Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading - 4th/5th January 2025
How to do great work? by Paul Graham
“Let's talk a little more about the complicated business of figuring out what to work on. The main reason it's hard is that you can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. Which means the four steps overlap: you may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it. And in the meantime you're not doing, and thus not learning about, most other kinds of work. So…”
Your Personality, Explained by Your Annoying Household Habits by Nicole Rose Whitaker
“Typically, you are one of those people who doesn’t check voice messages because they make you anxious. You have an extreme fear of the unknown and are marginally equipped to navigate adult life. Like the Soaker, you avoid making decisions, but, rather than acknowledge problems and put off solving them, you delay identifying the issues altogether until you have no choice—because, well, you’ve run out of places to eat your breakfast. Besides, if a bill is mailed and no one is there to open it, does it even exist?.…”
What you (Want To)* Want and Paul Graham
“Since I was about 9 I've been puzzled by the apparent contradiction between being made of matter that behaves in a predictable way, and the feeling that I could choose to do whatever I wanted. At the time I had a self-interested motive for exploring the question. At that age (like most succeeding ages) I was always in trouble with the authorities, and it seemed to me that there might possibly be some way to get out of trouble by arguing that I wasn't responsible for my actions. I gradually lost hope of that, but the puzzle remained.…”
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