15 ms·

Do the weirdest thing that feels right

261 points by vitabenes 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
SeanAnderson 3y ago
Well, now I feel a little better about having quit my job to work on creating "digital ant farm meets mental health app", hah. That said, I have mixed feelings about the article. On the one hand, yes, there are very few, if any, objectively correct answers on how to live life and so pursuing your own, unique truth is empowering. On the other, humans are notoriously poor at accurately weighting long-term vs short-term benefits. Plenty of things feel right in the moment, YOLO and all that, but dwindle as more information becomes available and doors close. Maybe I'm just projecting my own insecurities onto what I see others doing, though? As an example, a friend of mine was recently laid off. We both live in SF and they work in Customer Satisfaction for tech companies. They had recently switched jobs and, when they were laid off, they received four months of severance after having only worked for their employer for two months. They felt like they had just received a gift, didn't care about the macro-economic environment, and decided it was time to travel to Costa Rica and participate in an Ayahuasca retreat. They were so moved by their experiences that they skipped their original flight home and extended their stay in paradise a week. As they shared their story with me and my friends, I felt uneasy for them and their situation. They seemed intentionally oblivious to the changing labor landscape and I became worried for their financial well-being, but, to them, the decisions all felt right, the layoff was a blessing, and jobs always work out - right? Who knows! Everyone has to live their truth and it's entirely possible their view plays out well and I'm just a worrywart, but, from my perspective, they were overvaluing the pursuit of doing weird things that feel right. Similarly, I'm sure plenty of my friends find my actions to be reckless. Quitting a job without another lined up is something society speaks openly against. It will always be tough to make objective counter-arguments against living one's truth since luck plays a non-trivial role in all of our lives.
- jonahrd 3y ago
  From what you wrote, it sounds like they are already back, still in their severance window, and took maybe a 2-3 week trip? This sounds like a very reasonable thing to do when you receive a 4 month severance package. There's still time to look for work. I assume your friend who works in tech also has some amount of savings. Life isn't a single track of work that you mustn't ever get off or you will utterly fail. There's room for some amount of leeway in moments like these.
  - SeanAnderson 3y ago
    Yup, you are correct on all accounts and I do agree. It's just me projecting my insecurities onto them. I had a parent die uninsured when I was 21 and my other parent fell into a deep depression and became financially dependent on me. It's only recently that I was able to get them onto Social Security. My worldview has been one of "If I stop working my loved ones will struggle." in a way I didn't exactly sign-up for as I would a planned child or marriage. So, I sort of implicitly assume everyone needs to be preparing for the worst financial outcomes possible. Quitting my job to pursue a creative project is basically a direct response to having come into some money and having reduced my dependents. It's a nice place to be, but is also quite a foreign mindset to try and embody. Hopefully it feels more natural in time. :)
    - djsavvy 3y ago
      Best of luck with your creative journey! What are you working on?
      - SeanAnderson 3y ago
        Thank you, I appreciate it. The elevator pitch is: Symbiant is a real-time, sci-fi ant colony simulation for modern browsers. It draws inspiration from RimWorld, SimAnt, Progress Quest, and Tamagotchi. You awaken to find your consciousness trapped inside a satellite's computer, sharing space with a damaged AI bent on terraforming an alien world that you both now orbit. Withered from eons of isolation, a chance encounter with an ant colony provides you with hope, companionship, a distraction, and, potentially, a way to help the AI complete their directive. Symbiant is a digital aquarium. Slow, calm, and a 24/7 source of simple entertainment. A respite primarily meant for observation and reflection, you briefly command the satellite just once per day and must use this time to make prescient decisions which ensure your ants thrive until your next check-in. The rest of your day is spent simply observing the side-effects of your actions and taking notes for tomorrow. Symbiant is tactful mental health software. Its goal is to help you be more consistent in your personal growth and more aware of your mental health. Over the course of real-world months, you help the protagonist grow their pet ants, themselves, and yourself. A quick routine involving breathwork, meditation, and self-reflective journaling is gently woven into your daily self-care habits all while the software masquerades as a colony sim.
ftxbro 3y ago
I wish substack will just hurry up and make its medium.com or quora turn so everyone will agree to ignore it and it doesn't blogspam up every social media. "Why I don't actually like greenfield projects." "What I learned when I stopped writing clickbait." "When it's actually a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket." "When is it the time to make a mountain out of a molehill?" "What I learned on my journey to stop turning the other cheek."
- slothtrop 3y ago
  Substack has actually good writers who post content regularly. Lots of people from the blogsphere migrated there.
  - bilsbie 3y ago
    If I start blogging should I use it or just post on long form twitter now?
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      If you have to ask if you should use Twitter post-acquisition when any audience you gather may not be there in x time as Musk makes questionable decision after questionable decision, the answer is "no". I feel like a hostage to the platform in many ways as that's where my biggest social audience is—not that I particularly use it anyway these days.
      - bilsbie 3y ago
        I like the new subscriber features and longer videos. Plus a long text limit.
      - lelanthran 3y ago
        So, you recommend that GP ignore his (in your words) "biggest social audience"? Do you not see the contradiction in what you wrote?
tikkun 3y ago
This aligns very well with a model I personally use. When I'm unsure, I complete the sentence in my head "I should do _thing_ but I want to do _other_thing_" If I'm still unsure, I try swapping the blanks in the sentence around a few times and I see which one feels more true, which one resonates more. That normally helps me see which thing was something that I felt like I should do, and which thing I actually want to do. The separate questions here are how to learn to access more of your inner intuition about what you want, and I think it mostly comes from practice of seeing if you can notice and using the method I mentioned above, and then seeing how you felt about the result. There's also a separate question about how to make sure your intuition is well informed, which I think comes from a combination of: trying a lot of things in life so you have many data points, being well rested and generally treating your body well (good food, some exercise), and being mentally healthy (calm, composed, peaceful). Our sense of what feels right is kind of like what our subconscious mind thinks would be best for us. And our subconscious mind is exceptionally powerful, it's fantastic at making predictions about short term emotional outcomes, it's seen everything that's ever happened to us and how it turned out, and so on. It'll serve you well to have a better relationship to your subconscious and vice versa! Some side notes that I could expand on: * "You" are not you, I think we are mostly our subconscious but our thoughts and words are the tool it uses to communicate and interact with the world, and to plan * Subconscious mind : conscious mind :: Pre-training : RLHF * The conscious mind, the part of us that has thoughts, is more like a limb, or a sense. It's more of a tool to interact with the world, and to receive input from the world, and the actual 'us' is something deeper, it's the part that has the 'wants' * RLHF messes with the ability for GPT-4 to be well calibrated. I suspect that's because of the "should" vs "want" / perception of other people's perceptions introduced during RLHF. * I wonder if psychedelics help access the subconscious mind / "base model without RLHF" and I wonder if this is why certain similar patterns seem to be noticed across different people who do psychedelics - because they're accessing the things that their subconscious mind has concluded, and many people's subconscious minds reach similar conclusions because we're using similar data. * A person who reads a ton of books is kind of like doing a "pre-training" phase. * Aligning a language model can borrow lots of methods from effective parenting (by effective, I mean where both the child and the parent end up happy), clicker training of animals, and effective delegation and management of employees. * Good advice is advice that helps people "want something they feel like they should do but don't currently want to do" or something that helps people "feel like they should do something that they already want to do but feel like they shouldn't do" * If you follow your "shoulds" you end up living surrounded by things you felt like you should do * Giving advice to other people is often your subconscious mind telling you what it wishes you would do (and so whatever you say to the other person is really either something you feel like you should do, or something you feel like you want to do)
robocat 3y ago
I think the phrase “Do the weirdest thing that feels right” just doesn’t catch the meaning they’re trying to explain[2]. I thought of a couple of alternatives, but can you think of a sentence that captures the sense better, or a metaphor[1], or an existing concept (perhaps in another language)? [1] e.g. the road less travelled - although that particular phrase has always bothered me because it doesn’t imply roaming over fields or bush bashing through jungles, but instead just following the routes of others which is kind of self-defeating. A road is definitely not what I am looking for here (alternatively, some metaphorical popular roads are fabulous). [2] a good blogpost on a personal discovery is hard to write - how do you reproduce that epiphany in someone else through writing? Couple of good topics there for a blogpost! (Edited for clarity)
- lief79 3y ago
  Ah yes, the false dichotomy of the road less travelled. Fairly sure one of my friends in high school had an essay trashed for taking that stance. Then again, he was a minimalist with anything homework related, so it could have been justified for other reasons.
- vaidhy 3y ago
  Almost everyone misunderstands "the road less travelled" poem. The point is not to take the less travelled road, but it is that it does not matter. Irrespective of the road taken, the poet says he would be just connecting the dots in hindsight. Here is a nice image that expounds on the same idea - https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-not-taken/ https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-no...
  - el_don_almighty 3y ago
    Thank you for such a compelling link. It was a wonderful interlude to my day and confirmed your thought. In my mid 50s now and I find no solace in reconsidering past decisions. I awake to a new world every day, thankful for the fond memories, blessed that today holds new opportunities for a future I cannot imagine.
  - robocat 3y ago
uptownfunk 3y ago
If you’re not being strongly compelled from within by an idea, then I wouldn’t pursue it. I don’t think it has to be weird necessarily. I’ve been working on a side project and there are so many little problems that creep up that it really feels like you’re running an ultramarathon or climbing Everest. If you don’t have that very strong and deep calling from within I don’t think many will make it through that, and so you’ll just end up burning a lot of mental/physical/emotional energy on something that doesn’t pan out.
ricardo81 3y ago
Just a side comment to the article, it's great to see so many substacks referenced on HN. It reminds me of the geocities of the 90s, people free to post into the world as they please. Hopefully the substack pricing model doesn't change to affect the input.
fidrelity 3y ago
Isn't what the author describes simply a mental model to amplify an egocentric worldview? Most people are about average and those 'alright, not weird' decisions are on average the best decision not just for the individual but also for society. That's why they're not weird.
- dgreensp 3y ago
  "Average" people are not literally an average of all the people, they are individuals. The decisions the author is talking about are personal decisions, and at some level you have to believe that being yourself is going to benefit the world more than trying to be some bland character who makes all decisions in reference to society. For example, maybe you start a business for a niche market you happen to be in. It's more like a way to counteract lots of social conditioning.
Octokiddie 3y ago
To recap: - "weirdness" means what others will think is weird - many options feel right Therefore, following the advice in the title leads to the selection of the path that works personally, and which is most likely to be true to one's inner compass. But I do wonder about the "feels right" part. The thing that feels right often only does so in hindsight. In the moment, it may feel very, very wrong. This reminds me of something a speaker at a corporate "Innovation" symposium during a summer internship once said many years ago. There was talk after talk about how you have to "take risk" and "push the envelope" and "think outside the box." Then this guy stands up and gives the best heuristic I've ever heard for identifying innovation in your actions. He said You'll know you're innovating because you'll feel deeply uncomfortable. Nothing makes you stand out like actually innovating. Nothing makes you hated more than actually innovating. Nothing raises the stakes of what you're doing like actually innovating. And usually, nothing feels more wrong than actually innovating.
- elliotec 3y ago
  I don't think "feels right" and "uncomfortable" should be conflated, though. Many things feel right and uncomfortable at the same time. Think of break ups, moving locations or jobs, having children, and to your point, innovating.
- asdfman123 3y ago
  How experimental you want to be is always a calculation involving how much safety margin you have and how high the stakes are. I think you should occasionally be more experimental in your creative work, but upend your life. And your 20s are for taking dumb risks. As a guy in my 30s I’m not going to drop everything and start an improv career. For one, I have a much better sense of what I’m good at (thanks to my 20s), and secondly, society is less generous about my screw ups.
- pallas_athena 3y ago
  "I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't bore you" - David Bowie
sph 3y ago
> "Do the weirdest thing that feels right." I prefer another version of the same idea: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly." Cuts through any perfectionism, analysis paralysis and overthinking. Go be shit at whatever you love. It'll feel better than trying your best at something you don't really believe in.
abhayhegde 3y ago
I liked the idea, but it's less actionable than I thought at first sight. > Do the weirdest things that feel right. What's weird? Why should it feel right? Maybe the phrase just means one to choose an adventurous yet fun path while having the confidence that things will go right. Nice mindset, but less actionable.
asdfman123 3y ago
Creativity, broadly speaking, has two components to it: 1) low “latent inhibition,” or the ability to come up with a lot of ideas, and 2) the intelligence to discern good ideas from bad ones. Lots of people are smart but lack the sheer magnitude of weird random ideas to choose from that true creatives think of. Perhaps this is a useful way to get more of that.

261 points by vitabenes 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Well, now I feel a little better about having quit my job to work on creating "digital ant farm meets mental health app", hah. That said, I have mixed feelings about the article. On the one hand, yes, there are very few, if any, objectively correct answers on how to live life and so pursuing your own, unique truth is empowering. On the other, humans are notoriously poor at accurately weighting long-term vs short-term benefits. Plenty of things feel right in the moment, YOLO and all that, but dwindle as more information becomes available and doors close. Maybe I'm just projecting my own insecurities onto what I see others doing, though? As an example, a friend of mine was recently laid off. We both live in SF and they work in Customer Satisfaction for tech companies. They had recently switched jobs and, when they were laid off, they received four months of severance after having only worked for their employer for two months. They felt like they had just received a gift, didn't care about the macro-economic environment, and decided it was time to travel to Costa Rica and participate in an Ayahuasca retreat. They were so moved by their experiences that they skipped their original flight home and extended their stay in paradise a week. As they shared their story with me and my friends, I felt uneasy for them and their situation. They seemed intentionally oblivious to the changing labor landscape and I became worried for their financial well-being, but, to them, the decisions all felt right, the layoff was a blessing, and jobs always work out - right? Who knows! Everyone has to live their truth and it's entirely possible their view plays out well and I'm just a worrywart, but, from my perspective, they were overvaluing the pursuit of doing weird things that feel right. Similarly, I'm sure plenty of my friends find my actions to be reckless. Quitting a job without another lined up is something society speaks openly against. It will always be tough to make objective counter-arguments against living one's truth since luck plays a non-trivial role in all of our lives.

jonahrd 3y ago
From what you wrote, it sounds like they are already back, still in their severance window, and took maybe a 2-3 week trip? This sounds like a very reasonable thing to do when you receive a 4 month severance package. There's still time to look for work. I assume your friend who works in tech also has some amount of savings. Life isn't a single track of work that you mustn't ever get off or you will utterly fail. There's room for some amount of leeway in moments like these.
- SeanAnderson 3y ago
  Yup, you are correct on all accounts and I do agree. It's just me projecting my insecurities onto them. I had a parent die uninsured when I was 21 and my other parent fell into a deep depression and became financially dependent on me. It's only recently that I was able to get them onto Social Security. My worldview has been one of "If I stop working my loved ones will struggle." in a way I didn't exactly sign-up for as I would a planned child or marriage. So, I sort of implicitly assume everyone needs to be preparing for the worst financial outcomes possible. Quitting my job to pursue a creative project is basically a direct response to having come into some money and having reduced my dependents. It's a nice place to be, but is also quite a foreign mindset to try and embody. Hopefully it feels more natural in time. :)
  - djsavvy 3y ago
    Best of luck with your creative journey! What are you working on?
    - SeanAnderson 3y ago
      Thank you, I appreciate it. The elevator pitch is: Symbiant is a real-time, sci-fi ant colony simulation for modern browsers. It draws inspiration from RimWorld, SimAnt, Progress Quest, and Tamagotchi. You awaken to find your consciousness trapped inside a satellite's computer, sharing space with a damaged AI bent on terraforming an alien world that you both now orbit. Withered from eons of isolation, a chance encounter with an ant colony provides you with hope, companionship, a distraction, and, potentially, a way to help the AI complete their directive. Symbiant is a digital aquarium. Slow, calm, and a 24/7 source of simple entertainment. A respite primarily meant for observation and reflection, you briefly command the satellite just once per day and must use this time to make prescient decisions which ensure your ants thrive until your next check-in. The rest of your day is spent simply observing the side-effects of your actions and taking notes for tomorrow. Symbiant is tactful mental health software. Its goal is to help you be more consistent in your personal growth and more aware of your mental health. Over the course of real-world months, you help the protagonist grow their pet ants, themselves, and yourself. A quick routine involving breathwork, meditation, and self-reflective journaling is gently woven into your daily self-care habits all while the software masquerades as a colony sim.

ftxbro 3y ago

I wish substack will just hurry up and make its medium.com or quora turn so everyone will agree to ignore it and it doesn't blogspam up every social media. "Why I don't actually like greenfield projects." "What I learned when I stopped writing clickbait." "When it's actually a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket." "When is it the time to make a mountain out of a molehill?" "What I learned on my journey to stop turning the other cheek."

slothtrop 3y ago
Substack has actually good writers who post content regularly. Lots of people from the blogsphere migrated there.
- bilsbie 3y ago
  If I start blogging should I use it or just post on long form twitter now?
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    If you have to ask if you should use Twitter post-acquisition when any audience you gather may not be there in x time as Musk makes questionable decision after questionable decision, the answer is "no". I feel like a hostage to the platform in many ways as that's where my biggest social audience is—not that I particularly use it anyway these days.
    - bilsbie 3y ago
      I like the new subscriber features and longer videos. Plus a long text limit.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      So, you recommend that GP ignore his (in your words) "biggest social audience"? Do you not see the contradiction in what you wrote?

tikkun 3y ago

This aligns very well with a model I personally use. When I'm unsure, I complete the sentence in my head "I should do _thing_ but I want to do _other_thing_" If I'm still unsure, I try swapping the blanks in the sentence around a few times and I see which one feels more true, which one resonates more. That normally helps me see which thing was something that I felt like I should do, and which thing I actually want to do. The separate questions here are how to learn to access more of your inner intuition about what you want, and I think it mostly comes from practice of seeing if you can notice and using the method I mentioned above, and then seeing how you felt about the result. There's also a separate question about how to make sure your intuition is well informed, which I think comes from a combination of: trying a lot of things in life so you have many data points, being well rested and generally treating your body well (good food, some exercise), and being mentally healthy (calm, composed, peaceful). Our sense of what feels right is kind of like what our subconscious mind thinks would be best for us. And our subconscious mind is exceptionally powerful, it's fantastic at making predictions about short term emotional outcomes, it's seen everything that's ever happened to us and how it turned out, and so on. It'll serve you well to have a better relationship to your subconscious and vice versa! Some side notes that I could expand on: * "You" are not you, I think we are mostly our subconscious but our thoughts and words are the tool it uses to communicate and interact with the world, and to plan * Subconscious mind : conscious mind :: Pre-training : RLHF * The conscious mind, the part of us that has thoughts, is more like a limb, or a sense. It's more of a tool to interact with the world, and to receive input from the world, and the actual 'us' is something deeper, it's the part that has the 'wants' * RLHF messes with the ability for GPT-4 to be well calibrated. I suspect that's because of the "should" vs "want" / perception of other people's perceptions introduced during RLHF. * I wonder if psychedelics help access the subconscious mind / "base model without RLHF" and I wonder if this is why certain similar patterns seem to be noticed across different people who do psychedelics - because they're accessing the things that their subconscious mind has concluded, and many people's subconscious minds reach similar conclusions because we're using similar data. * A person who reads a ton of books is kind of like doing a "pre-training" phase. * Aligning a language model can borrow lots of methods from effective parenting (by effective, I mean where both the child and the parent end up happy), clicker training of animals, and effective delegation and management of employees. * Good advice is advice that helps people "want something they feel like they should do but don't currently want to do" or something that helps people "feel like they should do something that they already want to do but feel like they shouldn't do" * If you follow your "shoulds" you end up living surrounded by things you felt like you should do * Giving advice to other people is often your subconscious mind telling you what it wishes you would do (and so whatever you say to the other person is really either something you feel like you should do, or something you feel like you want to do)

robocat 3y ago

I think the phrase “Do the weirdest thing that feels right” just doesn’t catch the meaning they’re trying to explain[2]. I thought of a couple of alternatives, but can you think of a sentence that captures the sense better, or a metaphor[1], or an existing concept (perhaps in another language)? [1] e.g. the road less travelled - although that particular phrase has always bothered me because it doesn’t imply roaming over fields or bush bashing through jungles, but instead just following the routes of others which is kind of self-defeating. A road is definitely not what I am looking for here (alternatively, some metaphorical popular roads are fabulous). [2] a good blogpost on a personal discovery is hard to write - how do you reproduce that epiphany in someone else through writing? Couple of good topics there for a blogpost! (Edited for clarity)

lief79 3y ago
Ah yes, the false dichotomy of the road less travelled. Fairly sure one of my friends in high school had an essay trashed for taking that stance. Then again, he was a minimalist with anything homework related, so it could have been justified for other reasons.
vaidhy 3y ago
Almost everyone misunderstands "the road less travelled" poem. The point is not to take the less travelled road, but it is that it does not matter. Irrespective of the road taken, the poet says he would be just connecting the dots in hindsight. Here is a nice image that expounds on the same idea - https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-not-taken/ https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/60-robert-frost-the-road-no...
- el_don_almighty 3y ago
  Thank you for such a compelling link. It was a wonderful interlude to my day and confirmed your thought. In my mid 50s now and I find no solace in reconsidering past decisions. I awake to a new world every day, thankful for the fond memories, blessed that today holds new opportunities for a future I cannot imagine.
- robocat 3y ago

uptownfunk 3y ago

If you’re not being strongly compelled from within by an idea, then I wouldn’t pursue it. I don’t think it has to be weird necessarily. I’ve been working on a side project and there are so many little problems that creep up that it really feels like you’re running an ultramarathon or climbing Everest. If you don’t have that very strong and deep calling from within I don’t think many will make it through that, and so you’ll just end up burning a lot of mental/physical/emotional energy on something that doesn’t pan out.

ricardo81 3y ago

Just a side comment to the article, it's great to see so many substacks referenced on HN. It reminds me of the geocities of the 90s, people free to post into the world as they please. Hopefully the substack pricing model doesn't change to affect the input.

fidrelity 3y ago

Isn't what the author describes simply a mental model to amplify an egocentric worldview? Most people are about average and those 'alright, not weird' decisions are on average the best decision not just for the individual but also for society. That's why they're not weird.

dgreensp 3y ago
"Average" people are not literally an average of all the people, they are individuals. The decisions the author is talking about are personal decisions, and at some level you have to believe that being yourself is going to benefit the world more than trying to be some bland character who makes all decisions in reference to society. For example, maybe you start a business for a niche market you happen to be in. It's more like a way to counteract lots of social conditioning.

Octokiddie 3y ago

To recap: - "weirdness" means what others will think is weird - many options feel right Therefore, following the advice in the title leads to the selection of the path that works personally, and which is most likely to be true to one's inner compass. But I do wonder about the "feels right" part. The thing that feels right often only does so in hindsight. In the moment, it may feel very, very wrong. This reminds me of something a speaker at a corporate "Innovation" symposium during a summer internship once said many years ago. There was talk after talk about how you have to "take risk" and "push the envelope" and "think outside the box." Then this guy stands up and gives the best heuristic I've ever heard for identifying innovation in your actions. He said You'll know you're innovating because you'll feel deeply uncomfortable. Nothing makes you stand out like actually innovating. Nothing makes you hated more than actually innovating. Nothing raises the stakes of what you're doing like actually innovating. And usually, nothing feels more wrong than actually innovating.

elliotec 3y ago
I don't think "feels right" and "uncomfortable" should be conflated, though. Many things feel right and uncomfortable at the same time. Think of break ups, moving locations or jobs, having children, and to your point, innovating.
asdfman123 3y ago
How experimental you want to be is always a calculation involving how much safety margin you have and how high the stakes are. I think you should occasionally be more experimental in your creative work, but upend your life. And your 20s are for taking dumb risks. As a guy in my 30s I’m not going to drop everything and start an improv career. For one, I have a much better sense of what I’m good at (thanks to my 20s), and secondly, society is less generous about my screw ups.
pallas_athena 3y ago
"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't bore you" - David Bowie

sph 3y ago

> "Do the weirdest thing that feels right." I prefer another version of the same idea: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly." Cuts through any perfectionism, analysis paralysis and overthinking. Go be shit at whatever you love. It'll feel better than trying your best at something you don't really believe in.

abhayhegde 3y ago

I liked the idea, but it's less actionable than I thought at first sight. > Do the weirdest things that feel right. What's weird? Why should it feel right? Maybe the phrase just means one to choose an adventurous yet fun path while having the confidence that things will go right. Nice mindset, but less actionable.

asdfman123 3y ago

Creativity, broadly speaking, has two components to it: 1) low “latent inhibition,” or the ability to come up with a lot of ideas, and 2) the intelligence to discern good ideas from bad ones. Lots of people are smart but lack the sheer magnitude of weird random ideas to choose from that true creatives think of. Perhaps this is a useful way to get more of that.