Setting a Collision Course - June 25, 2008
"Let's start with a test: do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told." Paul Graham, Hackers and PaintersWhich reminds me of something that Cicero said, that at first I felt may have been a logical fallacy but am starting to finally understand.
"Ah, you're trying to refute me by quoting things I've said or written myself. That's confronting me with documents that have already been sealed. You can reserve that for people who only argue according to fixed rules. But I live from one day to the next! If something strikes me as probable, I say it; and that is how, unlike everyone else, I remain a free agent." Cicero, Discussions at Tusculum
One of the most humbling things in the world is to see great thinkers struggling towards an understanding - Godin, story and organizational innovation; Gladwell, the evolution of genius; Greene, strategy and self-control; Lewis, what makes someone the best. You can see if everything they write, the circling of the drain or the stacking of the bricks, how they're methodically closing the gap between what they sense and what they know.
When you stop looking at issues as right or wrong and more like problems to be wrestled with, you conveniently end up with an amalgam with opinions satisfactorily qualified to upset everyone. If, like Cicero, you're engaged in an endlessly race to seal, discard, adopt, seal, discard as many ideas as possible maybe you'll end up right where Graham thinks you should. A place where the only plausible explanation for being there is that you made your own way.
And if innovation comes at the crossroads where ideas intersect, then you should be embarking and subsequently colliding as many different paths as possible. I think that's correct. I'm trying to pick up a book here and crash into a television show I'm watching over there. Or something my Dad told me and some different thing that I've seen Tucker do. An implication and somebody else's actions.
I can only say what's working for me but for the first time, I'm starting to come up with my 'own' ideas.
Posted by ryanholiday at 4:49 PM
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Ryan:
As far as the intersection of ideas, have you read The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson? If not, it's available for free on his website:
Posted by: Scott at June 25, 2008 05:23 PM
The Paul Graham quote is just perfect.
Your kids or even grand kids will love reading this stuff.
Posted by: j at June 26, 2008 11:22 AM
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes...
There's a modern political comparison to be made here, I think.
Posted by: Wiggles at June 26, 2008 11:55 AM
I was just thinking to myself about the way you approach things. Rather than say, feeling out the problem, and acting based on intuition and judgment, it seems like you tactically attack something with reason until it's pounded into submission. It's very Greek and robust. And I was just watching 30 Days a bit ago where people completely change their views on things by living in another person's shoes and how their horizons were completely broadened. I dunno. I'm just pondering the differences in experience and modes of thought and weighing them in my mind.
Posted by: Blank at June 26, 2008 10:58 PM
"if you're not pissing someone off, you're doing something wrong..."
(ps. I got an error message when I attempted to signin via typepad that said you hadn't signed up for the feature and needed to be notified).
cheers, A
Posted by: andrew at June 29, 2008 11:27 PM
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