In my previous article on motivation systems, I mentioned something I want to do. Now let me indulge in the wildest fantasies and count the things we want to do. This is purely whistling in the dark to bolster our courage.
First, I Want to Be a Great Mind
First of all, I want to be a great mind. I still don’t know how to translate this properly: great thinker? Great philosopher? Great prophet? Whatever… If I could only choose one thing from everything I want, this is what I would keep no matter what.
I spent a long time resenting my dark college years and the ups and downs of my career. And now I’m proud of that. Today I take pride in my experiences. Perhaps I hadn’t realized before: I never wasted my years. My interests and focus were always different from others. We never stopped on the path of understanding the world and pursuing truth. My terrible college performance was because I spent enormous energy restructuring my understanding of the world. Four years and four hundred borrowed books isn’t exactly wasting time. My winding career path came from refusing to become an oversized screw while understanding the world. We should be the ones designing machines, not machine parts. Yes, that’s how badass it is.
If the pursuit of happiness means abandoning my mind, then I’ll choose suffering. I often scorn evolutionary psychology—it seems to explain everything. But it can’t explain why awkward beings like me exist. Is it because for me, this is a higher source of pleasure? Stop. We won’t dig any deeper. Who cares. Like a drowning person—when there’s a straw, grab it tight. Don’t ask. Whether it’s spiritual light or carnal indulgence, we extract vitality from every possible source, to feel alive. Otherwise we’ll drown.
I’ve found that this shift in thinking brings me all sorts of inexplicable courage to face things head-on. The logic behind my wild and presumptuous behavior is this: if I can’t enjoy myself now, what good is this iron staff? Even if there are many tomorrows ahead, what pleasure would they hold? Might as well enjoy each day and count it as profit.
In previous articles and social media posts, I’ve repeatedly mentioned that my ideal is to pursue another PhD in humanities. My current level is still too amateur; I need more professional training. But the fact is, I still have no clue about this, no action plan. Because I don’t know what discipline my intended field of study actually falls under. So let’s eliminate them one by one. History? Though I love history, I have zero interest in textual research. In my view, historical research is just data cleaning—what interests me more is modeling, fortune-telling, prophecy: building models based on the big data of what actually happened in history to make predictions about the future. Other purely speculative humanities disciplines? Doesn’t seem like it either. What I want to study is some kind of interdisciplinary work combining arts and sciences, containing both qualitative and quantitative content. I scoff at disciplines that claim to explain everything. It must be able to make predictions. Economics? Perhaps closer, but the scope of my intended research isn’t limited to economic activity—it includes social politics, and even the spiritual realm. I haven’t yet found a specific discipline that fits. I vaguely sense that useful content includes philosophy, sociology, geopolitics, demography, economics, and so on. I need to continue researching this.
Second, I Want to Run for Congress
One impression from my Hegel philosophy class: those great philosophers all harbored political ideals, didn’t they? Though they talked about the universe, existence and spirit, all sorts of things—to my ears it all sounded like politics, social ethics, relationships between people, relationships between people and the world. From the court above to the common people below, everyone dreams of some ideal world, without exception. Whether it’s professors devoted to scholarship at Fudan, or internet fiction authors like Maoni.
I hope the people of the Qing Kingdom can all become unrestrained people. When abused by others, have an unyielding heart; when struck by disaster and evil, have an undefeated heart; when there is injustice, have a fearless heart to correct it; do not fawn before jackals and tigers.
— Maoni, Joy of Life
This is a sentence that made a strong impression on me after watching a few episodes of Joy of Life at Qiang’s place. This is the author’s political ambition. So what does my ideal state look like? Right now I only have a vague outline, still many confusions and uncertainties. I will continue exploring in some form.
When chatting with Qiang about the old days, he completely forgot that when we started college he said he was a literary youth who wanted to become a master like Ji Xianlin. We didn’t continue the conversation. I’m not sure if anyone remembers what I said back then. But I still remember. I said I wanted to become a statesman. When this word comes up, I don’t know what image floats into people’s minds. What I’m thinking of now are people like Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson. Of course this is quite different from what I understood when I first said those words.
Why can’t I just do my job well and leave specialized matters to specialists?
The truth is, everywhere I look I see all kinds of idiots. So much so that mindless statements run rampant in the world, nonsense becomes viral articles, yet even properly trained professionals can’t produce a single decent rebuttal. Come to think of it, all the talented people went into natural sciences and engineering, leaving a bunch of untalented monkeys and spineless literati to sway people’s thoughts and determine national policies and futures. Pathetic.
How can we hand the world over to idiots and scoundrels?
Why can’t I, as some nationalists suggest, take the civil service exam and enter government if I’m dissatisfied with the country? 1.
The power structure determines that no matter how much tiny progress there is at the grassroots level, it can’t stop those at the top from flipping the table and starting over. Things need fundamental solutions. First solve the framework problem, then fill in the details. 1.
Civil service cultivates more administrative officials, bureaucrats, clerks. They don’t have the freedom to advocate their own political positions. 1.
In reality I’ve met quite a few pragmatic types who worked their way up from the grassroots. Their thinking has been locked into that discourse system—even one more word with them makes me annoyed. I certainly won’t add another counterexample myself.
So, I’ll choose another way. First, what we need to do is research at the cognitive level, understand the true spirit and principles. Then study application-level matters, see what can actually be done.
Of course, achieving this goal depends on many external factors—can’t assert it’s definitely achievable. Let’s tentatively set twenty years as the timeframe. Ten years to learn lessons, ten years to build strength.
Third, I Want to Continue Researching Financial Markets
Financial markets are our window for obtaining information. All political and economic developments are reflected first in financial markets. 1.
Financial markets are our touchstone for verifying whether our understanding is correct. If you really have such a brilliant mind, with such close-to-reality cognition of the world that you can make predictions, then prove it to us! As I’ve written in previous articles, adults have no educational value. Getting idiots to admit they’re idiots is impossible. So let’s make a bet. Taking money from idiots is the proper way to educate them. 1.
I think it might be an important means of ensuring financial independence in the future. I strenuously avoid using the term “financial freedom.” Because in my view, those whose mouths are always full of “financial freedom” are boring people with little independent thinking ability. For many people, financial freedom is quite a vague concept approaching infinity. When Mark and I coincidentally both asked “why pursue financial freedom,” someone mentioned optionality. In fact, I don’t think this is a convincing viewpoint either. Optionality isn’t without cost—in reality you’re trading your time for it. I’ve seen too many people who don’t know at all what they want, yet desperately chase optionality. If I clearly know what I want and don’t want, why would I waste extra time and energy pursuing unnecessary options?
Why can’t I, as Liang suggests, devote myself fully to stock investing?
Stock investing gives people more motivation to study the world’s broad interconnections, to research current affairs and industry trends more, rather than limiting their gaze to their own little patch of land. But I’ve also seen quite a few full-time stock traders whose understanding is closed off, insufficient for grasping the whole picture. Lacking deep participation in social division of labor makes people prone to explaining everything with closed logical systems. This doesn’t align with our fundamental goals. In other words, financial investing is merely a byproduct of our process of understanding the world.
Fourth, I Need a Real Job with Deep Participation in Social Division of Labor
Regarding work, my feelings are truly complicated right now—seriously dragging my feet, not a bit of motivation to work. If there’s really nothing particularly suited to me, I’d honestly rather trade stocks alone to support the family. A brilliant leader and a seamlessly cooperative team are truly rare finds. In ten years there have been only a few months when I encountered one or half of such people. Not that others have nothing worthwhile—leaders are leaders because they naturally have their unique qualities. It’s just that we have independent evaluation standards. Borrowing a line from our school song: character and insight come first, arts and letters follow.
Just now lying in bed I thought of many reasons why I still need a real job, which rekindled a bit of motivation. First, I need to max out my data science skill points. This tool-like thing—before I have a clear research plan—still needs further mastery and proficient application. It’ll be useful in the future. Second, I’ve always wanted to research the hive mind. But I always feel my current capability is insufficient to handle it. Continuing to accumulate experience in social participation and collaborative division of labor is very necessary—many cognitive and skill-level things still need polishing. For the first goal, first-hand practical experience is direct material. I always worry about becoming an out-of-touch idiot. For the second goal, it’s the need to maintain keen perception and combat skills. If the eventual conclusion is confrontation, then we must be more cunning and more ruthless than the treacherous and evil. We scam the scammers. Of course, the work format isn’t limited—whether enterprise, NGO, association, or political party—but maintaining deep social participation is necessary.
Fifth, I Still Need a Generator/Discriminator/Enhancer
In plain language: I need a woman and a group of companions. I need some people to trigger inspiration, some people to help prune overly divergent ideas, and some people to coincidentally validate viewpoints we’re not so certain about.
One major reason I’ve delayed settling down is that I can’t easily give my important things to others. When you make someone an important part of your life, you’re handing them the discriminator—such power over life and death, giving them some ability to reward good and punish evil. This is momentous—not something to entrust lightly to anyone not equal in values and intellect. Moreover, if you spend too long with people of lower intelligence or mediocrity, there’s the risk of reinforcing stupidity and mediocrity. I’ve witnessed this firsthand—can’t be too careful. Regarding views on choosing partners and friends, my current thinking isn’t mature enough. And it’s very related to the hive mind problem I want to research. I’ll discuss this issue in detail later.
These are the five things I currently want to do. There are many other small matters and experiential goals—I’ll mention these smaller goals when I have the chance. This is the main framework.
Explanation: Let me finally explain why I must speak out my thoughts. Because traditionally we’re always taught to hide our goals in our hearts, work hard step by step, do great things quietly. Those who speak out their ideas are often called people without ambition who keep making resolutions, or there’s that “the nail that sticks out gets hammered” or “the tallest tree catches the wind” nonsense. In fact, that used to be my creed and operating style too. But I intuitively feel such dogma is too stale, doesn’t fit the modern spirit. So I choose not.
Three considerations:
- Implement our principle of thinking aloud.
- Train my ability to focus. Simply put, if speaking out makes you feel tremendous pressure, you’re giving others too much attention they don’t deserve. Making a fortune quietly isn’t exciting at all, doesn’t show capability. Getting things done under everyone’s watchful eyes—that’s real skill.
- Attract kindred spirits.