Finding fault. Competitive talking. No one's thinking about you. AI looks backwards. Help just one. Globalism's not a dirty word. Wisdom is listening and understanding.
No one thinks they are joining an angry mob, of course.
– Arthur C. Brooks
1. “Somebody will always be able to find fault.”
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear – Elizabeth Gilbert – (ebook)
Near the end of a chapter on perfectionism, this jumped out at me:
No matter how many hours you spend attempting to render something flawless, somebody will always be able to find fault with it.
As someone who creates online, I can confirm this. Boy, can I confirm this. It’s something I’ve been talking about a little at the day job: both in terms of civility (the frequent lack thereof), and opinions (the frequent strength thereof).
What I find sad, and what is in part Gilbert’s point, is how perfectionism, coupled with a fear of criticism, prevents many from doing the thing they want to do, and creating the things they need to create. The world is poorer for it.
Do this: Do the thing.
#creating #opinions #perfectionism
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2. “Competitive talking rather than cooperative listening.”
We Are Drowning in Words, While Starving for Wisdom – Tom Greene – (Wit & Wisdom)
The full quote:
Most public discourse today—whether in politics, media, or dinner-table debates—consists of competitive talking rather than cooperative listening.
So true. I know that listening, really listening, is one of my weaknesses. And yet it’s in that silence, in shutting up, that whatever it is we might call wisdom begins to appear.
Even though I suspect it’s always been thus, Greene points out at least one possible modern exacerbation:
Because for nearly twenty years, our smartphones have been training us. We used to think interruptions were rude. Today, interruptions are the norm. And, those frequent interruptions have made us impatient and uncomfortable with silence.
Do this: Be still. Be ok with being still.
3. “People are mostly just thinking about themselves.”
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear – Elizabeth Gilbert – (ebook)
This is simultaneously the most heartbreaking and perhaps the most liberating realization of adulthood.
We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.
Once we accept that realization, we can let go of the performance and simply be who we were supposed to be all along: ourselves.
Do this: “Be yourself” sounds really trite, but ultimately it’s the work of a lifetime.
#self-awareness #self-confidence
4. “Technology doesn’t solve human problems.”
What Jobs Are Affected By AI? – Simon Sinek – (YouTube)
Sinek focuses on one of the current key differences between AI and human creativity.
AI is behind, AI is looking backwards, asking where I came from. I don’t care where I came from; I care about where I’m going.
At a very technical level, this is quite true. AI is only as good as its training data, which by definition has already happened and is backward-looking. True creativity — creating something from nothing — remains in the realm of humanity.
I’m expecting the simulation that is AI to continue to improve, dramatically, but whether it can ever convincingly simulate creativity is quite the technological and philosophical conundrum.
Do this: Don’t dismiss AI. Work to understand it.
5. “Just save the person in front of you.”
Perfectly Ordinary: Buddhist Teachings for Everyday Life – Alex Kakuyo – (ebook)
The full quote:
Don’t save the world from suffering. Just save the person in front of you.
There is a lot of suffering right now. Or perhaps there’s a lot more suffering where we can see it. Or there’s a lot more suffering that’s closer to us. Whatever the case, most of us are feeling overwhelmed with all the suffering and chaos, and wondering what, if anything, we can do about it.
Help one person. I’m sure that’s been said here before, but I came across it again in my recent reading. Changing the world feels daunting. Necessary, but daunting. Helping one person feels possible. If you have the mental energy to do more, go for it. The rest of us are deeply grateful. But if all you have in you right now is enough to be there for just one other person, do that. It’s a start, and it helps.
Do this: Be there for someone.
6. “We must look forward and big.”
Us Against Spacetime – Packy McCormick – (Not Boring)
Globalism needn’t be a dirty word. And yet, somehow, it’s become exactly that to many people. The rise of intense tribalism has led to intense us-versus-them thinking across many measures, not just geographical.
… a return to a more tribal, divided world is an admission that we care more about beating each other than we do about winning.
It’s an interesting essay with a different perspective: the “tribe” of 8.215 billion people alive right now as compared to those of the past and future.
When a man in one part of the world can lift himself out of poverty by making something that someone on the other side of the world could never have afforded before, that is a win-win. When a drug developed in China saves an American patient’s life, that is a win-win. When the reverse happens, that is a win-win, too.
I think it’ll take us a while to recover from the rampant tribalism currently running amok. We’re all on the same pale blue dot, after all. I have hope.
Do this: Think win-win.
7. “People only change after they’ve felt understood.”
Wisdom Isn’t What You Think It Is (gift link) – David Brooks – (The New York Times)
The opinion piece is about wisdom, but it’s the takeaway above that got my attention. These days, it seems we want nothing more than to see people change; other people, specifically.
The really good confidants — the people we go to for wisdom — are more like story editors than sages. They take in your story, accept it, but prod you to reconsider it so you can change your relationship to your past and future. They ask you to clarify what it is you really want, or what baggage you left out of your clean tale. They ask you to probe for the deep problem that underlies the convenient surface problem you’ve come to them with.
Note that none of that involves “imparting wisdom”. It’s just listening. On steroids.
Do this: Listen.
Random links
- Our Last 2 Moats – One of the more sensible perspectives of AI for creators of late.
What I’m reading now
- Gators and Garters – Jana Deleon
- Perfectly Ordinary: Buddhist Teachings for Everyday Life – Alex Kakuyo
- Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End Of Suffering – Joseph Nguyen (Audio)
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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2. “Competitive talking rather than cooperative listening.” ✔