I want to write a book for myself

[junjizhi]

What I want

• Commercial success
  • Launch successful products
  • Own valuable stocks
  • Financing
• Social recognition
  • Open source success (people remember my name for it)
  • Help others (by mentoring, and consulting)
  • Share my journey
• Fun

What the book covers

• Share successful devtreneur stories
• How to use resources
• How to tackle life problems with strong discipline, and hacking spirit
• Point out the way to navigate the world with the programmer world view
• Success formula
• Fun formula
  • Finding something new & useful

[junjizhi]

Deep down, I just want to copy. Is that a problem?

Micro-innovation. Innovate on the micro level. But the general direction, it is still copying someone who did this before. It is safe, and comfortable. And efficient, too?

When I was junior, I took lots of advice, and just follow what others have done. And now I got here. Do I still follow?

Is this a time where I create my own philosophy?

[junjizhi]

My core problems:

How do I optimize my way to make money? Based on my capabilities?

• Make more
• Spend less effort

Is the current way the best way? What are the alternatives?

How do I help my partners to make more money?

Writing articles, is it the best way to help? How can I do better?

[junjizhi]

Formulas

Thinking / Vision based

• Have a vision of how future should be, and pitch around that.

Examples?

Social follower based, e.g., 500px, famous blogs turned products

• Have a blog, gain followers, and build communities around it

Niche problem based

• Solve a particular problem very well, and branch out to others

Fun based

Insight: Fun is about novelty, not pleasure.

In everyday context, have fun is just a perfunctory word, conveying meaning as hollow as How are you? / I'm fine.

It hinders us from truly understanding what it means.

In everyday life, there are paradox of fun and hardship, like playing a frustratingly difficult game, going through CLP project. Would I describe it as fun after? Depends on how much new things I learn from them.

According to Ian Bost, Entering a flow isn't a case. It's rare to have true flow in everyday life.

Find something new from life. Defamiliarize myself from everyday things, and find a new angle.

The way to do it is hold it from a distance, and reveal it from what we didn't think of previously.

Philosophical difference:

• ready to hand: for use
• present at hand: hold it from a distance, and reveal it from what we haven't seen before.

“presence-at-hand shows that things are always more than our perceptions”

That makes me think about Rails framework. When using it, sure, we see a complex enough skeleton. When seen afar, then it enables people to use it to start companies and build products on.

最典型的例子: 花瓶或人脸。如果从不同的视觉去看，我们看到的是不一样的东西。

“ instead of toeing the line, maintaining the standard way of things, the fool asks what else is possible, then carries out even the most outlandish answer. The surprise of foolishness arises from exploration rather than from witlessness. The fool finds something new in a familiar situation.” -- Excerpt From: Ian Bogost. “Play Anything.” Apple Books.

Looking at Rails / Phoenix from a different view

“To understand a medium like electric light or television or the Internet, it’s necessary not only to understand that medium’s properties (the figure) but also the contexts in which those properties become prominent (the ground).” -- Excerpt From: Ian Bogost. “Play Anything.” Apple Books.

I'm designing a new medium. What can we learn from the old medium? How to avoid its pitfall?

[junjizhi]

How do you identify it's a big enough problem to solve?

Bottom-up approach: Dive deep and find fun in technical details