The Top Idea in Your Mind
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The Top Idea in Your Mind
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Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#2Has PG matured an incredibly amount in the last few years? Honestly, I hated his writing before (which may be part of the point, incite controversy and get me to remember who he was and what he said), but lately I've thought his essays were very well done...
Am I alone in this trend? Did he just win me over because of time?
On this particular topic he's quite right that letting your mind drift, but also controlling the environment of that can lead to good things. I'm going to actively make an effort to try this from now on.
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#3PG is a bona fide philosopher. Just as we had the epicureans and the stoics, and their houses, we now how the house of ycombinator. AFAIK PG doesn't necessarily want it to get cultish, but its not cultish if its based in reason. And based in reason it is. Articles like these are what makes yc more than just a group of people doling out money for good material ideas. Its a forum for thinking about philosophical ideas too. This makes it an idealistic culture, and thats pretty cool.
Background on sensate, ideational, and idealistic cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitirim_Sorokin
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#4A very closely related idea is that most people have a "ground state": an activity that they naturally gravitate toward when nothing else intervenes.
For many people, their ground state is shopping, or talking with friends, or watching tv. Nothing wrong with any of these.
For some people, their ground state is aimless coding, or writing, or drifting around some community (e.g., the community of actors, or musicians, etc). Again, nothing wrong with any of these, and they may be a useful way of learning, or having ideas.
But for a very small number of people their ground state is much more focused. I've known people whose ground state is writing papers about physics or mathematics. And it's simply unbelievable what such people can get done in a year. (Note, mind you, that very few professional physicists or mathematicians fall into this category.)
I haven't founded or worked at a startup. My observation-from-the-outside is that founders often have to take on many different tasks. And I wonder how difficult that must make it for any of them to become a ground state task.
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#5I've been doing this for the last six months, and I didn't even realize it until now.
Thank you.
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#6Sounds almost like Nietzsche on solitude. If you can't control your environment then you become a product of it. It's difficult to force yourself to NOT think about something. The brain is a very reactive piece of equipment.
If I said "Don't think about the hexagon on top of Saturn" how many of you would actually be able to avoid considering it?
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#7PG talks about the problem of having a top idea that he didn't want, something practical like making money or impractical like disputes, stealing his ambient-thought time.
I have the opposite problem: practical things that need some ambient thought to really get right (day-to-day work, money stuff) fall by the wayside, while things that I care about or find more interesting (like programming projects or relationships) take all the ambient time. Anyone else find this happening? Have coping strategies?
I guess I have a long way to go towards controlling my ambient thought. Maybe this is part of why I always had trouble "forcing myself" to study effectively?
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#8I think this is why meditation can be so beneficial. With practice, you can take control of the thoughts going through your mind, eventually becoming quite good at it. Later on, say at work (or in the shower), you can then make the top thing on your to-do list the top idea in your mind.
Usually my top idea is a lot more fun to think about than all the other nonsense (conflicts, minutiae, etc) so that helps too.
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#9Has PG matured an incredibly amount in the last few years? Honestly, I hated his writing before (which may be part of the point, incite controversy and get me to remember who he was and what he said), but lately I've thought his essays were very well done... Am I alone in this trend? Did he just win me over because of time? On this particular topic he's quite right that letting your mind drift, but also controlling t…
It helps to mix good thoughts with good style.
Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind
#10[deleted]