For the last couple of days, I've started coming to Starbucks for getting my personal coding things done. And so far, it has been so good that I have wondered why I never tried this earlier. True, sometimes, you need the intensity of being alone in the quiet of your room and your bookshelf next to you, but a great majority of the time, you don't, and what's much more crucial is that your practice is more habit-forming. To that end, I think, a kind of quasi-alone state that you get in a cafe where you are surrounded yet by yourself, is a lot more conducive than being in a locked up room. Or so I feel, for now. We'll see.
The other thing I've realized is that good textbooks are a way better way to learn something new, or even re-learn something, than video lectures. At least for me.
I've been thinking a lot about the pursuit of money and what it does to us, lately. I've long held that the utility I, and in my opinion others too in all likelihood, derive from accumulating money tends to zero, even negative, after a certain threshold. The threshold, however, where you feel like you should stop caring about accumulating still more comes much later, and for most, never at all.
I have been thinking about the second stage lately. On the one hand I feel convinced that I do not care about any pursuit the only payoff from which is more money, I think I still have some ways to go before I can say the same about external recognition, even though from what I can tell, it is entirely frivolous, whereas having money (a reasonable amount of it, at any rate) is actually pretty darn important. And yet when I see an old classmate on LinkedIn I've always thought of myself as much smarter and hard-working than, and see that he is head of so and so fancy thing at so and so fancy company, something tells me that I cannot stop running after external recognition just yet, not until I "right that wrong". I know it is immensely ignorant and small of me, but where would I confess it if not here, to nobody and everybody?
The other thing I've realized is that good textbooks are a way better way to learn something new, or even re-learn something, than video lectures. At least for me.
I've been thinking a lot about the pursuit of money and what it does to us, lately. I've long held that the utility I, and in my opinion others too in all likelihood, derive from accumulating money tends to zero, even negative, after a certain threshold. The threshold, however, where you feel like you should stop caring about accumulating still more comes much later, and for most, never at all.
I have been thinking about the second stage lately. On the one hand I feel convinced that I do not care about any pursuit the only payoff from which is more money, I think I still have some ways to go before I can say the same about external recognition, even though from what I can tell, it is entirely frivolous, whereas having money (a reasonable amount of it, at any rate) is actually pretty darn important. And yet when I see an old classmate on LinkedIn I've always thought of myself as much smarter and hard-working than, and see that he is head of so and so fancy thing at so and so fancy company, something tells me that I cannot stop running after external recognition just yet, not until I "right that wrong". I know it is immensely ignorant and small of me, but where would I confess it if not here, to nobody and everybody?
