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The Need to Read

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Need to Read

#91

Post by inglor_cz »

barnacled wrote: post #88
inglor_cz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote eight books, sold about 35 000 copies (fairly huge number for Czechia with its not-quite-11 million people), and I am also a programmer. The similarities are pretty strong. In both cases, you need to express yourself so that the receiving party may understand you. That said, human readers are a lot more welcoming and friendly consumers of your written work than computers. Positive feedback from computers is b…

Incredible work! I'm writing my own book (obligatory mailing list link [0] and description [1]) and I wondered how you tackled the mental side? It is a bit of a rollercoaster I am finding. That constant fear gnawing in the back of your head 'is this really any good at all?' :) I suppose it is the price of caring. [0]: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSen0gefOrPWi6ZtEQ25... [1]: https://ljs.io/book.html

Prior to writing my first book, I already published quite a lot of articles, so I knew that there was some non-empty audience set out there :)

I started a crowdfunding project for the first book too, so that the printing and typesetting costs get covered. They were covered fully, so I knew that I won't dip into red numbers as a consequence. (This was a major worry of mine.)

I was still pretty nervous about acceptance, but it turned out OK. Whew.

Re: The Need to Read

#92

Post by inglor_cz »

antirez wrote: post #90
inglor_cz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote eight books, sold about 35 000 copies (fairly huge number for Czechia with its not-quite-11 million people), and I am also a programmer. The similarities are pretty strong. In both cases, you need to express yourself so that the receiving party may understand you. That said, human readers are a lot more welcoming and friendly consumers of your written work than computers. Positive feedback from computers is b…

Don't you want to hug your monitor when it compiles? :D

I do, the trouble is, the monitor doesn't hug me back :D

Right now I am sitting in a train to southern Moravia, a long-time reader has invited me to a pork feast. That is not what computers do.

Re: The Need to Read

#93

Post by inglor_cz »

Hendrikto wrote: post #89
inglor_cz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote eight books, sold about 35 000 copies (fairly huge number for Czechia with its not-quite-11 million people), and I am also a programmer. The similarities are pretty strong. In both cases, you need to express yourself so that the receiving party may understand you. That said, human readers are a lot more welcoming and friendly consumers of your written work than computers. Positive feedback from computers is b…

> Positive feedback from computers is basically nonexistent. 412 tests passed, 0 warnings, 0 errors.

I know, I know.

That said, receiving an e-mail like "I spent a week reading all your books, PLEASE WRITE SOME MORE" is much more satisfying.

Re: The Need to Read

#94

Post by thenerdhead »

If you haven’t yet, try doing 3 handwritten morning pages each day. This technique is pretty well known in helping with unblocking creativity by the author Julia Cameron in “The Artist’s Way”.

Journaling is by far the most effective technique I’ve come across in my life so far. It gets the rumination out. Helps you brainstorm. Gets you reflecting on unresolved things in your life. I wish I started sooner.

Re: The Need to Read

#95

Post by antirez »

inglor_cz wrote: post #92
antirez wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you want to hug your monitor when it compiles? :D

I do, the trouble is, the monitor doesn't hug me back :D Right now I am sitting in a train to southern Moravia, a long-time reader has invited me to a pork feast. That is not what computers do.

Enjoy!

Re: The Need to Read

#96

Post by zktrust »

throwboi123 wrote: post #24
zktrust wrote: post #3

have you seen nassim taleb's recent comments about this guy? Taleb while harsh, always is truthful to the truth. I'm too young to know the story behind Hacker News and ycombinator, but reading some of the recent stuff makes me question prevailing sentiments about PG.

Link?

u mean for the tweet? google please. there are many.

Re: The Need to Read

#97

Post by thenerdhead »

zktrust wrote: post #4
sixstringtheory wrote: post #2

I find the quality of my thinking is much higher when writing by hand, but it’s so slow I feel like I get down a particular path and forget so many of the other things I was considering in parallel. I can type much faster than I can write but it feels like a messier thought process. It feels more like jamming a gearbox, while writing by hand feels like a smooth shifting bicycle, with the wind in my hair. Should I try…

you must be much older than me. i never had a chance to handwrite my notes or thoughts. all goes to straigh to typing. I fear though my generation and future generations are missing out substantially.

I rediscovered this at 27. Used to do everything with a keyboard or recorder. It’s very powerful although I do my handwriting on an iPad with a pencil.

Re: The Need to Read

#98

Post by thenerdhead »

jholman wrote: post #7

I think there is clear historical evidence that this thesis is, at a minimum, greatly exaggerated. Socrates never wrote, and I think he had more good ideas than Paul Graham ever will. Muhammad was not even literate, and unless he was inspired by divinity, his ideas were extremely powerful. I mean, I do personally find that writing is a powerful tool for thinking. Maybe that means that Paul Graham and I are normal, an…

It is a good point, but with time comes change. Plato was an excellent scribe of Socrates and Aristotle after him. Just because Socrates thought it was inhuman to write things down, doesn’t mean his successors did and we are all thankful they did such a diligent job in doing so. But then again the argument of writing things down expands the metaphysics of philosophy, especially Socrates perspective given it’s not in his head.

Re: The Need to Read

#99

Post by johnny_reilly »

personjerry wrote: post #26

It's interesting that the article's thesis is about reading, but most of the article is actually about writing . And I think that's an understated point. I myself wrote a blog piece about "Blogging as Structured Thinking" earlier this year. I think that actually plenty of people do reading in various forms of content. The real challenge is getting people to do more writing. If you want to be a thinker, you have to wr…

What Simon said! I've found that blogging hugely helps me clarify my own thinking on a topic, and flush out areas of ignorance.

Another excellent option for making getting going with blogging simple is Docusaurus - makes it very easy to get up and running!

https://docusaurus.io

Re: The Need to Read

#100

Post by zktrust »

inglor_cz wrote: post #87
zktrust wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no i am not under the belief of anything other than mentioning PG in a slightly bad light will get me downvotes or a ban on this platform. > So you are under the belief that the written output of one man born in 1564 was of greater quantity than all “good” writing prior to his time? Are you sure you thought this through? This is not the point i was trying to make.

It is not PG, it is your sneering and arrogant attitude that attracts downvotes. I haven't downvoted you, but if I did, it would be for the tone of your comments alone. I don't care about PG one way or another, but I am sick of the total level of glibness on the Internet, and while I gave up on mainstream social media, I would prefer HN to stay a little bit friendlier and less toxic than Twitter or Reddit.

thank you for not downvoting me. i am less arrogant than you think i am a true effective altruist. hahahahaha
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