There isn't any symbolism [in The Old Man and the Sea]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit.

Ernest Hemingway
Letter to Bernard Berenson
13th September 1952

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Whenever you can, tell stories instead of explaining stuff. Humans love stories, and we hate having stuff explained to us. Use Jesus as an example: He spoke almost exclusively in parables, and allowed everybody to draw their own lessons from his great storytelling. And he did very well. via

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If you don't go out of your way to be hated by bad people, you are probably doing less good than you can. via

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A phenomenon I would notice again and again throughout my career: For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn't matter if you are getting the story right. via

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“超效率！”这话在急于近利的世人看来，也许要惊为太高蹈的论调了。但一味亟于效率，结果就会流于浅薄粗疏，无可救药。中国人在全世界是被推为最重实用的民族的，凡事向都怀一个极近视的目标：娶妻是为了生子，养儿是为了防老，行善是为了福报，读书是为了做官，不称入基督教的为基督教信者而称为“吃基督教”的，不称投身国事的军士为军人而称为“吃粮”的，流弊所至，在中国，甚么都只是吃饭的工具，甚么都实用，因之，就甚么都浅薄。试就学校教育的现状看罢：坏的呢，教师目的但在地位、薪水，学生目的但在文凭、资格；较好的呢，教师想把学生嵌入某种预定的铸型去，学生想怎样揣摩世尚毕业后去问世谋事。在真正的教育面前，总之都免不掉浅薄粗疏。效率原是要顾的，但只顾效率，究竟是蠢事。青年为国家社会的生力军，如果不从根本上培养能力，凡事近视，贪浮浅的近利，一味袭蹈时下陋习，结果纵不至于“一蟹不如一蟹”，亦止是一蟹仍如一蟹而已。国家社会还有甚么希望可说。

摘抄自近代教育家夏丏尊给《给青年的十二封信》写的序文，写于1918年元旦

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关于初稿的三个建议

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对我和我认识的大多数其他作家来说，写作并不令人陶醉。事实上，我能写出任何东西的唯一方法就是写出非常非常糟糕的初稿。 - Anne Lamott
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这句话不适用于我。事实上，由于时间有限，我不能让自己写出一版“非常非常糟糕的初稿”，然后再花上一倍甚至更多的时间去修改它。如果我的成品是10分，我的初稿需要有7分以上的品质。

除了这点之外，Anne 的这篇“糟糕的初稿”让我读起来饶有趣味，并且至少有三个建议，符合我的经验，让我忍不住想推荐给你。

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It's only by risking something important that we can produce good work and form meaningful relationships. The possibility of judgment is the price we pay for real love. - Ava

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You are showing who you are and how you think--not just what you think. Because although the second might attract an audience, it's the first two that will build a long-lasting relationship between reader and writer, between you and me. - Ann Handley

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《《西游记》之成功法则》节选

其实呢，世俗的修行与佛家的修行根本就不矛盾，只是追求的境界不同而已。并且佛也提倡在现有的基础上进行修行。

成功的起初，是立志。立志升官，立志发财，立志为僧，甚至具体到想做某一件事，都是起源于最初的一个“念头”。立志（决定开始）总是幼稚的，不成熟的，因为他处于整个事件的最前端。

没有立志，便谈不上努力。做任何事，若没有目标，你往什么方向努力？有了目标，才会很自然地朝着目标去努力。

没有努力，便谈不上怀疑。前进之中，总是会因为困难而产生种种怀疑（幻象），我的决定是否正确？我的努力是否正确？我坚信的理论有没有问题？或者理论根本就不是那么回事？或从一开始我就受到欺骗？这些都是正常的，他说明你认真努力过。

没有怀疑，便谈不上坚定。你怀疑的两个面，其实都对，但也都有问题，所以才会怀疑！你必须取一而舍其他，舍去的未必就不正确，取的这个一，也未必尽善尽美，究竟站在哪边，靠的是信念，而不仅仅是知识。只有认识到这一点，才可以称之为坚定。

没有坚定，便谈不上成功。怀疑、坚定都是成功的中间过程，你不能在成功的中途，仅仅只因为困难的幻象，便主动弃权。

没有成功，便谈不上无欲无求。只有该有的都有了，才可能达到无欲无求的境界，现实中释迦牟尼佛一生下来就是王子，他当然可以追求更高的无求境界，一个老百姓也罔谈无求，不过是自欺欺人罢了，于己于社会都是有害的。

没有无欲无求，便谈不上皆是虚妄。不认识皆是虚妄，便不可得无上正等正觉。

世俗的修行以成功为终点，佛家的修行以无上正等正觉为终点（没有终点）。佛的境界远高于世俗。

而西游记只讲了从立志到成功这一段，就结束了，并没有讲到更高层次的修行，因此，西游记就是在谈如何成功，如果你硬要说是佛家的修行，那么也可以看做是修佛的初级阶段吧。这并不矛盾。

摘抄自 《煮酒探西游》 之 《附三《西游记》之成功法则》

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Ruin the ending. I almost always go straight to Wikipedia and figure out the plot — especially if I am reading something tough like Shakespeare or Aeschylus. Who cares about spoilers? Your aim as a reader is to understand WHY something happened, the what is secondary. - Ryan Holiday

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跑步一点儿也不困难

今天晚上没吃饭，出去跑了10公里

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逢人不说人间事，便是人间无事人。 - 杜荀鹤

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你理解的用户，与实际上的人们

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The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of claiming it.

The true material of knowledge is meaning. The meaningful is the opposite of the trivial, and the only thing that we should have gleaned by skimming and skipping forward is really trivia. The only way to glean knowledge is contemplation, and the road to that is time. There’s nothing else. It’s just time. There is no shortcut for the conquest of meaning. And ultimately, it is meaning that we seek to give to our lives.

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The PARA Method 里的想法

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Telegraph

The PARA Method 里的想法

读完 The PARA Method，我本来打算将这些摘抄出来的想法写成博客，最后，我在博客里写了更想说的话，那么，摘抄就放这里吧。 This is what it means to “organize for action,” a mantra I will return to throughout this book. Projects are “short-term efforts,” which means they need a clear end date. This experience led…

The PARA Method 是一本叫你行动的书

刚刚读完 Tiago Forte 的新书 The PARA Method。出乎我的意料，PARA 并不是一个复杂到让人生畏的方法，Tiago 也不是一个迂腐的个人效率大师。

如果让我用一句话总结 PARA，它是一种按照行动优先级来整理数字资料的方法。如果让我用一句话来概括这本书，它是一本让你赶紧收拾好文件夹，然后去做那些让你梦寐以求的事情。

正如全书的最后一段所说：

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沃尔夫定律 (Wolff’s law)：是对人体中的骨骼的一种成长定律，主要是指人体的骨骼如果长时间的接受外部的压力，就会增大骨密度和坚硬程度。在需要的地方就生长，不需要的地方就吸收。即骨的生长、吸收、重建都与骨的受力状态有关。遵从人体的"用进废退"基本原则。

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近代小说就不同了，故事中的人物固然是独立的，它的背景也是特定的。背景的重要不只是写一些风景或东西，使故事更鲜明确定一点，而是它与人物故事都分不开，好似天然长在一处的。背景的范围也很广：社会，家庭，阶级，职业，时间等等都可以算在里边。把这些放在一个主题之下，便形成了特有的色彩。有了这个色彩，故事才能有骨有肉。到今日而仍写些某地某生者，就是没有明白这一点。 - 老舍《我怎样写小说》

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千禧年停顿

影响力，往往不取决于你有多好的想法，而在于你有多会讲故事。

在如何通过设限激发创造力这篇文章里，我提到了如何通过限制形式，快速创作一份“暑期生活”视频。值得高兴的是，这份视频被 JR 的英语老师当作范例在全班第一个播放；值得反思的是，尽管使用了新颖的表达形式，但故事讲得四平八稳，平铺直叙，算不上精彩。我讲故事的方式，还停留在千禧年世代，如今看来，已经有些老土。

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In The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew Crawford called attention “the thing that is most one’s own” because what we pay attention to determines what is real to us, what is “actually present to our consciousness.” Just as we become what we eat, our reality becomes what we pay attention to. And just like our appetite has been hijacked by food engineers (by “manipulating levels of sugar, fat, and salt”) so are attention engineers trying to conquer our minds. Crawford called distractibility, or lack of ability to focus, the “mental equivalent of obesity”. - via

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