
Notes On Doing Massive Amounts of Good Enjoyable Work - lionhearted
http://sebastianmarshall.com/notes-on-doing-massive-amounts-of-good-enjoyable-work
======
skore
I really try to be nice and give an article by Sebastian Marshall a fair
chance when it crops up on HN.

But every single time, I'm disappointed. There is little to no editing, no
digestion process that I can detect that would turn what I find to be
haphazard notes into an actual product of a writer. I see that he really,
really cares about saying something - apparently, though, not so much about
being understood. The content of these articles is at best something that
somebody else somewhere has already said better and more succinct. At worst,
it's meaningless drivel that could just as well be the work of the
postmodernism generator[1].

After a while, the words blend together and I remain astonished how others
find meaning in his writing. Maybe they need to supply it themselves?

Can anybody point me to something even moderately tangible that Sebastian
Marshall has actually done?

And yes, I know he has published a book. A book that seems to be about how
he's a guy who is crazy and does things. But I have yet to see what those
things _actually are_ , besides talking about doing things. The level at which
you apparently can never actually learn what he _does_ is maddening to me.

[1]<http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/>

~~~
lionhearted
Well, thanks for giving me a chance David. Sorry you've been repeatedly
disappointed.

If you'd look on my site for about five minutes, you'd see 2 of the last 10
entries I made reference a nonprofit project I'm doing with along with some
really great people. I've had some reasonable success contracting, and I'm
doing mostly charitable work for the next 2-3 months.

Anyway, I always appreciate feedback. More editing and polish, that's useful.
If you'd like feedback in return, I might recommend spending more time on your
own writing and doing things that are meaningful to you, instead of worrying
about others on the net. Looks like you only wrote one blog post in 2012 --
about a customer in Nigeria -- and that was back in July. Wouldn't you be
better served by being an exemplar of good writing than putting together
criticism in comments on the internet?

~~~
polshaw
Not OK. Maybe, somehow, you intended this to be genuinely friendly advice, but
it comes off as stinking.

You put your blogging out there for criticism when you submit it, criticism
that is appropriate and useful to others in the comment thread of that blog
post. This is not a comment thread about skore's blogging; which does not
appear to be core to his activities. Even if the 'what the hell does this guy
even do' part was not fair (i'm making no judgement on that) it does not
reflect well for you to respond by going to much greater lengths to seek out
and critique a blog from a commenter, whilst simultaneously suggesting _they_
don't critique your work.

~~~
lionhearted
Actually I empathize with the guy. I used to make negative and critical
comments online about lots of stuff I didn't like -- writing or writers,
entertainment, culture, politicians, whatever.

But the thing is, that's a really bad waste of life. Constructive criticism,
learning, analyzing can be useful. Negativity to no constructive end? It
wastes days and weeks and months and years of our lives.

~~~
skore
If that's the impression you get of me from one comment, then I'm afraid it
seems a lot like projection.

I enjoy debating online (debating in general, actually) - in a limited
fashion, mostly for procrastination, at times. As with all things - the dose
makes the poison. That's really all there is to it.

In fact, your comment again reflects the problem that I have with your other
writing - What you say isn't necessarily in itself wrong (apart from the fact
that I don't think it applies to me), but I don't know what you say it _for_.
And I'm not even sure you know.

------
barry-cotter
Is this post inspired or insipid? Neither, really but the message is worth
noting; one can get a lot done by working full on, on one task, for hours,
success feeds on itself and feels good, and the easiest way to get into this
zone is a big opportunity combined with a hard deadline.

