Reading the quote and your explanation, I thought of this:
Through my mind flashed the passage:
“Do nothing because it is righteous, or praiseworthy, or noble, to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do, and which you cannot do in any other way.”
Doing what it seemed good to do, had only led me astray.
So I called a full stop.
And I decided that, from then on, I would follow the strategy that could have saved me if I had followed it years ago: Hold my FAI designs to the higher standard of not doing that which seemed like a good idea, but only that which I understood on a sufficiently deep level to see that I could not do it in any other way.
“Do nothing because it is righteous, or praiseworthy, or noble, to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do, and which you cannot do in any other way.”
If I took that advice literally, I wouldn’t do much of anything at all.
Reading the quote and your explanation, I thought of this:
-- My Bayesian Enlightenment
If I took that advice literally, I wouldn’t do much of anything at all.
I’m resisting googling this… Ursula K. Le Guin, right? Though it sounds like something out of the Dhammapada.
Yes, the Farthest Shore. here or here