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Random Walk Newsletter, Issue 2#

Hello, this is the second issue of "Random Walk" newsletter. Welcome to read.

One Sentence#

From Li Shutong:

"Life is like the setting sun over the Western Mountains, wealth and honor are like frost on the grass."

It is said that he wrote this sentence when he was only fifteen or sixteen years old.

Reading#

Running as a Cure#

I finished reading a book called "Running as a Cure" this week, written by Zhang Zhanhui. Nowadays, many people start running for various reasons, such as energy, health, or weight loss. Regardless of the purpose, reading this book before starting can be helpful to some extent. Running, which seems ordinary in daily life, is actually full of knowledge. With the correct methods and plans, you can complete a half marathon within six months to a year. However, incorrect methods not only fail to achieve exercise effects but may also harm the body. For example, many people experience knee pain from running. I used to run in the gym for a while but had to stop due to knee pain. In addition, many people resist running mainly because it makes them too tired and unable to concentrate. These are actually problems with the methods and techniques. Running can also be done easily.

Out of Control#

I re-listened to "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly this week, and the second time felt completely different from the first time. This book was published in 1994, and many of the viewpoints in the book are still relevant today, and some even hit the mark with our current lives. One of them is the decentralized viewpoint, where an evolving entity achieves a sophisticated state through self-evolution, which cannot be designed by a centralized leader. This is the meaning of "out of control" as mentioned by Kevin Kelly.

Furthermore, the author says that the latest form of the evolving entity is you and me. Every human being is connected to the world through various means of communication and electronic devices, forming a huge evolving entity. This is the union of humans and machines, also known as the Internet of Things that we often hear about now. It is truly admirable to have such forward-looking viewpoints nearly 30 years ago.

I looked into the author's life and found that he is indeed extraordinary. Kevin Kelly was born in Pennsylvania, USA in 1952. After studying for a year at the University of Rhode Island in 1971, he dropped out and became a freelance photographer. Between the ages of 20 and 27, Kevin Kelly traveled in Asia. At the age of 27, in Jerusalem, Kevin Kelly had a miraculous experience. He felt that he only had six months to live, so he dutifully served his parents, made generous donations, visited relatives and friends, and then "died" on Halloween night. After returning to the United States, this person who had experienced "death" spiritually rode a bicycle for 5,000 miles across the entire country, experiencing the brilliance of life.

The Blind Watchmaker#

The author of this book is Richard Dawkins, who has also written another famous book called "The Selfish Gene".

"The Blind Watchmaker," the title of this book is interesting and comes from William Paley's masterpiece "Natural Theology." In "Natural Theology," it is said that if you see a stone in the wilderness, you can assume that the stone has always been there and is a natural product. However, if you see a watch in the wilderness, you would definitely think that the watch was carefully designed by someone and cannot be a product of nature. In fact, this carefully designed watch is a metaphor for humans, and the watchmaker is God.

However, Richard Dawkins is a loyal supporter of Darwin's theory of evolution. His view is that the appearance of complex organisms must have a special reason, but it is not God, but natural selection as Darwin said. Natural selection does not have a purpose, so the watchmaker can only be a blind watchmaker.

The book also explains why he thinks so, including some interesting examples. If you are interested, you can take a look. In summary, natural selection is not random selection, but an accumulative process. If you think that random genetic mutations are natural selection, it is indeed unlikely to produce such responsible organisms as humans. However, natural selection is an accumulative process that constantly evolves in the direction favorable for survival, and unfavorable evolution or unfavorable genetic mutations will be eliminated.

Recommendations#

1. A plugin for Obsidian called "Text Snippets" is very good. It can replace common input with short texts.
2. I used to use other tools like Drafts and Agenda for daily note-taking and then organize them in Obsidian. But this week, I started using another built-in plugin in Obsidian called "Zkcard." I used to worry about the poor mobile experience of Obsidian, but after using it a few times, I found that the experience is not bad.
3. I recommend a book called "The Story of the Human Body." After listening to it, I think it's great and have added it to my reading list.
4. I read Wen Hao's newsletter, "Three Things," and learned about the story of Chen Jingfei. I had no idea who she was, but after reading her story, I was motivated to listen to her music. I haven't listened to her music yet, so I can't recommend it, but I can recommend her story first, "A Female Singer's 'Moon and Sixpence'" (Chinese source: link).

Insights#

1. Let's start with a reflection. I encountered a problem at work before and thought it was a problem with a third-party tool. I thought I could use it in a different way without much impact, so I didn't investigate further. However, when another colleague tried to use it today, we found that the current usage method didn't work. Then another colleague asked a question, and we solved it in less than half an hour. It turned out to be an issue with the nginx configuration, and adding two lines of configuration fixed it. This serves as a lesson. If I had thought a little further, I could have solved the problem for sure.
2. The beginning of this week's newsletter felt a bit empty. I can't remember many of the things and ideas I encountered this week. In fact, almost every day before, I had some thoughts that I thought could be written in the newsletter, but I didn't record them. Now I can't recall them, and I have realized the importance of recording inspirations at any time.
3. I recently started reading for 15 minutes every day. I just finished reading "Running as a Cure." Before that, I finished reading "The Art of Communication" by Hua Jie. Yesterday, I started reading "Letters from Yu." I hope I can share it with everyone after finishing it. I used to think that reading books takes a lot of time, but as long as I insist on reading for 15 minutes every day, it should be easy to read one book per month throughout the year. So don't underestimate the power of small changes. Just like the book "Tiny Habits" says, if you want to start exercising, as long as you can stick to it, even if you do only one push-up every day, after a few years, you will definitely see a different self.

Observations#

The Feng County Incident#

The recent Feng County incident has caused a lot of uproar. Even now, in certain corners, terrible things are still happening. Last night, I saw this report, which shocked me even more: Beijing Girl Abducted for Six Years. Previously, in my opinion, most abductions happened in remote areas, and it was rare or even impossible for them to occur in places like Beijing. After reading this article, I realized that danger is truly everywhere. The girl was abducted at the age of 14 and successfully escaped at the age of 20. The experiences she went through in those six years are heart-wrenching. These inhumane experiences have also changed her life. After returning home, her neighbor's classmate had already gone to college, while she dropped out of junior high school. Even though she returned to Beijing, she couldn't live a normal life. After reading the entire article, it's hard to calm down for a long time.

Hu Xijin's comment on this incident: "A grassroots incident has escalated to this point, and the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government have to set up a separate investigation team to determine the truth. Politically speaking, this is a tragic situation. It is a clear warning that the official credibility is already very fragile."

Salary Cap in Football#

I am a football fan. This week, I saw a piece of news about Guangzhou Evergrande, the former Guangzhou team. The first team has a salary cap of 600,000 yuan per year, which is a big difference from the previously rumored official salary cap of 3 million yuan. And these days, Hao Junmin posted on Weibo about unpaid wages, and Wuhan team subsequently released a document adjusting their investment. The players who experienced the most glorious period before were lucky. They experienced the most brilliant period, gaining both fame and fortune. But now, it seems that only those young players in the youth team who truly love the sport can persist.

The Significance of Listening to Audiobooks#

I saw a post on a forum discussing whether it is worth buying a membership for Fan Deng's audiobooks. Almost all the comments were against it, and some were even attacking. The arguments revolved around "selling anxiety" and "eating someone else's chewed food."

As for me, I am definitely not in agreement with these views. I consider myself a heavy user of audiobooks, and the changes they have brought to me in the past two years have been quite obvious. Based on my experience, when listening to audiobooks, it is still necessary to refer to the actual content of the book when interpreting the speaker's words. If you think that listening to audiobooks will miss many important contents of the book, I can understand that. But if you think that the audiobook author will distort the original intention of the book, I think it is a bit exaggerated. Therefore, I do not believe that listening to audiobooks is equivalent to "eating someone else's chewed food."

Let me give you an example. I recently listened to a book called "Micro Mastery." From the title, I could guess that it is about how we can do anything we are interested in without necessarily following the 10,000-hour rule to master everything. Instead, as long as we complete the smallest closed loop, it is enough. One of the author's viewpoints that I agree with is that micro mastery is actually establishing a lottery system for our lives. Every small skill is like a lottery ticket. You may not know when it will be redeemed in the future and play an amazing role.

Previously, Tsai Kangyong also said something similar. The general idea is that when you are twenty years old, you may think that learning English is useless and not needed in your work. As a result, when you are thirty years old, you have a job opportunity in a foreign company, but you missed it because you didn't know English. When you were a teenager, you thought learning to swim was useless. As a result, when you were in your twenties and met a girl you liked who invited you to go swimming, you couldn't go because you didn't know how to swim. The expression of this idea is somewhat similar to the book "Micro Mastery." When we learn certain knowledge or skills now, we should not focus too much on short-term benefits. Instead, we should add a new possibility to our lives. No one can be sure about the distant future. When we need to use certain knowledge or skills, it may be too late to learn. So, explore more and don't underestimate the power of small changes.

Wan Weigang once said something that I really like and want to share with you. He said: "Everyone says life is a long-distance race. My understanding of this sentence is not just about running too fast in the beginning and losing momentum later. It means that later on, you may have to switch to a different race. You need to try different running styles and even change your understanding of 'running.'"

OK, that's all for this week's summary. Although no one has subscribed yet, thank you for reading, and feel free to discuss.