Eric Tian

From Several Short Sentences about Writing:

“One purpose of writing – its central purpose – is to offer your testimony
About the character of existence at this moment.
It will be part of your job to say how things are,
To attest to life as it is.
This will feel strange at first.
You’ll wonder whether you’re allowed to say things that sound
Not merely observant but true,
And not only true in carefully framed, limited circumstances,
But true for all of us and, perhaps, for all time.”

I have a theory that all books are testimonial. Memoirs and biographies do this in obvious ways. But even in fiction, a story reveals the author’s own universe – with its assumptions and secrets – to us.

The power we hold as readers is whether to experience this testimony for ourselves.

The week before an exam is the most productive I am all semester.

I tap into energy reserves, discipline and learn faster than I thought I ever could. I muster the ability to watch ten lectures a day, when I previously struggled with six a week.

Just as runners set personal bests at big races, the pressure to achieve something great pushes us to new limits.

Perhaps the key to consistent improvement is to always be under some artificial pressure; to have a deadline looming over you, urging you to action. Without these tests, one would always be performing less than they could.

But at what cost?

The familiarity heuristic is when the familiar is favoured over novel places, people or things. This happens everywhere.

We buy brands we have experience with. We hang around people we know. We visit websites that are familiar. The familiar is safe, and safe is good. But not always.

Occasionally, it’s good to venture out into the unknown and dive into the rabbit hole. There, we find things that stretch our worldview – that make us wiser.

Books do this. 1984 is a warning of totalitarianism and was considered barbaric at its time of writing. To Kill a Mockingbird examines racism and injustice in America and is frequently banned. The Little Prince reminds us to be children in a world dominated by adults.

These texts make our world bigger. They grab the edges of our world and stretch them ever so slightly, until we can see further than before.

Do not underestimate the power of stories to change lives.

Most of my best memories caught me completely off-guard.

Life-changing books began with zero recommendations.

Rewarding relationships began with chance encounters.

Memorable meals began on wild gambles.

The fact that these events took place when I wasn’t looking for them made it all the more special.

The fewer expectations you have, the more surprises can take your breath away.

Greatest painting? Mona Lisa.

Genius scientist? Einstein.

Composer extraordinare? Mozart.

The first answer to a question isn’t interesting because it’s automatic. It’s usually something we’ve heard said by those around us, which over time become the default.

These default responses are volunteer ideas. They’re thoughts that present themselves when they hear a familiar question, shaped from the voices of other people.

Volunteer ideas are low-quality; crudely shaped by conformity. The more interesting ideas are the ones that come with persistent deliberation – the winners from a chaotic internal debate. To base one’s views on volunteer ideas is to resign one’s capacity for thought.

Beware them.

As an amateur writer, it is natural to associate meaning to every single act of life; to turn brief observations into metaphors and “material”.

How can this be an allegory? What theme does that represent? What words best describe this feeling?

But the moment we attempt to capture a moment in words, the more we disappear from it. How ironic: the need for analysis dissociates us from existence.

The real goal is the opposite: to put our words, our phrases, as close as we can to reality. The one we are existing in.

Rushing to notice puts the cart before the horse.

Attention requires immense passivity.

I’ve been reading Several Short Sentences about Writing and it’s blowing my mind. It may well become my favourite book of the year. Because it’s taking up so much of my mental space, here are two ideas that I’d like to share.

1. Short sentences leave room for implication

Academic writing is boring is because it leaves no room for ambiguity. The sentences are long and the paragraphs are dense. Its nature forces it to be as thorough as possible.

Writing using short sentences is exactly the opposite. It is cut down to its pure necessity, giving opportunity for imagination.

“Every word is optional until it proves to be essential,
Something you can only determine by removing words one by one
And seeing what’s lost or gained…

Without extraneous words or phrases or clauses, there will be room for implication.

The longer the sentence, the less it’s able to imply,
And writing by implication should be one of your goals.
Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you…
That means you don’t know how to use one of a writer’s most important tools:
The ability to suggest more than the words seem to allow,
The ability to speak to the reader in silence.”

Writing long sentences is still a trap I fall into. It is tempting to correlate sentence length with intelligence, or the sophistication of an idea or thought. There isn’t one.

I have yet to fully grasp the power of short sentences.

2. Sentences are much more than just its meaning

“The purpose of a sentence is to say what it has to say but also to be itself,
Not merely a substrate for the extraction of meaning…

The sentence itself has a rhythm.
It has velocity.
It uses metaphor and simile
Or hyperbole or metonymy or alliteration or internal rhyme or one of hundreds of other rhetorical devices.
It helps define the dramatic gesture that you – the writer – are making in the piece.
It stirs or gratifies the reader’s expectations, on many levels.
It identifies the reader.
It gives the reader pause.
It names the world, using the actual names the world already contains.
Perhaps it renames the world.
And this is only the beginning.

You’re the curator of all these qualities in the sentences you make,
Which lie there almost unnoticed
If you’re interested only in extracting or depositing meaning.”

A book is more than its content. It is its nuances of language, its construction of sentences, its ability to drag a reader into a new world. This is why book summaries, no matter how thorough, will never hold a candle to an original text.

I wish I read this book when I first began my writing journey. It is one of those texts that saves you years of practice and stumbling.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, you are a legend.

Same deal. Three questions for the past three months:

What was good?
What wasn’t so good?
Goals for the months ahead?

Let’s do it.

The Good

1. Reading

In terms of books, these last few months were great. Although the quantity of books wasn’t remarkable (11 books over 13 weeks), the quality of literature over this period was astounding. Some of my favourite pieces include Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov, which address themes of morality, religion and the psychology of a criminal, and Hermann Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel, which critiques the failures of childhood pressure and formal education. Fascinating stuff.

I also devoured what’s since become my favourite memoir of all time: Darkness Visible by William Styron. It’s written by a novelist and explores his chaotic journey into depression, and eventually out of it. Short read, but it completely changed my mind on creativity and mental health.

Can’t wait for more hidden treasures ahead.

2. Relationships

It’s an odd but special feeling: knowing that there are people who have your back.

Lockdown sucked, but one good thing about it was the ability to nurture and prioritise the friendships I already have. And now, as Melbourne emerges out of lockdown, I can safely venture out and explore the world with strong comrades by my side.

You know who you are. Thank you.

The Not-so-Good

1. Energy

The problem with trying new things is that it’s easy to spread yourself out too thin.

Right now, there are a million things fighting for my attention, including:

• Writing short stories
• The blog
• Studying for medical school exams
• Maintaining friendships + relationships
• Personal wellbeing (sleep, food, exercise)
• Finance (work, investing)
• Making YouTube videos
• Reading books…

…and so on.

My priorities for these are always shifting with time, yet I don’t know if I can remove any.

Thus, I’m finding that I’m often drained in the middle of the day, not because of the work I’ve done, but because of the work in other areas I could’ve done but didn’t. If only I could clone myself to try everything there is to do.

The weight of regret is heavy.

2. Socialising

It’s happened: I’ve forgotten how to talk to people.

A few days ago, I attended my first birthday party in over a year. It was scary.

There were only eight other people there, but I felt completely unable to initiate a conversation with anybody, much less hold it. Also, the experience of two conversations simultaneously happening around you, and not being part of either, is excruciatingly awkward.

I have a suspicion that most introverts are experiencing similar torments. It’s just a matter of time before the hibernating extrovert comes out to play.

Goals

1. Maintain accountability challenges: 1x short story and 3x blog posts a week; 500 Anki + 20 questions a day.
2. Finish my exams on a strong note.
3. Read 1x book a week.

A few days ago, I woke up and groaned at the day’s tasks.

I needed to:

• Write a blog post
• Tutor two students
• Finish my daily 600 Anki cards
• Attend a two-hour class
• Meet a friend for OSCE practice

…and still cook, read, be present for my relationships and exercise like a normal person.

It’s like I woke up with a “productivity debt” to be paid, and it felt terrible.

But then, I thought of this idea I recently came across called the done list, and it changed everything.

The idea is that instead of beginning the day with a debt to be paid, you wake up with absolutely nothing on your plate. Then, every activity that you do gets added to a done list, and the more stuff you do, the more that gets added.

Suddenly, I was faced with the reminder that instead of spending the day having done nothing constructive, look what I had done instead! Making the bed and brushing one’s teeth is nothing to scoff at. And instead of rushing to the next item, after I completed a task I felt a mild jab of contentment at having done something at all. This ultimately led to a positive feedback loop, and by the end of the day, all the tasks ended up being completed.

The done list also helped me realise that fully paying off one’s productivity debt is straight up impossible. There is always more that can be done, whether that be Anki cards, lectures, exercise or sleep. The more sustainable thing is that at the end of the day, we are content with the day’s tasks.

Sometimes, all it takes is just a different perspective.

Every moment, there are a million opportunities presented to us.

We could take a nap, or go for a run. We could scroll through social media, or read a blog. We could call a friend, or play a virtual game.

Every moment is a hedonic buffet, and we choose what we want at that moment.

If somebody kept piling oysters on our plate, we might appreciate it for a bit, but oysters ultimately get tiring. We would ask them to stop, and take a break or try some other things.

How we spend our time is up to us. And usually, the best path forward is acknowledging that we do have a choice.