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To Become Wise, Do Less

leveragethoughts.substack.com

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Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#21

Post by mayankgoel28 »

sifar wrote: post #18
edmundsauto wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so much of it is rehashed ancient philosophy, such as "moderation in all things". So much of is basically the Tao Te Ching, or astrology. That is to say, it's not true! but over millennia, humans have found it to be useful. Try not to get annoyed by writing that isn't meant for you (assuming you don't get any value out of it, it's a tautology that you are not the intended audience.)

>> So much of is basically the Tao Te Ching, or astrology. I am having difficulty parsing your comment. You are equating Tao Te Ching and astrology in the same bucket ? One is a philosophy, a way of looking at life - the other I don't know what to call it. And if you say that both are ways of looking at the world then we can apply that yardstick to everything and it doesn't get us anywhere. >> That is to say, it's no…

Something like "Let go of all attachments". Sure, it's great advice, but being attached to some things is life, even though they can potentially have negative effects (such as attachment to a SO, family, job, body-part).

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#22

Post by Thursday24 »

To become wise, get beneficial results without compromising quality of life to a great extent. Much better, do this not only for yourselves, but those around you as well.

Prime example worth studying: Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#23

Post by sifar »

mayankgoel28 wrote: post #21
sifar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> So much of is basically the Tao Te Ching, or astrology. I am having difficulty parsing your comment. You are equating Tao Te Ching and astrology in the same bucket ? One is a philosophy, a way of looking at life - the other I don't know what to call it. And if you say that both are ways of looking at the world then we can apply that yardstick to everything and it doesn't get us anywhere. >> That is to say, it's no…

Something like "Let go of all attachments". Sure, it's great advice, but being attached to some things is life, even though they can potentially have negative effects (such as attachment to a SO, family, job, body-part).

As with many ancient sayings, they are pretty information dense, have multiple interpretations and need to unrolled in context specific cases and not be taken literally.

>> Let go of all attachments. You find this in Hindu, Buddhist and even some stoic philosophies. It doesn't mean you literally don't feel for any thing/objects in life, leave every thing and become an ascetic.

In fact it is the opposite - immersed in your life, you recognize the attachment you have towards the person/object, feel the joy/sadness(and everything in between) that you derive from it, yet don't be consumed by it, don't make it the center of your life. Don't get attached to being reciprocated or the results as these are out of your control. Learn to let it go if it is not part of your life anymore.

Life finds a way, as Dr. Malcolm would say.

At least that is how I see it.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#24

Post by rvense »

edmundsauto wrote: post #6
IceDane wrote: post #2

I gotta say, articles(to use that term loosely) like this are really starting to grind my gears. There are so many of them. Every person and their dog is trying to become some sort of popular culture icon by sharing with us their incredibly profound inner dialogue. They all have advice for how to live our lives, and none of them can agree. If you take the sum of their advice, you have to do everything at once. Gotta…

And so much of it is rehashed ancient philosophy, such as "moderation in all things". So much of is basically the Tao Te Ching, or astrology. That is to say, it's not true! but over millennia, humans have found it to be useful. Try not to get annoyed by writing that isn't meant for you (assuming you don't get any value out of it, it's a tautology that you are not the intended audience.)

> And so much of it is rehashed ancient philosophy

How could it be otherwise? There is nothing new under the sun...

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#26

Post by sharkbird2 »

keeptrying wrote: post #20

Because Elon, Gates, Carmack, Eintstein , Feynman, Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg, Buckminister, Darwin did less. Right.

To become wise, not to become rich or famous. Elon Musk is obviously an extremely intelligent, knowledgeable and capable man, but I don't think he's necessarily very wise.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#28

Post by quickthrower2 »

lanstin wrote: post #14
drannex wrote: post #10

To become wise, do everything, fuck up on most of it, and know what works and doesn't by direct experience. I am a minimalist (Essentialist) by choice, but a maximalist regarding knowledge and experience. Try and do everything you can, that way you know what does and doesn't work. Done. Anything else is overly reductive. You can't know how to do anything if you do or experience close to nothing. Leisure is good, I am…

If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem. I don’t know about other people, but I often have the experience of banging away at some problem for a few hours, then going away and not thinking about it for a while then a simple resolution pops into my mind without much effort. Continuing to push hard when you aren’t getting any where on an intellectual puzzle isn’t alwa…

When programming, and stuck, down time rarely gives me a technical solution but very often a “why the hell ya even working on that!” kind of solution. Which is often better!

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#29

Post by dmje »

braymundo wrote: post #25
keeptrying wrote: post #20

Because Elon, Gates, Carmack, Eintstein , Feynman, Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg, Buckminister, Darwin did less. Right.

They are certainly incredibly productive and I admire all of them for different reasons, but are they wise?

Or (in my humble opinion, a more important question), happy…?

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#30

Post by quickthrower2 »

keeptrying wrote: post #20

Because Elon, Gates, Carmack, Eintstein , Feynman, Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg, Buckminister, Darwin did less. Right.

They didn’t do the maximum, because they didn’t die from working. So there must be some restraint. Even if they look supersonic from our perspective.
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