Martynas Jočys: blog Valtininkas.lt and "How to defend your dream" books 1 and "Lightning" 2 the author. Who is he?
Martyns agreed to talk not only about what inspires him to create such engaging tekts, but also about what he thinks makes a good teacher, how to find your calling and be happy.
🚣 Martin, what kind of personality are you?
There are people who see idealistic visions of a better world while drowning in dreams and fantasies. There are those who lean towards formulas and try to calculate how things actually happen...
I don't fit in either. For the first, I'm too specific, like some kind of scientist, for the second, I'm too immersed in the clouds.
There are people who, immersed in a multitude of activities, attend five clubs, volunteer in two organizations and create a podcast in addition to work. Others sit at home during the day and do nothing, because there is no time...
I don't fit in either. For the former I am too slow and my achievements are too small, for the latter I am too fast and they do not understand why I do everything I do.
I'm a very average person, like I'm right in the middle of the spectrum, however, in today's world of extremes, it is becoming even more unusual. Of course, those who do not know me, but only read my blog and heard that I sometimes give lectures, appear on the radio and also create music, they think that I fall in line with those active people. But when you find yourself among those active people, it doesn't seem like that at all.
Probably no one is interested in hearing an average person tell how average they are, so it's okay to mention what makes me special.
I'm actually very private and I don't like to talk about myself. At first I thought that there was some kind of problem and I tried to break through while I was still at school. The problem is that I succeeded and found myself out of my skin.
I think there is no point in breaking myself, so I stick to my closed way and communicate with people quite rarely. The automatic cash register in the store is a great invention.
What a constant transformation of that personality! The outward behavior we see changes over time. Sometimes I think about the things I'm doing now and realize that I wouldn't have even tried to think about it when I was a kid!
But after all, there are only surface ripples, which are shaped in one way or another by experiences and the surrounding world, at the center is the innate nervous system. And mine is inert.
I prepare for a long time, I plan for a long time, I think for a long time before I start something.
I also feel that I have a lower than average sensitivity to the happy hormone dopamine - it takes a lot of effort to make anything really happy, I find many fun things boring.
I am also very sensitive to the environment, constantly noticing potential dangers everywhere. Apparently, in a tribe of cavemen, I would be the first to spot an approaching predator. That's right - around 2019-2020, 80% cryptocurrencies will collapse. 3
🚣 3 words that describe you
Oh! Describe me someone!
I was considered smart at school, I even won the smartest student award. There was such a fun contest where students of all classes had to vote in various categories - the most active, the laziest, and even the sexiest student was chosen. That's it - I became the smartest.
I lost my smart status at work, it turned out that there are smarter people. There was a similar competition in the office and another person became the smartest! But everyone was caught by my goodwill and good mood, I don't remember the name of the nomination I won, but it was related to this.
Readers of the blog consistently highlight the peace they find in the texts. Those three words could be smart, good and calm.
Let it stay that way.
🚣 You recently published a book. Tell us how you came up with the idea to write the book and how long the whole writing process took.
I wanted to write a book for a long time. And I wrote it a long time ago - it was a fantasy space flight story called The Flash...
But I realized that I have not yet fulfilled my dream, because I still imagine the book as a paper object. It's not a book until it's printed. In addition, I wanted that publication to be interesting to people, so that it was not just the satisfaction of my artistic ambitions.
However, I also realized that I didn't have much to write a book about, so I started instead create a blog. Small, related articles are easier to write than a detailed, large-scale piece.
Work on the blog continued until one day I felt - now it's time for the book. I just realized that the philosophy of life, which I described a considerable part of in the blog, has already been formed and matured, it can already be interesting to others and even become a coherent book.
The writing process lasted exactly three months, but it was followed by editing, proofreading and other terrible tortures. Some people are surprised to hear that I wrote it so quickly. The truth is that I gave her 100% my time, I put all other projects and even work aside, and, as I already mentioned, all the thoughts were formed, so all I had to do was sit down and write them down, there was almost no creative suffering.
How to defend your dream? – a real paper book
The main idea of the book is that a person does not have empty dreams - he has such dreams that he can, is capable of realizing.
🚣 What inspires you?
At first I thought I don't know where those thoughts come from, they just do! But after thinking about it, I realized that I know. They come from the experience I have accumulated myself in my slow but rich life.
They come from books I've read, because I like to read about the same things I write myself. And in the end, various thoughts and generalizations come from observing the environment - I mentioned that I am sensitive to it. Also, I have a strong ability to generalize. I keep seeing and generalizing, seeing and generalizing. Many new ideas come from those summaries.
And what inspires me to take action is another matter entirely.
The main reasons why I don't keep my thoughts and ideas to myself are my wishes and dreams. In order to make wishes and dreams stronger than the sense of danger, I use planning. So planning is like an engine. If I had a day without a plan, I probably wouldn't even get out of bed.
🚣 How are your texts born? You see a problem and write about it, or does someone else become your text engine?
Basically, this is often the case. I see a problem, look for a solution and write about it. Sometimes I search for that solution for two days, sometimes for half a year. I rarely raise an issue just for the blog, it's usually my personal issues.
However, some texts are born simply from the desire to share one another's experiences or a random observation. Maybe not so much to share, but to describe, document, and record beautifully and neatly. I myself sometimes like to go back and read my older articles, if I forget an idea or concept, it really helps me to remember.
After all, the original idea of "blogs" was a public online diary where people describe their experiences and feelings, only now they have become a separate media and business tool.
Lately, when most of my personal philosophy has been turned into a book and its essential points have been covered in articles, my writing has changed. Now more and more often I raise the question: "How are my texts useful to the reader?" Maybe that usefulness will be the main engine of writing in the future? Who knows...
🚣 What do you think makes a good teacher?
I once heard a metaphor that a good teacher is like a mirror - he is able to show the student his own strengths and weaknesses without confusing himself at all.
If we look more specifically, a good teacher should be patient, able to explain and know his subject.
It goes without saying that you have to know your subject. But he does not have to be the best specialist in his subject, it is enough to be more advanced than his student.
After all, it is not necessary to go to a math professor to learn arithmetic, but if the student is extremely gifted - the questions will be more difficult for him, and therefore he will need a better teacher.
It goes without saying that a teacher must be able to explain, but many people confuse this with knowledge. Not everyone who knows well can turn that knowledge into words and even comprehensible to others! There is a big difference between a teacher and an otherwise good specialist!
Sometimes it is not the level of a good specialist to get down on the ground and try to explain complex things in simple words.
And patience is necessary for the teacher, because not all students are able to understand quickly, for some, understanding comes slowly. Others don't come at all. If the teacher loses patience, he ceases to be a mirror. A teacher can be strict, sometimes even call out a lazy person, but not because he lacked patience! Because the student needs just such encouragement at that time!
🚣 What is happiness to you?
Inner peace.
Knowing that what you are doing is what is truly most valuable at this moment. It can be work, it can be rest, play, creativity, helping others, selfish activities, whatever, it's just important to feel inner peace at that time.
And this is not a momentary one-time sensation - it is a long-term state. However, I will quote my own book:
"Happiness is not thinking about happiness."
If there is already a question about what that happiness is and where it is hiding, then it is already wrong, the crocodile of doubts is already gnawing at a person from the inside. I try to forget this question about happiness myself, but I keep getting asked it!
🚣 Do you think everyone can be happy? Is it just that some are lucky, others have bad luck...
Well, the feeling of happiness does not depend on success or failure. It is so completely internal, like an absolute hallucination of the brain that has very little connection with logical reality.
Oh, that happiness depends on material things! How would everything be clear - you made money and you're happy! And now we know that it's not like that, and that's why happiness seems to be such an elusive and elusive thing! Unfortunately, everyone can be happy! It will be easier for one, it will be more difficult for another, just because of the innate structure of the nervous system, but everyone can be happy and there is no excuse for bad luck.
Only I sometimes think that maybe not everyone needs to be happy?
We often perceive happiness as what kind of programmers are there or not. A person can feel half happy and maybe that's good? Or two-thirds happy. Or at least a little bit happy!
And if the feeling of happiness only jumps between zero and one hundred (I heard it happens to women), then maybe there is nothing wrong with being happy 16 hours a day and not 8? That quest to be 100% happy 100% time is often the main reason for the unhappiness of the modern first world man, when we are unable to enjoy the moment of happiness, because it seems that happiness is not yet complete, something else is needed!
🚣 Maybe you could advise me how to find my true calling? Are there any methods to help you discover your true self?
Well, here you can spend half a day with one particular person trying to find that calling. Sometimes I give a two-hour seminar on "calling fallacies". Although I am often asked to prepare it for children, surprisingly, there are always quite a few older people who come. But I will try to say one other important thing right now.
First of all, it is not necessary to engage in "calling searches".
The calling will come later, now you just have to do what you feel you have to do. And that's it. It's so simple and at the same time complicated, because we don't know how to feel, we only know how to think. And inner peace and inner clarity are not invented, they can only be felt.
The second is to test yourself.
We do not understand what that vocation is or what is behind one or another activity. Perhaps the only true method of discovering that an activity is a calling is to try that activity. Then it will become clear - you hit it or not. And this is where a secret mechanism starts to work - if you delve into some activity that you might not even like at first, sometimes it just automatically becomes very interesting and life-filling.
So, when starting a new activity, you need to take it seriously! For example, writing was never my calling, but I stuck with it, and probably for a long time. And I'm totally fine with that.
🚣 What is your life credo, which you follow when there are difficult moments?
You can go a long way just by putting your feet in front of you. I like to hike and have walked many kilometers in Lithuania and abroad, so that image of hiking really helps me.
It happens that during the hike, fatigue sets in, all the pains are suddenly felt, you start wanting to sleep, eat, and everything except hiking. And then it becomes clearer than ever that it is not necessary to go with a solemn chest, waving energetically and singing the national anthem.
Sometimes it is possible to crawl along without any enthusiasm, but it keeps getting closer to the end of the journey.
🚣 Do you think peace is natural or cultivated?
A rare thing is only natural or only developed. If the nervous system is inert, such a person will naturally be calm, but even a choleric person who meditates or does yoga for an hour every day can become much calmer. Maybe it won't beat that natural calmness, but inner peace can be cultivated.
🚣 How much time do you spend reading per day, per week?
I don't have regular reading time. When I start reading a book, I usually read it for an hour a day, but if there is time, I can read even longer.
When I read one book, I may not read anything at all for a while, and sometimes I immediately grab another one. So I either read 7 hours a week or I don't read at all.
As a child, there were weekends when I did nothing but read books.
🚣 What's your boat, Boatswain?
Imaginable.
Like the whole Valtinikka. After all, it's a metaphor that isn't even a specific character. Sometimes the illustrations of the articles show a man who can be considered a boatman, he even sometimes sits in a boat, but every time he is different, and it's not because I can't draw, I don't even try to preserve his features.
The boatman is what you imagine him to be. So is his boat. I try not to get in the way of imagining everything the way you want.
🚣 What would you wish for people who are afraid to start their own business or even start a business?
I wish for inner peace.
If it's really very scary, then maybe you don't need your activity or your business. Maybe it's enough to just live like everyone else? Maybe it's just whims inspired by fashion?
But if not, then you know what to do - start with small steps, aim for tiny victories and now you have no idea where those steps will take you. And let those activities and those businesses bring inner peace, inner knowledge that what you are doing is exactly what you need to do!
Because if it doesn't bring peace - what is all this for?
– Kristina Lazickienė 4
Which can be purchased at "Pegasas", "Knygos.lt" bookstores and listen to the audio recording from "Audioteka.lt".↩
This interview was recorded in early 2018.↩
I help companies in the field of communication - I write articles, success stories and share good practices of companies. Connect on Facebook.↩
Hello, Martynas, I am a woman and I really don't demand happiness 100%. Roman Catholics also wish for peace, already in 2000. This is a really good wish, it contains various percentages of the most important and necessary things for a person. Therefore, it is easy to take it personally. You are the one who is not in a hurry to take a nap and fit in? I think you're also the one who doesn't express himself to the depths when writing and speaking. Are you protecting yourself? Will you think too much? You know, if that's the case by accident, write something from the depths and it will be great. It's one thing, even if it's a small thing, write it. It is known when there is a desire.
Interesting article