Posted by alexandra_k on October 10, 2013, at 1:45:55
In reply to Re: the commons, posted by alexandra_k on October 1, 2013, at 23:24:24
I found this youtube clip of stephen j gould. the interviewer asked him how he managed to be so productive. i mean, the guy churned out an article every month and a book (as a compiled collection of articles) every year or so over years...
he said his secret was that you had to do it for yourself. that you couldn't do it for the fame. because if you did it for the fame then there would be a certain point where you would realize that you were famous and then you would stop. that you had to do it for yourself.
i think i have a pretty good grip on internal motivation. when it comes to seeking out information. reading. researching. when it comes to things like squats. i am having trouble getting it for my writing, though. mostly... i feel like coughing up writing is a chore. it isn't done for me. it is done to satisfy funding bodies etc. i... don't see how it is something that helps me.
so... what am i missing?
if i could get this... it would solve everything...
there is something else, too... i have been reading... and finding all kinds of things... and i've been thinking about this difference between 'pop stuff' (i guess it is stuff that i'd be a little... embarrassed?... to reference) and 'proper serious academic stuff' (done by certain people and / or people of certain positions and / or certain publishers)... and... what is the difference?
i think part of the difference is meant to be 'scholarly' vs 'sloppy'. what is that difference? i guess more scholarly stuff summarizes a lot... like how i'm just learning about the considerable value of a really well done literature review. how it manages to usefully chunk a whole heap of stuff... how it does a lot of work for you... saves you a whole bunch of time... scholarly books cover a lot of ground in that way... summarizing whole fields... and in some instances the progression of a certain line of research spanning multiple fields... that is just work. it takes work to read and to understand what is often complicated and to summarize accurately at the appropriate level of detail.
what is in doing that for me?
i guess it is in all the stuff you leave out... the whole process of doing that... you learn... heaps. heaps. much more than if you just read the stuff faster and didn't properly comprehension check. maybe that is what writing does. keeps you more honest. note to self: if you REALLY want to understand / know... this is the way.
part of the difference... i'm starting to see... is in the use of analogy. it is relatively easy to make cursory analogies. or to make sweeping ones. it is something else entirely to slow things up. each point of similarity - instead of noting a similarity and moving on really examining it. similar exactly how - dissimilar exactly how? i guess... coming closer to understanding the thing on its own terms rather than trying to extend / apply a different category to it. e.g., i found this book on autism and it was saying that the issue was one of bandwidth limitations like a slow internet connection for social skills. in one way... it is an illuminating metaphor. it got a wonderful smile out of me. it conjured up all kinds of images. and then the analogy got extended in all kinds of interesting and clever ways... but... uh... while it was delightful to read... uh... i'm not sure i was really coming to learn about autism.
i found this other book that was trying to integrate evolution, development, cultural change, and something else i forget... with 7 principles... ditto. creating and nourishing the brain somehow... but,uh, how much was actually learned about any of those fields? i'm not entirely convinced...
the dry boring stuff is... uh... more informative. i guess.
intellectual honesty. i think that is tied up...
and of course things seem clear until you try and write up what was supposed to be so very clear. then things start to seem confused. not so clear after all. intellectual honesty, again. this is what makes writing valuable and worthwhile. the idea is that the writing process reveals the unclarity that was present. this is why you write for you. to come to a better understanding. i need to grasp this properly.
i'm... lazy. mentally lazy. sigh. without external things like tests / assessments / the prospects of an A+... sigh. do it for me... i get it for squats. why not this? come back to me...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1047868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20130914/msgs/1051942.html