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The Power of Mu
Jul. 11th, 2010 02:11 pmAs previously evidenced, one of the most pervasive elements of my posts is their spontaneity. This isn't necessarily because of an oversight on my part -- I simply operate on no buffer.
Unsurprisingly, this was my same strategy in college and my early career. The results have, well, been a bit humbling.*
I find I'm of a rare breed (No, not just a gold dragon. -Ed), in that I'm a rationalist with a purely intuitive base. I operate best when I make things up completely on the spot, or when I draw from sources that are relatively close at hand.**
The problem with this is flatly obvious. Because I draw on information of close proximity, I can be a complete and utter dunce when it comes to any test of depth. And because I look at problems as a matter of simple, closely-coupled components, my mind fails to retain the deeper nuances.
The result is a reasonably skilled, often competent person who utterly fails at articulating himself. Yes, that is the sound of me headdesking while trying to form this post.
This is the "mu" I speak of. Given my propensity for little information, I draw upon nothingness, starting with no assumptions and fueling my intuition with only the data close at hand. Based upon these, I select the most rational, obvious answer -- and often overlook the more nuanced ones.
What I do not know, is whether this speaks to inexperience, or to my desire that the world be a fundamentally simple place. I have found that taking the material, translating it into my private journals, then returning with the distilled, researched result tends to be better for everyone involved.***
This leads me to question my strategy of information storage and retrieval. Given the context of a suitably-geeky dragon with a tendency to ramble, would it be more correct for me to select obvious answers and address common problems, or should I build deeper wells of knowledge than my shallow base of experience?
The good news is, in either case, my lack of experience has spurned me to act on this. What falls to question is whether I act correctly.
--
* Let it be said that I'm far better off now than I was then.
** True to form, the dichotomy of "rationalist" and "intuitive" is borrowed from an unnamed party. You know who you are.
And for the nerds in the audience, the following paragraph is me failing to explain how my mind works on a breadth-first search of ideas, even in cases where depth would be more appropriate.
*** An insight into my journaling structure at home and at work:
It revolves around an ordering of three buffers: my main log (organized errata, todos), my day log (unorganized, idea-linked notes), and my project log (time tracking and down-to-the-minute information on where I spend most of my time).
These are generally presented in three splits of an Emacs window, and looks something like this:
My writing revolves best around this spread.
Having my Todos and Time Habits split to the left (nearer my poor eye) and my unstructured notes to the right (in 20/10 vision) genuinely helps me. There is also something to be said about how each eye is processed by the left and right lobes of the brain, but I'll leave that off the page for now.
Unsurprisingly, this was my same strategy in college and my early career. The results have, well, been a bit humbling.*
I find I'm of a rare breed (No, not just a gold dragon. -Ed), in that I'm a rationalist with a purely intuitive base. I operate best when I make things up completely on the spot, or when I draw from sources that are relatively close at hand.**
The problem with this is flatly obvious. Because I draw on information of close proximity, I can be a complete and utter dunce when it comes to any test of depth. And because I look at problems as a matter of simple, closely-coupled components, my mind fails to retain the deeper nuances.
The result is a reasonably skilled, often competent person who utterly fails at articulating himself. Yes, that is the sound of me headdesking while trying to form this post.
This is the "mu" I speak of. Given my propensity for little information, I draw upon nothingness, starting with no assumptions and fueling my intuition with only the data close at hand. Based upon these, I select the most rational, obvious answer -- and often overlook the more nuanced ones.
What I do not know, is whether this speaks to inexperience, or to my desire that the world be a fundamentally simple place. I have found that taking the material, translating it into my private journals, then returning with the distilled, researched result tends to be better for everyone involved.***
This leads me to question my strategy of information storage and retrieval. Given the context of a suitably-geeky dragon with a tendency to ramble, would it be more correct for me to select obvious answers and address common problems, or should I build deeper wells of knowledge than my shallow base of experience?
The good news is, in either case, my lack of experience has spurned me to act on this. What falls to question is whether I act correctly.
--
* Let it be said that I'm far better off now than I was then.
** True to form, the dichotomy of "rationalist" and "intuitive" is borrowed from an unnamed party. You know who you are.
And for the nerds in the audience, the following paragraph is me failing to explain how my mind works on a breadth-first search of ideas, even in cases where depth would be more appropriate.
*** An insight into my journaling structure at home and at work:
It revolves around an ordering of three buffers: my main log (organized errata, todos), my day log (unorganized, idea-linked notes), and my project log (time tracking and down-to-the-minute information on where I spend most of my time).
These are generally presented in three splits of an Emacs window, and looks something like this:
| Main Log | Day Log |
| Project Log |
My writing revolves best around this spread.
Having my Todos and Time Habits split to the left (nearer my poor eye) and my unstructured notes to the right (in 20/10 vision) genuinely helps me. There is also something to be said about how each eye is processed by the left and right lobes of the brain, but I'll leave that off the page for now.
