Optimise for Usefulness - Commoncog
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Optimising for usefulness is my current stab at a core principle that underpins the effective life. A first draft of a life philosophy.
I remember reading Paul Graham’s essay What You’ll Wish You’d Known as a teenager, back when I had first discovered Graham as an essayist. One section of that essay has stuck with me in the years since: If (Shakespeare and Einstein) were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good. I'm not saying there's no such thing as…
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