One True Sentences
"I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say."
Nassim Taleb
From 21 years of schooling, I’ve learned how to exploit stupid rules in stupid games. Fortunately, I’ve learned also that there are certain games that are not worth playing, especially the ones where everyone is playing but no one is having fun.
It is easier to do big bad when I think I am doing big good.
To be happy, don’t do anything that makes me unhappy. Then do things that makes me happy.
I used to think quantity of information mattered. I would simply read more and more, and I was better than most at this. Perhaps I’ve grown up—or perhaps I’ve simply read enough—I’ve come to appreciate that a true sentence is worth more than a mediocre book.
From very young, I’ve always wanted to be older rather than stay young. Of course, being older is scary in its own way.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice from The Beach Boys
””” Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long
And wouldn’t it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong? “””
No matter how powerful Claude, GPT, and Gemini are, there are certain pieces of important information that one can only find on XiaoHongShu.
The world is strange.
Consistency is a vice except in Mathematics. In any other field (even Statistics) we can get too bogged down on consistency (of estimators, in this case). Life would be less fun if we stopped speaking in fear of contradicting ourselves. In fact, the world may be silent except for a few obstinate, fanatical, and (occasionally) utterly brilliant voices.
I’ve always found it difficult to store and organize things—knowledges, possessions, rules. I’ve come to believe that an artificial effort at preservation evil. I believe that Religion works so well because we inevitably violate the mandated rules, and that Privacy is important to help people break (too-restrictive) rules. I find spaced reptition abhorrent, detailed note-taking uninspiring. I can’t understand people who are sad when they forget (unimportant) things. When I finally something on my calendar, I celebrate. I try, as best as I can, let life wash over me with experience, perhaps because by nature I want to hold onto too many things—or maybe because all men come to understand that self-consciousness only disturbs good cosmic vibrations.
I think about Borges and “Funes, His Memory”, Nietzsche and the Library of Alexandria, Nassim Taleb and Via Negativa.
Fortunately, we learn the most when we are not being educated.
Productivity is about removing complexity to get closer to my work. Everything else are distractions appeasing to my primate self.