What I find interesting is these two contrasting undertones:
1) Geniuses who are obsessed with their own interests, not the outcome of pursuing their interest
2) PG obsessed with outcome (great work, being famous, leaving your mark on important topics, etc) and trying to control what you're interested in to affect the outcome.
The recipe for genius work is to be crazy obsessed. But according to the article, to be crazy obsessed with something is not something that you can necessarily control:
> Darwin couldn't turn it off. Neither could Ramanujan. They didn't discover the hidden paths that they did because they seemed promising, but because they couldn't help it.
> But it may be that much of the skew has a simpler explanation: different people are interested in different things.
Yet there's also attempts to reason about how to control your own interests towards meaningful impact within the recognized limitations (that talent and interest both matter, and the implication is that some people just may not be born with talent or interest).
It reads like classical Greek Mythology - trying to fight against fate with the sheer force of will in the struggle to control how one leaves their mark on history.
Real geniuses ironically probably don't care about how to leave their mark on history. But on the other hand, being obsessed with leaving a mark on history may be a certain kind of genius as well.
I think the article could be improved by spending more time doing systems thinking rather than self optimization for the conclusion.
I think the self optimization part of the article (how to maximize your impact on history) does not yield much insight or conversation and hence reads poorly.
However, how to build systems (like educational systems) that increase the output of genius work seems much more promising direction for actionable insights but it is taken very lightly.
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Just because I have the thought.
The cognitive functions side of MBTI blends very well into an article like this. Cognitive functions states that there are things that we are more "innately interested in" than others, but instead of discrete topics, these are more like input senses.
Consider your 5 physical senses as inputs into your brain. Your brain usually notices or cares about some of them much more than others (Tone deaf vs perfect pitch). Some people "care" so much that every time a sense is violated, they will definitely let you know (what's that smell???).
Similarly, cognition can be viewed as inputs into your brain, and cognitive functions are the different senses into your brain. I'll list out a few:
Ti (introverted thinking) - the sense of whether something is factually right
Te (extroverted thinking) - the sense of whether something is systematically consistent
Fi (introverted feeling) - the sense of whether something induces harmony
Fe (extroverted feeling) - the sense of whether something creates harmonious society
etc.
Cognitive functions are split between what you take in as information and how you evaluate the information. The above is how you evaluate information. The following is how you take it in:
Ni (introverted intuition) - you notice ideas as complete building blocks within themselves
Ne (extroverted intuition) - you notice ideas as interconnecting with other ideas
Si (introverted sensing) - you notice the concrete world as complete experiences within themselves
Se (extroverted sensing) - you notice the concrete world as interconnecting with other experiences
Cognitive functions states that you have primary functions that you use to perceive the world, just like someone may notice sounds much more than touch or smell.
It suggests a vocabulary for talking about interest and obsession.