The Method to Becoming Erudite
Last year I had two large boxes of books shipped home. The outer boxes were battered and torn, so without sorting them, they were casually thrown into a corner. Later my mom couldn’t stand it and quietly organized them for me. I didn’t pay attention and left them there without knowing. Then for over half a year I didn’t read or buy books, and I even forgot how many books I had. Until last month, when I wanted to lend a colleague two books by Peter Hessler to build some revolutionary friendship through conversation. But after searching at home, I turned one big box of books upside down and still couldn’t find them. I wondered if they were lost. So that revolutionary friendship never developed—I ended up lending out one Márquez and one India travelogue instead.
My dad loves tea, and we have all kinds at home. I happen to enjoy tea too, but I never buy any—I just drink whatever’s at home. After finishing the aged Pu’er that had developed a moldy medicinal taste, I switched to Anxi Tieguanyin. Once I could taste the subtle bitterness in the Tieguanyin, I happened to find a pack of Emei Silver Needle in the refrigerator’s cold storage. It felt dry and cold to the touch—good tea. I couldn’t wait to brew a cup and set it beside my computer desk. That day I forgot about the cup’s existence and accidentally knocked the tea over onto a box full of miscellaneous items next to the desk. I quickly cleaned it up, only to discover there were still many books inside that box! Thankfully they weren’t wet, and River Town and Country Driving were in there too! Who knows why Mom used two boxes for my books—I thought this one was just junk!
I took the books out and lined them up. The sense of loss that had been haunting me was instantly cured. This box contained sociology, history, finance, design, computer programming—even several ancient Chinese texts, not to mention some unfinished novels. I felt it was quite eclectic. Who could tell from this pile what job the owner does? So I came to a conclusion related to my long-standing behavior that probably confuses people—for example, today seeing me tinkering with Photoshop, tomorrow seeing me neglecting meals to edit code, the day after seeing me frantically memorizing vocabulary, and the day after that borrowing history books from the library. The fundamental motivation behind these strange behaviors is my desire to become an erudite person. One hour I can explain to others the positive and negative impacts of the Taiping Rebellion on Chinese history; the next hour I can explain implementing rounded rectangles in HTML5; and after that analyze macroeconomic trends. But I don’t actually love this knowledge—it’s just what I have to learn to become erudite. That’s why I bought these difficult books.
Ideals may be the origin of tragedy. When someone tries to attend to too many things, the most likely outcome is that nothing gets done well. This afternoon I was restless at home, feeling time was being wasted, and waves of panic hit me: I needed to add a special page to the company website; then I remembered the personal business cards I’d been designing for months still weren’t done; I also needed to carve a seal; and the books I bought today still weren’t read—there were so many things it was infuriating! After agonizing for a while, I first read dozens of pages from the books I bought today, took a long afternoon nap, then studied small seal script and large seal script for carving, and started making my own seal.
When you’re immersed in a task, the whole world becomes irrelevant. While carving the seal, I experienced the same feeling I used to have when writing code—my mind grew calmer and calmer, wanting only to focus on this, striving for perfection. Suddenly I realized: with an impatient mind, you can’t learn anything. Calmness is the true method to becoming erudite.