When I am reading my "toxic parents" book recently, I noticed that I have two contradicting feelings: first, I really read it slow because I want to write down a lot of my thoughts, reciprocation and questions related to the reading so I can get maximum from reading it and get to express my thinking; second, I want to finish it fast so that I can read other books and get even more information. It's a very interesting contradiction, both originated from my curiosity and desire to get more knowledge. the later is also motivated more external motivation of reading tons of books.
I decided the first way is the way to go. Why? Because reading is just one-way communication, people forget what they read all the time. After thinking and writing about it in my own perspective, I incorporated the ideas into my own life, I examined the idea and decided to accept it or reject it. This way I am not just brainwashed by the author, instead I had a conversation with the author gaining deeper understanding with different ideas, and I get to be analytic, thoughtful and creative in the process, which is what I wanted. Just blindly rushing from one book to the next is just too superficial and doesn’t give me what I want.
However, an even more interesting phenomenon to examine here: why would I feel the urge/hurry to finish the book faster than the most productive/creative pace which is slower? I see my similar behavior in other aspects of my life: trying to finish a chess/card game quickly while sacrificing the chance of winning; Wanting shortcuts; don’t have the patience to plan and reevaluate plans; when I do plan I make sure my schedule is completely full that there is no zoom for turning around and think; In a hurry to do nearly everything.
Well the result of these facts is that I keep repeating the same pattern over and over again without realizing what I am doing and content at the fact that “I didn’t waste time”.
So behind my behavior there is a belief: “the more I do in a certain amount of time, the more I achieve thus the more time I SAVE”. Now this belief could be true at some instance but it could also be false if misinterpreted because:
The passing of time is homogeneous and it’s not depending on what you do with the time. There is no way you can make the time pass faster or slower. There is no way that you can “SAVE” time and use it later.
When you do labor chores that requires minimum reasoning/thinking, (i.e. cleaning), and you finish a task faster then you have extra time to do other things, in this case you “saved” the time. But when the whole purpose of your activity is about reading and thinking and reasoning and planing, when you skipped the thinking and reasoning part, and only go for the “finishing task” part (like finishing a book, finishing a chess), you missed the real purpose of spending your time.
That is where patience comes in. In my old idea, patience means “waiting for boring tasks to finish or waiting for stupid people to catch up”. Now I think my old definition totally don’t get the essence of it. Patience should mean a peace state of mind to settle and to do meaningful activities without superficially rushing the forms from one activity to another. It also involves a deep understanding of the reason why you do something in the first place and confidence to keep doing the things you set your mind on. The feeling of patience is almost meditative and philosophical, like those ancient Chinese philosophers proposed the “inner peace”.
Oh my god I am getting so deep now I am going to stop right here to leave the idea explored the way it is right now, because there is always a subtle line of “having an epiphany” and “let your mind wonder into non-provable nonsenses”.
I decided the first way is the way to go. Why? Because reading is just one-way communication, people forget what they read all the time. After thinking and writing about it in my own perspective, I incorporated the ideas into my own life, I examined the idea and decided to accept it or reject it. This way I am not just brainwashed by the author, instead I had a conversation with the author gaining deeper understanding with different ideas, and I get to be analytic, thoughtful and creative in the process, which is what I wanted. Just blindly rushing from one book to the next is just too superficial and doesn’t give me what I want.
However, an even more interesting phenomenon to examine here: why would I feel the urge/hurry to finish the book faster than the most productive/creative pace which is slower? I see my similar behavior in other aspects of my life: trying to finish a chess/card game quickly while sacrificing the chance of winning; Wanting shortcuts; don’t have the patience to plan and reevaluate plans; when I do plan I make sure my schedule is completely full that there is no zoom for turning around and think; In a hurry to do nearly everything.
Well the result of these facts is that I keep repeating the same pattern over and over again without realizing what I am doing and content at the fact that “I didn’t waste time”.
So behind my behavior there is a belief: “the more I do in a certain amount of time, the more I achieve thus the more time I SAVE”. Now this belief could be true at some instance but it could also be false if misinterpreted because:
The passing of time is homogeneous and it’s not depending on what you do with the time. There is no way you can make the time pass faster or slower. There is no way that you can “SAVE” time and use it later.
When you do labor chores that requires minimum reasoning/thinking, (i.e. cleaning), and you finish a task faster then you have extra time to do other things, in this case you “saved” the time. But when the whole purpose of your activity is about reading and thinking and reasoning and planing, when you skipped the thinking and reasoning part, and only go for the “finishing task” part (like finishing a book, finishing a chess), you missed the real purpose of spending your time.
That is where patience comes in. In my old idea, patience means “waiting for boring tasks to finish or waiting for stupid people to catch up”. Now I think my old definition totally don’t get the essence of it. Patience should mean a peace state of mind to settle and to do meaningful activities without superficially rushing the forms from one activity to another. It also involves a deep understanding of the reason why you do something in the first place and confidence to keep doing the things you set your mind on. The feeling of patience is almost meditative and philosophical, like those ancient Chinese philosophers proposed the “inner peace”.
Oh my god I am getting so deep now I am going to stop right here to leave the idea explored the way it is right now, because there is always a subtle line of “having an epiphany” and “let your mind wonder into non-provable nonsenses”.
No comments:
Post a Comment