and Fridays when it's less crowded and the pool is clean. The rest of the time I wander around a few parks and stroll aimlessly through the streets. When I feel like it, I just randomly take a bus and end up somewhere.
Around nine o'clock, everyone went to work, and I leisurely strolled around the supermarket, buying groceries, watching what the elderly people were buying, and buying things along with them. Sometimes if I was still struggling with what to cook, I chat with others and having a few words with the butcher/fishmonger.
I got home around 10 PM and opened a cooking tutorial. I don't know how to cook, but I tried to cook a meal by watching the tutorial. It usually takes me 45 minutes or more to make one.
In short, I'll definitely be able to eat before midnoon.
Nap, and get up at 2:30.
In the afternoon, I played games, read books, did puzzles and Lego, and at 4:30, I played the piano.
At 5:30, I heated up the leftovers from lunch and ate them again.
I signed up for all the museums I didn’t usually have time to visit and all the activities I didn’t have time to attend before!
I'll be the one to reserve seats when I meet up with friends for dinner on a weekday.
I wake up quickly and in high spirits, genuinely love the world, and sincerely hope the world explodes every day after I go to work.
It's "not a product of self-discipline", but rather a slow and steady nudge towards a more content existence.
The idea intuitively makes sense, and explain why all imaginable and unimaginable masturbatory strategies of the Productivity Industrial Complex never works (at least for me). Tools are useless without the principles and will to use. And the default principles and will we choose is impatience. We tell ourselves the way we tell a slave "Give me immediate result or else". It didn't take Abe to realize why it's absurd.
At this stage, I can't write a triumphant conclusion. I just learnt of the idea this week and trying its out. And taking things slow and steady obviously means that the result will take a long time to come. But I feel hopeful about the future.