practise makes ‘perfect’
March 26, 2023
‘prominent’ writers advise to try to write everyday. although there seems to be no consensus on duration and ‘cut-off’, am thinking this should be about 20 minutes to be consistent with the pomodoro time management technique. that said, the question then becomes: do you ‘force’ yourself to stop when you’re in a ‘state of flow’?
it seems counter intuitive, but i’ve heard (if anybody knows the details of the study, kindly share this in the comments), there is some ‘positive correlation’ in producing ‘influential research’ with the amount of work put out there. it seems to be a ‘numbers game’ (i.e. the more you try, the more successful you become) and emphasises Voltaire‘s premise that ‘perfect is the enemy of good’ – it sounds similar to using a muscle in order to strengthen it. it seems ‘comfort with bad writing’ and continuous practise is ‘key in getting better.’
as an aside, does anyone know of any work ‘linking’ Anders Erikson’s work on deliberate practice (the ‘10,000 hour rule’ as popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink) to neuroplasticity?
will the real Adam Smith please stand up
March 13, 2023
i’m listening to The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in its entirety. my interest was piqued after hearing a three-part series of podcasts (see below). i never really knew he was a moral philosopher (and not what we consider in ‘modern terms’ as an economist) despite his first book; The Theory of Moral Sentiments was the one that made him initially ‘famous’, but most of us only associate him with his second work.
it’s curious to me why a Scottish philosopher who lived ‘a while back’ remains ‘popular’ in America. Strangely, both sides of the political aisle quote his book to make a point – this fact intrigued me even more.
As an aside, the book mentions the ‘the butcher, the baker, and the brewer’ – is this the ‘modern expression of the butcher, the baker, and the CANDLESTICK Maker’: if so WHEN and WHY did this change?
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phool's errand 