Paul Graham said, ““If you don’t try to be the best, you won’t even be good. In some ways it’s easier to try to be the best than to try merely to be good.”
Love the advice around setting up a digital commonplace book. The issue for me is that inspiration tends to strike during the most random moments. My phone’s notes app is filled with seemingly-random and unrelated thoughts (many of which were sweatily typed in during a run 😅). I’d be so curious to go back and analyze these ideas to find any common threads (or even to just revisit the ideas I never got around to pursuing). Thanks for the new ideas on archiving and actioning these thoughts!
But I dump my ideas into the Obsidian + Claude combo instead of the notes app and the categorisation is very very helpful when it comes to revisiting ideas.
The moment I started treating each note as an element of a project and started neglecting those that didn't fit in any, that was the moment I finally found leverage in my note-taking system.
I need it so much, because not long ago, i finally started reading. And i can’t really remember stuff. Though i do this little ritual after reading, where I close my eyes for a few seconds, and dump everything on paper of what I remember from the read. Then I use that for when i start actually writing.
This is a necessary and liberating piece. The obsession with remembering everything is not about learning. It is about performance. It is the unconscious desire to sound smart, to have the right answer, to be able to recall the right fact at the right moment. But sounding smart is not the same as being intelligent. And being intelligent is not the same as understanding.
What lingers with me is the distinction between learning as input and learning as output. The goal creates the error signal. The error signal creates the filter. The filter creates relevance. The relevance creates retention. Without the goal, there is no error. Without the error, there is no learning. The brain is not a storage device. It is a navigation system. It remembers what matters for the direction it is heading.
The second brain is a misused tool. The commonplace book was never meant to be an archive. It was meant to be fuel for creation. The ideas are not to be hoarded. They are to be digested into something new. Seneca's metaphor of gathering pollen from many flowers and turning it into honey is the architecture of true learning. Not accumulation. Assimilation.
This pure gold. A senior with teenager inquiry mind with memories that need to walk and find a treasured space to park. And what you shared I am read at it. Thanks
I have been taught that everything we read, see, come across is in our field and we have access to it. The key is to practice drawing upping that awareness, trusting oneself.
I often have experienced having a question in my awareness and the answer does come.
We rarely remember information because we consumed it. We remember it because reality demanded it of us.
That's why projects, difficult conversations and genuine responsibility teach us more than passive study ever can. Reality is an exceptional tutor because it refuses to let us pretend we've understood something when we haven't.
The writing process is complex, however, drinking this type of 'Kool aide' allows us to find our voice quicker - thank you! These processes are things we can slowly begin to recognise if we are open to learning and going down this path of individual creativity.
I read the bit leading up to "The relevance creates retention." in the cadence of "the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't". Which, upon reflection, makes perfect sense, because that video was a narration of a flight control system; cybernetics
Really resonated with the point of being extreme.
Paul Graham said, ““If you don’t try to be the best, you won’t even be good. In some ways it’s easier to try to be the best than to try merely to be good.”
"Good" might just be the milestone you hit at 20% on the way to "Great."
Love the advice around setting up a digital commonplace book. The issue for me is that inspiration tends to strike during the most random moments. My phone’s notes app is filled with seemingly-random and unrelated thoughts (many of which were sweatily typed in during a run 😅). I’d be so curious to go back and analyze these ideas to find any common threads (or even to just revisit the ideas I never got around to pursuing). Thanks for the new ideas on archiving and actioning these thoughts!
I am the exact same way!
But I dump my ideas into the Obsidian + Claude combo instead of the notes app and the categorisation is very very helpful when it comes to revisiting ideas.
The moment I started treating each note as an element of a project and started neglecting those that didn't fit in any, that was the moment I finally found leverage in my note-taking system.
Excellent read btw.
I need it so much, because not long ago, i finally started reading. And i can’t really remember stuff. Though i do this little ritual after reading, where I close my eyes for a few seconds, and dump everything on paper of what I remember from the read. Then I use that for when i start actually writing.
I'm stealing that.
The sex doll for the mental masturbators.
I find that we remember much but store very little in the conscious mind.
We may be inspired by a passing thought from years ago a passing thought from years ago filed away in the subconscious.
If there's nothing new under the sun, that inspiration we feel must come from somewhere; probably long forgotten.
Exposure would be more impactful than retention.
This is a necessary and liberating piece. The obsession with remembering everything is not about learning. It is about performance. It is the unconscious desire to sound smart, to have the right answer, to be able to recall the right fact at the right moment. But sounding smart is not the same as being intelligent. And being intelligent is not the same as understanding.
What lingers with me is the distinction between learning as input and learning as output. The goal creates the error signal. The error signal creates the filter. The filter creates relevance. The relevance creates retention. Without the goal, there is no error. Without the error, there is no learning. The brain is not a storage device. It is a navigation system. It remembers what matters for the direction it is heading.
The second brain is a misused tool. The commonplace book was never meant to be an archive. It was meant to be fuel for creation. The ideas are not to be hoarded. They are to be digested into something new. Seneca's metaphor of gathering pollen from many flowers and turning it into honey is the architecture of true learning. Not accumulation. Assimilation.
“your precious “second brain” (the sex doll for mental masturbators” - you didn’t need to go this hard, Dan 😭
This pure gold. A senior with teenager inquiry mind with memories that need to walk and find a treasured space to park. And what you shared I am read at it. Thanks
I have been taught that everything we read, see, come across is in our field and we have access to it. The key is to practice drawing upping that awareness, trusting oneself.
I often have experienced having a question in my awareness and the answer does come.
This is good stuff. I'd add one thing.
We don't just remember what's interesting. We remember what we're responsible for.
Responsibility creates attention. Attention creates judgement.
We rarely remember information because we consumed it. We remember it because reality demanded it of us.
That's why projects, difficult conversations and genuine responsibility teach us more than passive study ever can. Reality is an exceptional tutor because it refuses to let us pretend we've understood something when we haven't.
The mind likes what it likes, something’s feel authentic and some don’t. This is a refreshing take on the subject of learning.
An absolutely godly read.
The writing process is complex, however, drinking this type of 'Kool aide' allows us to find our voice quicker - thank you! These processes are things we can slowly begin to recognise if we are open to learning and going down this path of individual creativity.
You tell people to pick a topic that people want to read/watch/listen to and then use it to write what you whatever you want to talk about.
But seeing it in action always feels a bit magical. Until you realise, “Oh, wait I can do that too”.
“Find out what you uniquely do best” - great life and career advice
I read the bit leading up to "The relevance creates retention." in the cadence of "the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't". Which, upon reflection, makes perfect sense, because that video was a narration of a flight control system; cybernetics