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Becoming the person who does the thing

fredrivett.com

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Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#21

Post by pjmorris »

dbdr wrote: post #15
olau wrote: post #6

Some years ago I bought a little pamphlet with a few mental exercises by Rudolf Steiner, known for the Waldorf school system. One of them was about building a habit. You find a small meaningless thing to do, it must have no purpose at all, and then you do it once every day for as long as it takes to become a habit, probably a month or two. E.g. you could fill a glass with water and throw it out. I did the exercise (I…

What's the benefit of building a useless habit instead of a useful one?

My guess is that you get practice in habit-building that can be applied to useful habits. Sort of like having students do exercises that have solutions in the back of the textbook. It's not the solution that's needed, it's the practice.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#23

Post by wbrd »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

Do you regularly read the writings of farmers and roughnecks? I didn't get into tech until I was 40 but I definitely was going through some of the same personal growth as the writer when I was about 30 and if I had a blog I probably would have written about it.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#24

Post by wwweston »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

Being very online, probably.

Also, it’s writing code for a social product.

Also, Wendell Berry isn’t exactly just a farmer but grew up one and kept as much as he could while becoming a fine writer who talks about life lessons. More people should read him.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#25

Post by the_gipsy »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

Tech people are good at writing, maybe not like an actual writer or journalist, but we definitely write more than farmers. Tech also evolves very fast, so we probably perceive time differently, and think we "have seen a lot" in less time.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#26

Post by Bilal_io »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

I think it has to with the audience, or a platform. A young farmer would probably pretend to know a lot and even talk to impress if you put an audience in front of them.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#27

Post by Yreval »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

They may be far from having learned all their lessons in life--and hopefully are open to the wisdom of those with many more years in similar shoes--but that doesn't mean that can't have learned valuable lessons in ten, fifteen years of adult life. I know I have plenty of wisdom now that I wish I could have passed to a five-years younger version of myself. I don't think writing, sharing, or publicizing that sort of retrospective is necessarily presumptuous. Sometimes young tech personalities are pompous, but there are also plenty of my own peers (and juniors!) that I'm happy to take lessons from.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#28

Post by Gravityloss »

zeroxfe wrote: post #18
Waterluvian wrote: post #10

> Like all childish thinking, it contained some truth. Physical fitness is less important than spiritual, emotional, and mental fitness. One kind of growth I love to see is when someone becomes less confident in their opinions over time. A lot of people “grow up” by just being super confident and stubborn about new ideas.

I think that the wax and wane of confidence is a natural (and healthy) cycle to preserve. You start knowing nothing, and have no confidence, then learn stuff and your confidence builds, then you capitalize on that (learning x confidence) by doing productive things, then you hit barriers that create confusion and break down your confidence, at which point you realize you knew nothing and start learning like a beginner…

This is a good comment explains why discussions so often are so painful.

I quite often get explained to me the things I already know, in long monologues. Even things that I have created, only having people explain them to me years later, but using terms somewhat incorrectly etc.

And then I'm probably also doing that to other people.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#29

Post by the_real_cher »

huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

The quintessential American author Oprah Winfrey didn't write her first book untill she was 42.

Re: Becoming the person who does the thing

#30

Post by huhkerrf »

wbrd wrote: post #23
huhkerrf wrote: post #20

I found the article anodyne enough, so this is not a knock on it, but something I've noticed as I've gotten older that I find a bit amusing and curious. What is it that makes people in tech in their late 20s and 30s write about life lessons like an old sage? I don't notice 32 year old farmers or roughnecks doing this.

Do you regularly read the writings of farmers and roughnecks? I didn't get into tech until I was 40 but I definitely was going through some of the same personal growth as the writer when I was about 30 and if I had a blog I probably would have written about it.

> Do you regularly read the writings of farmers and roughnecks?

If you count Facebook posts from high school friends, yeah. I grew up in a very rural environment.

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