🥝 Chiwi Journal #17: The Doors of Perception, All or Nothing Series, Poolsuite, Wu Kong and Making podcast
🥝 Chiwi Journal #17: The Doors of Perception, All or Nothing Series, Poolsuite, Wu Kong and Making podcast
Greeting from Lisbon! 🇵🇹
It's been ONE year since I moved from England to Portugal! So far so good! I spent most of the time living in Madeira, Aveiro and Lisbon and enjoyed Portuguese creative and tech scenes, sunny weather, delicious seafood and open-minded people!
Now I got my residency visa, meaning I'll have plenty of time to explore Europe, visit my favourite European writers, artists and philosophers' hometown, and indulge in the rich history and diverse cultures of the European continent. Do you have any tips for Italy, Germany and Netherland? Feel free to reply to this email and let me know :)
As previously mentioned, Lisbon has been a hotspot for web3 people. If you are coming here for Nearcon, ETHLisbon or Web Summit, don't hesitate to say Hi and let's meet IRL!
OK, here comes this month's content.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
― William Blake
The Chinese translation of The Lords, and The New Creatures by Jim Morrison was published recently. Jim Morrison's lyrics and poems are a wild exploration of society's dark side captured in sensual and seething images.
Although Morrison has left us for half a century, his acid rock and savage performances have left an indelible impression on our culture.
I watched an old movie, The Door this week, featured Morrison's short but beautiful life, from rising to fame to self-destruction.
It reminds me of a quote from Neil Young that "it's better to burn out than to fade away", the best saying to describe those singers who joined "27 Club" like Jim Morrison.
Aldous Huxley described in his book The Doors of Perception:
"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies - all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
Poets and artists are here to help us see things as they are. We must be aware of and pay attention to things and watch them respectfully, allowing them to show themselves as they are rather than add our subjective judgements.
Although Huxley shared his psychedelic experience in excellent writing with great details, here is my attempt to describe my first psychedelic with this bilingual poem.
All or Nothing: Arsenal might be the hottest documentary among football fans this month. Even though you are not a supporter or know nothing about football, you can still learn many lessons from sports.
As a Barcelona & Manchester City fan (thanks to Pep Guardiola), I'm no stranger to Pep's former assistant coach Mikel Arteta. I was amazed by Arteta's motivational speaking talent and deep love for the Arsenal club in this documentary series.
Here are a couple of memorable scenes:
- Arteta is a brilliant storyteller, especially good at revealing his vulnerability to connect with others.
For example, when he was a player at Arsenal and lost 5-1 to Liverpool at Anfield, Arteta shared his poor performance and frustration. His mind went blank midway through the game after seeing the overwhelming Liverpool fans in red. He gave up the game pretty early, and that not-giving-it-all attitude haunted him for the rest of his career.
So when Arteta became a manager, he played the Liverpool anthem You'll Never Walk Alone in the training ground to mentally prepared his players for Anfield's scary atmosphere and openly shared his failure to motivate players to go all in at the game.
- Arteta shared three coaching values: respect, commitment and passion, and of course, the inner drive to win every game! He usually delivered pre-game motivational speeches to encourage players. Sometimes, Arteta gathered players around, asked them to close their eyes and rub their hands, and then shared the energy. Sometimes, he used a light bulb as a metaphor to showcase how teamwork works or his "superb" drawing skills to share his tactics.
- Interestingly enough, Arsenal lost three games in a row in the 2021/2022 season, while in the 2022/2023 season, Arsenal won three times in a row to stay at the top of the table.
Nothing is permanent, and everything is possible. Just like Saka shot the penalty goal when facing Chelsea in PL, while a couple of weeks earlier, he missed the penalty, leading England to lose the chance to be the Euro Champion.
Life is full of ups and downs. As long as you have faith and focus on your craft, your time will be here soon.
Finally, here is the most moving part to me of this documentary.
Poolsuite Palm Report is a rare case among my business, technology and culture-related newsletters collection.
It's a newsletter and lifestyle research facility by @Poolsuite to taste notes of leisure, summer and high eccentricity.
The retro vibes of the website and aesthetic newsletter created a sensational nostalgia every time I logged in to listen to the music and read the theme-curated content. Apart from that, Poolsuite has a suncream store, Executive Members NFT and ManorDAO projects on the side.
The vision of the whole brand is to transport audiences to a virtual vacation where the sun never sets. The team definitely achieved that and went the extra mile! Follow their IG and listen to 90s music on their website!
The most legendary mythical figure in China is Sun Wu Kong (孙悟空, aka the Monkey King).
He is one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West (西游记), which has been adapted to many stories, animations and video games ever since.
In Chinese, Wu (悟) means "Enlighten" and "Comprehend". "Kong (空)" means "Emptiness" and "In vain". The name Wu Kong was given by his first master, Patriarch Bodhi (ancient master of Three Teachings), together means "awakened to emptiness" or "aware of vacuity".
As the protagonist in the Journey to the West, Wu Kong went through the Hero Journey -- from an uncivilised monkey to "Victorious Fighting Buddha"-- achieving a supreme state of enlightenment, a state of cosmetological harmony and oneness.
Journey to the West is considered one of the four classic Chinese novels. It reveals the standard process of cultivating our human nature: start from knowing nothing, but with constant learning and development through practice and experience, we grow and gain wisdom.
Most people might know Wu Kong from a famous Japanese manga: Dragon Ball. But I'd recommend three other sources to learn more about this influential character.
Last month, I wrote about the new relationship between writers and readers in web3, featured @StoryDAOxyz and other co-creation/own projects. The biggest takeaways are:
Web3 will empower authors to skip the line of the gated traditional publishing world and truly own and distribute content with the community's help.
NFTs serve as a tool to make a real connection between authors and readers by offering exclusive incentives such as private community and unreleased content.
Fans get a chance to participate in authors’ creative process and gain royalty, and can resell their stake in a project.
This month, I got a chance to mint the producer token from @StoryDAOxyz where I got an opportunity to collaborate with established Hollywood writers and amazing visual artists to build new stories IP together.
Also, I've actively attended Denites events in Lisbon, a decentralized afterparty to showcase local web3 projects and startups in the most entertaining way possible. Please feel free to register, and let's party like a local here in Lisbon!
SPECIAL EPISODE: Eric Jorgenson with 1729writers on Writing Almanack Series and Building Leverage
Jordan Peterson, Myth & Metaphor, Embodiment Cognition and Fitness Landscape with Tom Morgan
A Paradise of Poems YouTube Channel
22/23 Premier League started this month!
As many of you know, I'm a hardcore football fan and an experienced Fantasy Premier League player. My weekend is now focused on watching games and playing Fantasy Premier League with friends.
Here is an article to showcase how this game teaches me about the stock market, behaviour science and data analysis.
P.S. Lex Fridman recently interviewed a guest, Magnus Carlsen, a World Chess Champion and the world's highest-ranked chess player. He is also a former (live) #1 Fantasy Premier League player.
Listen to their episode at Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time | Lex Fridman Podcast
Question from My Discord Channel:
What's your process for making a podcast?
Answer:
I've been making Chinese podcast since 2017 and English podcast since last year. After producing 150 episodes, I made a template for anyone who'd like to start their podcast journey from scratch.
Enjoy! 🤓
Join CY CIRCLE, my bilingual online community on Discord, to meet like-minded people from all over the world!