Book: 20200620 to 20200704, "Stillness Is the Key" by Ryan Holiday

20200620 - Preface and Introduction

"Stillness" is another name of "now" or "meditation".

I think this book is the sister book of "The Power of Now"

"To hold the mind still is an enormous discipline, one which must be faced with the greatest commitment of your life."(p7) --- Sounds right.

PART I: MIND

20200621 - The domain of the mind

Don't really agree with this chapter. I think Ryan exaggerated the power of stillness.

What if Kennedy didn't read the book "The Guns of August"?

I think reading is the critical factor that let Kennedy making right decision during the 2 week Cuba missile crisis time in 1962. Stillness let Kennedy to be the best of himself.

What if I can keep in stillness while reading and even daily life? Will I learn much faster, and doing much better job? Together with time (compound rate), this will change our fate drastically.

20200621 - Become present

What's the difference between meditation and "live in the now"? During meditation, we count our breath; when "live in the now", we concentrate on the things we are doing. Because our mind doesn't wondering with the past and the future, we can get work done more efficiently.

"Live in the now" feels like forcing our mind live in emptiness. If our physical body went into emptiness, we would die immediately. That's why it so scary to let our mind stay in emptiness. But it's all right. We will not get hurt. We are just not used to stay in that status.

In reality, this "emptiness", we call it "silence". When our mind stop chatting, we are in silence. Don't be afraid of silence.

Focus on the very moment, for me, is exactly what I do when developing software. During coding, I don't think about anything else. This doesn't mean that I am not capable of noticing the surrounding things, I just ignore them on purpose. During meditation and "live in the now", we do the same thing.

When we see, we focus on what we see. Purify our mind, so we can see/hear much more. That's what artists/musicians do.

20200622 - Limit your inputs

You are what you eat.

Not just that. You are what you hear and what you see. You are what you are thinking of.

What is Elon Musk thinking of most of the time? What am I thinking of most of the time? This is why I am different from Elon Musk.

Am I capable of staying in silence? Ignore the input, and focus on whatever I want to focus?

It's all right to be not aware of the latest news. If the news is really important, we will be aware of it very soon, anyway.

Ignore all good news. We don't need to know the details of those good news.

20200622 - Empty the mind

Not sure whether "athlete" is good example for explaining the importance of "emptiness". But the idea is correct: we need to prevent distraction from our mind, to make our mind sharp.

Steve Jobs's mind is like laser. That definitely helps him to see the nature of things. With less distraction, we will also get much better memory. The most important thing is, we can continuously work/study, with full attention.

Distance=speed*time

With higher speed and longer time, we can go through further distance.

20200622 - Slow down, think deeply

"What's essential is invisible to the eye."

There is no silver bullet for hard questions, but stillness can increase the probability of resolving problems.

To conquer hard problem, slow down is necessary. Together with many other factors, we get much higher chance to succeed.

PS: Epictetus maybe is the first one who raised the first principle, especially about "verification".

20200623 - Start journaling

So all my reading notes is actually "Journal".

Stillness doesn't build "superman". It only put us into our best status.

When waking up, we should make plan for the whole day. And then, from time to time, do journals as introspection of what we did. Should we write down the daily plan? Or maybe the daily plan should be part of the journal?

20200623 - Cultivate silence

We need silence to clear our mind, so we can concentrate on the task at hand.

Our mind is not used to silence, because we are used to noises(irrelevant thoughts). If we really want to get into "flow", we have to emerge into silence.

20200624 - Seek wisdom

To seek wisdom, we need to admit our ignorance first. It's OK to be not aware of something, just like it's OK to let our mind stay in emptiness.

Two approaches.

1. "Find people you admire and ask how they got where they are."

We can also learn a lot from normal people. Everyone knows something we worth us learning.

2. "Seek book recommendations"

20200624 - Find confidence, avoid ego

Don't lie. Don't cheat on ourselves. Verify your thoughts and other people's opinion.

Be cautious. Respect that the whole world is full of randomness. Most of the things are out of our control, and that's fine.

When we calmly see through the real world, we are confident. We know what we can do, what we can't, and how to get things done (or how to figure out how to get things done).

20200624 - Let go

Is shooting really a good example? For most of people, they need to deal with complex situation and calculation, and they cannot keep their mind focusing on simple stuff.

I think it's not about "stillness", but more about distraction. If we can ignore those distractions, our productivity would be much higher.

20200625 - On to what's next

We are looking for the harmony among mind, spirit and body, and stay in that balanced status.

Meditation focus on mind. That's not enough.

PART II: SPIRIT

What is spirit? I think it's perception: our self-perception and the perception of the world.

20200625 - The domain of the soul

This chapter is about the meaning of life.

If life is meaningless, then stillness is also meaningless, no matter how much fame or money we get.

Fame and money should be side product of our life, not the purpose of our life.

So, no point to cheat on ourselves or other people, and we should not pursue any material stuff, including fame, drug and sex.

20200625 - Choose virtue

Virtue is always associated with happiness and peace. That's interesting. Why's that?

We waste a lot of time and attention on minor issues. With the help of virtue, we walk along the right direction, which avoid wasting time and resource. Thus we can get much more reward.

Of course, in the end, it's still about probability. Virtue can only increase the chance to get happy and peaceful life, but it cannot guarantee it.

20200625 - Heal the inner child

Not many people have perfect childhood. From time to time, we got hurt or bad memory in childhood. But that's normal. We are adults now, we should celebrate the maturation.

Memory is just memory. We don't have to carry it to the future. We, as adults, should be responsible for our future.

20200626 - Beware desire

Buy what you need, don't buy what you want. This is actually "slow thinking vs fast thinking".

We have infinite desire/impulse/agitation.

Slow thinking can also help us to choose virtue and heal the inner child. It's the critical factor to lead us walking in right direction.

20200626 - Enough

I don't need more money. Money make life more convenient, but it doesn't change anything.

Do I need more coding? What do I need more?

Not had enough reading yet. Maybe, in the end, just need more stillness.

20200626 - Bathe in beauty

Is nature beautiful? Yes, but it's also cruel.

However, we still can enjoy the beauty of nature, and "bathe" in it.

When we focus on the beauty of nature, we get stillness and serenity.

As nature is some resource easy to access, and our gene makes us enjoy it, so it's a good approach to attain stillness from it.

20200627 - Accept a higher power

I think this is not about "higher power", but admitting that we don't control everything, and not aware of everything. The world is too big. We need to realize that we are only a very small part of it.

If something unexpected or bad happened, it's OK. Maybe we can do it better next time, or maybe just need to try it one more time. Bad luck hit us in most of times. There is nothing we need to worry about when bad things happen, sometimes there is even nothing we can do to improve it.

20200627 - Enter relationships

Don't agree with this one. Partner also means kids, which take a lot of time to look after, unless one of the parent take full time job at home.

But, we should not measure the achievement only by career. Kids are part of the life experience we should have.

Will partner and kids help to reach stillness? Not sure. But from "spirit" point of view, it should be fine.

20200627 - Conquer your anger

Anger is based on illusion, because it happened in the past. This illusion don't have to affect "now".

I don't think we can conquer anger. Instead, we should realize that it's meaningless to be angry.

We don't worry or angry. We action.

20200628 - All is one

I don't really agree.

This is real, but it is also an illusion. We are all part of the universe, but, as our life is so short, and our domain is so limited, it doesn't make much meaning to call ourselves part of the universe.

However, keep big picture in mind, the victory and defeat is not big deal. They are all just our normal activities.

To me, stillness in mind is much harder than the fulfillment of my spirit.

20200628 - On to what's next

Lao Tzu said that "movement is the foundation of stillness". What does that mean?

My guess: it's about rhythm.

PART III: BODY

20200629 - The domain of the body

Winston Churchill is amazing, but Ryan Holiday skipped all his defects here. It's OK, we only need to learn from his advantages.

It seems most of the great politicians and investors are very patient. They fulfill their life with meaningful study and work, and shine when the time is ready.

What if the time never comes? Yes, this is about luck. Nothing can guarantee success, but only increase the chance to win.

In one word: don't waste time. Improve our mind, spirit and body.

20200630 - Say no

Warren Buffett's 5/25 rule: focus on the top 5 goals, and ignore the other 20 goals.

The beauty of this rule: ignore the distractions. Distraction may look like a tempting worthwhile goal, but actually it wastes our time and attention. That's why we should say no to most of the tasks.

In this chapter, sometimes we need to wait. When the time is at our side.

Smart investors do the same thing.

Again: don't waste time while waiting.

20200630 - Take a walk

We minimize distraction during walk. Maybe this is one of the reasons that walking brings us so much inspiration.

It's actually meditation, when we concentrate on walking. Long distance quick walking is also physical exercise. No wonder so many medical experts recommend it.

Should I do it? One hour of meditation every day?

20200701 - Build a routine

Choices are distraction, if we need to face the same choices everyday.

Why we need simple life? To get rid of the unnecessary choices.

Why great people live boring life? They removed all unnecessary choices, so they can focus on important tasks.

We can think deeply to set up highly effective daily routine. It may take days or even months to set up such routine. But if there is no such routine, then we need to make decisions every a few minutes, and our productivity will be poor.

Distance = Speed * Time

Get rid of the distractions, we will get much higher speed.

20200701 - Get rid of your stuff

Buy what you need. Don't buy what you want.

But, what do you need? Obviously we can avoid the luxury stuff, then how about the high quality one?

Own a property helps to set up routine, right?

I think there is no absolute right or wrong, as everyone has different goals. We just need to make relatively good decisions.

20200703 - Seek solitude

This chapter reminds me of Total Immersion effortless swimming.

For long distance swimming, TI is obviously one of the best choice (the other one should be "total immersion breaststroke"). With the help of inertia, we can go much further with little extra effort.

Just like daily routines. Daily routines need to minimize distraction. Solitude can give that to us.

But, if we can master the rhythm, we can skip the distractions on purpose without staying in solitary environment.

That's more practically approach to get high productivity, to do whatever we want to do.

Basic skill is still very important. That's why need to practice meditation.

20200703 - Be a human being

Don't work too much. Career is part of our life, not all our life.

Rhythm is still critical. We need to set up routine based on suitable rhythm, to move ahead quickly and sturdily.

20200703 - Go to sleep

Sleep is critical and the easiest way to improve our productivity.

There is no exception. We all need enough sleep.

Sleep is part of life, just like cooking, housework and gardening. It's not "waste of time".

Sleep let our body and mind relax.

20200704 - Find a hobby

What is hobby? Something can let our mind relax or in stillness. Ideally, it also keeps our body busy.

So, playing chess or playing online game is not hobby. Gardening or painting is.

Learning to play piano is not a hobby. Playing piano is.

What is the most suitable hobby to me? How about learning some survival skills? Meditation while walking?

20200704 - Beware escapism

The difference between leisure and escapism is intention. However, how do we know our real intention? It's too easy to cheat on ourselves. To solve this problem, we need stillness. When stay in stillness, we know what is the real intention.

Escapism doesn't resolve problem. Don't worry/anger, do something to resolve the problem!

20200704 - Act bravely

Not really agree with Ryan Holiday in this chapter.

How do we know that we are good in body, spirit and mind? Verification.

Our actions tell us whether we are really in good status, or just in illusion.

From the other side, action also helps us to improve our body, spirit and mind.

20200704 - On to the final act

Yes, we are all going to die.

Life is a game. To fulfill this game, we need to use our time wisely. We don't want to go through miserable life, or pursue pointless goals.

When the time comes, I hope I can die happily.

20200704 - AFTERWORD

Setting up routine is the most important lesson I learned from this book. Routine is different from habit. It means a lot of habits, 24 hour habits a day.

Once set up the routine, we can trust ourselves that we spend time on important, valuable tasks.

Another lesson is to live in rhythm. Study in rhythm, work in rhythm. Breathing itself is rhythm.

Don't forget the rhythm, so we can live in the moment.