Thinking is a stupid persons hobby

I recently read 2 books that have had an immense effect on the way I look at my life and I want to share them with you.

But first, a little context

I love to learn. I love dense books about history and philosophy, I love to tinker with new technology, to have deep conversations about life's big ideas, and I for most of my life I assumed these things made me smart and I thought being smart was valuable.

Lately, I'm finding that all this thinking and talking about complex ideas comes easy to me and is not very useful, and there is a term for a person too proud of their perceived intelligence: Luciferian intellect.

Indecision and inaction

A few observations about how this manifests

Thinkers often try to mentally solve all the problems they may encounter before starting a project, and since there are an unlimited number of problems for any project and since unlimited problems can't be solved, they never start the project at all. Stuck in limbo looking for a perfect opportunity.

Real problems are never as difficult as we imagine once we are actually in front of them. Yet we don't get to these real problems if we are paralyzed by the imaginary ones. We don't get the confidence earned by solving real life problems, we get cowardice for a life spent avoiding problems we thought might happen.

Opportunity is grossly underestimated and risk is grossly overestimated. The people who take action get all the rewards and the smart calculating people who are great at telling you everything that can go wrong get very little, because things don't go wrong as much as our brain tells us they will.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" - Thoreau

Thinking about imaginary risks leads us to play life safe, over time this becomes complacency, and then too late in life we wake up with anger deep inside because we know life is not meant to be played safe. (I am here now)

A glimpse through quotes

I hope I'm good enough at writing that you're currently thinking:

"What the fuck did those books say?"

The first is "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, a loosely autobiographical book about a girl who spends her life day dreaming about each wonderful possibility her life could become and taking none. She killed herself shortly after writing this.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. - The Bell Jar

The next us "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). A memoir from a man who adamantly prevents himself from thinking so it won't distract him from spending each day in pure activity - in doing so becomes arguably the most impressive human to ever walk the earth.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - T.E. Lawrence

Think less, reflect more

What outcome do I want for myself?

Do I want to daydream about possibility, choose none, and then suicide myself? Or do I want to spend my life in nonstop unmitigated action with the rare and occasionally reflection to see what's been done?

I write this entry in the same way that I write most, as a projection of my current situation. It's not that I intend to give up thinking but learning is like the gym, it's healthy but it can only serve the self. It's so limited. I also see now that the smartest people are not the ones who think the most, it's those who take the most action and have the most life to reflect on.

I aim to have more to show for my time in 2027