Writing is fighting entropy in hopes of conjuring something useful. It’s a tool to process ideas to get even better ideas. Hopefully these better ideas bias you to better actions that bias to being a better person.
Nothing gets done without bias. If you want to give valuable advice, you have to be opinionated. Values are conditioned by our real-life tradeoffs. Values are not static or isolated; they are conditioned on what we actually end up doing. Great advice bias you to make smarter tradeoffs that align with your values.
Nothing gets done without bias.
Be heavily opinionated in the things you care about. Bias my energy and time to the things you care about. Price in the time and space to cultivate taste in what you care about.
Taste is a guide for what is worthwhile. I’m extremely biased in the things I care about. Cultivating taste is being opinionated in what you care about without diminishing what you care about.
Tasteful writing is opinionated writing that’s expressive and authentic. Where you get your dopamine is predictive of your behavior. I want to get my dopamine from writing.
Dopamine is molecule of motivation, not pleasure. It has an outsized impact on our behavior change. It’s the weights and bias in our working model we use to navigate reality.
In kpop, a bias is usually your ‘favourite’ member. Some people have multiple biases, have a bias ‘wrecker’ which is your second favourite or the member that catches your eye the most outside of your bias. Some people don’t choose a bias and bias the whole group.
Great writing tastefully biases your thinking. It’s fun to romanticize writing. You’re starting with an incomplete ideas, and you’re willing them into existence. You’re manifesting destiny.
”Write a life worth living, live a life worth writing.” At least that’s what I like to think. I used to feel guilty being inefficient and ineffective with my time writing. I felt stuck in the same thinking cycles and loops. I was too lost in the sauce to cook.
I don’t feel gulity anymore. I’m glad I bias to writing. It’s terribly inefficient process. There’s so much mechanical friction to writing, but once you’ve revved up your engine and get into the flow of it, it’s one of the best feelings ever.
Effective is doing the right things. Efficiency is doing the thing the optimal way. Being efficient is not always being effective.
Efficient people know what, effective people know both why and what. “Efficient people are well organized and competent. They check things off their to-do list. They complete projects. They get stuff done.” “Effective people do all that … but they check the right things off their to-do list. They complete the right projects. They get the right stuff done.”
Pretend for a moment that we are in a world consisting of cars, roads, forests and people.
In this world:
- Cars are faster than people
- Roads get you from A-B faster than running through the forest.
- Most people like roads.
- Most people are a little bit scared of the forest.
- People try to get to places called destinations.
- Everyone’s destination is different In this world:
- Efficiency is how fast you are going, your speed.
- Effectiveness is how much closer you are getting to the correct destination, your velocity.
Scenario #1 — highly efficient while being highly ineffective. Racing your car in the wrong direction. Scenario #2 — highly efficient and highly effective. Racing your car towards your destination. Scenario #3 — both highly inefficient and highly ineffective. Bushwhacking your way through the forest in the opposite direction of your destination. Scenario #4 — effective while being highly inefficient. Bushwhacking your way towards your destination.
Based on this, effectiveness can be defined as three things:
- The rate at which you improve and learn in unknown environments. Your rate of trailblazing through the forest.
- Your ability to question and change direction. Your ability to navigate and way-find your way through the forest and on the roads.
- Your ability to evaluate your current destination in light of other options.
Writing is fighting entrophy in hopes of conjuring something useful. It helps you be more effective and efficient in your thinking by tastefully bias your thinking.