also posted on mit admissions
in my favorite naruto scene, a samurai and a ninja charge at each other. everyone expects their blades to collide in midair, but instead, this is the result:
the samurai’s sword (left) slashes straight through the ninja’s sword (right) and breaks it in half. then the samurai says something along the lines of: people are their blades! bluntness will not last. if your blade was too dull, that is because you yourself were too dull. he goes on to talk about how people who stay true to their beliefs continue refining themselves and remain sharp, while people who allow themselves to drift into nihilism lose their edge
it shouldn’t come as a surprise that all my favorite battles are mental ones. for instance, the fights in the matrix are about breaking through self-doubt and illusion, the struggle in the bhagavad gita is about conviction and dedication of the self, and this naruto battle… well, i suppose you can interpret it as a literal fight with swords if you want, but everybody knows that sharp swords don’t actually cut through dull ones. i think this scene makes more sense when viewed as a metaphorical struggle against dullness. by default our minds, skills, and resolve all become dull over time, and it is only through constant commitment to some kind of value or purpose that we can keep ourselves sharp
around a year ago my friend asked me: do you think you’re a spiky person or a soft person? they clarified that spiky people tended to interact with others in a logical and utilitarian manner, whereas soft people paid more attention to others’ feelings and to cultivating relationships, and then they said that it was usually easy to classify someone as spiky or soft but they were having trouble doing so with me because i seemed to have many elements of both. i explained that i was extremely spiky in high school and had been transitioning to a soft person throughout college, and that was probably the source of the confusion
at the time i thought going from spiky to soft also meant going from sharp to dull – after all, they seemed correlated, and the denotations of the words matched up very well (this is one of the problems with inventing new meanings for words: you end up with associations between concepts which sound reasonable but don’t actually make any sense. be careful about the language you create for yourself). i assumed that by becoming softer and gentler and embracing self-love and acceptance, i was also committing to losing sharpness and conviction and willpower, and i didn’t even notice this was happening because i assumed it was all part of the process
i think i have become quite dull over the past year. i am less fit, more prone to distraction, less disciplined, more afraid of commitment, and so on; i am trying to find my way again, and doing so very slowly. occasionally i will dive into a contest math problem just to practice thinking and working with the same level of desperation i had back in high school. i am disappointed in myself for slipping, and also a little sad that none of my friends told me what was happening, though i know it’s not their job to. perhaps they didn’t notice, or perhaps they didn’t tell me out of politeness (hi friends! if this is the case, please let me know next time; i respond best to direct feedback)
it is irresponsible to push yourself to the brink of depression, to pump yourself full of anger and resentment and jealousy and to fuel the achievement of your dreams through negativity. i learned that last year and it is a major reason for why i decided to pursue softness. but in becoming dull i have learned this too: it is also irresponsible to lose sight of who you want to be, to stop pushing yourself and to lower your standards until you are no longer capable of pursuing your dreams
everyone knows that deliberately manufacturing dissatisfaction and angst is a clear violation of self-care. less people realize that dulling and regressing and losing conviction will also breed dissatisfaction and angst once you realize how far you’ve fallen and regret what could’ve been, and therefore that too cannot count as self-care
so i was once sharp and spiky, and then i became dull and soft, and now i am looking to become sharp and soft. i believe i can do so, and i am not worried about becoming spiky again in my pursuit of sharpness – i think my spikiness came from having unsustainable sources of motivation, but nowadays my main motivation is achieving what i want rather than fear of failure, and that makes a big difference
last month i was at a house party and for some reason everyone else wanted to relocate to the roof. the only way there was through a ladder without any kind of guardrail or fall protection, which i really really didn’t want to take because i am scared of heights. i was shaking and terrified the entire way up, but i climbed the ladder anyway, because my friend was watching and i felt safer and freer around them – i felt like i could inexplicably do more than i usually could, simply because they were there. much later i realized this is what it means to be sharp and soft, and now i wonder: how can i support and motivate myself in the same way my friend was able to?
A Slice of My Mind 
‘pursuing your dreams’ is an interesting perspective to me, and now that i think about it i either have lost track of my dreams or my dreams are very personal and small scale and don’t say much to what society demands i decide about my life (ex: what industry i want to work in, where do i want to live after graduation…), or perhaps even just that i’ve realized my preferences are honestly unrealistic.
this does reminds me– my internship transportation this summer was reimbursed uber rides, and on one morning ride, the driver had the radio set to a talk show. the hosts were discussing the idea of ‘kids are more likely to succeed [in the ‘live good life’ sense] in our current society if their parents didn’t tell them to “dream big” [you can do anything you set your mind to, so pursue your dreams with all your heart] growing up.’ the idea that many kids’ dreams are unrealistic, and puncture and deflate upon contact with reality like a balloon on a needle, well, it’s sad, but also unfortunately pretty true.
well unrealistic in the sense that they’re exceedingly unlikely to actually achieve that dream, of course there are plenty of people in our society who do pursue dreams most people find unrealistic, and the handful that do succeed can win big so. i guess it once again boils down to risk and reward and i, i’ve always tended to be the most conservative when it comes to taking risks. i don’t quite think that’s a good thing.
and as a tacked on thought ‘perhaps they didn’t notice’ i feel like sometimes it’s very obvious to see a social pattern (most particularly in things that are explicitly discussed, e.g. relationship problems) and other times when it comes across purely in interaction, and gradually over time, it’s difficult to notice. i’ve found friendship to be not quite what i’ve always imagined it to be, what other people say in writing, and. i’m thinking about it, and if a similar thing happens to me, i doubt that any of my friends will notice without me first noticing (or at least complaining about some of the results/symptoms).
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my dreams are very personal and small scale » oh yeah me too. i didn’t mean dreams in the grand sense, eg. my dream might just be “do cool technical work and make good art in free time” or something like that
kids are more likely to succeed [in the ‘live good life’ sense] in our current society if their parents didn’t tell them to “dream big” » hmm interesting, seems plausible i guess 😛
i doubt that any of my friends will notice without me first noticing (or at least complaining about some of the results/symptoms) » yeah i think that makes sense. i probably don’t complain enough about my problems for other people to notice them xd
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