11 ms·

Do hard things carefully

212 points by spuds 2y ago

imsurajkadam 2y ago
This is quite a good exercise to follow but don’t know how easy it would be to actually implement this in situations. I mean bcz of the habits we do not have that liberty to stop and ask this to yourself. Just like controlled breathing.
- spuds 2y ago
  Yeah, took me (author) quite a bit of practice to get there. I still struggle with it at times, though at this point I find I can generally implement it say 90% of the time. Definitely feels like a muscle I had to build up.
ismail 2y ago
The concept he discusses of “the edge” is very similar to “edge of chaos” from physics, but has been studied extensively in complexity sciences, specifically complex adaptive systems. The theory proposes that all complex adaptive systems (CAS) naturally adapt to a state at the “edge of chaos” which is a transition zone between order(stability) and disorder. The theory proposes this is the zone where maximal learning/innovation/creativity in social systems occur. We studied complex adaptive systems in 2019, at the time I changed my LinkedIn tag line to : “learning at the edge of chaos” , still have not changed it since then. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  all systems that have accumulated complexity did it in an effort to create resiliency to survive/reproduce/continue to exist, which is innately a method of accumulate self-supervised 'learning', when left to dwell to its own emergent methods. this applies to all systems, from biospheres to food-chains to cells to human evolution. resiliency is needed for systems to be less fragile against chaotic perturbations, as the most 'complex' (sub) systems are the most impacted by any change without it. complex systems would fail catastrophically instantly if its resilient sub-systems weren't able to postpone it. resiliency is the ability to respond to varied input, to face dis-order. The universe, uncaring, is a dis-orderly increase in entropy. It accumulates, and averages to eventually to act as a sieve, a selective pressure, an edge....a particularly varied input. Anything that would pressure the system - such as an environment change or competition against itself for a resource constraint - and this selective pressure culls the weakest variations of the system from the pool. Those variations that had the least effective resiliency features, now gone, are quickly replaced, and the system continues to exist. All complex systems in adversarial conditions must then incentivize resiliency, and the generalized property of being self-reliant; adaptive to variation in input. This incentive/reward is essentially an iota of agency, a flash of an of objective goal. intelligence is the ability to reach a goal given varied input states. The ability to 'learn' is really just how to compile ways to reach a goal, inferring relations between the solutions, then internalizing that inference to later better increase its ability to generalize / respond to varying input. learning is _only_ possible at the edge of chaos
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    > learning is _only_ possible at the edge of chaos Which is what makes math so interesting. The constant stream of finding predictable islands in the unpredictable, and then unpredictable islands (hard problems) in the predictable (seemingly simple easily defined systems). Math is chaos. I suppose as we get smarter, and our understanding of the world gets more sophisticated, our survival/growth progress becomes more and more a math exercise.
- taneq 2y ago
  The boundary between predictable and chaotic is always there most interesting place to be.
  - ls65536 2y ago
    For some reason this also made me think of the boundary of the Mandelbrot set...that place where all the interesting structure reveals itself.
    - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30
      - taneq 2y ago
        Wow, that's really different to rule 34. :P
    - taneq 2y ago
      Yep, you're getting it. That same universal principle where the interesting things all happen in that boundary between boring and random (ie. trivially-predictable, and not-predictable-under-any-conditions). If you haven't already, I heartily recommend James Gleick's book "Chaos" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science) which is, to me, the introduction to both self similarity and sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
- coffeecantcode 2y ago
  It has also been posed that the hemispheres of our brain operate at this edge of chaos with one hemisphere aligned with the novel and chaotic, and the other hemisphere aligned with routine and order. Then in this theory as we sleep/dream our brains take the novel and chaotic things we experience and transfer them to the routine and orderly side of the brain. Or something along those lines. I’m no psychologist but I find the existence of chaos and order in the physical word to be really interesting. It seems like something we would make up as a species, but really there is proof for it in the universe around us.
  - jumping_frog 2y ago
    Brain Criticality - Optimizing Neural Computations https://youtu.be/vwLb3XlPCB4 https://youtu.be/vwLb3XlPCB4
arzke 2y ago
> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.” > Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something difficult? Or have you already leaned in too far and need to back off a little? Act accordingly. As the situation progresses, keep checking in with yourself. So the difference seems to be the notion that "a little discomfort is okay". You still need to place your tolerable discomfort cut-off point somewhere, right before it feels overwhelming. I kind of agree with the general content of the post, but find it somewhat simplistic with a focus on oneself. I see conversation more like a dance, a delicate balance where you should be aware of your own feelings, but also other people's. Some people feel comfortable over-sharing with someone they barely met, which can create quite intense discomfort. My understanding is that this tends to be more likely in people who struggle setting boundaries in their relationships. I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance.
- ileonichwiesz 2y ago
  > I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance. Yeah, this is useless because it relies on the assumption that people’s level of comfort/discomfort is a rational thing that’s consistent among different people. It treats that complex barely-understood neurological system like it’s a barometer outside your window. I’ve been dealing with an anxiety disorder for much of my life (and it’s not rare!), and I’ve explicitly had to learn NOT to trust my gut. My gut can randomly tell me I’m in mortal danger as I’m shopping for groceries or answering an email. I’m not listening to that thing.
  - Rzor 2y ago
    It's also no small feat to ignore your senses like that. I feel that any small thought can become a storm at any moment and hijack my well being into another reality. It's crippling and very tiring. No kidding you had to "learn".
Foreignborn 2y ago
It's very cool you're doing your own voice over reading for your articles. Soooo many sites have AI read voice overs, and while I understand why, it's a nice touch to listen to a real human with natural prosody.
wseqyrku 2y ago
> Do hard things carefully Seems like my habit is making things hard and do them carefully.
GistNoesis 2y ago
These kinds of article push me over the edge. They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content. In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone. And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care. The proper underlying concept is risk management. ** If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes. What is happening is that the underlying problem that you are trying to optimize initially benefits from expanding your comfort zone. People usually are too "safe" to begin with. That's called prudence, it's a good thing that has been hardwire by evolution. But then when you work to push your frontier zone, you work in a zone where pulling and pushing lever have maximum sensitivity, it's good and allow you to make some quick progress. You learn the good moves which rock is slippery to your foot or not, but slipping is not to important because you are still working inside the underlying safe operating zone. But now you are getting used to learning with immediate feedback. And if you make this the thing you optimize for, you will slowly drift toward the more danger and less reward zone. You master pushing and pulling the levers in front of you but as you already know how they work, you don't learn anything new. So you push them more and more because you get bored, and then you get some exciting new phenomenon, the car can drift when you go over 90 in the turn of the speed limit 50 zone. So you're happy you've got something new to master. You master it, and now you drift anywhere you go Tokyo drift style. But you never learned that the adherence of the car depends on whether it has rained the previous day because the oil and dust in the asphalt get lifted and redeposited on the road. So you are surprised when your car spin around. You got in an accident but made it OK, but now you've got to do some door dashing to finance the new car. So you are more tired, and more pressed by time and drive accordingly. So what does little Timmy in the back learn ? ** Proper risk management is looking for the levers you can push, expanding them in a safe and boring way. It's concept like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier in portfolio management instead of YOLOing. It's the concept of bankroll management, and management of variance, aggression window style, in things like poker. But the game of life is not an individual one but a collective one. And people playing an aggressive style are forcing you to play a more loose game. And even more worse than a loose game is a positive expectation game turned negative expectation game because of that. Because the game is not zero sum, in poker there is the rake, but in life many situations are win win, but can be turned lose lose by greediness. The rise is slow and the fall is fast and catastrophic, see the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure in complex systems that result by taking a myopic approach to optimizing your life.
hemmert 2y ago
Excellent article! Thank you very much! I'm currently writing a book on the "edge of human thought" (more from a point of view of inventions over the course of humankind's history) – here's a newsletter signup page, in case you want to stay up to date: https://unthinkable.net/ https://unthinkable.net/ (Posting this is also in the edge area for me... ;)) Keep up the great thinking and writing! :-)
- hemmert 2y ago
  (I just submitted it here, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42004783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42004783)
josefrichter 2y ago
I think it's hard to judge discomfort while you're in the situation. It's usually in the retrospect when you realise "it wasn't that bad" and you actually gained more than you expected at the time.
- spuds 2y ago
  Yeah, I've gone from a place of not being able to judge my level of discomfort at all, to only being able to realize it hours after the fact, to eventually learning to notice it in the moment (after a lot of practice). I still don't do it perfectly, but it's a skill that I've found very valuable.
metalman 2y ago
I like the authors take, and disatisfaction with certain maxums,so I created my own which is relevant, "just because you can,doesn't mean you should" which I first applied to lifting very heavy things and living as I do ,crossing paths with people from most lifestyles and groups,I have seen a good many exceptional people perform feats in there various fields....there is always risk.....and nothing would be fun without it....but then there is peformative stupidity...which most of us have had a good go at.....so its sll goid,eh!
- richrichie 2y ago
  But you should when it comes to lifting heavy things. Progressive adaptation, etc.
- foobarchu 2y ago
  To stretch the metaphor a bit, people who lift heavy things professionally or recreationally do so in cycles where the weight they are lifting is a percentage of the most they could lift. For that to work, you need to know what that max is, so some cycles are going to be based around recalibrating the max. Otherwise, you will plateau your growth because you are limiting yourself to what you could do before. I think that applies to life experiences too. I personally consider myself someone for whom rollercoasters are too intense, but I still try a thrill ride every few years (if the opportunity presents) to ensure I'm not limiting myself by what was true a decade or two ago. I try foods I know I won't like sometimes, because tastes change. I'm not comfortable with heights and generally avoid them, but I'm still planning to do a hot air balloon ride soon because I want to challenge myself.
  - nuancebydefault 2y ago
    Plus one for the balloon. You will find it will stretch the rubber band a bit without much discomfort. On the contrary, the beauty of the experience most likely more than compensates for any discomfort.
ejoebstl 2y ago
I dislike the example of sharing personal information in the article. It's sometimes not only about your own comfort and boundaries, but also how much you want to put on another person.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  I struggle sometimes with that, probably because I don't understand the 'put on another person' part. Would you (or anyone else reading this) care to give a recognizable example?
  - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
    The "weight on one's 'shoulders'/'chest'" is a figure of speech from the psychosomatical relief one may feel when sharing troubles. Inversely, the "burden" to respond, whether gravitas is implied or not, can be socially-exhausting to some, and not even conjured by others. People with low self-esteem or self-worth / depressed / self-described "burdensome" people often assume the pity they may solicit costs the other party part of their own emotional well-being - they've burdened them further with expectations of a response or acknowledgement.
pbronez 2y ago
A related concept from psychology/education is “the zone of proximal development.” It extends this “edge” concept to consider how much further you can push with support from a coach. https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-development.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-developmen... “It represents tasks beyond the learner’s current abilities but is attainable with the help and guidance of the more knowledgeable other (MKO). The ZPD is the range of tasks a person can’t complete independently but can accomplish with support.”
- paulgerhardt 2y ago
  See also Csiksgentmihalyi’s Flow Theory [1]. Vygotsky‘s ZPD is a useful 1-dimensional tool (literally a number line) for learning I find (to oversimplify) Csiksgentmihalyi‘z to be a better 2-D tool for conceptualizing performance in a task. While both are pretty foundational concepts in motivational psychology it follows one can expand to create one’s own n-dimensional personal heuristics incorporating emotional and social factors. [1] https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow
biddendidden 2y ago
[flagged]
gwd 2y ago
I don't think it's necessarily a "happy medium", but wisdom to know what kind of pain it is, and what the cost/benefit is of the situation. If you're lifting weights, the "burn" you feel after doing 20 reps of a light weight might be way higher in intensity than a little twinge in your shoulder; but the "burn" might be something you push through, while the twinge is something you just stop your workout for that day -- and if it happens again, may mean you take it easy on your shoulder for a week or two. That's because you know the "cost" of pushing through the burn is negligible and the benefit part of your whole plan; the "cost" of pushing through the shoulder twinge might be a month or two of no working out, possibly no more weightlifting ever if it's bad enough. In most situations I have a policy of eating at least a bit of whatever's put in front of me. It's good to train myself to put politeness over squeamishness, and in any case I've often found new foods that I've liked that way. I've never eaten tarantula or grasshopper, but if someone offered me one I'd try it, even though it sounds disgusting. However, I no longer eat sea cucumbers if my wife cooks them, even though I have only a mild distaste to them: I've already eaten them hundreds of times, I know I can eat them, I'm pretty sure they're never going to get any easier to eat, and she doesn't mind, as it leaves more for her. Forcing myself to eat them doesn't really have that much benefit. As a "social introvert", I've learned at conferences to just go back to my room and take a nap if I'm tired. I can just power through the day without a rest, but the interactions aren't really worth it -- much better to take a break and come back fresh and ready to engage. I could go on and on -- the key thing is to recognize what the actual cost or benefit of "pushing" is.
- spuds 2y ago
  I like the nuance you're bringing to this. When originally writing the article, I considered using a gym/weightlifting analogy, as it felt extremely relevant. I agree that the cost/benefit part can really be important. I might lean a bit more into my edge if I'm talking with someone I really care about, even if the cost/risk to me might be a little higher. I'm also much less likely to lean into my edge if I feel the person is a potential powder keg.
  - gwd 2y ago
    Haha, having "high intensity" conversations was one of the things I was thinking of bringing up but couldn't find a concise way to express in the time I had to write the comment. I've written letters where I was like, this is either going to help this other person, or completely destroy our relationship. On the other hand, there are loads of conversations that I won't have, because I don't really foresee "moving the needle" of the other person (or anyone reading / listening to the conversation), and just having the conversation would get me really worked up and angry for no good reason. Re not talking to a potential powder keg, if you're interested the opinion of one ancient guy a lot of people look to for advice: “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." -Jesus
butz 2y ago
For the love of accessibility, why scrollbar on this website is as wide as a hair?
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Screen width is precious real estate, can't waste it carelessly like that. It's not like we have ultrawide monitors.
sklargh 2y ago
In a prior career as a firefighter-EMT about 90% of the work was pure boredom and routine, 5% was in a sweet-spot of complex and interesting or perhaps mildly but reasonably dangerous. The balance was represented some really difficult-ugly or wildly dangerous moments. It’s interesting how prevalent this is across so many fields.
svilen_dobrev 2y ago
few bits.. * the Edge-zone/s (yes, plural) are many, per-aspect. One can be pretty ok with one aspect and at-same-time-and-place totally not-ok with another aspect * being in edge zone is kind-a learning.. training.. ("if it hurts, do it more often") the more often there, further the edge border will move (Extending the comfort zone). Of course depending where it started ; loading a twisted ankle as-usual-before-twisting isn't safe * as saying goes: there's no cannot, there is do not want ; and there's no have to, only want to. But YMMV
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Edges are cool. That's where the action is. But sometimes, we shouldn't have action. As I have gotten older, I have learned that "It Depends" is really a mantra for life. I know of some folks that are dealing with mental health challenges. They are all dirt poor, on SSI/Medicaid, and terrified of losing these. As a result, they don't try to get jobs, or advance themselves, socially. They don't take risks. Their therapists tend to encourage this stance. I can't, with sincerity, say that they are all wrong, but I'll bet some of them are. If they pushed themselves, they could probably break free of their chains. But some of the others, would just break. I am not qualified to know which is which. I do my best to support them, and keep my opinions to myself. One thing I know for sure: I have no idea what other people can take, in their edges. Just because I can do something, doesn't mean that someone else can. We advance, by pushing into our discomfort zone. There's a saying: "Winners do what they need to do. Losers do what they want to do." I don't know how to do almost every project I take on. It can be terrifying. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
- fifilura 2y ago
  Edges are cool. But they do have a dark side, often forgotten when talked about in public. I have once been on the edge of chaos for too long and eventually when it flipped over it took years to recover. Possibly even decades. Or possibly a lifetime.
  - chankstein38 2y ago
    Agreed. Crunch times at work, 10+ hour days for years left me burnt out even after being out of that for 5 years. Too much edge of your comfort zone can ruin your life!
    - fifilura 2y ago
      For me it was not crunch time but constantly challenging myself. Did I hope to see something on the other side?
    - 2y ago
rors 2y ago
David Bowie said it better “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
thenobsta 2y ago
Seems like he's describing homeostasis and hormesis. The body has a homeostatic balance physically and psychologically. Pushing yourself out that balance (the comfort zone) induces and adaptation (growth). When you push yourself into the edge, as he defines it, you enter the hormetic zone, the area of the dose response where there is benefit (be it from physical or psychological stressors or medicines). Going too far causes unbeneficial and possibly irreparable damage.

212 points by spuds 2y ago

This is quite a good exercise to follow but don’t know how easy it would be to actually implement this in situations. I mean bcz of the habits we do not have that liberty to stop and ask this to yourself. Just like controlled breathing.

spuds 2y ago
Yeah, took me (author) quite a bit of practice to get there. I still struggle with it at times, though at this point I find I can generally implement it say 90% of the time. Definitely feels like a muscle I had to build up.

ismail 2y ago

The concept he discusses of “the edge” is very similar to “edge of chaos” from physics, but has been studied extensively in complexity sciences, specifically complex adaptive systems. The theory proposes that all complex adaptive systems (CAS) naturally adapt to a state at the “edge of chaos” which is a transition zone between order(stability) and disorder. The theory proposes this is the zone where maximal learning/innovation/creativity in social systems occur. We studied complex adaptive systems in 2019, at the time I changed my LinkedIn tag line to : “learning at the edge of chaos” , still have not changed it since then. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos

Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
all systems that have accumulated complexity did it in an effort to create resiliency to survive/reproduce/continue to exist, which is innately a method of accumulate self-supervised 'learning', when left to dwell to its own emergent methods. this applies to all systems, from biospheres to food-chains to cells to human evolution. resiliency is needed for systems to be less fragile against chaotic perturbations, as the most 'complex' (sub) systems are the most impacted by any change without it. complex systems would fail catastrophically instantly if its resilient sub-systems weren't able to postpone it. resiliency is the ability to respond to varied input, to face dis-order. The universe, uncaring, is a dis-orderly increase in entropy. It accumulates, and averages to eventually to act as a sieve, a selective pressure, an edge....a particularly varied input. Anything that would pressure the system - such as an environment change or competition against itself for a resource constraint - and this selective pressure culls the weakest variations of the system from the pool. Those variations that had the least effective resiliency features, now gone, are quickly replaced, and the system continues to exist. All complex systems in adversarial conditions must then incentivize resiliency, and the generalized property of being self-reliant; adaptive to variation in input. This incentive/reward is essentially an iota of agency, a flash of an of objective goal. intelligence is the ability to reach a goal given varied input states. The ability to 'learn' is really just how to compile ways to reach a goal, inferring relations between the solutions, then internalizing that inference to later better increase its ability to generalize / respond to varying input. learning is _only_ possible at the edge of chaos
- Nevermark 2y ago
  > learning is _only_ possible at the edge of chaos Which is what makes math so interesting. The constant stream of finding predictable islands in the unpredictable, and then unpredictable islands (hard problems) in the predictable (seemingly simple easily defined systems). Math is chaos. I suppose as we get smarter, and our understanding of the world gets more sophisticated, our survival/growth progress becomes more and more a math exercise.
taneq 2y ago
The boundary between predictable and chaotic is always there most interesting place to be.
- ls65536 2y ago
  For some reason this also made me think of the boundary of the Mandelbrot set...that place where all the interesting structure reveals itself.
  - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30
    - taneq 2y ago
      Wow, that's really different to rule 34. :P
  - taneq 2y ago
    Yep, you're getting it. That same universal principle where the interesting things all happen in that boundary between boring and random (ie. trivially-predictable, and not-predictable-under-any-conditions). If you haven't already, I heartily recommend James Gleick's book "Chaos" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science) which is, to me, the introduction to both self similarity and sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
coffeecantcode 2y ago
It has also been posed that the hemispheres of our brain operate at this edge of chaos with one hemisphere aligned with the novel and chaotic, and the other hemisphere aligned with routine and order. Then in this theory as we sleep/dream our brains take the novel and chaotic things we experience and transfer them to the routine and orderly side of the brain. Or something along those lines. I’m no psychologist but I find the existence of chaos and order in the physical word to be really interesting. It seems like something we would make up as a species, but really there is proof for it in the universe around us.
- jumping_frog 2y ago
  Brain Criticality - Optimizing Neural Computations https://youtu.be/vwLb3XlPCB4 https://youtu.be/vwLb3XlPCB4

arzke 2y ago

> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.” > Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something difficult? Or have you already leaned in too far and need to back off a little? Act accordingly. As the situation progresses, keep checking in with yourself. So the difference seems to be the notion that "a little discomfort is okay". You still need to place your tolerable discomfort cut-off point somewhere, right before it feels overwhelming. I kind of agree with the general content of the post, but find it somewhat simplistic with a focus on oneself. I see conversation more like a dance, a delicate balance where you should be aware of your own feelings, but also other people's. Some people feel comfortable over-sharing with someone they barely met, which can create quite intense discomfort. My understanding is that this tends to be more likely in people who struggle setting boundaries in their relationships. I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance.

ileonichwiesz 2y ago
> I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance. Yeah, this is useless because it relies on the assumption that people’s level of comfort/discomfort is a rational thing that’s consistent among different people. It treats that complex barely-understood neurological system like it’s a barometer outside your window. I’ve been dealing with an anxiety disorder for much of my life (and it’s not rare!), and I’ve explicitly had to learn NOT to trust my gut. My gut can randomly tell me I’m in mortal danger as I’m shopping for groceries or answering an email. I’m not listening to that thing.
- Rzor 2y ago
  It's also no small feat to ignore your senses like that. I feel that any small thought can become a storm at any moment and hijack my well being into another reality. It's crippling and very tiring. No kidding you had to "learn".

Foreignborn 2y ago

It's very cool you're doing your own voice over reading for your articles. Soooo many sites have AI read voice overs, and while I understand why, it's a nice touch to listen to a real human with natural prosody.

wseqyrku 2y ago

> Do hard things carefully Seems like my habit is making things hard and do them carefully.

GistNoesis 2y ago

These kinds of article push me over the edge. They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content. In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone. And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care. The proper underlying concept is risk management. ** If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes. What is happening is that the underlying problem that you are trying to optimize initially benefits from expanding your comfort zone. People usually are too "safe" to begin with. That's called prudence, it's a good thing that has been hardwire by evolution. But then when you work to push your frontier zone, you work in a zone where pulling and pushing lever have maximum sensitivity, it's good and allow you to make some quick progress. You learn the good moves which rock is slippery to your foot or not, but slipping is not to important because you are still working inside the underlying safe operating zone. But now you are getting used to learning with immediate feedback. And if you make this the thing you optimize for, you will slowly drift toward the more danger and less reward zone. You master pushing and pulling the levers in front of you but as you already know how they work, you don't learn anything new. So you push them more and more because you get bored, and then you get some exciting new phenomenon, the car can drift when you go over 90 in the turn of the speed limit 50 zone. So you're happy you've got something new to master. You master it, and now you drift anywhere you go Tokyo drift style. But you never learned that the adherence of the car depends on whether it has rained the previous day because the oil and dust in the asphalt get lifted and redeposited on the road. So you are surprised when your car spin around. You got in an accident but made it OK, but now you've got to do some door dashing to finance the new car. So you are more tired, and more pressed by time and drive accordingly. So what does little Timmy in the back learn ? ** Proper risk management is looking for the levers you can push, expanding them in a safe and boring way. It's concept like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier in portfolio management instead of YOLOing. It's the concept of bankroll management, and management of variance, aggression window style, in things like poker. But the game of life is not an individual one but a collective one. And people playing an aggressive style are forcing you to play a more loose game. And even more worse than a loose game is a positive expectation game turned negative expectation game because of that. Because the game is not zero sum, in poker there is the rake, but in life many situations are win win, but can be turned lose lose by greediness. The rise is slow and the fall is fast and catastrophic, see the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure in complex systems that result by taking a myopic approach to optimizing your life.

hemmert 2y ago

Excellent article! Thank you very much! I'm currently writing a book on the "edge of human thought" (more from a point of view of inventions over the course of humankind's history) – here's a newsletter signup page, in case you want to stay up to date: https://unthinkable.net/ https://unthinkable.net/ (Posting this is also in the edge area for me... ;)) Keep up the great thinking and writing! :-)

hemmert 2y ago
(I just submitted it here, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42004783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42004783)

josefrichter 2y ago

I think it's hard to judge discomfort while you're in the situation. It's usually in the retrospect when you realise "it wasn't that bad" and you actually gained more than you expected at the time.

spuds 2y ago
Yeah, I've gone from a place of not being able to judge my level of discomfort at all, to only being able to realize it hours after the fact, to eventually learning to notice it in the moment (after a lot of practice). I still don't do it perfectly, but it's a skill that I've found very valuable.

metalman 2y ago

I like the authors take, and disatisfaction with certain maxums,so I created my own which is relevant, "just because you can,doesn't mean you should" which I first applied to lifting very heavy things and living as I do ,crossing paths with people from most lifestyles and groups,I have seen a good many exceptional people perform feats in there various fields....there is always risk.....and nothing would be fun without it....but then there is peformative stupidity...which most of us have had a good go at.....so its sll goid,eh!

richrichie 2y ago
But you should when it comes to lifting heavy things. Progressive adaptation, etc.
foobarchu 2y ago
To stretch the metaphor a bit, people who lift heavy things professionally or recreationally do so in cycles where the weight they are lifting is a percentage of the most they could lift. For that to work, you need to know what that max is, so some cycles are going to be based around recalibrating the max. Otherwise, you will plateau your growth because you are limiting yourself to what you could do before. I think that applies to life experiences too. I personally consider myself someone for whom rollercoasters are too intense, but I still try a thrill ride every few years (if the opportunity presents) to ensure I'm not limiting myself by what was true a decade or two ago. I try foods I know I won't like sometimes, because tastes change. I'm not comfortable with heights and generally avoid them, but I'm still planning to do a hot air balloon ride soon because I want to challenge myself.
- nuancebydefault 2y ago
  Plus one for the balloon. You will find it will stretch the rubber band a bit without much discomfort. On the contrary, the beauty of the experience most likely more than compensates for any discomfort.

ejoebstl 2y ago

I dislike the example of sharing personal information in the article. It's sometimes not only about your own comfort and boundaries, but also how much you want to put on another person.

nuancebydefault 2y ago
I struggle sometimes with that, probably because I don't understand the 'put on another person' part. Would you (or anyone else reading this) care to give a recognizable example?
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  The "weight on one's 'shoulders'/'chest'" is a figure of speech from the psychosomatical relief one may feel when sharing troubles. Inversely, the "burden" to respond, whether gravitas is implied or not, can be socially-exhausting to some, and not even conjured by others. People with low self-esteem or self-worth / depressed / self-described "burdensome" people often assume the pity they may solicit costs the other party part of their own emotional well-being - they've burdened them further with expectations of a response or acknowledgement.

pbronez 2y ago

A related concept from psychology/education is “the zone of proximal development.” It extends this “edge” concept to consider how much further you can push with support from a coach. https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-development.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/zone-of-proximal-developmen... “It represents tasks beyond the learner’s current abilities but is attainable with the help and guidance of the more knowledgeable other (MKO). The ZPD is the range of tasks a person can’t complete independently but can accomplish with support.”

paulgerhardt 2y ago
See also Csiksgentmihalyi’s Flow Theory [1]. Vygotsky‘s ZPD is a useful 1-dimensional tool (literally a number line) for learning I find (to oversimplify) Csiksgentmihalyi‘z to be a better 2-D tool for conceptualizing performance in a task. While both are pretty foundational concepts in motivational psychology it follows one can expand to create one’s own n-dimensional personal heuristics incorporating emotional and social factors. [1] https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow https://centerforstartservices.org/blog/2024/04/what-flow

biddendidden 2y ago

[flagged]

gwd 2y ago

I don't think it's necessarily a "happy medium", but wisdom to know what kind of pain it is, and what the cost/benefit is of the situation. If you're lifting weights, the "burn" you feel after doing 20 reps of a light weight might be way higher in intensity than a little twinge in your shoulder; but the "burn" might be something you push through, while the twinge is something you just stop your workout for that day -- and if it happens again, may mean you take it easy on your shoulder for a week or two. That's because you know the "cost" of pushing through the burn is negligible and the benefit part of your whole plan; the "cost" of pushing through the shoulder twinge might be a month or two of no working out, possibly no more weightlifting ever if it's bad enough. In most situations I have a policy of eating at least a bit of whatever's put in front of me. It's good to train myself to put politeness over squeamishness, and in any case I've often found new foods that I've liked that way. I've never eaten tarantula or grasshopper, but if someone offered me one I'd try it, even though it sounds disgusting. However, I no longer eat sea cucumbers if my wife cooks them, even though I have only a mild distaste to them: I've already eaten them hundreds of times, I know I can eat them, I'm pretty sure they're never going to get any easier to eat, and she doesn't mind, as it leaves more for her. Forcing myself to eat them doesn't really have that much benefit. As a "social introvert", I've learned at conferences to just go back to my room and take a nap if I'm tired. I can just power through the day without a rest, but the interactions aren't really worth it -- much better to take a break and come back fresh and ready to engage. I could go on and on -- the key thing is to recognize what the actual cost or benefit of "pushing" is.

spuds 2y ago
I like the nuance you're bringing to this. When originally writing the article, I considered using a gym/weightlifting analogy, as it felt extremely relevant. I agree that the cost/benefit part can really be important. I might lean a bit more into my edge if I'm talking with someone I really care about, even if the cost/risk to me might be a little higher. I'm also much less likely to lean into my edge if I feel the person is a potential powder keg.
- gwd 2y ago
  Haha, having "high intensity" conversations was one of the things I was thinking of bringing up but couldn't find a concise way to express in the time I had to write the comment. I've written letters where I was like, this is either going to help this other person, or completely destroy our relationship. On the other hand, there are loads of conversations that I won't have, because I don't really foresee "moving the needle" of the other person (or anyone reading / listening to the conversation), and just having the conversation would get me really worked up and angry for no good reason. Re not talking to a potential powder keg, if you're interested the opinion of one ancient guy a lot of people look to for advice: “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." -Jesus

butz 2y ago

For the love of accessibility, why scrollbar on this website is as wide as a hair?

moffkalast 2y ago
Screen width is precious real estate, can't waste it carelessly like that. It's not like we have ultrawide monitors.

sklargh 2y ago

In a prior career as a firefighter-EMT about 90% of the work was pure boredom and routine, 5% was in a sweet-spot of complex and interesting or perhaps mildly but reasonably dangerous. The balance was represented some really difficult-ugly or wildly dangerous moments. It’s interesting how prevalent this is across so many fields.

svilen_dobrev 2y ago

few bits.. * the Edge-zone/s (yes, plural) are many, per-aspect. One can be pretty ok with one aspect and at-same-time-and-place totally not-ok with another aspect * being in edge zone is kind-a learning.. training.. ("if it hurts, do it more often") the more often there, further the edge border will move (Extending the comfort zone). Of course depending where it started ; loading a twisted ankle as-usual-before-twisting isn't safe * as saying goes: there's no cannot, there is do not want ; and there's no have to, only want to. But YMMV

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

Edges are cool. That's where the action is. But sometimes, we shouldn't have action. As I have gotten older, I have learned that "It Depends" is really a mantra for life. I know of some folks that are dealing with mental health challenges. They are all dirt poor, on SSI/Medicaid, and terrified of losing these. As a result, they don't try to get jobs, or advance themselves, socially. They don't take risks. Their therapists tend to encourage this stance. I can't, with sincerity, say that they are all wrong, but I'll bet some of them are. If they pushed themselves, they could probably break free of their chains. But some of the others, would just break. I am not qualified to know which is which. I do my best to support them, and keep my opinions to myself. One thing I know for sure: I have no idea what other people can take, in their edges. Just because I can do something, doesn't mean that someone else can. We advance, by pushing into our discomfort zone. There's a saying: "Winners do what they need to do. Losers do what they want to do." I don't know how to do almost every project I take on. It can be terrifying. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

fifilura 2y ago
Edges are cool. But they do have a dark side, often forgotten when talked about in public. I have once been on the edge of chaos for too long and eventually when it flipped over it took years to recover. Possibly even decades. Or possibly a lifetime.
- chankstein38 2y ago
  Agreed. Crunch times at work, 10+ hour days for years left me burnt out even after being out of that for 5 years. Too much edge of your comfort zone can ruin your life!
  - fifilura 2y ago
    For me it was not crunch time but constantly challenging myself. Did I hope to see something on the other side?
  - 2y ago

rors 2y ago

David Bowie said it better “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

thenobsta 2y ago

Seems like he's describing homeostasis and hormesis. The body has a homeostatic balance physically and psychologically. Pushing yourself out that balance (the comfort zone) induces and adaptation (growth). When you push yourself into the edge, as he defines it, you enter the hormetic zone, the area of the dose response where there is benefit (be it from physical or psychological stressors or medicines). Going too far causes unbeneficial and possibly irreparable damage.