The better people know you the easier to communicate… because there is no need to explain every time what stuff you can/cannot do and why.
In addition defining yourself is a great way to deal with your own problems… because the person who desperately needs to know you is YOU.
Below you can read more on some of my mental models to understand me better)
STUDENT
Derek Sivers in his “Me In 10 Seconds” article describes himself in a few words. That’s an awesome idea I thought and then I tried guessing if it’s possible to describe oneself in just ONE WORD.
One of the major reasons why I have had the urge to squeeze it in just one word is I love minimalism and one of my best stories on minimalism was the story about how Charlie Munger managed to answer quite a challenging question of a young lady.
“’Charlie,’ she said, ‘What one word accounts for your remarkable success in life?’ I told her I was rational.”
So after some consideration I found a way (not the perfect one but what is perfect) to define myself in one word – a STUDENT. By the way Derek Sivers is also defining himself as a student in his the most famous book.
Learning is a kind of a permanent process.
I am always up to learn something. Learning by itself is not a perfectly beautiful thing – it could be wasteful and even dangerous. That’s why the most important thing in learning is learning how to learn effectively and safely.
Charlie Munger could be one of the best players in that game. And fs.blog (the best source on effective learning I know) initially was based on Charlie’s system.
SCIENTIST
From 7 yevars old to my 40th I lived in a scientific center SO VASHNIL (СО ВАСХНИЛ). It was the biggest agricultural scientific center in Siberia and maybe the second biggest in USSR.
The parents of my best friends were PhDs and university professors. For a couple of years I shared my class desk with a prodigy.
So I love to learn just because I raised in the environment where this kind of love is massively cultivated and I didn’t have much choice.
ACTOR
I really need to figure out who I wanted to be when I was 10 years old. It’s a very important thing to know because people normally decided who they want to be at that age… and then they just follow the way… I know that’s just a theory but it’s a very good one)
My problem is I still cannot perfectly and exactly figure out who I wanted to be at the age. So I’m trying to reconstruct it now…
When I was 5 my dream was to become a clown. I guess I loved attention, and I loved to make people to laugh.
My mother was a big fan of movies. And watching movies was the thing we loved to do together. It was mostly movies on TV but we went to the cinema ones in a while. For example we watched in the theater indian movie “Disco Dancer” 3 times in a row. Yes, indian movies were very popular in Soviet Union.
At the age of 13 I was really into acting. I used every opportunity to get on stage. It’s easy to draw a line from a clown to an actor, especially in terms of my affection to movies. So I believe it was that kind of transformation.
After the last grade in the secondary school (when I was 15) I tried to enter theatre school in Novosibirsk… and failed after the first exam…
Then I got back to a regular high school and started to think on another career choices for myself. At the end of the high school it was a choice between teaching (pedagogy), engineering and economics. Eventually I choose economics, but right after entering university – I was submerged in music – what a big surprise, right?
I never was fully into something: being a musician I studied history, business and economics. And being a tax inspector I continued to write songs.
MATHEMATICIAN
I almost never had problems with math in secondary and high school or university.
In high school I shared a desk with a prodigy. He was learning physics and math by a correspondence courses because the high school courses were way too simple and boring to him. He participated in a math and physics Olympiads and even asked me a couple of times if I would be interested to participate. I did reject. It was a huge mistake. Unfortunately I never was interested in becoming a mathematician so a math Olympiads meant nothing to me. But if I could go back to the past and change something I would definitely go to participate in the math Olympiad.
I guess the ignoring of my great aptitude to math was one of the biggest mistakes of my life… and path of my life would be totally changed if someone explained me in the past how important math is.
Before high school graduation I didn’t go to the preparation course for the graduation exams on math and geometry … but it didn’t stop me to get the high grades for the exams.
When I enrolled in the preparation course of math to enter agricultural University it was enough to go to just one class to understand that it’s way too simple. So I did prepare myself to exams by reading a math book that was way more difficult.
When I came to the exam I solved all tasks just by reading them – it was so easy.
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
In the 3rd year of university there was a course of mathematical modelling – maybe the most difficult one in the university program. Some students were forced to drop out from the university just because they couldn’t pass the exam on mathematical modelling… but I didn’t feel any need to pay any special attention to the course. I didn’t attend the lectures (as well as the lectures on Higher and Further Mathematics) because practical studies were totally enough for me.
The thing was that lectures and practical studies were led by the different professors. So when the lecturer (which almost never seen me in a lecture hall) told me that I will be expelled from the university because there were no precedents that students would pass exams without going to lectures… I just asked her to test my level of knowledge…
She gave me one week to prepare.
I took a notebook with a lecture notes from one of a students and after a week of preparation I have had a meeting with the lecturer. She asked me a lot of questions which were not in the notebook. So technically speaking I failed but nonetheless I did show her such a level of knowledge that if there’s gonna be a committee meeting I would easily succeed especially if I would have an extra week to prepare. Because a lecturer cannot decide to drop me – it was up to a committee to decide.
***
Anyways despite my low interest in math I was always great at it. For example my marks on physics was a huge problem at the 8th grade of secondary school. I did prepare myself for the career of an actor so physics was absolutely not important to me… but math was not important too… nonetheless I never had a problem with math. It was always very easy to me.
When I failed to enter the theater school I came back to high school… and dramatically improved my marks in physics but I never understood physics deeply. My great marks on physics were because the mathematical part of physics was easy – so I passed all tests and solved all tasks… but everything besides math in physics was often very murky to me.
How the definition myself as a mathematician is helping me in this case?)
Math is totally based on logic. It’s a pure logic. If one is great in math then he is great in logic too. So anytime I stumbled on a very difficult problem – I remind myself that I’m great in math, it means I’m great in logic. And because I’m great in logic eventually I will solve any problem. Period. It really helps to continue to work on a problem even if there’s no tangible results for a long time.
PROGRAMMER
I never had a problems with programming in highschool. In university we have courses on programming and one of the most important part of mathematical modelling course was writing a computer program. So all of that stuff was easy for me also.
I tried to learn C++ and Java but eventually I understood that it’s better to learn more simple languages like Rubi or Python.
Now I’m running my small project on notes. I did use Google Keep for a long time but some basic features of Keep was really not satisfying.
So I tried and succeed to replace it with BASH and Total Commander. Now I don’t miss Google Keep at all.
Also I’m using HTML sometimes. I have many websites – and almost all editing I do in HTML mode.
BIOLOGIST
I was raised in an agricultural scientific center.
I have had one of the best school teachers of biology in USSR (top 1%) because it’s impossible to teach bad biology in a scientific center school – parents just will not allow to do it.
When I was entering the agricultural university one of the exams I passed was biology.
And in the University I passed some exams related to biology like animal husbandry and crop production.
So my knowledge of biology is much more above average (I’m at least at top 5%).
And because medicine based on biology my understanding of medicine is in top 5% too.
MEDICAL DOCTOR
Since childhood I was having health problems… And I started to learn how to solve them since my teenage.
I started experiment with fasting at 17 and I still learning something new every time I fast. So I have a 30+ years of fasting experience.
I’m very prone to cold, I’m having inflammation in knees, hip and shoulder joints. Sensitive stomach is another issue I’m struggling with for decades.
One of the major reasons why I started to travel in South East Asia (and still continue to stay there) is my health.
I feel much better in all departments of my health in
SEA climate. I’m catching a cold much less over there. The same goes in my joints inflammation department.
One of the major reasons of my bad health is I’m very thin. My BMI is below 16 (175 cm., 48 kg.) 48/(1.75*1.75). So all my body parts including my joints, head and stomach are in a constant inflammation state caused by cold when I live in a cold climate.
When I was in Russia and tried to fix my issues by exercising and dieting it was helping but was absolutely not enough. One of the reasons is exercising and dieting are not that simple. I made many big mistakes despite I did many things right.
When I came to Thailand the first time (in 2016) in one month I felt like I become 10 years younger. I started to experiment with exercising and dieting in a tropical climate. I was walking 20 km everyday trying to eat any food locals eat. So I was eating for 8 years mostly local food of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
My achievements as a doctor
After 7 years of struggling I found a way to significantly reduce my hip inflammation. Right before coming to Thailand I could walk (normal speed – not a brisk walk) only for 15 minutes then I should take a rest for 15 minutes and this way I could walk for 4 hours maximum. I was literally a disabled person. I didn’t have an official diagnosis because I didn’t trust doctors and I didn’t visit them much. Now I solved most of these problems and almost every year discover something which improve my health dramatically.
Please read more on Why I Don’t Trust Doctors here https://alec.p2.blog/tdoc
My blog on health https://alec.health.blog/
to be continued…
Alec Pan 