Jun Yan > Recent Status Updates

The author mentioned 5 life tasks:
1. Imperial task: establish a sense of self. I’m the most important
2. Interpersonal task: fit in
3. Career consolidation: focus on career progression
4. Generative task: be of service to the world and give more
5. Integrity vs despair: integrity is to come to terms with your life in the face of death. Despair is regret.
I really like those categorization of life task.

“is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

“The truth of fact, the truth of feeling” : a father found out his memories of his daughter accusing him of her mother’s departure was in fact wrong, it was him accusing his daughter instead, through watching lifelog videos. He has constructed stories of himself being a better father afterwards, and it was an illusion. Very interesting.

Really like Chiang’s thoughts about memory and how technology impacts it

This is the most horrible scene in the book. Ali first saw her dad kisses another women just a few months after Annie’s death; and then saw Jenny and her dad …. Oh my goodness ! This is just too much ….

I don’t know whether people who highly rated this book ever had their intimate family members died. This book is so weird. Can dad be so selfish ? I can’t believe they even had the funeral and the party afterwards. If I’m family I wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone if it’s my mom’s funeral and wouldn’t be able to see people chat and laugh at the party. Why not skipping them ?

The book has some interesting ideas, such as there are many perspectives or possibilities. Question the rule etc though

The author mentioned many research results but most of them had no quantitative data. Yes xyz improves but how much ? How much can mind improves body ? Of course we hear medical miracles but how often is that and to what extend can mind improves body ? It’s probably not foreign to people be happy , eat well and exercise improves health; so compared to those, what’s the impact of mind over body ?

The book talked about how poor families concentrate their money to educate their smartest kids and not every kids get education. This is indeed what happened to my mom’s family. She is the only one who attended high school and had much better life ; and her not-educated sisters led much worse lives.

The book says the poor chooses not to eat things that are more nutritious but more tasty. This is pretty obvious to me as people might not even know what’s nutritious. My family back in China, especially the older generation, doesn’t know the concept of calories, carbs, iron, etc . Even when people know those concepts, they don’t eat nutritious food, otherwise there wouldn’t have so many diabetes in US.

Really like the book so far.

I felt really sad that Cadence grow up with her mom blaming her for little things. I also felt sorry that it was such a struggle for her mom after migrating to US. Not sure whether she chose to be pickup by random person or chose a random job she doesn’t like is a result of being raised up in such a family.

It’s surprising and also not surprising that in the end the Hudson Project is solved by telling Hudson the truth about what problems adult see him at school, they want him to be evaluated and if not he would be expelled. Afterwards he is totally different. He is motivated and committed himself to the changes: go to parties, participate in sports etc.

“Added team sports , tact, playing in a group , and dealing with anger and conflict “

Half way through the book, I’m amazed how a company can survive with so much lies; basically every department in the company, from board to chemical engineers to software engineers to sales and marketing to IT to lawyers etc, even warehouse manger had their doubt and had been fired ; every partnership fell to materialize ; yet they still got more and more people and continues ...

So beautiful “He kisses—how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you. There are some men who have never been kissed like that. There are some men who discover, after Arthur Less, that they never will be again.”

“In most situations making statements is preferable to asking questions”

“Threats, bribes, promises, sarcasm, and rudeness are not the answer. The most effective solution is to make clear statements that express our values. “

“Rewards are most helpful and more enjoyable when they are unannounced in advance, when they come as a surprise, when they represent recognition and appreciation “

“When a child tells of, or asks about, an event, it is frequently best to respond not to the event, but to the relationship implied . “

“Parents are confronted with concrete problems that require specific solutions; they are not helped by cliche advice such as ‘Give the child more love’, ‘Show her more attention ‘, and ‘Offer him more time’. Can’t agree more !!!