Recently, the term mindset has been appearing very frequently.
For example, Joshua Comeau often tries to understand CSS from a programming-logic perspective. In his technical talks, the content is not only excellent but also reveals his inner journey, emphasizing how important it is for him to bridge the mindset gap while learning.
I couldn’t find a proper Chinese equivalent. Mind refers to the head or spirit, while set is a collection. It’s not merely a “way of thinking” or “mental attitude.” Perhaps because I understand programming, the word feels more like modules to me. Gap is vivid and fitting for the concept: people fiddle with different modules and connect them in the right order to understand something.
I really like this idea. It aligns perfectly with the idea from Soft Skills: “build your own tutorial.” Through learning and practice, you open up the chain of thought that helps you understand something—making it intuitive and easy to grasp. This is something I want to continually practice.
At the same time, opening up these logical chains should follow the principle of simplicity. Start with statements most aligned with intuition—like simple verb–object phrases—then go deeper, as if examining something with a magnifying glass. Layer by layer, you catch the missing links, and once those gaps are bridged, you go further until the functionality is finally realized. In this recursive process, we come to understand why many popular solutions today are so complex: they exist precisely to cover the things our intuitive reasoning overlooks. They are the things you can think up by knocking your head, but that you cannot actually implement in practice. If time and energy are limited, focusing only on the inputs and outputs of a module—without digging into the internals—may already be enough to accomplish what you want.
In an age overwhelmed by exploding knowledge, the ability to understand something quickly and integrate it into your existing system is essential. Reinventing the wheel is necessary when you want to truly dig into a topic, but if time is limited, using what’s already there is also a perfectly fine choice.
In recent months, I’ve been reading several of Cal Newport’s books: the revised edition of Digital Minimalism, the Chinese translation of Deep Work, and the original Slow Productivity.
Before getting into the content of these books, I feel like I’ve begun to see the pattern of bestselling productivity books: they begin with a story—something goes wrong—followed by a period of reflection, then a promise or solution, and finally the cycle repeats. Newport is slightly better than the typical template; besides the usual structure, he also talks about the philosophies he personally believes in, offering readers a reassurance that the methods he promotes truly work.
The idea of autonomy runs throughout his work. Digital Minimalism does not reject social media or new technologies, but instead urges us to consciously recognize what we want before we use them. The iPhone can indeed run many apps, but that’s not an excuse to indulge in them freely. When designing the original iPhone, Steve Jobs even resisted adding an app store. Yet here we are, using whatever others shove into our hands, rarely thinking about what we actually want.
Deep Work emphasizes the importance of attention in the modern era. Companies not only want our money—they want to strip away our attention so we invest as much of our time as possible in them. Regaining focus and devoting it to areas we genuinely want to develop is especially crucial today.
Finally, Slow Productivity, his newest work from 2024, essentially combines the previous two. His principles are: in a fast-paced work culture, we should work at a natural pace, do fewer things, and remain obsessed with quality. The book has been like a cognitive alarm clock for me, repeatedly nudging me toward a more proactive approach to doing things well.
The chapter on obsession with quality left a deep impression on me, especially his emphasis on aesthetics. Discussions about aesthetics often focus on personal refinement—taste, cultivation, spiritual elevation. But he ties aesthetics directly to work quality. This resonates with me: after appreciating elegant, minimalistic architecture or code, I can no longer tolerate producing poor-quality code myself. And when I see inferior code written by others, I become deeply repulsed. This assumes, of course, that humans have an inherent drive to move toward something better. Once someone develops taste and aesthetic sensitivity, it becomes extremely difficult for them to return to a previous state. Thus, good taste influences not only the person but also everything they create.
Another book I read was the Taiwanese edition of Die With Zero.
The author loves risk and is wealthy, so I can’t fully agree with everything in the book. But some of his ideas are indeed thought-provoking, especially those related to personal development.
He stresses that a person’s experiences are as valuable as money, and—just like money—they generate returns over time. The difference is that money can be earned at any age, but experiences change with age and cannot be repeated. He assumes some experiences are age-specific, and once that age is gone, the flavor is gone too. How to match the right experiences to the right age to maximize their “returns”—that’s the question he wants to discuss.
Most people save frugally their whole lives and leave behind a large sum when they die. That leftover wealth represents the portion of life they sacrificed—time lost enjoying life because it was spent working. Human time is mostly fixed: time spent here cannot be spent there—the essence of opportunity cost.
Grasping what you truly want, and experiencing it while you still have the energy, is the way to maximize life’s value. All of this comes from the book; real life is far more complicated, which is why I can’t accept it wholesale. But the author’s idea of “actively doing what you want to do” aligns with what Newport says as well.
One of the most striking ideas in the book is that leaving money after death is “irresponsible.” Only those who don’t know how to enjoy life or manage money leave the decision to death itself. The opposite type of person would allocate and distribute all their wealth before dying—no matter the amount—knowing clearly how much they need, facing death with clarity and logic.
I think this makes some sense, but it’s still too absolute. Maybe one day, when I actually have that kind of money and assets, I’ll better understand what he means.
Short Summary
No matter how many tools we have, no matter how advanced AI algorithms become, everything still comes down to being able to focus on the work itself. With an active and intentional mindset, reflect on your daily behaviors, then intentionally immerse yourself in the work. Start simple and gradually move toward the complex.
Be kinder to yourself. Don’t be stingy. Enjoy the present. Do things well.
Delirium
Writing is like dreaming. You don’t know where it begins or where it ends. Lines and paragraphs flow onto the screen, roll into the eyes, and roll out again. When you return to reality, the writing continues drifting around—unceasing from birth to death.
Dreams and life are similar. Life has no beginning. From the observer’s point of view, a person’s arrival in the world follows a traceable path: sex, pregnancy, birth in a delivery room. The observer is like the reader, experiencing the arrival of new life. The reader walks into a bookstore, buys a book, unwraps it, and begins reading the first line. But from the perspective of life itself, everything is baffling. How one was born, how one spent the first years wrapped in blankets—these are lost dreams that no one remembers. Then one muddles through school and eventually into work.
Writing ends, reading ends, life ends. All leave us with a sense of regret. Memories blur with time, seeping into our nerves. When certain nerves activate during life, we recall what once happened.
Reality belongs to others; only the dream belongs to oneself. This is not a contradiction. It does not mean “you and I are similar, therefore both must be real” or “both must be dreams.” They are not definitions but descriptions. The statements about reality and dreaming do not come from themselves, but from you and me—from my experience and my observation of you—together forming this seemingly paradoxical structure. Seen from the other direction, everything fits together harmoniously.
