The second half of this post was rather disappointing. You certainly changed my mind on the seemingly orderly progression of learning from simple to harder with your example about chess. This reminds me of an explanation Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson made about intentionally putting himself into a class of motorracing above his (then) abilities[1].
However there was little detail or actionable advice about how to develop advantages. Such as where to identify situations that are good for learning, least of all from perceived losses or weaknesses. For example:
...where we genuinely have all the necessary resources (including internal ones). At the very least, it’s useful to develop the skill of finishing tasks quickly and decisively when nothing is actually preventing us from doing so.
I would be hard-pressed to list any situations where I do have the necessary resources, internal or external, to finish the task but just not the inclination to do so promptly. Clean my bedroom maybe? Certainly if I gave you a list of things found on my bughunt, none of the high-value bugs would fit this criteria.
I also find the “Maximizing the Effective Use of Resources” section feels very much like “How to draw an owl: draw a circle, now draw the rest of the owl”. I am aware that often the first idea we have isn’t the best.
Except for me… it often is the best. I know because I have a tendency to commit quota filling. What I mean is, the first idea isn’t great, but it’s the best I have. All the subsequent ideas, even when I use such creativity techniques like “saying no- nos” or removing all internal censors and not allowing myself to feel any embarrassment or shame for posing alternatives—none of them are demonstrably better than the first. In fact they are devolve into an assemblages of words, like a word salad, that seem to exist only for the purpose of ticking the box of “didn’t come up with just one idea and use that, thought of other ideas.”
Similarly role-playing often doesn’t work for me because if I ask myself something like
“What resources and strategies would Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres / Professor Quirrell use in this situation?” If the answer is obvious, why not apply it?
There is never an obvious answer which is applicable to me. For example, I might well ask myself when on a music video set “How would Stanley Kubrick shoot this?”—and then remember that while he had 6 days at his disposable to a single lateral dolly track with an 18mm lens, and do 50 takes if he wanted. I have 6 hours to shoot the rest of the entire video, only portrait length lenses (55mm and 77mm) and don’t have enough track to lay run a long-enough track to shoot it like Kubrick.
I suspect though that this needs to go further upstream—okay, how would Stanley Kubrick get resources to have the luxury of that shot? How would he get the backing of a major studio? Or perhaps more appropriately how would a contemporary music video director like Dave Myers or Hannah Lux Davis get their commissions?
But if I knew that, I’d be doing it. I don’t know how they do it. That would involve drawing the rest of the owl.
With this in mind, how can I like Heinemeier Hansson or your hypothetical chess student push myself into higher classes and learn strategies to win?
And if his 2013 LeMans results are anything to go by: it worked, his car came 8th overall, and 1st in his class. Overall he beat many ex-Formula One drivers. Including race winner Giancarlo Fisichella (21st), podium placer and future WEC champion Kamui Kobayashi (20th), Karun Chandok and Brendan Hartley (12th) and even Indy 500 winner Alessandro Rossi (23rd)
The second half of this post was rather disappointing. You certainly changed my mind on the seemingly orderly progression of learning from simple to harder with your example about chess. This reminds me of an explanation Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson made about intentionally putting himself into a class of motorracing above his (then) abilities[1].
However there was little detail or actionable advice about how to develop advantages. Such as where to identify situations that are good for learning, least of all from perceived losses or weaknesses. For example:
I would be hard-pressed to list any situations where I do have the necessary resources, internal or external, to finish the task but just not the inclination to do so promptly. Clean my bedroom maybe? Certainly if I gave you a list of things found on my bughunt, none of the high-value bugs would fit this criteria.
I also find the “Maximizing the Effective Use of Resources” section feels very much like “How to draw an owl: draw a circle, now draw the rest of the owl”. I am aware that often the first idea we have isn’t the best.
Except for me… it often is the best. I know because I have a tendency to commit quota filling. What I mean is, the first idea isn’t great, but it’s the best I have. All the subsequent ideas, even when I use such creativity techniques like “saying no- nos” or removing all internal censors and not allowing myself to feel any embarrassment or shame for posing alternatives—none of them are demonstrably better than the first. In fact they are devolve into an assemblages of words, like a word salad, that seem to exist only for the purpose of ticking the box of “didn’t come up with just one idea and use that, thought of other ideas.”
Similarly role-playing often doesn’t work for me because if I ask myself something like
There is never an obvious answer which is applicable to me. For example, I might well ask myself when on a music video set “How would Stanley Kubrick shoot this?”—and then remember that while he had 6 days at his disposable to a single lateral dolly track with an 18mm lens, and do 50 takes if he wanted. I have 6 hours to shoot the rest of the entire video, only portrait length lenses (55mm and 77mm) and don’t have enough track to lay run a long-enough track to shoot it like Kubrick.
I suspect though that this needs to go further upstream—okay, how would Stanley Kubrick get resources to have the luxury of that shot? How would he get the backing of a major studio? Or perhaps more appropriately how would a contemporary music video director like Dave Myers or Hannah Lux Davis get their commissions?
But if I knew that, I’d be doing it. I don’t know how they do it. That would involve drawing the rest of the owl.
With this in mind, how can I like Heinemeier Hansson or your hypothetical chess student push myself into higher classes and learn strategies to win?
And if his 2013 LeMans results are anything to go by: it worked, his car came 8th overall, and 1st in his class. Overall he beat many ex-Formula One drivers. Including race winner Giancarlo Fisichella (21st), podium placer and future WEC champion Kamui Kobayashi (20th), Karun Chandok and Brendan Hartley (12th) and even Indy 500 winner Alessandro Rossi (23rd)