[HN Gopher] To Become Wise, Do Less
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       To Become Wise, Do Less
        
       Author : maverickJ
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2022-08-07 11:29 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (leveragethoughts.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (leveragethoughts.substack.com)
        
       | IceDane wrote:
       | I gotta say, articles(to use that term loosely) like this are
       | really starting to grind my gears.
       | 
       | There are so many of them. Every person and their dog is trying
       | to become some sort of popular culture icon by sharing with us
       | their incredibly profound inner dialogue. They all have advice
       | for how to live our lives, and none of them can agree. If you
       | take the sum of their advice, you have to do everything at once.
       | 
       | Gotta grind for that success. But don't grind too much. Also,
       | remember to meditate. Disconnect from the internet. But don't
       | become too disconnected, because you have to stay up to date on
       | current events, because otherwise you can't keep up with the
       | twittersphere. Which you should avoid, because it's toxic, by the
       | way. But not too much, because important people say important
       | things there!
       | 
       | This article is particularly bad. It's only a few paragraphs, and
       | it still manages to be so self-contradictory that if you actually
       | read it through, you're literally no wiser in the end, because
       | the advice boils down to "Sometimes you need to relax, but you
       | can't relax all the time." Gee, thanks. Pretty ironic,
       | considering the subject of this article.
        
         | edmundsauto wrote:
         | And so much of it is rehashed ancient philosophy, such as
         | "moderation in all things". So much of is basically the Tao Te
         | Ching, or astrology.
         | 
         | That is to say, it's not true! but over millennia, humans have
         | found it to be useful. Try not to get annoyed by writing that
         | isn't meant for you (assuming you don't get any value out of
         | it, it's a tautology that you are not the intended audience.)
        
         | mms__ wrote:
         | > They all have advice for how to live our lives, and none of
         | them can agree. If you take the sum of their advice, you have
         | to do everything at once
         | 
         | Well yeah, different people have different views of how to
         | accomplish stuff. You should have to reason a bit about what
         | you read to figure out your own approach
        
           | nudgeee wrote:
           | Agree, after years and years of being inundated with self-
           | help messages, platitudes, and coming-of-age teachings, I
           | find most of it comes from a good place -- however the
           | messages are so context specific that it probably doesn't
           | apply to you in your current juncture in life right now.
           | 
           | I find what is crucial when it comes to taking advice, is
           | figuring out when advice makes sense to you -- and try to
           | synthesize it as food for thought within your world view (or
           | not).
        
         | lysergia wrote:
         | I think the gist of the article is: Sometimes (not always) the
         | winning move is not to play. I have experienced this phenomenon
         | before where my best ideas are had in the shower, or a software
         | bug is resolved after going for a walk in nature. Another way
         | of putting this is: avoid the target to hit it.
        
         | tapvt wrote:
         | I mostly agree with you, but I did find some value in the
         | quotation (paraphrased, because I've closed the article) "Focus
         | on doing the right things rather than doing things right."
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | lajisam wrote:
         | Agree, far too many of them here at HN.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-08-07 23:02 UTC)