Field Notes

欲速则不达

Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly

— Confucius, Analects 13.17

I struggled with how long my son takes to fall asleep, even after I read him up to six books. So, when I read online that parents could just give their kids a Yoto player and they would happily listen and then fall asleep by themselves, I thought I'd found a silver bullet. Well. It didn't work for my kid.

Now, the $200 player sits unused by his cot. Every time I see it, it reminds me not to expect quick fixes in parenting. It was a good investment, after all.

Adults have preconceived notions of many things. An essay has to be this long; a video must have that structure; X app needs to have Y feature. Unfortunately, most of these are subconscious and hinder our work.

Children don’t. Two triangle magnetic tiles form an airplane; a long messy chain of Lego blocks is a train; an open book is a fence to keep the Big Bad Wolf out.

If only we could recognize our biases and then create without them.

When The Vegetable (1923) failed terribly, F. Scott Fitzgerald declared to Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons, “I doubt if, after all, I’ll ever write anything again worth putting in print.” 17 months after the play bombed, he published The Great Gatsby.

Long before Winston Churchill was the wartime prime minister, he was a war correspondent and author, publishing five books by the age of 26. When he lost his government position and his party lost the election, he kept writing. Writing gave him a direct distribution channel when he was cut off from the traditional government levers. As Ryan Holiday wrote:

When Winston Churchill was driven from power, he could have wallowed or retired. Instead, he became a one-man media company—publishing 11 books, 400 articles, and giving 350 speeches between 1931 and 1939. He became more famous in the U.S. than in Britain, delivering his message without intermediation. They tried to cancel him, but it didn’t work. That’s what I’ve built with The Daily Stoic. It’s not just an email list but also a YouTube Channel with 2M subscribers, an Instagram account with 3.4M followers, a Twitter account with 600K followers, a TikTok page with 800K followers, and a Facebook page with 1M followers. It’s Stoicism directly to the people.

Sometimes, it will feel like nobody understands you. You write and publish, but nobody reads or subscribes. But keep writing. In his letters to Miguel Serrano, Carl Jung wrote:

No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.

Will we run out of things to write? Annie Dillard didn’t think so. In fact, she urged us to spend everything right away.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

Keep writing.

The first step of any creative project is often the hardest. You want to publish but worry that your essays will be bad. You dream of creating vlogs but are afraid that your videos will be cringe. You stare at a pristine notebook and can’t bear to even make a mark on it.

I have more than a hundred notebooks in my storeroom, yet I still struggled to write in even one. I didn’t want any of them to look messy. So I made it easy to start. I scribbled on the cover:

This notebook is meant to be MESSY!

Oops. Now that the notebook is already messy, I can’t make it worse. I can do whatever I want with less hesitation.

I got this wonderful idea from u/isopodpod:

The biggest thing is to get rid of any secret rules you're making about starting. You seem to recognize that you have at least two. First, that your commonplace book has to look good, and second, that whatever you put in there needs to meet some standard in order to be saved. You're aware that these are restrictions you're putting on yourself, and that you need to get past them.

Something I do to fight these mental blocks is 1) make a rule that I can only do this badly, and 2) make a deliberate effort to do it badly.

It helps to have a cheap notebook to start off, or start with a notebook you're already using. Write a rule in your book that entries are only allowed if they're ugly or self-indulgent. Only messy entries, or words that bring you joy are allowed. Then, whenever you want to write in your book, TRY to make it messy and self indulgent. Write in big bubble letters that you have to scribble out because they're off-center. Use a different color pen for each letter. Scratch out misspelled words. Draw little emotes, but only in pen so you can't erase. If you find yourself hesitating to put something in the book, then you HAVE to put it in. Place no restrictions, and make a point to make it kinda janky and unappealing. The only rule is that you find the content interesting, and you have fun

To start, do it badly. Worry about doing it well later.

I recently went back to the gym after a year off. I became very self-conscious, even though I have lifted for almost 20 years. Are people looking at me? They are lifting much more weight than me, so they must be more experienced than me. They must be judging my weight and form right now.

Eventually I snapped out of it. I was there for my own workout. It doesn’t matter what people think of my weight or form (unless I’m doing something dangerous). What matters is I went to exercise and stay active. Let them think whatever they want about me.

But more likely they are busy with their own workout and not even thinking about me. Life is like that, too.

Being a parent is without a doubt the hardest, most demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life. And being a great dad is without a doubt the most important thing I want to achieve in my life.

— Ryan Holiday

I'm launching a newsletter about being a hands-on dad building a business around my family!

Growing up, on my bucket list were dreams like working in Silicon Valley, starting a business, and traveling the world. Never had I thought that I'd be excited to write about being a dad. I knew I wanted to be a father. But when my son was born, I realized it wasn't just a passive “be” but an active “be”. I want to be a great father.

Why write a newsletter?

Because I want to encourage dads to be more active in parenting. I have been the primary caregiver for my son for more than three years now (and my daughter joined us this year). In that time, I've found that most parenting resources are made for mothers, even though more and more fathers are becoming hands-on.

But really, I'm writing it for myself, to myself. That's why the newsletter is called Letters To Alfred. These are letters to myself that you can read. I want to research and collect stories and philosophies to help me become a better parent. I want to be more patient. I want to handle meltdowns better. I want to be my children's greatest supporter and help them grow. I'm figuring it out and I want to show the process because nobody is naturally a great parent. Even if you think you have figured it out, something will change. Great parents are constantly learning and adapting.

Every Friday, I send an email about one thing I'm trying or learning about to be a better dad. I have written about bedtime and patience, what my dad taught me, and dealing with the loss of my professional identity.

If you are a hands-on dad or want to be one, let's learn together!

I'm currently reading How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. The authors use two writing techniques that make me trust the book more.

Actual stories from other parents. I find it hard to relate to parenting experts because I'm not one. I'm just an ordinary parent with limited patience and human-like needs, like getting some me time. If I read scientific facts and numbers about parenting from an expert, nothing gets in. I relate better to actual stories from other parents, such as this one:

Anyway, they're usually very resistant to bath time because they know it's the first step to the end of all fun. And I get very cranky because I know it's only the first step, and I have such a long road ahead before I can rest.

I immediately texted my wife, "this is us!"

Also, it turns out the authors, while being parent educators, are humans like me. One of the authors, Joanna Faber, is even the daughter of Adele Faber, an author of best-selling parenting books. But she openly admitted that she also faced challenges like ours. She's one of us!

But still, sometimes I wasn't entirely convinced by the ideas in the book. The authors likely predicted pushback from readers and introduced...

The skeptic. Instead of ignoring potential objections, the authors tackle them head-on. They bring in a parent who regularly voices objections, and then they counter those objections. Here's an example where they suggest acknowledging children's feelings with writing (and my thoughts at those points in parentheses):

[The author suggests, instead of explaining to a kid that she just bought a new toy and shouldn't be a spoilt brat, writing down everything she wants on a wish list.]

"But won't that contribute to their feeling that every desire must be gratified?" asks Toni, the straight-shooter in my group. (Alfred: Exactly! I definitely don't want my children to think that way.)

"On the contrary," I countered. "How many times have we given in and just bought some stupid thing we don't need to avoid a public tantrum? (Alfred: Well, I've done that many times.) Writing down wishes is a different way to avoid a tantrum, without spoiling your child. Think of it as an opportunity to accept feelings while limiting actions."

Having their feelings acknowledged actually helps children accept that they can't always get what they want. In the toy store you can say, "Oh boy, that is a really cool unicorn! You like the sparkles on his mane... and the pink and orange stars on his rump. Let's write it down on your wish list." Who knows, maybe she'll save her allowance, or request it from Aunt Bertha on her birthday, or perhaps in a few weeks or months her tastes will change and it will drop off the list. (Alfred: Oh yeah, my son's wants change so quickly.) The important thing is that she has a parent who listens to how she feels when she yearns for something, and that helps her develop the important life skill of deferred gratification. (Alfred: Oh right, I have been wanting to teach my son deferred gratification. This might do the trick.)

I suspect Toni isn't actually a single person but a combination of all the skeptics in the authors' parenting workshops. But the technique still works. She often raises objections I'm thinking about, and the authors counter with a persuasive rebuttal (or you could say they acknowledge my feelings in writing!) This made me trust the authors more because, one, they answered my objections, and two, they have enough experience to know what the common objections are.

If you want to make your writing more persuasive, consider adding stories and skeptics.

In high school, a friend on both the cross-country and canoeing teams lost an important cross-country race a week before the canoeing nationals. "Cry, scream, punch a bag. Do whatever it takes to release your emotions," my coach told him. "Then I want you to be ready for the nationals next week."

I thought about that incident this week. For two days in a row, I had a string of battles with my son over simple routines like going to bed and getting ready for school. At the peak, I was so mad that I texted my wife, "I just don't care anymore." But that was also the turning point. Where was the loving father I'm proud of being? I realized I should find a way to let go of my anger.

Do whatever it takes. Then be ready to be a loving father again.

I went for a long walk, wrote, and browsed books at Kinokuniya (my happy place). Subconsciously, I picked up four books on parenting and fatherhood. At that point, I realized I had finally moved on from those battles and was ready to try and be a loving father again.

(Obviously, don't do anything illegal or harmful.)

P.S. If you are interested in more articles on fatherhood like this, subscribe to my weekly newsletter for hands-on dads.

And that is okay.

From my years of building products, I learned to start with a niche. If you build for everyone, you build for no one. No product serves everyone well right away.

But it is always tempting to build for the masses. It sucks to describe your creation at a party and have nobody get it.

I made this mistake when I launched Fernsage. Everyone understands what a notes app is. But nobody wants another notes app. Few know what a commonplace book is. And they are underserved by generic notes apps. So, I narrowed my focus and have been building a digital commonplace book app specifically for the practice. The cited quote block makes collecting and indexing quotes easier; resurfacing helps you review your notes regularly.

Seth Godin reframed building for a niche as doing something special:

The opposite of mass is special.

People who have chosen not to be in the mass market. People who want something else. Perhaps something better, certainly something interesting.

You can seek to serve the masses.

Or you can make something special. For people seeking special.

I'm making something special. For people seeking special. Not everyone has to get it.