Hey there,
Q. Do you do your own thinking?
This question bugs me a lot. Because I don’t really do much of my own thinking.
All my opinions are shaped or are direct copies of others. For instance, my thoughts on complexity and simplicity is now formed mostly from the things covered last week (Complex Made Simple; Simple Made Easy).
I don’t have any “original” [0] ideas or even takes on it. Ditto for a lot of other topics we have covered on ToN till date. I also don’t have many well-formed thoughts on a range of important topics like morality, all kinds of bias+discrimination in society and algorithms, religion, governance, and so on. When pressed, I might produce a response or thought but in all likelihood it will be a regurgitation of something I read or consumed somewhere else. Not cool.
Solitude and Leadership
William Deresiewicz | 27 mins
All of the above thoughts came to the fore when I read this amazing essay/talk.
Here are my notes:
Solitude and Leadership seem to be incompatible because well, the latter involves dealing with people. But this isn’t the case. In fact, solitude is one of the most important necessities of true leadership.
But first, what is Leadership?
It is not something tied with aptitude or achievement or excellence. Instead leaders are thinkers.
People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.
True leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions.
But there is a dearth of leadership in today’s world. Two main causes:
Our education system sets goals and targets for students to shoot for and rewards them for reaching them without ever getting the students to actually formulate their own goals or question the goals at a meta-level. It rewards achievers, not thinkers.
A lot of organizations are bureaucracies in some form or another. And they reward people who keep the whole thing moving without much fuss. That may be fine for a while but if ever things go south (and they inevitably do), those people wouldn’t know what to do, how to think.
We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place.
He is talking about America but I think it can be generally applicable.
Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself.
We need to actually think through something for a long while and not leave it to our first thoughts:
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom.
(Aside: Related is Derek Siver’s “I’m a very slow thinker” where he also questions the often-assumed idea that one’s first thought is the most honest. Instead, he says, it’s usually outdated).
To do that—think long and well—we need solitary time where we can concentrate on our own thoughts. We need Solitude.
In essence: for good leadership, we need good thinking; for good thinking, we need Solitude.
But one problem: today’s world is not conducive to thinking. We are usually too distracted to concentrate on one thing for long. The idea of Solitude makes us uneasy.
Thinking for oneself also involves finding one’s own reality which also has its modern hurdles: we are constantly bombarded by other people’s thoughts through our digital diet, of news, social media feeds, newsletters… It’s easy to lose oneself, to not know whether a thought is one’s own or someone else’s. [1]
William touches upon one counter-intuitive form of solitude that might be helpful—friendships.
Friendship can also be a form of solitude. The deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person.
…
Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities.
Of course, Friendship in the above form may be hard to find and maintain in today’s world. William comments:
we have 968 “friends” that we never actually talk to; instead we just bounce one-line messages off them a hundred times a day. This is not friendship, this is distraction.
In the end though, he admits learning to be alone with one’s thoughts is a difficult task. It’s simple. But difficult.
Still, we need to do it sooner rather than later:
The time to start preparing yourself … is now. And the way to do it is by thinking through these issues for yourself—morality, mortality, honor—so you will have the strength to deal with them when they arise. Waiting until you have to confront them in practice would be like waiting for your first firefight to learn how to shoot your weapon. Once the situation is upon you, it’s too late. You have to be prepared in advance. You need to know, already, who you are and what you believe
My Thoughts
This talk resonated with me a lot because it made me think about how I don’t do my own thinking at all. That is dangerous. Not (just) because “you cannot think for yourself” == “you cannot effectively lead others”.
No, I think the biggest danger of failing to think your own thoughts is that you can then fail at leading the most important person you have to lead—yourself!
You are your own CEO.
Thinking for yourself isn’t just about doing your own thinking, it is also about leading yourself. And that is one heck of an important job.
Stop Relying on a Source and Have Faith in Your own Thoughts
Christian Tietze | 5 mins
We consume a lot of information. In the process, we can easily fall into the trap of the Collector’s Fallacy, to try to hoard it all in hopes of retaining it all or that it will be useful some day.
But just reading or collecting someone’s words isn’t actual information gain.
It’s only when we formulate the thought in our own words, under our own interpretation does it assimilate into what we know.
Takeaway: Just reading/consuming a lot without doing your own thinking is a waste.
Think real hard
Ben Kuhn | 2 mins
Richard Feynman is supposed to have solved problems with this technique:
Write down the problem.
Think real hard.
Write down the solution.
Although it’s primarily a joke about how smart Richard was, Ben offers a more nuanced take.
Sometimes, “Think real hard” is really the only viable approach to a solution. The only answer, the only advice. There really might be no trick or techniques (at least not one that can be made explicit).
We have to put in the effort, the work.
// Other Readings
The Friendship that made Google Huge
James Somers | 30 mins
An awesome glimpse into the legendary duo of Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat.
Fascinating to learn of tidbits like how they pair program quite a lot, their (complementary) interactions.
However, more so, I love these profile stories for how they show—seems weird to say—the human side of people.
In life, Jeff is more outgoing, Sanjay more introverted. In code, it’s the reverse. Jeff’s programming is dazzling—he can quickly outline startling ideas—but, because it’s done quickly, in a spirit of discovery, it can leave readers behind. Sanjay’s code is social.
“Hey,” Jeff said. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the screen. Although in conversation he is given to dad jokes and puns, he can become opinionated, brusque, and disapproving when he sits at a computer with Sanjay. Sanjay takes this in stride. When he thinks Jeff is moving too fast, he’ll lift his hands off the keyboard and spread his fingers, as if to say, “Stop.” (In general, Jeff is the accelerator, Sanjay the brake.) This is as close as they get to an argument: in twenty years together, they can’t remember raising their voices.
(Aside: can never get tired of Jeff Dean facts, haha.
“The speed of light in a vacuum used to be about 35 mph. Then Jeff Dean spent a weekend optimizing physics”. xD)
// Videos
To Think Deeply of Simple Things
Hirsh Jain | 11 mins
Inspiring talk about the beauty of Mathematics, how in essence it gets one “to think deeply of simple things”. For instance, “why is a number times 0 equal to 0” seems simple but pursuing the question can lead to deeper insights (don’t look at me for them though, haha).
More generally, it can be a calling card for us to think deeply of simple things in our daily lives too. Something like: “Why do we even have toes?” might lead to deep dives into fields like evolutionary biology.
Who Killed the King
Kostya Kimlat | 7 mins
A fascinating and hilarious made-up true story about a mystery hidden in plain sight, in the standard deck of playing cards. Who knew they (probably also the packs you have!) hid such mysteries!
Aside: Perhaps, everything is intriguing if one looks deep enough.
// Useful
Untools | Tools for Better Thinking
“Collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems.”
Awesome!
Stumbled upon in Bits and Paradoxes - 19 :D
// Stories and Poems
Mrs. Sen’s
Jhumpa Lahiri | 25 mins | Short Story
Such a beautiful story. Engrossing, not through overwhelming drama or action, but a slow simmering melancholy pervading the whole narrative.
The framing is also perfect. Being kind of but not exactly through the 11-year-old Eliot’s perspective, means that “Mrs. Sen” staying “Mrs. Sen” all throughout feels natural. But that also emphasizes to us her loss of identity, in a marriage, in a land far away from the one she has always known.
The Opposites Game
Brendan Constantine | 5 mins | Poem
“What’s the opposite of a gun?”
A captivating, powerful poem.
// Music
Always a source of raw, beautiful energy!
Watching the sun go down? Put on this song :)
// Wholesome
That’s a wrap.
Have a great week ahead!
Thoughtfully,
Bijay
(P.S: If you are getting these in your promotions tab, consider dragging it into the main tab and keeping that as the preference :D ).
// Appendix
[0] “Original” because Everything is a Remix but we do need to create original remixes.
[1] One way to try to circumvent the issue is to prefer more “thought-out” sources like books over blog-posts. You still should do your own thinking about what they say. But you can afford to be a little bit more loose about it because books are usually better than the average Internet article because:
a) The person who wrote it probably put in a lot of thought. It's a result of their solitude, their attempt to think for themselves.
b) Most books are old. They aren't polluted by the conventional wisdom of the present day. And great books say something effectively true forever. [Re: Expiring vs Long Term Knowledge]
That toe thing got he re-watch this video: "Human foot is a design disaster" Haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd-FZptfGUE