Last year, when I was bored at home during New Year's Eve, I impulsively wrote a farewell to 2019 post. At that time, I didn't expect that so many things and changes would happen in 2020. Looking back, 2019 was a peaceful and safe year. I even thought about saying goodbye without looking back, not cherishing world peace.
That year-end summary received a good response, and even a few friends wrote their own year-end summaries, which inspired me a lot. The extremely turbulent 2020 gave me a deeper understanding of the world, and I shared it with everyone. However, because of the busy end of the year, I kept postponing it until the end of the lunar year. Let's just treat it as a summary of the Year of the Rat~
Quantifying Happiness#
During the pandemic, I was forced to cook for myself. Initially, I resisted this because it was filled with uncertainty. How much is a pinch of salt? What is the right heat for simmering? It was confusing. After a few attempts, I found some certainty: setting the electric stove to the fourth gear, frying chicken breast takes about the length of a song, and using two different heat levels can make a runny fried egg (although it's easy to break when it's done). During meals, I can watch a video by Professor Li Yongle at 1.2 times speed, and I dislike doing the dishes, but I can listen to "Xiwang Elementary School" at the same time.
Last year, I wrote: "If I keep procrastinating on something, it means I haven't thought it through." If we break down our goals, actions, and outcomes, establish clear expectations, and even simulate them in our minds, it won't be difficult to achieve them. Later, I thought, everyone pursues happiness, so can we break down and quantify the subjective feeling of "happiness"?
For each individual, time is the only fair and equal parameter, so time is a basic factor. Being with a loved one for two hours is happier than one hour, and spending an hour helping others is much happier than playing a game for an hour. The experience of playing a game of League of Legends can vary, and helping others, such as writing for Wikipedia, has a greater impact and influence.
So my conclusion is:
Happiness = (Invested Time * Time Quality)^Impact
Using the examples above, helping others brings more happiness per unit of time compared to playing games, but writing for Wikipedia has a higher impact.
But what is impact? I think if a person can bring a lot of happiness to others and put themselves in a small position, then their impact should be high. So let's introduce another parameter, "ego," to express the degree of "self." This way, the subjectivity of happiness and the subjectivity of self cancel each other out:
Oops, it's actually like this:
Impact = Happiness Brought to the World / Ego
Combining the equations:
Happiness = (Invested Time * Time Quality)^(Happiness Brought to the World / Ego)
This is not a very accurate formula, and it may sound a bit gimmicky, but the benefit is that it helps us understand how to allocate our time, do things that make us happy, do things that bring happiness to others, and do high-impact activities.
Local and Global Perspectives#
The above formula may sound reasonable, but from another perspective:
It's all wrong.
The reason is simple: the real world is not always smooth, even when doing things we love, there are often repetitive and unexpected challenges. So the happiness per unit of time is not constant and can even be negative (imagine your cat pooping on your bed).
This is similar to the greedy algorithm. The greedy algorithm is an algorithmic paradigm that follows the problem-solving heuristic of making the locally optimal choice at each stage with the hope of finding a global optimum.
If we completely follow the above formula as a guide, we may end up becoming someone who constantly seeks short-term gains, always achieving good results, but ultimately becoming mediocre.
There is a joke written on the wall of the men's restroom at Wansheng Bookstore:
Think about this joke seriously. If someone really does this, they are actually very pitiful. On the surface, they have five girlfriends, spreading the risk and never feeling lonely. But they cannot give 100% of their love to any of them. They have five local optima but lose the possibility of pursuing the global optimum. They will never be able to experience true love. Stupid!
Life is not an ROI game. The gimmicky formula only applies to solving local optimization problems, but life should be about pursuing long-term global optimization.
Spark#
Does life have meaning? I have been contemplating this question for a long time.
If we just live an ordinary life, it may be happy, but it doesn't seem to have much meaning. Every year, the candidates for the Nobel Prize have made significant achievements. If someone is not selected in 2019 but is selected in 2020, does the meaning of their life suddenly change? Many artists are unknown during their lifetime but become famous after their death. How do we measure the meaning of their lives?
The movie "Soul" by Pixar was popular recently, and it says to enjoy the present because the present is meaningful. But I can't feel the meaning in the mundane aspects of life. I can convince myself to be content and enjoy the present, but it always feels like something is missing.
The universe is constantly expanding and diluting, and the stars are moving away from us every minute and second. Eventually, everything will end in heat death. The changes on Earth take millions of years, while a human life is only a hundred years. I lament the brevity of life and envy the endlessness of the Yangtze River. The universe itself is nothingness, so what meaning does a short human life have?
In fact, enjoying the present, as advocated by Buddhism, has a premise. The protagonist, Joe, has already found his spark, and he is simply enjoying it without realizing it. The movie says to enjoy the present precisely because Joe's present is full of meaning.
Last year, I wrote about "Optimistic Nihilism," and this year I want to delve deeper: we can find a spark for our own lives (also known as a path/mission/manifest destiny/whatever). The universe is fundamentally nothingness, life is nothingness, and even the spark is nothingness. But every present moment spent pursuing our spark in this meaningless life is filled with meaning.
Long-termism#
People often advocate for long-termism, being friends with time, but true long-term thinkers are very rare.
I think this is because most people don't really need long-termism. Most things are not long-term, and true long-term commitments require complete acceptance and willingness to dedicate oneself for the long term. Most people, after weighing the pros and cons, will find that it is unnecessary.
Every year, only the top 0.07% of students are admitted to Peking University, the smartest of the smart. But they are not on the Forbes list in the end. The winner of the North Qing exam at the age of 18 may end up working for a teacher at Hangzhou Normal University or even be laid off at the age of 35. On the other hand, when I look up to older alumni, I find that although there are very few extremely wealthy individuals, everyone is doing well, upper-middle class, and respectable.
Later, I realized that for the vast majority of people, working for a Fortune 500 company and living a comfortable life is already very good. They have a good standard of living, high social status, pressure and motivation, and anxiety and hope. But it is generally good. Why strive for more when it is not necessary?
Even if you start a business and successfully go through several rounds of financing, becoming a billion-dollar unicorn, when the big companies extend an olive branch, should you sell? You will have enough money to last a lifetime. Even if you have wild ideas, when Zhang Yiming reached a valuation of $10 billion, he had enough money to last several lifetimes. He could even give each person in Longyan a red envelope of 10,000 yuan for Chinese New Year, and still have money left. Should he sell?
But if he sells, would there be a valuation of several hundred billion dollars for the universe? Would there be the exciting story of TikTok? And if you truly believe in an idea, a trend, a future, how can you stand by and do nothing? Once you get involved, how can you trust others with your creation?
Zhang Yiming said to develop a company as a product. The most important thing when developing a product is to understand the needs of the users. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God also needs to express his needs before the creation.
So why not ask yourself what you want to do? Do you really need long-termism?
Optimism#
My 2020 was once very bad. The pandemic, account suspension, quarantine, unpaid salary, breakup, two weeks of fever... But it's all in the past.
But life always has wonderful encounters. At the end of September, I went to Blue Note and listened to the band Hua Xing Dian Tai. Starting from the song "Push Open the Door," it felt like I had entered another storyline, experiencing things I had never thought of before, and seemed to have changed direction and made rapid progress.
The luckiest thing in 2020 was meeting Landy and even luckier, making her my girlfriend. Of course, reality is not a fairy tale, and we still need to work on our relationship and have arguments. Landy once said to me, "As long as we believe that we love each other, the future will be fine. These things right now don't really matter."
Later, I contemplated her words repeatedly and realized the power behind them.
If we believe that we love each other, what does a momentary argument matter?
If we believe that we will succeed, what does a temporary decrease in income matter?
If you believe that the world will become better and better, what is there to hesitate about? Just do it.
And if you don't believe that the world will become better and better, well... you might be right. But the pessimist may be right, but the optimist succeeds. So just be happy.
Be an absolute optimist, believe that there are always more solutions than difficulties, face challenges head-on, and overcome obstacles.
Sacrifice#
In primitive societies, people believed in astrology and divination, thinking that the world was controlled by unknown forces. They also understood the concept of "exchange" and even sacrificed living beings to the gods in exchange for good weather. But obviously, this didn't work.
In an abstract sense, sacrifice is the momentary giving of one's life. But what if we extend the time of sacrifice? Sacrificing one's life over several decades, can that also be considered a sacrifice? So, continuously dedicating time and energy to a cause, goal, or ideal, can that also be seen as a form of sacrifice?
Find your spark, practice long-termism, and continuously sacrifice time and energy for your spark.
Everyone is their own god.
Choose Gentleness#
Actually, I finished writing here, but I want to ramble a little more, something I thought of today.
The government encourages people to stay where they are for the Chinese New Year. I initially wanted to stay in Beijing for the New Year (I could go skiing), but I still went home. This morning, I went to sweep the tomb, and at the entrance of the cemetery, there was a sculpture dedicated to body donors, with names densely written all over it.
Last year, I wrote an article about "Life and Death Perspectives," and I wrote that the concept of heaven has bugs because it will eventually become overloaded.
This year, I have changed. Regardless of whether the concept of heaven is logical or not, I choose to believe that heaven exists. Those who we love and who have passed away will silently wait for us on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.
The world often does not operate as we imagine, and there are always things that we cannot understand and not everyone is rational. Being intelligent is a gift, but being kind is a choice.
Why not always be a gentle person?
Cover image: by Jason @Landy’s Cafe Duet
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2021/02/11 @Beijing