How To Understand Things

The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert described a study conducted at Yale where graduate students were asked to rate their understanding of their own toilet at home. They were then asked to write detailed, step-by-step explanations of how the device works. Once they’d attempted to explain the inner workings of a toilet, they were asked to rate their u

... See more

Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I’m a “dumb shit” who doesn’t know much relative to what I need to know. Whatever success I’ve had in life has had more to do with my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than anything I know. The most important thing I learned is an approach to life based on principles that helps... See more

But it’s not just energy. You have to be able to motivate yourself to spend large quantities of energy on a problem, which means on some level that not understanding something — or having a bug in your thinking — bothers you a lot. You have the drive, the will to know. Related to this is honesty, or integrity: a sort of compulsive unwillingness, or... See more