Search Ideas

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

There's no security in not pursuing your passion

Do we mean by security something other than food/water/shelter? Or, resisting your passion only buys temporary security? This isn't true; people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

There exist people who's passions exclude all available paying jobs, unless this is not physically possible. Aspiring guitarists in dark ages.

Only that I didn't see it, not that there wasn't any, but I see that this is effectively the same. Edited the comment to be a criticism.

The Fountainhead is on my list. Listened to ‘The Simplest Thing in the World’. One message seems to be that one's creativity will continuously resist attempts to coerce it into doing something it doesn't want. A will of its own. I feel such resistance acutely at this current job, more so but no differently than during previous jobs and assignments, as we all have. But what is the import of the story to the present debate? My creative muse will continue fighting me so long as I'm trying to steer it towards other things? I have no doubt. The questions here are over what is practical, secure and strategic, all largely in the financial sense--or so I think. Where does one draw the line between passion and security? Maybe there is no general-purpose explanation. I will continue reflecting.

So we could say working via discipline to make money tentatively, as part of a problem solving process, is not irrational? I suppose that's what I'm doing now...

My thought was to negate (criticize) the "if you don't" portion of your comment, which was a criticism of mine. Unrefuted, yours sits as a criticism of the original, but it isn't...
- Go on hiatus?
- No runway = bad
- Do have runway
How should criticisms with conditionals in them be handled? Is this comment a criticism?!

Another reason to quit is that you work at night. I believe you told me you don’t personally mind this, but continued interruption of your circadian rhythm is bound to impact your health.

You could play the guitar and have a well-paying job you enjoy as well.

How can the conflict be resolved?

By coming up with a new option that has no pending criticisms. We can’t state it in advance.

What is one to do until they resolve it? Surely it is rational to work to make money... Yet in this case, this requires forcing oneself to do something unpleasant; hence the rational thing to do in this case requires discipline.

Well yeah, acting without a solution is self-coercive. But that’s not a refutation of the idea that problems are soluble.

How can the conflict be resolved?

By coming up with a new option that has no pending criticisms. We can’t state those in advance.

Is the argument that: discipline, grit, drive, tenacity and more concepts in this web are all bad/irrational?

Discipline is irrational because it’s self-coercive by definition. For the others, it depends. Are you being tenacious because you’re forcing yourself to stick to some topic you don’t like? Then it’s irrational. Are you being tenacious because you have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge in that area? Rational.

(How do we draw ligaments between ideas in different threads?! Is this deeper than merely an aesthetic or organizational function? Hmm...)

Using hash links like you did is fine. But feel free to submit a feature request in the ‘Veritula – Meta’ thread if you have any ideas beyond that.

This isn’t a criticism. A criticism must point out some shortcoming. Please read ‘How Does Veritula Work?’

But what is the import of the story to the present debate?

That sounds like a criticism. It implies that you don’t see the import.

This isn’t a criticism.

How far out does the graph of irrational ideas go? Is the argument that: discipline, grit, drive, tenacity and more concepts in this web are all bad/irrational? This is quite a claim. Is "work" bad? Irrational? Work to me means discipline, at least in large part...

I want to understand this. Take the horrible and widespread case of: "I hate my job, and all other jobs that seem available. But I need money to live." How can the conflict be resolved? What is one to do until they resolve it? Surely it is rational to work to make money... Yet in this case, this requires forcing oneself to do something unpleasant; hence the rational thing to do in this case requires discipline.

Apparently I remain unconvinced of this. I see you've defined discipline in #3833, will continue, there. (How do we draw ligaments between ideas in different threads?! Is this deeper than merely an aesthetic or organizational function? Hmm...)

Agreed, and this is doable.

Conceded re: what is practical in the case of this job, or others that are hated. In the sense that the debate here relates to careers vs passions in general, I think the question of what is practical remains...
"No need to make this kind of tradeoff..."? Please explain.
Take another passion, such as playing the guitar. If one dislikes anything that stops them from playing, it's still impractical to only pursue guitar, isn't it? In general, one would run out of savings and be in poverty. It's practical to avoid that.

I don't feel I had/have any criticism of your post (#3746), or of the Rand story, so left it as a comment.

FWIW, if I was hiring, and I was looking at a resume of someone who always ‘played it safe’ and was very concerned about what others think, I wouldn’t hire them. Whereas I would hire someone who takes smart risks and cares about truth over popularity, even if they have a resume ‘gap’.

Discipline means arbitrarily favoring one conflicting idea over another. ‘Arbitrarily’ meaning favoring without resolving the conflict.

You don’t actually know which idea is better, if any, before you resolve the conflict. So siding with one before then is irrational.

Instead of practicing discipline, practice resolving conflicts between ideas and thus finding common preferences with yourself: ideas you wholeheartedly agree with, have no reservations about.

Veritula helps you with that.

skill

Self-discipline isn’t a skill. It’s an anti-skill and irrational.