Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Become Wise, Do Less

leveragethoughts.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#61

Post by Jensson »

papito wrote: post #58
Jensson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you used to build wisdom, but now that you are older you don't feel like you need to become wiser so you just take the easy route. There is a reason all education depends on students trying and failing to solve problems, that is how we learn things properly. When you stop doing that you stop learning new things at a deeper level.

I look back, and I realize I wasted a lot of time on brute force, instead of just reading the docs, in many cases. What you are describing in the opposite of wisdom - that's just perseverance.

When you try and fail you learn a lot about what failure looks like, and that helps you identify failure modes in production etc. It is just ignorance to think you could become as effective from just reading docs.

Note, I am not saying that it is unwise to read docs, but you don't become wise by reading docs, you become wise by making mistakes. Wisdom isn't built by following wise advice.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#62

Post by snarf21 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #43

It's like their are two extremes, be a hustler waking up at 3am to do barbell squats and work on your startup or be an idler wandering in the park waiting for some socratic revelations of wisdom. Why can't we just be in the middle. Use your common sense to choose where best to focus your limited time and energy, listen to yourself and not others.

Or maybe the real answer is spaced repetition because that is how we learn. It would be interesting to try a work week that was say 3 10s on MWF and the other days off. Logistically it would suck but I'm curious about what our productivity would be.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#63

Post by BLKNSLVR »

klez wrote: post #36
at_compile_time wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes one to know one

Looks like people flagged this without knowing what it was referring to[0] and thought it was insulting gp instead [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URWLnOJ25uA

It's definitely an underrated response, referring to one of those genius moments that were in abundance on The Simpsons of old.

Capturing irony in all it's glory takes planning.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#64

Post by gbro3n »

Jensson wrote: post #61
papito wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look back, and I realize I wasted a lot of time on brute force, instead of just reading the docs, in many cases. What you are describing in the opposite of wisdom - that's just perseverance.

When you try and fail you learn a lot about what failure looks like, and that helps you identify failure modes in production etc. It is just ignorance to think you could become as effective from just reading docs. Note, I am not saying that it is unwise to read docs, but you don't become wise by reading docs, you become wise by making mistakes. Wisdom isn't built by following wise advice.

I often find reading about 1/3 of docs / books is optimal. After that practical experience becomes more beneficial. Then when you encounter problems, search for specific information to resolve the issues most relevant to your goals.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#65

Post by fouric »

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…

> If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem.

Yeah, lots of people have noticed that when their brain is not busy (taking walks, taking showers (/r/showerthoughts), in a hammock), they frequently come up with creative solutions to their problems - and at least one kind of leisure that GP mentioned (gaming) generally pretty strongly occupies your mind and prevents this exact kind of (uh, "diffuse"?) subconscious thinking.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#68

Post by mark_l_watson »

akudha wrote: post #53
mark_l_watson wrote: post #51

Another take, from Yogananda: put your energy into accomplishing things in the world but when your work day is done turn off your working engine. At 71 (I am still working) I have had an unusual career. Since I was 25, for the most part I stopped working full time, capping my work at 32 hours a week. I was able to do this at some great companies working in great teams. My boss from 40 years ago visited me [1] from ou…

This is awesome. How did you manage to convince your employers, of 4 day work week? I was just thinking about it, I don't think there is any chance that I can convince my own employer of it :(

I read the employee handbook, in its entirety. It said that in order to get all fringe benefits, a salaried employee must work a minimum of 30 hours a week. Another section said that if full time salaried employees worked less than 40 hours a week, then their paycheck would be prorated.

I did give up 20% of my salary and occasionally when there was an emergency and everyone showed up Saturday morning to make a delivery, I would also show up and not bill for those hours. This only happened a few times a year.

If you don’t ask for stuff, you are unlikely to get it.

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#69

Post by keeptrying »

sharkbird2 wrote: post #26
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.

Read to the end of the list. /smh

Re: To Become Wise, Do Less

#70

Post by edmundsauto »

teddyh wrote: post #40
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…

They might be confusing Tao Te Ching with the I Ching.

Yes, this is correct. Point being - different people get inspired every day through things that can be sneered at or worshipped. Some historical artifacts are a mix of both. It’s best to not get upset when something doesn’t speak to you, because it might be helpful to others even if it is a shallow/modern re-hashing of the old wisdom.
Post reply on HN