Nature's Digital Garden

From Tennis to Life

5 min read

Background

The Triggering Event

  • Had a deep conversation with a former colleague during lunch

  • We originally connected through tennis; gradually became closer through playing together

  • About him:

    • Improved extremely fast in tennis (from beginner to comparable level within ~1 year)
    • ~10 yrs of working experiences in backend / distributed systems
    • Strong reflective ability (INTP)

  • Last year, I gave him a handwritten Christmas letter

    • He received it very seriously
    • Explicitly expressed how moved he was（觉得我是一个很【温暖】的人）

  • This created a strong sense of mutual recognition

Keywords

tennis · depth · mutual response（双向奔赴）· being seen（被看见）

Core Emotional Insight: Being Truly Understood

  • What really touched me:
    • Being genuinely understood & seen（被理解、被看见）
  • I realized I deeply value:
    • Clear emotional feedback
    • Intellectual and reflective resonance（思维共鸣）
    • Depth over surface-level interaction（深度交流）
  • The key experience was:
    • Sending a signal → receiving a clear echo, not silence

Keywords

understanding · resonance · deep connection

The Discussion

Rethinking Self-Exploration: Beyond Pure Thinking

His approach to self-understanding

  • Uses action and embodiment to explore himself:
    • Tennis
    • Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu（巴西柔术：【用身体下棋】）
    • Vocal
    • Ice skating…
  • Sees these as ways of connecting mind and body（身心连接）

Reflecting on my existing approach

  • Heavily centered on:
    • Writing
    • Analysis
    • Endless self-reflection
  • Limitations I observed:
    • Easy to fall into overthinking loops
    • More thinking → more confusion
    • Minimal behavioral breakthrough
    • High emotional cost, low practical value（只有内耗，没有行动 / 改变）

Key realization

  • Self-understanding ≠ only cognitive introspection
  • Thinking and language have inherent limits

Embodied experience + Creative Expression can bypass cognitive traps

Keywords

embodied cognition（具身认知）· action · experience · breaking mental loops

Learning Philosophy: First Principles and Anchors

His view on tennis

  • Tennis reduced to its essence:
    • Racket + angle + speed
    • Sending the ball to a spot unreachable by the opponent

“用 球拍 将球以一定的 角度 + 速度 打到对手无法触及的位置“

  • All other concepts expand from this:
    • Tactics
    • Positioning
    • Body coordination
    • Kinetic chain
    • Physics and physiology…
  • There is always a clear anchor

My resonance with this approach

  • I always love to understand the why, not just the what / how

  • I noticed, however, that I often:

    • Focus on making things work
    • Accept results without understanding principles
    • Know the what without the why（知其然不知其所以然）

  • Although slower:

    • Principle-based understanding feels truly mine
    • More stable and transferable

Keywords

first principles（第一性原理）· anchor · deep understanding · why vs how

Further Reflections

A Major Insight on Motivation Sources

Observing others

  • Many people’s motivation comes from internal:
    • Desire to grow
    • Curiosity about themselves / internal exploration
  • Their effort feels self-sustaining, not forced

Observing myself

  • My motivation, however, often comes from external:
    • Crushes / emotional projection
    • Peer pressure / comparison
  • Pattern:
    • Short-term intensity (the burst)
    • Strong but unstable
    • Highly dependent on uncontrollable factors

Reflections

  • External motivation is not “wrong”
  • But over-reliance on it is not sustainable
  • What I want:
    • Shift from external → internal motivation
    • More agency & long-term stability
    • Health & sustainable

Keywords

  • external vs internal motivation · sustainability · agency（自主权）

Thinking Ownership in the Age of AI

Self-doubt

  • Sometimes I feel:
    • I’m not smart enough
    • Certain problems are beyond my reasoning capacity

Deeper diagnosis

  • Real issue: over-outsourcing thinking to AI（把思考过度外包给AI）

  • Pattern:

    • Question → ask AI immediately
    • Fast answer, minimal internal reasoning

  • Long-term risk:

    • Weakened independent thinking
    • Growing impatience with uncertainty

New intention

Reclaim thinking ownership（思维主权）

  • Allow:
    • Slowness
    • Incomplete reasoning
    • Temporary confusion
  • In the AI era:
    • Ordinary people use AI
    • Exceptional people still think beyond AI

工具依赖的本质是 认知外包 (cognitive outsourcing)。当我们把判断和思考的权力交给算法，短期获得了效率，长期却在削弱自己的决策肌肉。真正的危险不是使用AI，而是失去对AI输出的批判性审视能力 (critical thinking)。聪明的做法是把AI当作思考的起点而非终点，用它来扩展可能性边界，而不是替代深度思考本身。

Keywords

thinking ownership · cognitive outsourcing · independent reasoning

Directional Shift Going Forward

From → To

  • External stimulation → internal drive（外界刺激 → 自我驱动）
  • Pure cognition → action + experience（纯思考 → 行动 + 体验）
  • Fast answers → deep reasoning（急于求成 → 深度求索）

Goal is not instant excellence, but:

  • Greater autonomy（自主 / 掌控）
  • Stronger grounding（扎实基础）
  • Sustainable growth（可持续成长）

Moving from being someone who is easily ignited by the outside world,
to someone who can generate fire from within.

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