Daily Insight

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    #35 Why time speeds up and the world become blurry

    ByLukas

    The first hour after I was born, 60 minutes encapsulated my entire life outside the womb.

    An hour is an eternity.

    When I celebrated my first trip around the sun, one year encapsulated my entire life outside the womb.

    An hour is not that long anymore. But a year… that’s an eternity.

    When I’ll celebrate my 30th birthday next year, one year encapsulates about 1/30th of my experience in this body here on earth.

    A year is not that long anymore. But 30 years… that’s an eternity.

    Lukas Van Vyve

    There’s an absolute, immutable version of time, and then there’s our felt interpretation, which speeds up with every passing moment because we compare it to all the “time we’ve lived so far”.

    Maybe that’s why the older we get, the more effort it takes to stay in the present moment?

    Because, unlike a newborn child, for whom, compared to its short lifespan, an hour is an eternity, and every second is an opportunity to discover, drink in the world, explore…

    We’ve lived so many hours, minutes, and seconds that we don’t care anymore.

    with every passing year
    i’m more in a hurry
    and the days, minutes, seconds
    become ever more blurry

    i can live fast and miss out
    or slow down
    listen, look around
    be here, right now
    let the world whisper loud
    what life is all about

    and at last
    i hear you again.

    Lukas Van Vyve
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    #34 Where else?

    ByLukas

    Regularly asking “Where else?” is one of the simplest ways to become more creative and generate innovative insights.

    Not only does this allow you to connect new insights with existing knowledge and experience, but it also invites you to imagine new use cases.

    • “Where else have I seen this (or something similar) before?”
    • “Where else does this apply (to my current knowledge)?”
    • “Where else might this apply (in contexts where I haven’t discovered it yet)?”

    Examples

    Harvard Medical School professor Herbert Benson suggests the neurotransmitter NO (Nitric Oxide) may be the catalyst for breakthroughs and “aha moments.”
    Where else have I seen this before? -> Pranayama/Yogic Breathing: Nasal breathing (and humming “om”) can increase nitric oxide production fifteen-fold. Humming your way to epiphanies might be worth a try.

    Learning a language by grouping words instead of reducing it to words and grammar. Where else does this apply? -> Conversation Based Chunking; learning series of digits by grouping them together;… See: chunking concept in cognitive psychology

    Uber made it possible for people to share/rent out their car.
    Where else might this apply? -> How about sharing/renting out your home? That’s how AirBnB was born.

    You don’t have to look elsewhere.
    See what’s already there, then ask…
    Where else?

  • #33 There’s power in publishing imperfect work.

    ByLukas

    656 days ago, I started writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day.

    That’s an inner dialogue of 1968 pages poured into piles of journals now safely stuffed away.

    30 days ago, some of those thoughts started making their way to my blog.

    I promised myself that if I made it to 30 daily posts in a row, I would start sharing them.

    Today is the day, so here goes.

    I’m sharing daily observations about language, language learning, memory, creativity, habits, discipline, the art of learning, tools for thought.

    Lessons I’ve learned.
    Insights I’ve earned.

    Words I’ve heard.
    Memories spurred.

    Books I’ve read.
    Poems flowing out of my heart and head.

    No rules, no fixed topic, no niche, no marketing strategy.
    Nothing but whatever’s on my mind.

    I’ve learned a lot so far, but the most important insight: there’s power in publishing imperfect work.

    Because if I allow myself to create something imperfect every day, I’m certain that someday the sum of all these imperfect creations will be something I’m proud of.

    It’s liberating.

    Maybe there’s liberating power in reading someone else’s imperfect work too.

    I can’t wait to find out together with you.

    If you like what you see, sign up for the newsletter 🙂

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    #32 Before I learned not to listen

    ByLukas

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would stand
    seemingly still
    but secretly swaying
    swallowed up by a willow tree
    and its play with the wind

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would hold my head against the rind
    reach
    reconnect with an old friend
    the way it has always felt best
    cheek pressed to chest

    Before I learned not to listen
    a breeze in the leaves
    rustling ruminating
    would sound like raindrops in my ears
    making my eyes answer
    with a torrent of tears

    Before I learned not to listen
    a rolling thunder
    thumping like a beating heart
    would rumble from my cheek to my ear
    replacing my fear
    with a memory I used to held dear
    we were never really apart

    Before I learned not to listen
    before the lust for language
    reduced what I could see
    and sense within
    I would allow the whispers of the wordless world
    speak to me like kin

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would accept
    that once upon a time
    I remembered your name
    and once upon a time we both knew
    we were one and all the same

    Lukas Van Vyve
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    #31 Ignore, then highlight more

    ByLukas

    A daily insight from Tony Robbins:

    Wherever focus goes, energy flows.

    Tony Robbins, https://www.tonyrobbins.com/career-business/where-focus-goes-energy-flows/

    We’re always ignoring and highlighting parts of our experience to make sense of the world – and it determines the way we feel.

    To feel bad, you (temporarily) have to ignore all the events and things you consider positive.

    To feel good, you (temporarily) have to ignore events and circumstances that can be challenging.

    It all depends on context.

    Sometimes, just to function, it’s necessary to ignore.

    Sometimes you’re better off highlighting a bit more.

    The big challenge: most of the time, we’re not aware of where our focus goes – so we let old habits and patterns decide how we feel – even if they don’t serve us at all.

    Here’s an exercise I found useful: Tomorrow, focus on something that’s important for you once an hour (a post-it on your desk or a reminder on your phone can be useful). That way, it remains top of mind (and your energy will flow toward it).

    Every hour, also take a moment to become aware of what you’re deleting from your experience, and what you’re highlighting.

    • What am I trying to do today?
    • What am I trying to do right now?
    • What’s important to me?
    • What do I want to focus on… what do I intentionally ignore?
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    #29 The myth of self-sabotage

    ByLukas

    All behavior is inspired by avoiding pain or gaining pleasure – and since you usually act on what your brain perceives as the most intense of the two.

    So if you think you desire something, but then “sabotage” yourself so you never get what you desire, that means you have mixed feelings about desire (and thus inner conflict): deep down, you feel that desire will give you more pain than pleasure.

    In other words, it’s not self-sabotage: it’s your brain protecting you from pain it perceives as stronger than the pleasure you might get from reaching your goal.

    Maybe you desire more money, but deep down, you feel money will corrupt you, or make you lose friends, make you feel guilty, or make you lose your drive.

    Maybe you have a desire to write or create, but you feel the pain of judgment or rejection is stronger than the pleasure of creating.

    Maybe you want to get in shape, but deep down, you feel you’ll give up anyway before reaching any meaningful results, so you’d rather save yourself the pain of future disappointment (a classic self-trust problem).

    Maybe you notice a certain destructive pattern in your relationships, but you believe going to therapy and “opening up that can of worms” will be even worse than perpetuating the current situation.

    If you keep sabotaging yourself, it might be worth to ask yourself the question: what pain am I avoiding? What am I afraid of? In my imagination, what’s going to happen when I reach my goal; both positive AND negative?

    Or even better than just asking: journal about it.

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    #28 Write anyway – then write some more

    ByLukas

    Think you don’t have any good ideas to write about? Write anyway. Then write some more. The ideas might well reveal themselves on the page. (Morning Pages are good for this)

    Have an idea but struggle to put it into words? Write anyway… Then write some more.

    Struggling to edit your work and get it to a level where you believe it’s “publish-worthy”? Publish it anyway. especially when it’s imperfect. Once you see nothing bad happens when there’s a typo or an awkward sentence, your self-trust grows, your editing will become less judgmental, and your creativity will soar.

    Scared of publishing your work, being judged, being seen? Publish anyway. Then publish some more. When you increase your publishing frequency, there’s less burden on that one post, video, book, piece of art.

    You can only overcome the objections your mind invents by not letting them stop you from sculpting away, day by day.

  • #27 Appreciating the meaningless melody of a foreign language

    ByLukas

    Learning a foreign language is both a frustrating and liberating experience.

    We can focus on the frustration of not understanding the words the way we understand our mother tongue. Or we can realize that without the words, we are free to fall back on other ways of capturing and understanding meaning.

    A crying baby can be soothed by words it does not yet understand, because she senses what’s behind the sounds, lets the meaningless melody cradle her to sleep…

    Similarly, we don’t always have to know what’s behind the words, as long as we make an effort to understand the meaning behind the sounds.

    Hearing a foreign language brings us back to that wordless world the way we experienced it as a newborn, before we tried so hard to put everything within and around us into language.

    It makes us remember, there’s more to life than our words will ever allow us to express. And somehow, that’s a soothing thought.

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    #26 Becoming less blind to what’s already here

    ByLukas

    I write about the same topics over and over again, with slightly different words.

    I listen to people explaining the same topics over and over again, with a slightly different interpretation.

    I practice the same breathing exercises every day, becoming aware of changes so subtle it’s hard to believe they make any difference.

    While all that energy spent on what seems like “repeating” and “reviewing” might seem like a waste of time, the constant revisiting of things we already know is how I grow.

    Because with every repetition I’m discovering a new part of the same insight.

    A new nuance that in itself might seem insignificant, but added to my personal experience, insights, understanding, might make all the difference.

    And with every new insight, I become a little less blind to what’s already here.

    In the process, I have to accept that the perfect words might never come.

    The perfect explanation might never come.

    The perfect execution of a skill might never happen.

    But if I stay the course, my understanding of what matters to me in life will always keep growing.

    At some point, through all the practicing, learning, reading, writing, I might stumble upon a groundbreaking insight.

    Or maybe it never happens.

    It doesn’t matter. I feel fulfilled regardless… As long as I keep sculpting away, day by day.

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