I haven't finished this yet, will take more than one sitting to digest, but I'm already 90% sure I'm going to disagree with this one a lot.
I like to validate people's advice by playing it out in hypotheticals, so let's take some random fields people may think they want to be great at, and apply this advice: chess, piano, philosophy, quantum physics, soccer. I think it's self-evident that his algorithm isn't suited for the wide set of cases.
Here's my alternative proposal:
- If you're interested in a field, first ask, what % of people who dedicate their life to that field get any kind of fame/wealth/recognition (or whatever greatness means to you). So if we're talking chess, and you're already 14 and can't play, you have a 0% chance of getting to the top 100. Or if it's being a famous writer good to know what your base odds are.
- Look up people who RECENTLY (within 30 years) succeeded in this field and look for patterns. I know 0 famous philosophers of the last 30 years, but the closest ones would probably be youtube philosophers. So maybe that's the current meta.
- Look at the power-structures that determine success in the field (soccer is a fair game, art is judged by a few powerful tastemakers, news may be judged by clicks, some academia is judged by splash), decide if you are okay with the system and think you can excel in this system. Don't become a professional writer because "You have something to say," become a writer because "You have something other people want to hear."
That's all I got for now, it's his blog post not mine.
> Don't become a professional writer because "You have something to say," become a writer because "You have something other people want to hear."
I think this is terrible advice for doing great work, probably good advice for doing shallow work that gets you paid. Great does not (always) mean wealthy, popular or well liked. Plenty of writers went through life with people telling them they sucked and then eventually people got it. Look at Charles Bukowski for example.
I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure you see what I'm saying.
If you want to maximize your chances of being a great writer, obviously write. But if you want to maximize your chances of being great period, then you need to decide if writing the next great american novel is the course you want to work toward. IMO you are an order of magnitude more likely to become famous/great from youtube than from writing, even if your best skill is novel-writing.
Sure there are people who persevered at writing at made it work, but also probably more people persevered and wasted their lives on writing than most other pursuits.
I like to validate people's advice by playing it out in hypotheticals, so let's take some random fields people may think they want to be great at, and apply this advice: chess, piano, philosophy, quantum physics, soccer. I think it's self-evident that his algorithm isn't suited for the wide set of cases.
Here's my alternative proposal:
- If you're interested in a field, first ask, what % of people who dedicate their life to that field get any kind of fame/wealth/recognition (or whatever greatness means to you). So if we're talking chess, and you're already 14 and can't play, you have a 0% chance of getting to the top 100. Or if it's being a famous writer good to know what your base odds are.
- Look up people who RECENTLY (within 30 years) succeeded in this field and look for patterns. I know 0 famous philosophers of the last 30 years, but the closest ones would probably be youtube philosophers. So maybe that's the current meta.
- Look at the power-structures that determine success in the field (soccer is a fair game, art is judged by a few powerful tastemakers, news may be judged by clicks, some academia is judged by splash), decide if you are okay with the system and think you can excel in this system. Don't become a professional writer because "You have something to say," become a writer because "You have something other people want to hear."
That's all I got for now, it's his blog post not mine.