Hello X,

Today is my birthday. Continuing a tradition I’ve had on this blog since I was 18, I use this opportunity to write about myself. If you’re a new reader, or otherwise uninterested in my self-indulgence, feel free to skip it and I’ll have more useful writing next week.

Scott自從18歲開始就有這個習慣--在生日的時候寫下關于自己的事情。self-indulgence n.放縱，任性

Side note: Cal Newport and I are launching the first session of our new course,?Life of Focus, in two weeks. Next week we’ll have some free lessons drawn from the course. Stay tuned!

session n. 開會，講習會????stay tuned 繼續收看，繼續收聽

2020 has been a big year for most of us. For me, this was especially true as in January I?became a father.

Scott 一月份做了爸爸。

The timing of becoming a new father has been interesting. With a baby you go out to eat less, take fewer international trips, stay at home more evenings. Strangely, the entire world has been pushed into the largely same routine.

timing n.時機? ? 我成為新爸爸這個時間特別有趣。有孩子之后你必須吃得更少，少旅游，夜晚更多地待在家里。奇怪的是，整個世界都被推到了非常相似的日常中。(第一遍看的時候沒看懂，多讀幾遍明白原來他是在搞幽默）

Obviously there are stresses to becoming a parent in a pandemic. But I think if these world events had happened to me at any other moment in my life I would have noticed a much larger disruption.

disruption n.擾亂，打亂

Thoughts on Fatherhood

When I first told people my wife and I were having a baby, I got an interesting split reaction. Those who had kids already were extremely enthusiastic. Those who didn’t, were polite and congratulatory, but definitely with a hint of anxiety about it.

split adj.劈開的? ? 之前只知道split的動詞和名詞形式。這個就很像中文里的：我得到了非常分裂的反應。

“I’ve heard you stop sleeping for a year.” “My friend’s baby cried for ten hours a day.” “I know someone who [insert terrifying delivery story].”

The contrast suggests that parenthood is one of the few experiences that’s really hard to predict how you’ll feel about it until after it happens.

Part of the disconnect might be that the difficulties of parenting are concrete, but the joys are so hard to put into words. It’s easy to understand diaper explosions or marathon crying sessions. It’s harder to relate to the experience of watching your son laugh for the first time or his gradual transformation into a person.

concrete adj.實在的，具體的

For my own part, I’m really happy. I am also quite fortunate. My work has been largely unscathed by the current crisis. My wife has a year of maternity leave. Our son is a fairly calm and content baby, which has made everything easier.

unscathed?adj. 未受傷的 ? maternity?n. 母性；[婦產] 婦產科醫院 ? paternity?n. 父權；父系；父系后裔 ? content?adj. 滿意的

Learning Progress and Setbacks

The past twelve months have had some learning progress as well as some setbacks.

As for progress, I completed a new project—spending?a month learning Macedonian at home. My level is below where my Spanish was?after three months in Spain, but is good enough for simple conversations. I had wanted to extend the project to three months, but my wife and I ended up switching back to English after only a month and a half.

There were two reasons for the change of plans. First, I got to the level I wanted quicker than expected. Second, after fourteen years of conversing in English, it’s definitely more comfortable for my wife and I to speak in English. This is particularly true for more intimate relationships—I didn’t have quite the same pressure to switch back to English with Vat, for instance.

挺有意思的觀點：和老婆說話的時候用英語（母語）更舒服，可能是因為兩個人關系更親密。

I expect I’ll work through other bouts of Macedonian immersion in the future. But I don’t see it supplanting English for our normal conversations at home.

bout n.回合，一陣? ? supplant vt.代替，排擠掉

In addition to Macedonian, I took quite a few courses (even if just auditing the lectures, rather than diving into homework):

audit v.旁聽

Systems Biology?— This class is an interesting intersection between computer science and biology—showing how many biological systems have adopted design patterns in order to work. A particularly interesting section was in how Type II diabetes arises as a downside of a mechanism designed to prevent hypersecreting insulin cells from running amok.

insulin n.胰島素? ? amok adv.狂亂地，失去理智地

Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics?— I found this course much more enlightening than Gleik’s book. Math seems to be one of those subjects that can’t be understood except by learning the math. This is unfortunate as math can often be hard, but I think it’s often preferrable to the false understandings that come when it is seen through literary prose.

混沌和非線性動力學——我發現這門課比Gleik的書更有啟發性。數學似乎是一門只有通過學習數學才能理解的學科 ：）。這太糟了，因為數學往往很難。但我認為和【看文字而錯誤理解】相比，學習數學更加可取。prose n.散文

Heidegger via Dreyfus:?Being and Time?— Two courses, for each half of?Being and Time. The second is a bit of a mess and I don’t recommend it. I have mixed feelings on Heidegger—for one, his ideas are provocative, and I’m drawn to things I don’t understand. On the other hand, his style of communicating makes it incredibly hard to see whether there’s anything worth understanding underneath. I?wrote up a deep dive?earlier this year.

provocative adj. 刺激的，挑撥的；氣人的????我被我不理解的東西所吸引。

The Modern Intellectual Tradition?— I listened to two courses, one covering ontology and epistimology (which is how I stumbled onto Heidegger), and another on?political philosophy. Really good survey courses in case you wanted to get an overview of philosophy—especially considering the actual philosophical texts are often terribly opaque without enormous background knowledge.

ontology?n. 本體論；存在論；實體論 ? ?epistimology?n. 認識論 ? stumble?vt. 使…困惑；使…絆倒 ? ?opaque?adj. 不透明的；不傳熱的；遲鈍的

Chinese History?— Another Audible/Great Courses survey course, covering Chinese history. Also fascinating, although the covering large areas of history is often difficult to get a real feel for what happened. Still I think it’s a good course for getting a rough picture.

History of India?— I enjoyed the content, especially nearer to the end, even if the presenter’s speaking was choppy and disfluent. India is harder than China to summarize because it has so many disparate threads. I gave up on a similar “history of Europe” book, as with too broad a scope it was nearly impossible to understand anything.

choppy?adj. 波濤洶涌的；波浪起伏的；不斷改變方向的 ? ?disparate?adj. 不同的；不相干的；全異的 ? ? thread?n. 線；螺紋；思路；衣服；線狀物；玻璃纖維；路線 ? ?

Immunology?— Ironically I did this before the pandemic struck. The course is a bit too detailed for most, but I generally prefer meaty courses liket his one to the glut of watered-down curricula on Coursera.

Immunology?n. [免疫] 免疫學 ? ?meaty?adj. 肉的；多肉的；似肉的 ? liket?prep. 像，如同；符合……的方式；有……的特點；（用于詢問）……怎么樣；例如，好比 ? glut?n. （商品）供過于求；大量 ? curricula?n. 課程（curriculum的復數形式）

Watercolor with Joseph Zbukvic?— On a lighter note, I’ve been doing more watercolor painting, and been watching some shorter courses from painter Joseph Zbukvic (and others on YouTube). Art is generally an area where I’ve gotten immense value from video courses versus other media, as you reading isn’t a substitute for watching how a person does it.

watercolor?n. 水彩畫，水彩；水彩顏料 ? ?immense?adj. 巨大的，廣大的；無邊無際的；非常好的 ? substitute?n. 代用品；代替者

I also read quite a few good books in the last year.?A Distant Mirror?is a surprisingly gripping read about life in the 14th century.?Entangled Life, about fungi, was fascinating. I also read a bunch of books on motivation, which I’m hoping on turning into another Complete Guide if I can chew through all the notes and follow up all the research threads I’ve left open.

gripping?adj. 扣人心弦的；引人注意的；令人全神貫注的???

Despite making some good progress in some areas, I feel like I let some other areas slip.

My other languages were the biggest sufferers. As I?mentioned before, trying Spanish after Macedonian was a brutal setback. Similarly, I’ve been off the habit of regular iTalki.com lessons for my other languages for over a year, so some repair work is probably needed. I’ve continued with Chinese, but as my ordinary meetup was cancelled due to the pandemic, it’s been mostly input-based practice.

setback?n. 挫折；退步；逆流?

Programming is another area I haven’t done much with in the last year. I had started with?Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and Tensor Flow?late last year, but stopped. While I find ML interesting intellectually, I didn’t have any compelling ideas for projects to do with it. I think I’m more interested for how it parallels neuroscience than making something directly.

Next year I’m hoping I can do something with programming and restart language maintenance.

Work and Writing

This year was a good year for work. I published?Ultralearning?just over a year ago, which was able to crack the?WSJ?bestseller list. In the spring, I released a second edition of my popular course,?Rapid Learner, updating many lessons and adding new ones. Now, I’m getting ready to launch a new course with Cal Newport,?Life of Focus.

crack? v.成功獲得??

I’ve been trying to improve my writing too this year. Although, after fourteen years of posts, such progress isn’t always visible to the outside. The major improvements have been in the images, which I only started doing in 2018.

As for the next year, it’s the first time since 2015 that I haven’t had a major project outstanding. Before this, I was always working on a book, a new course or some other major effort that I knew would consume my time. My next year’s schedule is wide open.

This space has caused me to think a lot about where I want to go in the future. A second book might be a possibility. I found writing a book to be a great forcing mechanism to really learn deeply about a topic that writing essays rarely does. However, given that the last book was an encapsulation of my life for the preceding decade, finding an idea worth dedicating the next couple years of my life is tricky.

encapsulation?n. 封裝；包裝???

I’d like to take on something fresh and exciting, I’m just not sure what it might be yet. This is also an area where advice from others is next to useless, as people mostly pattern match things you’ve done in the past and try to extrapolate it into the future. The first time is adventure, the second time is nostalgia. If you want the former, you really can’t look for templates from your past.

extrapolate?vt. 外推；推斷 ? nostalgia?n. 鄉愁；懷舊之情

Above all I feel gratitude. Dreaming up the next challenge is quite different from being crushed by the current one. Having spent time in the latter position, I don’t take my life today for granted.

All of this is possible, of course, because there happen to be a few of you who enjoy reading what I write. Thank you for sticking with me. I don’t promise I’ll figure it all out, but whatever I find, I’ll be sure to share with you.

Best,

-Scott