If you write in an unclear way about big ideas, you produce something that seems tantalizingly attractive to inexperienced but intellectually ambitious students. Till one knows better, it's hard to distinguish something that's hard to understand because the writer was unclear in his own mind from something like a mathematical proof that's hard to understand because the ideas it represents are hard to understand. To someone who hasn't learned the difference, traditional philosophy seems extremely attractive: as hard (and therefore impressive) as math, yet broader in scope.

Couldn't the same be said about what we read today? Couldn't the same be said about concepts like following your passion, being a rockstar, overcoming your fear, you can do anything, and happiness is all that matters, to name a few?

Aren't these vague concepts, with a lot of appeal for the enthusiast but inexperienced mind, as impractical as traditional philosophy may be?

I think so.

It can be hard to separate the things you like from the things you're impressed with. One trick is to ignore presentation. Whenever I see a painting impressively hung in a museum, I ask myself: how much would I pay for this if I found it at a garage sale, dirty and frameless, and with no idea who painted it? If you walk around a museum trying this experiment, you'll find you get some truly startling results. Don't ignore this data point just because it's an outlier.

Another way to figure out what you like is to look at what you enjoy as guilty pleasures. Many things people like, especially if they're young and ambitious, they like largely for the feeling of virtue in liking them. 99% of people reading Ulysses are thinking "I'm reading Ulysses" as they do it. A guilty pleasure is at least a pure one. What do you read when you don't feel up to being virtuous? What kind of book do you read and feel sad that there's only half of it left, instead of being impressed that you're half way through? That's what you really like.

I think most people understand this, even if at a subconscious level. The problem as I see it, arises when what we like is not what society thinks you should like, when we believe our likes will be looked down upon. Or even worse, when a certain culture only allows one to like what one should be impressed with.

Cuddy refers to Dana Carney’s theory that feeling powerful is disinhibiting, so you stereotype more; if stereotypes are automatic, to avoid stereotyping requires an inhibiting process. A second explanation is that “Top people tend to see everyone under them as the same,” says Cuddy. “It’s OK if they confuse Employee A with Employee B—they’re not going to lose their job because they offended somebody beneath them. Lower-status people need to be more vigilant; stereotypes won’t give them all the information they need. Stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts you take when you don’t have that much to lose.”

Remember, this is not being an asshole. This is being human.

Surprisingly, in their self-perceptions, individuals value competence over warmth. “We want other people to be warm, but we want to be competent,” she says. “We’d rather have people respect us than like us.” (Cuddy thinks this human tendency represents a mistaken judgment: “Social connections will take you farther than respect.”)

The reason we want respect is because of our ego. By measuring our worth by how much of an impact our ego has on other people, we actually limit our progress. People respect us and our ego, but that's not the people they choose to surround themselves with.

As we grow older, we prefer to enjoy someone's company, regardless of what that person brings to the table, rather than look up to them all the time because of the distance they install in the relationship.

To sum up, leaving your ego on the door (something I struggle with as well) is one of the hardest, but most helpful things you can do for your career.

The real reason you feel like a fraud is because you have been successful in taking a lot of information out of the third category (shit you don't know you don't know) and put it into the second category; you know of a lot of stuff you don’t know. The good news is that this makes you very not dangerous. The bad news is that it also makes you feel dumb and helpless a lot of the time.

I like the idea of defining wisdom as "not being dangerous."

In general, a human factor is a physical or cognitive property of an individual or social behavior which is specific to humans and influences functioning of technological systems as well as human-environment equilibriums.

In social interactions, the use of the term human factor stresses the social properties unique to or characteristic of humans.

Human factors involves the study of all aspects of the way humans relate to the world around them, with the aim of improving operational performance, safety, through life costs and/or adoption through improvement in the experience of the end user.

One of the reasons I'm reluctant to get involved in political debates: our total negligence of human factors in positions of power.

The rage to master. You get in, you put in a MASSIVE effort to learn the intricacies of an art or field, you master it, and then… meh. You’ve done your thing. It gets boring and you want to move on.

The biggest, most important thing for that is getting the achievements/skills/credentials/assets/whatever in the time frame where you’re still highly engaged, and then automating or selling or otherwise intelligently transitioning afterwards.

Rage to master is a great trait if you harness it and plan around it. Also, you could develop willpower and stick it out in a particular discipline, but it sounds like that goes against your nature and you don’t want to do it. So, run with it. Early on into any endeavor you start getting serious on, make a list of the skills, assets, credentials, contacts, cash, whatever that you want to get out of it, and get them ASAP. Absolutely force yourself to finish things you start while you’re still in the rage-to-master-zone. That’s crucial to succeeding with your temperament.

I've been noticing something similar in the last couple of years, but more on the lines of speed. I notice that the most impressive people I know, excel at learning the most important 80% of a field very quickly, much quicker than most people, and then they move on to something else that draws their interest (which is why people label them as "impatient", or "inconsistent").

I think the hope is to, eventually, find that ONE field interesting enough to want to, not only learn 100% of it, but also stick with it for the pleasure of practicing it. In the meantime, learning 60-80% of many fields has a major impact on how interesting and socially adaptable a person is, and in improving pattern recognition for future endeavors.

I suffer this fucking rage thing so much...

I think one of the reasons anti-intellectualism is so dominant in western culture is that some people just seem to know everything so effortlessly. For the most part, that’s a lie. Like the case of the child prodigy, there is just as much work involved; the only difference is that it’s not necessarily done faster… it’s just not always seen. No one has the superhuman ability to just know things. “Know-it-alls” do work hard to know what they know. And the reason that we all don’t “know everything” is, similarly, that most just aren’t motivated enough to put in the work – they simply lack the rage to master. Anyone can seemingly “know everything” if they can devote hours a day to learning new things, but many aren’t willing to put in the time and effort.

It's always work and time spent. Nothing pops out of nowhere...

Politicians naturally have an interest in nurturing the crusty old myth that we all have some sort of moral duty to vote. Pushing that tired old argument is in their best interest, because when they convince us of that ridiculous adage en masse, it generates quantities of votes that are large enough to matter.

Guilt and shame are used in a very calculated manner by people who know how to exercise real power over election results. Most of us are unwilling to do anything that might actually influence an election, so we vote in order to convince ourselves that we didn’t quite leave it entirely to others to decide who wins. But by limiting your participation to your single vote, that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of not voting because they feel like they would then be forfeiting the only power they have over who governs. But your vote contains no power. It is a virtually inert token of your participation, which does carry some sentimental value to some people. But it has no election-swinging ability. There are plenty of actions that can make a difference but casting your vote isn’t one of them.

In the media, your vote is billed as a precious choice with resounding consequences, which means you should watch a lot of election coverage so that you don’t screw it up. Now think for a moment: who might have an interest in having you vastly overestimate the importance of your vote? The candidates, and the news organizations that talk about them 24 hours a day. You’ve been had.

They don’t want your choice to be logical, they want it to remain emotional.

The terror of absolute annihilation creates such a profound—albeit subconscious—anxiety in people (called cognitive dissonance) that they spend their lives attempting to make sense of it. On large scales, societies build symbols: laws, religious meaning systems, cultures, and belief systems to explain the significance of life, define what makes certain characteristics, skills, and talents extraordinary, reward others whom they find exemplify certain attributes, and punish or kill others who do not adhere to their cultural worldview. On an individual level, how well someone adheres to a cultural worldview is the same concept as self-esteem; people measure their own worth based on how well they live up to their culture's expectations.

According to TMT theorists, symbols that create cultural worldviews are fiercely protected, as representations of actual life. The Terror Management Theory posits that when people are reminded of their own deaths, they more readily enforce these symbols, often leading to punitive actions, violence, and war.