Definitions and Explanation of Terms

  • Shadow: an unconscious part of you that your ego don’t identify as part of yourself
  • World: physical and social reality.
  • Ask me if you want to know the definitions or explanation of other terms in this guide.

Phase I (Spring)

Stage 1 is the stage of acceptance. It starts when you are born. The goal of stage 1 is to accept yourself and the world as it is currently.

Accept that humanity has a dark side, that you will experience loses, and that the world is ruled by dark forces.

Remove any delusions you know you have, and keep an eye for delusions you don’t know you have. You may think that the world is one way only to discover it’s another way. Accept it. You may think you’re talented in something only to see that you’re actually mediocre at it. Accept it. You may think that you’re not good at something only to see that you’re pretty good at it. Accept it.

Accepting yourself also entails accepting your shadow. To get rid of your own shadow: accept yourself as is, be proud even. Don’t blame the past; celebrate it as a way to get to the brighter future.

This stage is actually optional. But, if you move to stage 2 without accepting yourself, there’s a significant possibility that you’d kill yourself. And if you move to stage 2 without accepting the world, there’s a significant chance that you’d get killed by the ruler of this world.

You are ready to go to stage 2 once you fully realize that you’re not perfect, but that’s OK, since nobody is perfect. You are ready to go to stage 2 once you get rid of all (or most) of yours delusions. You may still be bitter once you realize your delusion; that’s normal and OK, but accepting things as they are will make you less bitter and more peaceful.

Phase II (Summer)

Stage 2 is the stage of exploration. The goal of stage 2 is to find your calling.

Explore yourself and find out more about your goodness, badness, and weirdness. Accept any new finding you find in yourself. Keep and enhance your goodness, minimize and get rid of your badness, and accept your weirdness.

Improve yourself by learning general knowledge and skills. But, don’t try to be capable of everything, because if you do, you won’t be capable of doing anything. Accept that you won’t be able to master everything.

Explore the world and find out more about its goodness, badness, and weirdness. Find out how the world works. Find out what are the systems that exist in our world (e.g. government, business, etc.), and learn more about them. The goal here is to have a good mental model on how the world works.

Be grateful and accept your new findings about the world whether it is good, bad, or weird. But, accept that you won’t be able to experience or see everything in this world.

You are ready to go to stage 3 once you find something that you’re passionate about, that you’re talented in, that will actually bring enough money for your livelihood, and that is realistic to pursue. Knowing more about your self is essential to know your passion and talent. Knowing more about the world is essential to know what skill is in demand and what things are realistic to pursue given your circumstances.

Before we go to the next phase, let’s define talent and passion first.

Talent is when you know that you learn something faster than the average or do something better than the average after you’ve tried it for a significant period of time (for example, 3 months).

While some talents can be earned (ability to work with numbers or people, seeing the world in a different way, etc.), some others can’t be earned. Talents related to physical stuff usually can’t be earned (for example, heights, ability to endure tiredness, ability to not get injured every time you’re tackled, etc.). Deficiencies can actually become talents. For example, autistic people can focus on one thing for a very long time.

While you don’t really need talent, it will be what differentiates the awesome amateur and the world-class professional.

Passion is when you feel that the annoying/bad parts of something are bearable compared to the fun/good parts of that thing. You know you’re passionate at something when you face the annoying parts not by saying “I’m fed up with this thing.” but instead by saying “Well, this is the price that I have to pay to enjoy the good parts.”

Passion is the thing that’ll keep you focused for the long run which is what the next phase is all about.

Phase III (Autumn)

Stage 3 is the stage of focus. Once you find your calling, you must be courageous enough to focus intensely on that thing.

I mention courage here because you will most likely be pressured to not focus in your calling by many people, including those closest to you. They’ll tell you that you need to be balanced, which is actually another word for mediocre. You’ll also experience pressure from other external non-human factors like societal norms, economical challenges, uncertainty, etc. You’ll even experience pressure from your own self in the form of procrastination, laziness, nervousness, the fear of looking stupid when you start learning something, and a whole lot of other obstacles.

Everyone can make good enough art. But, to be a great artist, you need to be fearless.

You’ll still need to learn more things about yourself and the world. You’ll still need to accept your new findings. You may even still find other things you’re talented and passionate at that are feasible and realistic to pursue. Sure, you can jump ship if you think it is a good decision. But if you want to be a genius, you need to focus on a few things for decades.

Human’s growth is not linear; it is more like a quadratic function. At first, things will progress slowly and it’ll feel like you’re going to take an eternity to be a genius. But, once you pass the inflection point, your growth will explode. You can pass the inflection point faster by customizing your learning to what you’ve known about yourself in stage 1 and 2.

Keep your focus to train on your calling, and in more or less 3 years, you’ll become competent at it. Keep at it for more or less a decade, and you’ll be a world class genius. Keep at it for more or less 2 decades, and you’ll be a living legend.

Once you’re competent, crank out good arts. Once you’re a genius, crank out masterpieces. You’ll take a lot from the world to be a genius, so you better give back more than what you’d took.

Once you’re a living legend and have become bored at creating masterpieces (and assuming that you’re still alive), you’re ready to go stage 4.

Phase IV (Winter)

A common pattern once you’ve become a genius is that you’ll want other people to become geniuses too. Unfortunately, you can’t create a genius; you can only open the door that people must pass to become a genius and point at it.

You might also try building better infrastructures and safety net for the next generations.

In stage 3, you stand on the shoulders of giants. Now you’ve become one of the giants.

Whatever you do, your desire will be to make sure that the next generation can create better art and masterpieces than what you’ve already make.

Once you’ve done and give all that you can, you’re permitted to die.