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Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. You can refine something with hard work, but broadening your horizons comes from a desire to see what

Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. You can refine something with hard work, but broadening your horizons comes from a desire to see what can be done. Basically, do you want to create a refined version of what's already been done, or do you want to explore what's possible. You can alternate between them to push in both directions, but the mindset is different.

AStellersSeaCow 10y ago
>Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. This is BS, and the kind of BS that results in lazy entitled adults expecting the world to be their oyster because they have kept their dreamer curiosity intact. Out of the people I've know who are internationally-recognized academics and/or world-class engineers, many are both hard working and creative. Probably the majority of them, in fact. But many more are hard working and not especially creative: they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques - not just refinements - are exposed through the intellectual equivalent of brute force. I don't know any internationally-recognized academics or world-class engineers who are creative but not hard working.
- OneSprings2Mind 10y ago
  Stanislaw Ulam, Louis de Broglie
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques" This could easily be attributed to curiosity. Don't dismiss curiosity as something wishy-washy. As I said before, the mindset between hardworking and curious is different. That's not to say pursuing curiosity takes no effort. I'll use a musician analogy to explain. A hardworking musician works hard to master their skill and knowledge with an instrument in order to maximise their abilities. A curious musician by contrast is guided by much broader principles, including a greater focus on sound rather than their personal skill. A playing mistake that produces an interesting result is not something to be eliminated by refinement, but instead is the opening of a new avenue of inquiry. It helps to be open to interesting mistakes, and this is not something that is easy to do when you're hyper focused on perfecting yourself. In other words, spending energy is necessary to get a fuller understanding of something, but what motivates you does have an impact on the end result. Hard work is driven by ego, playful curiosity less so, but it doesn't mean less energy. Work and play are not the same thing, but what separates them is not the activity per se, but rather the mindset of the individual.
  - balabaster 10y ago
    > Hard work is driven by ego I have a sample size of one that says this is false. For me at least, hard work comes from one of a number of things, none of which are ego. 1. The desire to deliver what I set out to deliver by the deadline I promised. I made a promise and I was raised that a man is only as good as his word. So unless you have a compelling reason why delivery is not an option, you see it through. 2. The desire for the satisfaction of looking at something that will pay future dividends, like learning to grow my own food takes hard work now, but at the end of it, I have a garden full of "free" food. Edit: On reflection, this one may be the most likely candidate for being ego - the ability to stand back and say proudly "I did that"... I will concede, this is probably ego. 3. The desire to master something I haven't yet mastered that either satisfies my fascination or because understanding it will enhance or simplify my life in the future - like small engine repair. I could easily take it to a shop and have them do it, but I'd rather learn how to do it myself because down the road there may be no shop nearby or I may just have to make do and improvise. If I don't work hard and spend the time and effort to understand the fundamentals and principles that make it all work, I wouldn't stand a chance. So hard work isn't always about ego. The hard work may be fueled by curiosity, or it may be fueled by necessity. Certainly curiosity makes the hard work seem more like play than work, but that doesn't make it any less work. It just means that you don't realize how much effort you're putting in and it really just feels like an amusing way of playing or wasting time, but it's still work.
    - elcritch 10y ago
      I notice your edit where you admit point 2 is likely ego. Point 1 is also particularly ego as in the sense of "self-image, as you use it explicitly to define an image of yourself that is distinct from others on a psychological level, as in "I am a man who makes good on promises". So two of your points are pretty ego based. Now not saying that's a bad thing! I have learned the hard way that we all have egos and that guided properly it's actually a benefit, as it drives you to do valuable things both for yourself _and_ others, as is clear in all of your points.
      - balabaster 10y ago
hinkley 10y ago
I think it's two sides of a coin here. When someone asks me how I fixed some obscure bug or crazy performance issue, I will say something like 'I was the last one to give up on it'. You could also say that many other people looked at the same thing and either didn't give a shit, or they weren't willing to continue suffering toward the payoff at some point. Is that tenacity? Curiosity? Some of each?
- balabaster 10y ago
  Usually this is a combination of thousands of hours learning to understand how things work and how they break under certain circumstances. Once you get to a certain point, your ability to make the mental leap from the symptom to the cause can just be a feeling in your gut that seems to lead you uncannily to the right place, but you discount what it took to get you there. Is it tenacity that mean you were the last one to give up on it or is that just stubbornness because "fuck this shit, I'm not going to be beaten by a fucking computer!" <- That's me.
_0ffh 10y ago
While curiosity might be what causes you to work hard, it's still the work itself that produces the results. Although if you're lucky it might not feel very much like work! :)

AStellersSeaCow 10y ago

>Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. This is BS, and the kind of BS that results in lazy entitled adults expecting the world to be their oyster because they have kept their dreamer curiosity intact. Out of the people I've know who are internationally-recognized academics and/or world-class engineers, many are both hard working and creative. Probably the majority of them, in fact. But many more are hard working and not especially creative: they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques - not just refinements - are exposed through the intellectual equivalent of brute force. I don't know any internationally-recognized academics or world-class engineers who are creative but not hard working.

OneSprings2Mind 10y ago
Stanislaw Ulam, Louis de Broglie
ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques" This could easily be attributed to curiosity. Don't dismiss curiosity as something wishy-washy. As I said before, the mindset between hardworking and curious is different. That's not to say pursuing curiosity takes no effort. I'll use a musician analogy to explain. A hardworking musician works hard to master their skill and knowledge with an instrument in order to maximise their abilities. A curious musician by contrast is guided by much broader principles, including a greater focus on sound rather than their personal skill. A playing mistake that produces an interesting result is not something to be eliminated by refinement, but instead is the opening of a new avenue of inquiry. It helps to be open to interesting mistakes, and this is not something that is easy to do when you're hyper focused on perfecting yourself. In other words, spending energy is necessary to get a fuller understanding of something, but what motivates you does have an impact on the end result. Hard work is driven by ego, playful curiosity less so, but it doesn't mean less energy. Work and play are not the same thing, but what separates them is not the activity per se, but rather the mindset of the individual.
- balabaster 10y ago
  > Hard work is driven by ego I have a sample size of one that says this is false. For me at least, hard work comes from one of a number of things, none of which are ego. 1. The desire to deliver what I set out to deliver by the deadline I promised. I made a promise and I was raised that a man is only as good as his word. So unless you have a compelling reason why delivery is not an option, you see it through. 2. The desire for the satisfaction of looking at something that will pay future dividends, like learning to grow my own food takes hard work now, but at the end of it, I have a garden full of "free" food. Edit: On reflection, this one may be the most likely candidate for being ego - the ability to stand back and say proudly "I did that"... I will concede, this is probably ego. 3. The desire to master something I haven't yet mastered that either satisfies my fascination or because understanding it will enhance or simplify my life in the future - like small engine repair. I could easily take it to a shop and have them do it, but I'd rather learn how to do it myself because down the road there may be no shop nearby or I may just have to make do and improvise. If I don't work hard and spend the time and effort to understand the fundamentals and principles that make it all work, I wouldn't stand a chance. So hard work isn't always about ego. The hard work may be fueled by curiosity, or it may be fueled by necessity. Certainly curiosity makes the hard work seem more like play than work, but that doesn't make it any less work. It just means that you don't realize how much effort you're putting in and it really just feels like an amusing way of playing or wasting time, but it's still work.
  - elcritch 10y ago
    I notice your edit where you admit point 2 is likely ego. Point 1 is also particularly ego as in the sense of "self-image, as you use it explicitly to define an image of yourself that is distinct from others on a psychological level, as in "I am a man who makes good on promises". So two of your points are pretty ego based. Now not saying that's a bad thing! I have learned the hard way that we all have egos and that guided properly it's actually a benefit, as it drives you to do valuable things both for yourself _and_ others, as is clear in all of your points.
    - balabaster 10y ago

hinkley 10y ago

I think it's two sides of a coin here. When someone asks me how I fixed some obscure bug or crazy performance issue, I will say something like 'I was the last one to give up on it'. You could also say that many other people looked at the same thing and either didn't give a shit, or they weren't willing to continue suffering toward the payoff at some point. Is that tenacity? Curiosity? Some of each?

balabaster 10y ago
Usually this is a combination of thousands of hours learning to understand how things work and how they break under certain circumstances. Once you get to a certain point, your ability to make the mental leap from the symptom to the cause can just be a feeling in your gut that seems to lead you uncannily to the right place, but you discount what it took to get you there. Is it tenacity that mean you were the last one to give up on it or is that just stubbornness because "fuck this shit, I'm not going to be beaten by a fucking computer!" <- That's me.

_0ffh 10y ago

While curiosity might be what causes you to work hard, it's still the work itself that produces the results. Although if you're lucky it might not feel very much like work! :)