widely regarded as a happy human, conversationalist, drummer, developer, designer, wannabe psychologist, imminent philosopher, and stuntman — more or less.
David Hartsough(David Hartsough)
Karma: 31
Many people I know personally (including myself) have experienced or regularly experience this “imposed” “burden” you’re referring to, except they place it on themselves with “ought” and “should” (instead of “want”, for example). (“I am going to work on that this month.” Vs “I want to work on that this month.” Vs “I should work on that this month.” Vs “I have to work on that this month.” The differences are subtle in language but massive in cognitive weight.)
Sometimes it’s like having someone inside your head with a whip trying to drive behavior with excessive pressure according to some maxim or moral imperative. This is obviously not healthy or long-term effective, but some people genuinely go through this (and some never make it out of it).
That’s awesome! I’m jealous :)
The conclusion is simply: if this applies to you, try to be aware of it and prevent it from getting in your way.
But if none of the things under the section at the top beginning “See if any of this sound familiar” actually seem familiar to you, then this post won’t be relevant or applicable to you.
In fact, please let this post pass your mind, and carry on “moving forward forever” and feeling awesome! 😃
Can’t wait for this book summary! It’s a very rad read for rationalists indeed!
But in all seriousness, I’m excited to see what neat new posts will utilize this, and I’m curious to know how this might impact writers who are trying to think of ways to provide their readers with a great takeaway. (“Something to remember me by” haha)
For me, I’m already thinking about how to write the flashcards for a post in such a way that each key thought might be somewhat independent on its own yet containing enough context to relate it back to the collection of thoughts that map/model the ideas behind a single post/concept. If I were to encounter one flashcard from the post’s deck in a year from now, would I then easily recollect the entire post and its most important thoughts? I like the framework of thinking of each post as having one correlated deck of flashcards, and each key idea within that post correlating to one flashcard. The flashcard deck can represent a graph/network of thoughts that you want to remember “forever”, and hopefully if you encounter any “node” (i.e. a flashcard) from that graph (i.e. the deck / the core concept of the post), then you can reinforce the connections between those ideas and strengthen your memory and understanding of the concept.
(On a tangent, this kinda makes me wonder: “What decks of flashcards would I have if I had taken this approach to learning since my childhood? What if my schools had left me with flashcard decks like this to take with me for the rest of my life? Which bits of information are most essential to hold on to forever?”)
Fascinating! I’ve never come across this type of “vomit draft” advice before haha, and I’m not sure I’ve ever tried it either. (I’ll have to give it a go sometime.)
I think the “do it for 1 minute” (or 5 minutes) technique is pretty effective in most cases. Great tip to point out!
Thanks!