你好呀，我是良哥。昨天分享一份语法资料这份我强烈推荐语法书以后不会再分享了，及时领取，发现识货的人真的很少，等了很久评论区终于出现一位，感觉很开心，就好像全世界没人懂自己，突然出现了一位，把整个世界都照亮了，有时候吧，我很难受，真心分享的干货没人懂，没人理，甚至被人误会被人谩骂，抓人眼球的蹭热度的倒是备受追捧，抢着要，很是伤感，所以。出现零星识货的人的时候，内心真的可以开心很久很久。好了，今天的好文来啦，请阁下细细品尝。You may not know this, but I was a professional musician for a number of years. In my mid-20s, I was certain that this was the path for me, so I quit my stable finance job after saving up enough to pursue music full-time.你或许不知道，我曾经做过一段时间专职音乐人。二十多岁的时候，我确信音乐就是我命中要走的路，所以我存够了钱，就辞掉了那份稳定的金融工作，全身心去做音乐了。Throughout my time as a musician, I made a lot of beats, but I also found myself doing something that I didn’t anticipate. Rather than making beats day-in and day-out, I was spending much of my time trying to get my music heard. I was submitting my music to blogs, trying to collaborate with popular artists, and finding ways to distribute my work through labels.我专职做音乐的时候，确实创作了不少曲子，但我后来发现做音乐跟我的期望不太一样。我并没有每天都只管埋头做音乐，而是花了很多时间让我的音乐被人听见。我到处找博客去发表我的作品，努力和一些有名的艺术家合作，还尝试通过各种唱片公司把我的音乐发行出去。To put it simply, I was investing a lot of energy into fulfilling my desire to be validated by others.简单来说，我投入了大量的精力去追求别人的认可。The reality is that if I redirected that effort into the music itself, that would’ve increased the chances for it to be heard. If I took more time to improve the quality of my art, then these improvements would’ve been the gateway to reaching more ears.实际上，如果我把花掉的精力用在音乐创作上，可能我的歌早就火起来了。如果我多花点时间提升我的作品质量，那么就能帮我吸引到更多的听众。However, the reason I didn’t do that was simple: I didn’t believe in myself. That’s it, really. Because if I did, then I would’ve put more energy into discovering what my potential was. I would’ve looked inward and challenged my creative abilities to make something that stretched the boundaries of what I already knew. But since I didn’t trust my commitment to this craft, I attempted to outsource that commitment to others in the hopes that they would elevate my music for me.然而，我没有这么做的原因很简单：我对自己没信心。真的，就这么简单。要是我对自己有信心的话，我就会多花点心思去挖掘自己的潜力，挑战自己，做出一些超出我现有水平的作品。但因为我对自己在音乐这条路上的坚持不够自信，我就想着靠别人来帮我提升我的音乐，希望他们能替我把音乐做得更好。This resulted in a lot of questionable habits that crept in over time. I was hanging out with folks that weren’t bad, but weren’t the best people either. I was drinking more than I wanted to, perhaps as a way of dealing with my discontentment. I was dragging myself to the computer to make my beat for the day, doing it more out of obligation than love.结果就是，我慢慢养成了一些不太好的习惯。我身边的人不算坏，但也算不上是特别好。我开始喝更多的酒，可能是想用这种方式来排解我内心的郁郁不得志。我每天逼着自己去电脑前做音乐，更多是因为觉得应该这么做，而不是因为真的喜欢。Yet I refused to refer to myself as anything but a musician, primarily because I didn’t know what else I’d be.我还拒绝将自己称为音乐家之外的任何身份，主要是因为我不知道自己还能做什么。There’s nothing more dangerous than believing that your passion is a virtue. Because when that happens, you’ve deceived yourself into equating your passion with something that’s inherently good, and you’ll neglect the signs that may be showing you otherwise. In the case of my music, I made the mistake of believing that this was the way I’d express myself to the world. That music was what made me a creative person, and that without it, I would cease to be the person I felt like I should be.没有什么比相信自己的热情是一种美德更危险的了。因为这样一来，你已经自欺欺人地认为你的热情等同于某种固有的美好身份，你会忽视那些可能在告诉你真相的信号。就我的音乐来说，我错就错在以为只有通过音乐我才能向世界展示自己。我总觉得，是音乐让我有了创造力，要是没了音乐，我好像就不再是那个我自认为应该是的人了。But I became increasingly disillusioned with my relationship to the craft, as I couldn’t ignore how I was treating it as a vehicle for external validation rather than as an instrument of inner growth.我越来越觉得，我对音乐的热情其实有点假，因为我发现我做音乐主要是为了得到别人的认可，而不是为了让自己的内在变得更好。And it was here where I embarked on a project that changed many things for me.就在我意识到这一点的时候，我开始了一个新的计划，这个计划彻底改变了我的生活。In a quest to reorient my relationship with music, I decided to make music everyday for 60 days (and post my result each day). The goal of this project wasn’t to be heard; it was to do it for its own sake. It was ambitious, but that’s exactly what I needed at the time.我想找回对音乐的初心，所以给自己定了个目标：连续60天，每天都得写首歌，而且每天都要把成果晒出来。我这么做不是为了被听见，就是单纯地为了音乐本身。这个目标挺有难度，但正是我当时所需要的。In addition to the day’s beat, I also added something that I felt would be fun. I was going to publish one or two paragraphs of text that described how I felt while making the beat, which would introduce another dimension to my creativity. After all, making instrumental music does a decent job at conveying emotions to a listener, but does a terrible job at communicating an idea to them. So I thought that writing would be a good way to bridge the gap.除了每天的音乐创作，我还额外做些我觉得有趣的事情。我打算写上一两段话，说说我做音乐时的心情，这样能给我的音乐创作增加点新意。毕竟，纯音乐虽然能很好地传递情感，但在传达想法上就差远了。所以我觉得，写点东西能帮我把音乐和想法更好地结合起来。Well, the good news was that I created music everyday for 60 days. The disappointing news was that the writing part only lasted for 2 of those days.好消息是，我确实做到了连续60天每天都写歌。坏消息是，写歌词这事儿我只坚持了两天。But here’s the thing. Those 2 days were enough to show me that there was something interesting about this craft. I enjoyed writing those paragraphs for those first 2 beats, but just didn’t have the energy to continue doing so after hours of making a beat each night (this was also on top of a full-time finance job that I took later in my twenties). Regardless, the seed was planted that I liked sharing ideas through my words, and that this was an avenue worth exploring.但事情是这样的，那两天的经历让我意识到，写作这事儿还挺有意思的。我挺喜欢给那两首歌写点东西的，但每晚做完音乐后，我实在没力气再写下去（而且我后来还找了份全职的金融工作）。不过，我还是觉得，通过文字分享想法挺有意思的，这条路值得我去探索一下。After initially publishing my ideas on a Medium blog for 2 years or so, I decided to start a new project called More To That. I wanted to combine my love for philosophy with my childlike curiosity, and use the synthesis of the two to create illustrated pieces that made philosophy accessible.最初，我在Medium上写了两年左右的文章，后来我决定搞点新花样，就启动了一个叫做“More To That”的项目。我打算把我对哲学的热爱和我对新鲜事物的好奇心融合在一起，创作一些带图的文章，让哲学变得不那么高深，大家都能看懂。This was a new creative endeavor, and I realized just how much I cared for it. But this time around, I made a conscious effort to not go about it like I did with my music. Although my relationship with music was revitalized after the 60 days project, I had no intention of starting More To That in the same way that I did with my music. To put it succinctly, I wanted to use my inner compass as the guide for this endeavor, and shut off the thirst for external validation as a result.这对我来说是一次全新的创作挑战，我发现自己真的特别上心。但这次，我下定决心，不会再像以前做音乐那样去对待它。虽然我在60天的音乐挑战之后，对音乐的热情又重新燃起来了，但我并不打算用同样的方式去开始More To That这个项目。简单来说，我想用我的内在罗盘来引导这次创作，不再那么渴望外界的认可。My goal wasn’t for my pieces to go viral by being strategic about how I was going to distribute it. No, I was going to focus on the quality of the work itself, and devote my energy into becoming a better writer throughout. I was going to leverage the hard-earned lessons from my time as a musician, and to be much more mindful of how I treated my time as a writer and illustrator.我追求的不是让我的作品靠奇淫巧技走红。我想专注于提升作品的质量，并且努力让自己成为一个更好的作家。我会用我专职做音乐时学到的经验，更用心地对待我作为作家和插画师的每分每秒。To give you an idea of how this looked in practice, I created four big posts before I published a single one. They were Knowledge Is Not a Thing, A Framework for Knowledge, Travel Is No Cure for the Mind, and another one called The Human Paradox which I’ve never published anywhere (maybe I’ll share it one day). Each one took me anywhere between 100 – 120 hours to do, and keep in mind this was before I knew if anyone would read them.为了让你明白我是怎么实操的，这么说吧，我还没发任何一篇文章前，就已经写了四篇大文章。比如有《知识不是实物》、《知识框架》、《旅行治不好心病》，还有一篇叫《人的矛盾》，这篇我到现在都没发布出来过（说不定以后会分享）。每篇我都花了100到120个小时去写，创作的时候我连会不会有人看都不知道。All I cared about was that I enjoyed making them, and that I was learning so much about myself in the process. Through this period, I learned that writing and illustrating was something I really can spend hours and hours doing, without expecting any particular result. This was such a different way of thinking from my time as a musician, and it was immensely liberating. My inner compass would now be my guide, and nothing else.我最关心的是，我很享受创作的过程，而且在这个过程里，我对自己有了更深的认识。在这段时间里，我发现写作和画画是我能够投入好几个小时去做的事情，而且我做这些事时，并不在意结果如何。这和我做音乐时的想法完全不同，写作让我感到非常自由。现在，我只听从我内心的指引，别的什么都不管。Well, fast forward 5 years, and More To That has turned into something I didn’t imagine it being when I started. It’s now my full-time job, and I can confidently state that there is an audience for my work.时间快进到5年后，More To That项目已经变成了我当初想都没想到的样子。它现在成了我的全职工作，而且我可以肯定地说，我的作品拥有它的读者。But through it all, I’ve stuck to my commitment of that inner compass. I don’t do SEO, I don’t thirst for other creators to share my work, and I don’t have some grand social media strategy to grow my audience. What I focus on is the art itself, and have everything else come as a byproduct of that.但自始至终，我始终坚持跟着自己的内心走。我不做搜索引擎优化，不指望别人转发我的作品，也不搞什么社交媒体大套路来吸引粉丝。我关注的就是创作本身，其他的东西都是自然而然的结果。Now, if there’s one undeniable fact about human beings, it’s that we are social animals. We depend on one another in all sorts of ways, and this is a beautiful part of our nature.说到人类，不可否认的一点是，我们是群居动物。我们在各种方面都彼此依赖，这是我们天性中美好的一面。But at the same time – you and me, me and you – cannot be alike. This is true not just from a biological perspective, but also from a psychological one. No two people share the same genetic code or the exact set of personality traits that make them autonomous agents navigating this world.但同时，你和我，我和你，是不一样的。不仅是因为我们的生物构造上不同，也因为我们的心理特点不同。没有两个人拥有相同的遗传代码或完全相同的性格特征，每个人都是独一无二的，都是世界上独立行动的个体。The way I see it, there are certain things you should depend on others for. Your relationship with people is what develops your sense of trust. You can only learn compassion by being in communion with others. There are many virtues that cannot exist outside a shared, collective humanity.在我看来，有些事情你得靠别人。你和别人的关系能帮你建立信任感。只有跟别人交流，你才能学会同情。有很多美德，是只有在人与人之间的相互关系中才能体现出来的。But there are certain things that you have to cultivate within the bounds of your own mind. Not because you’re withdrawing from the world, but because you need to figure out what it means to be uniquely you. How can you know yourself when you didn’t choose yourself? You didn’t choose your genes or your consciousness, so the journey of self-exploration starts by figuring out all that was given to you.但有些东西，你得自己慢慢在心里培养。这不是说要你离群索居，而是要你搞清楚什么才是独一无二的你。你怎么才能认识自己呢？因为你自己都不是自己选的，你的基因、你的意识都不是你决定的，所以想要了解自己，得先从理解与生俱来的东西开始。And for most of us, the starting point of this journey will be the one of self-worth. We all start as creatures of imitation, and if we never take the time to explore the depths of who we are, this is the route we stay on until the day we perish. But if you know that self-worth can be cultivated independent of what others say or think about you, then your existence will continually be validated by the timbre of your own voice.对我们大多数人来说，这段旅程的起点是自我价值。我们一开始都是模仿别人的生物，如果我们从不花时间去深入了解自己，那我们就会一直走在模仿这条路上直到生命结束。但是，如果你明白自我价值是可以根据自己的想法而不是别人的看法来培养的，那么你的存在就会不断地被你自己的声音所确认。Self-reliance is about believing in your intuition and acting upon your curiosity. That’s it. And once you’ve committed yourself to this, the inner compass requires no other guide.自立就是相信自己的直觉，追随自己的好奇心去行动。就这么简单。一旦你决定这么做，你内心的指南针就会指引你，不需要别人告诉你怎么走。