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The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

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Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#41

Post by soneca »

mmaunder wrote: post #33

"For some reason Bangalore is crawling with people who first want to form a community and then start learning/working/whatever." Seattle is the same. Probably the same everywhere. It's easier to talk and drink coffee than to challenge yourself way outside your comfort zone for hours at a time, day after day.

I don't think the foundation of this phenomenon is laziness or lack of diligence. I believe people are craving to be part of a community. Humans have always had. But these days your family and your neighbors are not that community anymore (edit: not necessarily, not so much at least), so we look elsewhere. The internet allowed us to look everywhere actually. Then you find a community that, from the outside, you feel attracted to. Often these communities are built around a certain topic or skill. Then you want to be part of the community and say to yourself that you will learn that skill.

I agree with the author though that this path rarely works. A better way is to first you dive into something that interest you and then you go find other people with the same interest.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#42

Post by sverhagen »

felipemnoa wrote: post #12

This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…

Within the context of people learning to code, I feel that many people in this field don't "distaste" their work until they're shown the next step up they can make. So, not mentoring to know where to start, but mentoring to discover where to go next?

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#43

Post by flancian »

phaus wrote: post #40
felipemnoa wrote: post #12

This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…

> All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. On the whole, I agree with his sentiment that hard work will get you success, but the idea he magically started out with some kind of innate talent for telling whether or not things are good is the same type of illogical thinking he's talking about being discouraging to beginners.

I agree. It seems that his overall position could be stronger if he just started with the requisite of having some taste. Which everybody has.

It'd still all ring true, and be more general, in the sense that one's taste is linked to who one is (your unique background and life experience). So in general this condition of relative uniqueness, saying nothing of it's subjective quality or goodness, could still be enough to make one's creative efforts worth something, inasmuch they'll probably be relatively unique.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#44

Post by SenHeng »

markelliot wrote: post #25
SenHeng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this interview pop up several times but I've always lacked the context to properly understand it, because I don't know who Ira Glass is and what he has done. I don't deny that it's good advice, but who is this guy and why should I listen to him?

Ira Glass is the creator and host of a long running radio show called This American Life on National Public Radio. The show runs weekly and tells stories of Americana and other things. I suspect part of what makes the show famous is that it coined not just a particular kind of show, but a particular kind of sound, editing and production, that, I’d say set the standard for modern audio programs. Several of the shows p…

The bit about his mentees and the 'NPR sound' helps a lot and does create that important context.

First time I saw his interview, I did some light googling and as far as I could tell, he was some kind of host/writer. I'd gander most non-Americans haven't even heard of NPR and thus cannot really understand the impact it had/has. Much less his mentees and their various offshoots.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

phaus wrote: post #40
felipemnoa wrote: post #12

This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…

> All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. On the whole, I agree with his sentiment that hard work will get you success, but the idea he magically started out with some kind of innate talent for telling whether or not things are good is the same type of illogical thinking he's talking about being discouraging to beginners.

[deleted]

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#46

Post by SenHeng »

yurishimo wrote: post #31
Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that perspective. To add to it, from personal experience: it really helps to be totally, wildly, embarrassingly ignorant of your incompetence at the start. It softens that part where your work disappoints you, because you don't know better. Now, I don't know if this is actually good advice or even actionable, advice, but I've seen it and experienced it many times and it very much enabled me to move past awfuln…

Your guitar story reminded me of my one of my own. My uncle gave me an old crappy guitar for Christmas while they were driving through to visit other relatives. He was a signed musician at the time so he had all sorts of extra instruments laying around that companies would send him just because. Later that next year for my birthday (today actually, but a few years ago!), my family gave me one of those "Learn Guitar"…

Happy birthday!

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#47

Post by momokoko »

Buge wrote: post #39
momokoko wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taste is for curators who masquerade as creators. The actual concept for people who create is that your hand is behind your eye. Edit: To the asshole downvoter. This is actually serious advice that myself and many others have found very important in our lives doing creative work. Censoring it is a total shit thing to do. Especially when you appear to have nothing additional to add.

>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I know the guidelines. But that downvote was incredibly low quality and I chose to make an exception. It's unfortunate that someone needs to censor discussion of someone that actually does creative work for a living and of a comment that was not inflammitory or off topic without anything of value to add on their part.

There is even another comment in this thread that continues to discuss "taste". Which is the absolute 100% worst way to think about creative work. Taste is like the bootcamp for creative work. It will get you shallow quick results that will not extend anywhere past the introductory levels. At which point your work will stagnate.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Buge wrote: post #39
momokoko wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taste is for curators who masquerade as creators. The actual concept for people who create is that your hand is behind your eye. Edit: To the asshole downvoter. This is actually serious advice that myself and many others have found very important in our lives doing creative work. Censoring it is a total shit thing to do. Especially when you appear to have nothing additional to add.

>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[deleted]

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#50

Post by PeterStuer »

It comes down to trust and expectation. Everyone can say they are passionate, interested, want to do the hard work to make the mentor's investment in them eventually worth it. Those are very weak signals. On the other hand, actually having demonstrably put in a very significant amount of effort already is a strong proof you are being serious.
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