ModuleCycle

[A Place for Focus] Rebuilding Attention Through Space and Tools

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Last night, I watched a Taiwanese film called Classmates Minus. I liked it more than I expected, but it kept me awake until the early hours of the morning. Today, I got up a little after eight.

I made a simple breakfast: mixed vegetables stir-fried with pork belly. At around 9:45, my cousin and I left for Xiangxue Library in Huangpu. I spent the morning finishing Never Let Me Go. I had read part of it before, and today I finally completed the rest. I have not written down my thoughts yet. Maybe I need to let the story stay with me for a little longer first.

Around noon, we left the library and found a nearby Lanzhou noodle restaurant. I ordered fried rice, while my cousin had beef chow mein. We returned to the library after one o’clock, rested briefly, and then started our journey home. I got back a little after two, watched part of another film, and took an afternoon nap. Near the end of four o’clock, my cousin headed back to Shenzhen.

The evening became the real center of the day. On Saturday, I had cleared the table in the living room. Today, I moved the printer, computer, and several other devices there. It is beginning to feel like a more settled workspace.

The main thing I wanted to test was Flow, a focus app. Its greatest advantage, for me, is that it can read from and write to both my iOS Calendar and Mindful. This fits my needs extremely well. I do not want another isolated system to maintain. I want a simple interface for focus that can work with the calendar and reminders I already use.

More importantly, Hermes can still read the information in those systems. That means Flow may become one part of a connected workflow: I can plan and focus through the app, keep my schedule and reminders in familiar places, and still review or reorganize them with AI assistance when needed. I also tested whether Wanxi could make playlists for language learning, reading, organizing notes for professional study, and running. I printed them out afterwards. I was pleasantly surprised that the requests were understood and turned into something usable. It made new combinations feel much easier to create: an activity, a suitable atmosphere, and a small physical prompt on paper.

I also spent time exploring software on macOS. Safari has not worked very well for me so far. In Feishu, some conversations do not display properly, and its extension experience has not been especially satisfying. In the end, I chose an older version of Microsoft Edge. It feels cleaner and works better for what I need. Later that night, I also worked on fixing RSSHub.

Over the past two days, the most important realization has been that focus is not only about finding the right app or making a better plan. It is also about creating the right combination of time and space for myself.

For now, I think the bedroom and the living room should serve different purposes. The living room is genuinely better for studying. It gives the act of sitting down to learn a greater sense of intention and ritual. The bedroom can remain a place for rest and for spending time with friends when they visit, while the living room can gradually become a place for reading, learning, organizing, and focused work.

This distinction feels simple, but it may help me protect my attention more naturally.

What Safety Has to Do with Happiness

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A rain-washed city street at dusk, with a warm apartment window and a quiet tram stop

A film can leave a question behind that no statistic knows how to answer.

After watching Classmates Minus, I kept thinking about one of its gentlest characters. He is not presented as a hero. He is simply trying to keep his dignity while living close to the ground: working, making do, trying not to become cruel. Then violence enters the story with almost no warning. There is no satisfying explanation, no moral accounting, and no room for escape.

That abruptness feels unbearable because it violates an assumption many of us carry quietly: surely a decent person should at least be allowed the time to work things out.

The film refuses that consolation. Its final cruelty is not only that a life ends, but that all the ordinary unfinished things end with it—the next conversation, the next attempt at repair, the possibility that tomorrow might be a little better. A mother outlives her son. Friends who knew how to joke with him do not know how to speak into the silence that remains.

The scene made me think about the word safety in a different way.

Safety Is More Than the Absence of Danger

When people compare Taiwan, the United States, Germany, China, or any other place, the question often becomes a ranking: which country is safer, which city is more livable, where is the happiness index higher?

These are reasonable questions. A place where guns are less available, public transport is dependable, streets are well lit, emergency services work, and daily rules are legible offers a real advantage. A person should not have to treat every ordinary errand as a gamble.

But safety is not only a crime rate. It is also the background confidence that life will usually remain intelligible.

Can you walk home without constantly scanning for threat? Can a disagreement remain a disagreement instead of becoming irreversible? If something goes wrong, can you call for help and expect the system to respond? Are there institutions, neighbours, friends, or family members who can keep one bad day from turning into a total collapse?

This is why a sudden act of violence in a film can feel larger than the incident itself. It exposes the opposite of a livable world: a world in which an ordinary person can be swallowed by forces he does not understand and cannot reach.

The Geography of Risk

No country is a single experience.

In the United States, the image of danger is often shaped by the availability of firearms and by sharp differences between places. A quiet residential neighbourhood, a downtown business district, a late-night entertainment area, and a neighbourhood affected by poverty or drug markets can feel like entirely different social worlds. The point is not that every street is dangerous. It is that the possible cost of a conflict can be frighteningly high, and the map of risk can be uneven.

Germany offers another pattern. Daily public life is often orderly, and strict firearm regulation changes the texture of ordinary anxiety. Yet there are still places and hours where theft, harassment, intoxicated conflict, or organised crime become more visible. The practical skill is not permanent fear but learning the local map: which station area to avoid late at night, how a city changes after the last train, when to leave a quarrel alone.

Taiwan, as the film reminds us, also has its shadows. Organised crime, debt, local patronage, gambling, fraud, and grey networks do not disappear simply because daily life is convenient and many streets feel safe. But for most people, these forces are not the whole of life. What makes the film painful is its suggestion that someone with limited resources may have less distance from them, and less protection when the distance closes.

A livable society does not promise that nothing bad will happen. It makes bad things less likely, less lethal, and less isolating. It gives ordinary people more exits.

What a Happiness Ranking Can and Cannot See

This is also why I have become cautious about happiness rankings.

They are useful when read modestly. They can reveal something about income, health, trust, social support, freedom, public services, and the broad sense that people have some say over their lives. They remind us that material wealth alone is not enough, and that a society with reliable institutions can create a quieter form of well-being.

But a national average cannot tell us whether a particular young person can afford a home, whether an older parent has someone to rely on, whether a newcomer can enter the language and friendship networks of a new country, or whether a worker feels that one mistake would ruin everything.

Nor can it measure every kind of longing. A person may live in a clean, efficient city and still feel unseen. Another may live with less material comfort but have deep family ties, familiar streets, and a community that notices when they disappear.

Perhaps the most important question is not, “Which place is happiest?” It is, “What kind of insecurity is this place able to soften—and what kind does it leave to the individual?”

The Small Architecture of a Good Life

A good life is built partly from large systems and partly from small shelters.

The large systems are obvious: fair laws, functioning healthcare, public transport, schools, labour protections, and a real limit on violence. They matter because personal discipline cannot replace them. Telling people to be more resilient is a poor answer when the surrounding world gives them no margin for error.

The small shelters are quieter: a friend who answers the phone, a family member who knows your route home, an apartment with a light on, a public bench where one can sit without being moved along, a routine that leaves enough energy to notice someone else’s distress.

The men in Classmates Minus are not good at speaking directly about tenderness. They tease, posture, avoid the serious sentence. Yet their clumsy companionship matters precisely because life is unstable. Friendship cannot defeat violence or reverse death. It can only ensure that a person was not entirely alone while he was here.

That may sound too small. But perhaps it is the beginning of realism.

We cannot choose every country, city, or system we are born into. We can still learn to see the structures beneath our feelings: where risk is concentrated, what protections are real, which relationships are dependable, and what kinds of freedom are only decorative. We can also refuse the cruel fantasy that every outcome is earned.

The decent person in the film does not die because he deserved a worse life. He dies because the world is sometimes arbitrary, and because ordinary goodness is not armour.

A humane society begins from that recognition. It does not ask people to become invulnerable. It tries, in a thousand visible and invisible ways, to give them more time to live.

[North Star Within] Refusing to Lend My Direction to the World

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A lone traveler beneath a bright north star over dark blue mountains

1. A Tired Evening

After work, I am not always looking for pleasure. Sometimes I simply want to stop carrying things.

That is why games, short videos, food, shopping, and other forms of quick stimulation are so powerful. A game offers clear goals, immediate feedback, and a world where effort seems to have a visible result. After a day of fragmented attention and endless responsibilities, it can feel good to focus again.

The problem often appears after the screen goes dark.

The fatigue is still there. The emotions held back during the day have not disappeared. I may have felt focused, but not rested; entertained, but not restored. The empty space returns.

For a long time, I interpreted this as a planning problem. Perhaps I played for too long. Perhaps I did not study enough, read enough, or do enough to improve my life. Perhaps I needed a stricter evening schedule.

Now I think that conclusion came too quickly.

2. Repairing the Loop Is Not the Same as Changing Direction

There is a familiar loop: fatigue, immersion, emptiness, self-criticism, and a new plan to do better tomorrow.

The loop looks like a problem of time management. We ask how to play less, learn more, and make every evening feel more productive. But if free time becomes another performance review, then the pressure of the day has only extended into the night.

Our needs are often shaped by forces outside us. Work, comparison, social expectations, algorithms, and the desire for quick relief all pull on our attention. We still make choices, of course, but it becomes easy to forget whose life those choices are building.

Work, entertainment, consumption, and even self-improvement can become tasks we perform for someone else’s idea of a good life.

So perhaps the deeper question is not:

How can I make tonight more meaningful?

It is:

Where do I actually want to go, and did today bring me even a little closer?

3. A North Star Is Not Another To-Do List

I am not looking for one grand answer that can explain an entire life. I am also not looking for a slogan to put on the wall and use against myself.

I want something more like a north star.

A north star does not decide every step. It cannot remove fatigue, uncertainty, or desire. It only gives us a point for orientation. When we are lost, distracted, or pushed by other people’s expectations, it helps us ask whether we are still moving in a direction we can honestly call our own.

A real north star has at least three qualities.

First, it does not promise constant happiness. The things that matter most are often slow, repetitive, and sometimes difficult. Learning a language, training the body, or writing something honest may not feel rewarding every day. But they leave more than the brief excitement of stimulation.

Second, it can enter ordinary life. It affects how we use an evening, what we choose to read, how we treat fatigue, and which abilities we decide to build over time.

Third, it does not reject rest or entertainment. A north star is not a judge. It does not turn every game, every lazy evening, or every moment of escape into a moral failure. It simply refuses to let temporary needs become the captain of the whole journey.

4. A Less Popular Road

I am beginning to accept that I may want to walk a less popular road.

Not because being unusual is automatically valuable, and not because I want to define myself against the mainstream. But the default paths of constant busyness, comparison, consumption, and immediate feedback may not lead where I want to go.

The destination does not yet have a complete name. Still, I can see some of its outlines. I want to understand a wider world for myself. I want to have my own language and make my own work. I want to carry real responsibilities without becoming nothing more than a tool for completing tasks. In a time when technology is rapidly reshaping people, I want to keep independent judgment, a sense of beauty, and some inner quiet.

This road can begin with something concrete.

One of my next commitments is to build my English ability seriously. English is not only a test subject or a line on a résumé. It is a door to original sources, technical discussions, literature, and forms of expression that I cannot fully reach yet.

I may not speak smoothly at first. My listening may still be slow. But every conversation, every page, and every sentence I can finally understand expands the world a little. Learning a language is also a practice of agency: I do not only wait for other people to translate, summarize, and interpret the world for me. I gradually learn to enter it myself.

5. Let Action Become Evidence

A north star does not need to be perfectly defined before we begin. It may become visible only through repeated action.

A short English conversation today. A few pages read tomorrow. A paragraph written honestly on another night. A run that helps the body find its rhythm again. One difficult real-world problem handled with care.

None of these actions proves that a life is meaningful. But together, they can become evidence of direction.

Perhaps no one can completely escape being shaped by outside demands. We still need to work. We still get tired. Some evenings, simple pleasures will carry us away. But if we keep one point of orientation that is not entirely given to the world, then every detour does not have to become a defeat.

The goal is not to move in a perfectly straight line.

The goal is that when I look up again, I still know where I want to go.

I want to find that north star slowly. Not to appear different, but to be able to say, one day and without drama: this road may not be crowded, but it leads toward the place I truly wanted to reach.

Part I — WebDAV, MinIO, rsync, or Syncthing for VPS File Sync

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

1. Introduction

1.1 Why I needed sync between a VPS and my local device

I often find myself living in at least two different worlds. One is the place where I read, test, deploy, and solve problems on my VPS. The other is my local space, where I think more slowly, write notes, and try to turn scattered ideas into something meaningful. Knowledge usually appears in small sparks across these different scenes. If I do not catch them in time, they fade very quickly.

In the end, I chose Obsidian as a bridge between these fragments. It gives me one place to collect commands, mistakes, ideas, and small conclusions. But collecting is not enough. If I do not review what I wrote, I forget it surprisingly fast. That is why syncing matters to me. I want these notes to move with me, from server to laptop, from one device to another, so I can return to them whenever I need.

There is also a deeper reason. I have a simple dream: to spend more time linking my knowledge together. Not just storing it, but connecting it, refining it, and making it available anywhere and anytime. A good sync tool is not only about convenience. For me, it is part of building a personal knowledge system that I can truly rely on.

1.2 The real problem: not just “can it sync”, but “which tool fits my workflow”

At first, I used Nextcloud WebDAV to manage my files. For a while, it seemed good enough, especially because I relied on the Obsidian Remote Save plugin to keep my notes connected across devices. It looked like I had already found the bridge I wanted.

But after using it for some time, the real problems started to appear. When I needed to sync a large number of files between two devices, WebDAV often became slow and frustrating. Nextcloud itself also brought extra pressure: frequent updates, ongoing maintenance, and the feeling that I was spending too much time taking care of the tool instead of using it.

That was the moment when I realized the real question was not simply whether a tool could sync files. Many tools can do that. The more important question was whether a tool truly fit my workflow. I did not just want something that worked in theory. I wanted something light, stable, and easy to maintain over time.

So I asked AI for ideas. It suggested several other options, including S3-compatible storage and Google Drive. Those alternatives immediately caught my attention. They felt different from the traditional WebDAV path I had already known, and that curiosity pushed me to start exploring a wider range of solutions.

1.3 My two main directions:

After that, I found myself moving in two different directions.

The first direction was still centered on the file-service model I already knew. Instead of continuing with Nextcloud, I started looking for a lighter and more stable replacement for WebDAV. At the same time, I also began to consider whether I should step away from WebDAV itself and try more direct tools such as SFTP, rsync, or rclone.

The second direction was quite different. Rather than thinking in terms of folders, mounting, and file services, I began looking at object-storage-style solutions. This was a new path for me, and it felt more modern, especially because many sync tools seem to work better with S3-compatible storage.

Based on AI’s recommendations, MinIO quickly stood out. It looked like an interesting bridge between self-hosting and the S3 ecosystem, so I knew I would want to try it soon.

1.4 Temporary conclusion

At this stage, I have not reached a final answer yet, but the direction is becoming clearer. What began as a simple need for syncing notes between my VPS and local device gradually turned into a broader reflection on workflow, maintenance cost, and long-term reliability. I realized that the problem is not just about finding a tool that can move files, but about choosing one that fits the way I actually work.

For now, I have narrowed my exploration to two main paths: traditional file-based solutions such as WebDAV, SFTP, rsync, or rclone, and object-storage-based solutions such as S3-compatible services, especially MinIO. Each path seems to represent a different philosophy of managing data, and I want to understand not only how they work, but also how they feel in daily use.

I do not have the full conclusion yet, but at least the question is now more precise than before. That already feels like progress. Tomorrow, I will continue by testing these options more carefully and comparing which one is truly the best fit for my personal knowledge workflow.

[DevTools] Modular Knowledge Management with Git Sparse-Checkout and Obsidian Git Integration

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

🏗️Background

We plan to establish three different types of databases to handle knowledge environments in different scenarios:

The standard database, named standard-db, is used to record and revise historical experiences and knowledge conclusions.

The creative database, named creative-db, is used for creating standardized NotionNext documents such as blogs and tutorials.

The workspace database, named workspace-db, is used for managing work tasks and knowledge learning.

🧱Main Content

🔄 Building a Seamless Knowledge Workflow: From Obsidian to GitHub to Vercel

Let's first focus on maintaining the standard database — how to elegantly manage historical experiences in Obsidian, perform git pull, and ultimately use GitHub Actions to push updates to Vercel, enabling automatic backup and updates of Hugo. The workflow is illustrated in the Mermaid flowchart below:

By exploring the Obsidian plugin library, we identified a plugin that fits our needs: Obsidian Git. After reviewing its 📖 full documentation, we confirmed that it supports all the essential features required for our workflow:

git pull: Supports both automatic and manual pulling of remote updates.

git push: Allows automatic or manual pushing of local changes to the remote repository.

git commit: Supports automatic or manual commits of changes.

Conflict detection and handling: The plugin does not auto-merge in the event of a conflict. Instead, it notifies the user to resolve conflicts manually.

Auto-sync intervals: You can configure it to automatically pull/push at defined time intervals.

Sync on startup: Automatically performs a git pull when Obsidian is launched.

Command palette integration: All Git operations can be executed via Obsidian’s command palette, eliminating the need to use a terminal.

This plugin fully meets our basic requirements for maintaining the standard-db within Obsidian while seamlessly integrating with GitHub.

🧩 What Are Git Submodules Used For?

Git submodules allow you to nest one Git repository inside another, which is especially useful for:

Referencing external dependencies (such as themes or libraries)

Managing dependency versions independently

Avoiding copy-pasting third-party code into your main repository

In Hugo projects, submodules are commonly used to include themes. For example:

This command automatically updates the .gitmodules file and adds the theme as a submodule under version control.

If you decide not to manage blog/themes/meme as a submodule, you can simply delete the .gitmodules file and remove the submodule itself from your repository.

🧨Case: Why Sparse Checkout Didn’t Work as Expected

🎯Scenario

I ran the following commands:

I expected to fetch only the content/ directory, but I still saw many other files in the root directory:

🪤Root Cause

By default, Git uses cone mode for sparse-checkout. In this mode:

It only supports directory paths

It does not exclude root-level files, even if I didn’t specify them

So even though I only set content/, Git still checked out all the files in the root directory.

✅Correct Approach

To fetch only the content/ directory and ignore everything else, I needed to switch to non-cone mode:

This way, only the content/ directory is checked out.

🧪 Final Fix (Step-by-Step Commands)

To fix the issue and fetch only the desired directory, you can copy and paste the following:

🛠️ Bonus: Fetch Multiple Directories

If you want to include more than one directory (e.g., content/ and docs/), update the sparse-checkout file like this:

This will fetch both content/ and docs/ directories, and nothing else.

🧾 Conclusion

By leveraging Git's sparse-checkout (in non-cone mode), submodules, and Obsidian Git integration, we can build a streamlined and efficient knowledge management workflow. This setup not only reduces unnecessary clutter in local environments but also ensures version-controlled, automated, and scalable updates across platforms like GitHub and Vercel. Whether managing historical knowledge, creating new content, or organizing workspaces, this approach provides a solid foundation for maintaining a clean and productive knowledge ecosystem.

On the Burden of a Generation and the Pursuit of Self-Liberation

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Today, I find myself standing at a crossroads — not just personally, but generationally. The world we inherited is no longer the world our parents thrived in. The economic engines that once propelled entire families into prosperity have slowed, sputtered, and in many cases, reversed. The age of exponential growth, globalization, and policy-driven uplift has passed. What remains is a system burdened by debt, over-leverage, and diminishing returns.

We — the so-called “bulls and horses” of this era — are expected to carry the weight of yesterday’s promises while being denied the means to fulfill our own. We are told to endure, to compete, to strive harder in a game where the rules have changed and the rewards have shrunk. But the truth is clear: we are not broken — the system is.

In such a climate, the traditional pursuit of asset-based wealth has lost its relevance. What matters now is the management of liabilities, the preservation of cash flow, and the cultivation of resilience. Every decision must be grounded in necessity, not vanity. Consumption must shift from the demand side to the supply side — from impulse to intention.

An iPhone 13 is sufficient. A secondhand car, if it meets one’s needs, is a rational choice. A NAS server, if it serves a clear purpose, is a valid investment. But anything beyond necessity must be questioned. We can no longer afford to be consumers of illusions.

This realization extends beyond economics. It is spiritual. Emotional. Existential.

Our generation is not only economically burdened — we are emotionally indebted. To our families, who meant well but often misled. To institutions that prioritized conformity over individuality. To relationships that promised connection but delivered confusion. I have carried these weights — guilt, resentment, disillusionment — but I carry them no longer.

I now see that awakening is not a moment — it is a process. A shedding of illusions. A reclaiming of agency.

The only viable investment left is the self. In language — to connect beyond borders. In technology — to remain relevant. In creativity — to generate value where none existed. In understanding — to navigate the chaos with clarity. These are the only assets that cannot be taxed, stolen, or devalued by policy.

I do not seek escape — I seek sovereignty.

I will not be a passive participant in a system that no longer serves me. Whether through strategic migration, skill acquisition, or intellectual reinvention, I will find a path to autonomy. Not to rebel, but to reclaim. Not to abandon, but to transcend.

I do not resent my origins. I am grateful for life, even if I critique the path it began on. I am thankful for the pain — it sharpened my awareness. I honor the love I once gave — it taught me what I value. But I will no longer be bound by inherited expectations or emotional debts.

The next decade must not be spent in regret or resentment. It must be spent in pursuit — of clarity, of competence, of freedom.

I am no longer asleep. I am no longer waiting.

This is the beginning of my true life — authored by choice, not chance.

By MatrixCore

July 21st, 2025