A bit of a meta lesson for me here: Writing a short, pointed, opinionated blog post is blogging. If I care about blogging my thoughts, I need to just do it, not worry about rigor or depth ahead of time
Doing the thing is doing the thing
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Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Planning is doing the planning thing, but it is not doing the battle thing.
But both are doing the winning thing, which is more valuable than just the battle thing. Unless you do it just for fun and don't mind the result.
I don't know anything about planning and battle.
But as a metaphor for other creative pursuits, my experience is that most of the time when people are "planning" or working on other things that they like to believe will help them do the thing... they are really just avoiding doing the thing.
People spend years doing "world-building" and writing character backgrounds and never write the damn book. Aspiring musicians spend thousands collecting instruments and never make a song.
As you say, if it's just for fun, that's all fine. But if the satisfaction you want comes from the result of the thing, you have to do the thing.
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#53> Doing it badly is doing the thing.
No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing.
I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#54Am I crazy or have I read this or a very similar post before?
https://www.anquotes.com/charles-bukowski-quotes/ has some similar themes.
“Writing about writer’s block is better than not writing at all.”
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#55> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.
Well you are pretty bad at comments. Hang up the keyboard bud
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#56> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.
Maybe people did tell him he sucked, but he was having fun
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#57> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.
People sometimes do things because they enjoy doing them, even if they aren’t particularly good at them.
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#58> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.
Yeah the dude should have stopped doing what he liked
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#59On the other hand: sometimes doing the thing is itself a bad idea. One reason I continue to insist on design docs and code review is that I'd rather find this out ahead of time rather than deal with the damage afterwards.
In the GenAI era, "doing the thing badly without planning" has become so easy that some counterweight is needed.
Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing
#60Am I crazy or have I read this or a very similar post before?
I thought the same thing. From a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45939431