After the May Day holiday is the evil adjustment, it's really hard to cope with working for six consecutive days after the holiday, and coupled with several days of insomnia, it's like adding insult to injury for someone who is already exhausted. But the problem is that despite the insomnia, my energy during the day is surprisingly good, and then I start to have insomnia at night, which is really frustrating.
I have reflected on the reasons for my insomnia, and I guess it's because I think too much. I really like Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall", this stream of consciousness work, although I really don't know what the author wrote 🤣. But a large part of my insomnia is caused by this kind of stream of consciousness thinking, but why can't I become a writer like Woolf? 🐶
I seemed to have noticed this symptom of daydreaming when I was in elementary school. I still remember that it was probably the final exam in elementary school, a math exam, and I finished the paper early and checked it multiple times without finding any problems. At this point, I suddenly conducted an experiment. I stared at the scratches on the desk caused by repeated use by students and started my experiment of jumping thoughts.
I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I did find that my thoughts could jump from one thing to another without any symptoms, countless thoughts were like watching a movie, and I couldn't even stop them. In the end, I shook my head hard and forced myself back to reality.
Midnight City#
But recently, in addition to daydreaming, there is another reason for my insomnia, and I blame myself for forcibly disrupting my biological clock 🐶
A long time ago, probably when I was in high school, I remember that magazines were very popular, and the most classic one was "Vista Kanzhong". Of course, readers, Yilin, and composition materials were also very popular. But I vaguely remember a magazine that had a slightly different style, similar to "Sprout", but I can't remember the name. I saw an article called "Midnight City" in it, and it left a deep impression on me. The gist of it was that the author and his friends took a walk on the streets of the city after midnight, and they had a completely different perspective from the usual observation of the city, so they wrote this article.
Naturally, I didn't have many opportunities to wander around the city after midnight when I was studying, but somehow, this article has always stayed with me. I guess I fantasized about experiencing this new perspective with friends one day.
I grew up in the countryside when I was a child, and I always yearned for city life because not every household in the city had a dog in front of their house! Yes, this is the simplest reason why a child wants to live in the city. I still remember the fear of dogs when I was a child. Every time I saw a medium-sized dog barking at me in front of a rural house, I started to hate why I had to live in the countryside.
Later, with the changes of the times (I can't think of a better word for now), I moved to the city with my parents. Although I no longer had the fear of dogs that haunted me, I rarely experienced what can be called "life". But it can also be said that I was busy with my studies. I had to take extra classes in high school, and I rarely came back during summer and winter vacations in college. After graduation, I went to work in Shenzhen directly, and the longest time I stayed at home was during the epidemic, but I was basically forced to stay at home.
But I still like the city in my heart, but now I don't reject the countryside that much, because now I'm probably not so afraid of dogs anymore 🐶. Especially on weekends, I like to take a bus and leisurely arrive at my destination. Why do I like taking the bus? Because it provides a completely new perspective. Compared to a car, the bus is higher and has a better view.
People are strange. When you are in a low position and your line of sight is blocked, you will feel annoyed. But on the bus, your field of vision is open and unobstructed, and you can see everything clearly.
Ancient people climbed high places to have lofty aspirations, to take pictures of the railing, and to drink wine in a desolate place. It can be seen that if you want to relieve your worries, you have to climb high. But I'm too lazy to climb mountains, so I take the bus instead 🤣
But what I like most is still observing the city after midnight. At this time, the once bustling commercial areas have become deserted, and the beautiful lights and decorations have become dim. On the contrary, the most plain and ordinary stalls are still bustling with people under the flashy lights.
I can't write such good words, so with a try-it-out attitude, I tried to find the article "Midnight City" that I remembered.
I didn't expect that I actually found this article and excerpted some of its contents as follows:
At midnight, most shops choose to close, and supermarkets close their doors after nine o'clock. On leisure days, when friends go out to travel and come to a strange city, they always want to see its night view. The prosperity of a city often depends on its night view. We don't want to see how prosperous it is, but how it looks at midnight. At this time, some small vendors are still yawning and working. No one is supervising them. The urban management has already finished work and is sleeping with their loved ones. The workers are chatting and laughing in the wind, maybe they don't like playing mahjong and just want to relax after playing mahjong. There are also people making phone calls, talking to relatives and friends in another city, and not wanting to hang up with their girlfriends. They talk about things they don't even know for two or three hours, telling stories and laughing. At least from their voices, everything is fine.
The city at midnight is spiritual, I have always believed that. Countless people here present their stories to this city at this moment, without reservation. At this time, I understand the principle of "if you come, you will be at ease". Occasionally, there are two or three taxis, picking up passengers, and a group of people playing poker together. This is their only entertainment. If you are one of the thousands of people in the crowd, you will blend into this city at this moment, develop their habits, and experience their lives.
flomo#
Here I record the quotes I excerpted to flomo, along with some of my thoughts.
A cave is dark, but as long as light shines in, darkness is no longer its destiny.
The ocean is isolated, the desert is dangerous, but as long as someone crosses over, obstacles are no longer our destiny.
A person's life is lonely, but as long as you have experienced being loved once, you will never forget it, and loneliness is no longer your destiny.
- Chen Ming is so good at speaking, I really like this sentence. It comes from a debate called "Is being misunderstood the destiny of the communicator?" in which he argued against the motion.
I personally believe that novels do not need to be "deconstructed", they do not need to be "understood", and they do not need to be "comprehended". If you feel it, that's enough; or if you don't feel it, then find another book. Feeling is feeling, it doesn't need to be explained and then "understood". This book really gave me many brain orgasms.
- From an article on a WeChat public account, commenting on "The Submarine at Night". I learned the term "brain orgasm" from it, and I often have that kind of feeling, the kind of pleasant surprise that makes me slap my thigh.
A book cannot completely replace a person, especially at the beginning, but in general, what a person can do, a book can do almost as well, and in some aspects, even better, because books are written by people who have been carefully selected, unlike the people who can accompany you, who usually come by fate. And as time goes on, it's not necessarily true anymore. The longer the time, the more the book can reveal its abundant content, so looking for a book can be more active, with more choices and more accuracy. The more you look for it, the more you will find, and you will feel that there is still something - skills, knowledge, appreciation ability, etc. - more gifts. Accumulating silently in your body, like many gifts.
- From Tang Nuo's "Seeking the Sword". I recently started to like Tang Nuo. His thinking is really profound, and his deep thinking can be seen between the lines.
Today at noon, I specifically asked my colleagues if there were any interesting topics, and I received feedback that many teams are very anxious now, and one of the reasons is that everyone has a strong sense of goals and has made many plans benchmarking against competitors, but this is very tiring and puts them in a state of comparing with competitors and doing things in the same way. This is different from my understanding of product methods. Good products have a lot of internal drive for self-expression. If we ignore the self-expression part and purely do numerical calculations or purely solve problems, the difference is still very big. Moreover, the value we create in our work comes from our unique understanding of a new thing. If we benchmark against competitors, we are not creating new knowledge, so it is difficult to make the product more valuable.
- From Xiao Longge, I have always thought that Xiao Longge's thinking is very deep. While other bosses are talking about some vague, impractical, and high-level methodologies, he can always point out the essence of the problem in a single sentence. Recently, I also came up with a radical theory. A good product actually needs to be dictatorial. You don't care about what users complain about (of course, normal feedback is fine), but if anyone wants to teach me how to do things, they can go away.
Perhaps later generations will not realize that the most important core of WeChat red envelopes at that time was sincerity.
The most difficult to replicate is simplicity and purity.
- From "Ten Years of WeChat", I wrote a comment: "Users are always a group of rogues, always greedy, always wanting more, always thinking they know better. The simplest way to deal with these rogues, and also the most direct way, is to make their appetites even bigger."
A novel, in my opinion, does not need to be "deconstructed", it does not need to be "understood", it does not need to be "comprehended". If you feel it, that's enough; or if you don't feel it, then find another book. Feeling is feeling, it doesn't need to be explained and then "understood". This book really gave me many brain orgasms.
- From an article on a WeChat public account, commenting on "The Submarine at Night". I learned the term "brain orgasm" from it, and I often have that kind of feeling, the kind of pleasant surprise that makes me slap my thigh.