(no subject)

[tinyjo]

I keep running up against the fact that I'm lazy recently. Not all over my life, but intellectually. It's frustrating me. Listening to the news this morning, for example, I had what to me felt like an interesting thought about how socialism relys on people having a sense of being banded together, which is leading them in interesting directions (for example, to suggesting that immigrants should be given different/smaller benefits than native UKers) and how that impacts of views of the left-right spectrum.

Now that's probably an interesting topic, but to do anything with that thought, I would have to do a huge amount of sociopolitical reading to get background, find out if anyone's thinking/already thought the same thing and develop the implications in ways that actually make sense. And I've got no motivation to do that so the idea just lies languishing

Which is OK, I suppose but frustrating. And it encourages me to feel like I'm smarter than I am - in the back of my mind, the assumtion is there that it would be relatively straightforward to master this area and make a contribution if I had sufficient time and energy which is very arrogant.

I'm not sure there's much to be suggested here because it doesn't seem likely to me that I'll find the motivation and time any time soon nor will I be likely to stop having ill informed flashes of inspiration based on what I hear on the radio so the point of this post is kind of just to remind myself that these are just ill informed opinions. That doesn't mean that they might not be right, but chances are I'm not going to be the first to have thought of them.

Comments

[tea-and-cuddles.livejournal.com]

1. Why do you find it frustrating? Most of what you wrote reads, to me, as an impartial observation about yourself. Things that just are. But you say it's frustrating a couple of times, as though you would like to be different...

2. I've had that arrogant sense of how easy it would be to master many things... fields of computing, science, therapy. Probably most of my life. These days I'm beginning to think that in so many fields I could, if not master them, at least go far if I put the effort in, but it's all in doing... and doing's the hard bit. Having ideas is the easy bit. Having inspiration and intuition is too. Acting on them... that's the hard bit. And maybe that's the bit that matters, to me anyway. Doing is so hard that I feel a lot more humble these days, and a lot more appreciative of those who do act on their inspirations.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

What I find frustrating is that I never do have the energy to ... well even find out if these are insights at all so I never take it forward/get any further. Plus the sense, however misplaced, that I could be out there contributing this stuff but am not is frustrating too. Not enough to do anything about but frustrating.

On (2), yes, completely agree!

[timscience.livejournal.com]

I think this is why we specialise in stuff. it would take a tremendus amount of time and effort - more than anyone in fact has - to master everything interesting in the world. I have one, maybe two fields I actually know something about but that doesn't stop me being an interested spectator on other stuff, and it's still possible to have interesting conversations on the "intelligent layman" (woman, person, thing)level. The people that actually know about other stuff in depth probably don't know anything about your field.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

True. I'm actually not much of a specialist in anything, or at least not compared to my peer group, which is perhaps why I get more frustrated by it. There's nothing wrong per-se with being a generalist and in fact, it's pretty useful but it's not sexy :)