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A Project of One’s Own

paulgraham.com

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Re: A Project of One’s Own

#81

Post by nickthemagicman »

crispyambulance wrote: post #78

Read also a much better essay by a vastly more skilled writer with quite a different view, Bertrand Russell, "In Praise of Idleness." https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ Russell would say that people of the age to be tech start-up fodder should instead DO NOTHING. It's better for them and for society. > I hope that after reading the following pages the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign…

I think PG's argument is that having your own projects is joyful and is more akin to play than work.

Not everyone wants to do this and being idle in that case is great as well.

I get extremely bored If I'm idle for too long.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#83

Post by okareaman »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #10

> It's a bit sad to think of all the high school kids turning their backs on building treehouses and sitting in class dutifully learning about Darwin or Newton to pass some exam, when the work that made Darwin and Newton famous was actually closer in spirit to building treehouses than studying for exams. The current educational system seems to turn off high school kids (anecdotal evidence being my own) from pursuing…

> it's a bit sad to think of all the high school kids turning their backs on building treehouses and sitting in class dutifully learning about Darwin or Newton to pass some exam, when the work that made Darwin and Newton famous was actually closer in spirit to building treehouses than studying for exams.

Charles Darwin ...University of Edinburgh Medical School (at the time the best medical school in the UK) ...father sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge, to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree ...In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree.

Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#85

Post by crispyambulance »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #81
crispyambulance wrote: post #78

Read also a much better essay by a vastly more skilled writer with quite a different view, Bertrand Russell, "In Praise of Idleness." https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ Russell would say that people of the age to be tech start-up fodder should instead DO NOTHING. It's better for them and for society. > I hope that after reading the following pages the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign…

I think PG's argument is that having your own projects is joyful and is more akin to play than work. Not everyone wants to do this and being idle in that case is great as well. I get extremely bored If I'm idle for too long.

I feel similarly.

I think, however, that PG's idea of "a project" as much as he says it should be "for fun" -- is actually just a segway (wormhole) into a start-up!

> One way to ensure autonomy is not to have a boss at all. There are two ways to do that: to be the boss yourself, and to work on projects outside of work. Though they're at opposite ends of the scale financially, startups and open source projects have a lot in common, including the fact that they're often run by skaters. And indeed, there's a wormhole from one end of the scale to the other: one of the best ways to discover startup ideas is to work on a project just for fun.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#86

Post by prawn »

martindbp wrote: post #33

> If I had to choose between my kids getting good grades and working on ambitious projects of their own, I'd pick the projects. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Unfortunately kids in Sweden have to attend school by law, homeschooling is not allowed. By extension, you're not allowed to go on trips, or take any other time off without permission from the school. As my kid is only 3, I'm not sure how strict…

Can't speak for Sweden, but here in Australia, we went to our son's school and explained that we intended to take him out for three months for an extended holiday. His teacher had no issue with it and based on that, the principal signed off easily enough. For a struggling kid, there might've been push back, but you have to ask to find out.

When I was in high school, my parents took us out of school for 3-4 months to travel Asia including months in China. I've always appreciated them having done this for us. I was studying Chinese at the time, so it was an incredible opportunity on that front alone.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#87

Post by UncleMeat »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #81
crispyambulance wrote: post #78

Read also a much better essay by a vastly more skilled writer with quite a different view, Bertrand Russell, "In Praise of Idleness." https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ Russell would say that people of the age to be tech start-up fodder should instead DO NOTHING. It's better for them and for society. > I hope that after reading the following pages the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign…

I think PG's argument is that having your own projects is joyful and is more akin to play than work. Not everyone wants to do this and being idle in that case is great as well. I get extremely bored If I'm idle for too long.

Yes, but also no. PG is not just saying that this is good for people, but also should be sought by their employers. The former is fine. Go find a thing that brings you joy and pay. The problem is when employers seek people who find joy in their work so they can abuse them by cutting other benefits.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#88

Post by and0 »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #75

This is really nice and particularly resonant with me. I've spent maybe a good five years obsessed with coding and development in all the ways, but I never went to school for it (I have an MA in philosophy), and have never had a real tech/dev job (I have been a random temp for almost two years now, cook and grubhub before that, and many different jobs before that in kitchens and teaching guitar and such). I dream in…

I can say as someone who fell in love with coding that doing it professionally did not extinguish that fire. Still spent 12 or so hours doing game dev this weekend, and a few hours every night this week.

e: To clarify I started learning in 2013ish, became a full-time dev in late 2015. So 6 years later, still finding joy in the day-to-day, but definitely have a special fire for the pipe-dream projects.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#89

Post by indigochill »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #75

This is really nice and particularly resonant with me. I've spent maybe a good five years obsessed with coding and development in all the ways, but I never went to school for it (I have an MA in philosophy), and have never had a real tech/dev job (I have been a random temp for almost two years now, cook and grubhub before that, and many different jobs before that in kitchens and teaching guitar and such). I dream in…

In my particular position as a professional self-taught dev (working as far from SV as possible), I would say it's a bit of a mix for me. I still obsess about code (more my own than work code), but I just don't have the mental bandwidth to code at work and then go full-bore into my own projects as well. I need to do other things with my time off.

I've occasionally toyed with the idea of taking a less mentally draining career to focus my mental energies on my own things, but I also know I don't want to run a startup or think about money in relation to my own projects, so for now I feel like I'm happy with being on this side of the fence (it helps immensely that I happen to like my company and work).

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#90

Post by Tade0 »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #75

This is really nice and particularly resonant with me. I've spent maybe a good five years obsessed with coding and development in all the ways, but I never went to school for it (I have an MA in philosophy), and have never had a real tech/dev job (I have been a random temp for almost two years now, cook and grubhub before that, and many different jobs before that in kitchens and teaching guitar and such). I dream in…

> (I have an MA in philosophy),

Judging by my experience you actually did go to school for it - or at least half of it.

I worked with a few PhDs in this field and it appears that it uniquely prepares one for this line of work.

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