SIX at 6: Mundane Excellence, Comfortable Torture, a Dividing Line, the Reality of Creativity, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Paul Graham
Billy Oppenheimerbillyoppenheimer.com
SIX at 6: Mundane Excellence, Comfortable Torture, a Dividing Line, the Reality of Creativity, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Paul Graham
Sociology professor Daniel Chambliss, who spent years researching the qualities of elite swimmers, on what creates excellence: "Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together
... See moremastery happens small step by small step and that the mystery, more often than not, is that of a kind of life-enhancing equivalent of the illusion called “persistence of motion” when we watch a movie or cartoon. “Flow” is the shorthand term that’s been popularized for the feeling of the real work as it seeps through our neurons and veins, and, thou
... See moreAdam Gopnik • The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery
Creativity is not some mysterious form of magic. It’s something that is rewarded to those who put in hours and hours of mundane, boring, tedious work.
all truly creative people know that no sharp line lies between work and other activities. Work should challenge us — be difficult, if you will — but that is no reason for us not to find satisfaction in it.