Patrick Roberts

How to Feel Superior to a Dead Genius

Search his ideas for one that your society's elite ostensibly judges false. You gain extra status if the media now regularly associates belief in the idea with lower class. Since today's definers of good, evil, true, false, must be right, and since you of course agree with them, then logically you must be wiser than a famous genius. Now you can skip all those other challenging ideas of his, since they're no doubt wrong too. It helps if you can ignore that the use of a genius is to discover new thoughts, especially when exclusive with any now held.

Energy Sources

Nietzsche wrote the first part of Zarathustra in 10 days. Largely his usual ideas in new form - still amazing.

How to match that every month?

Novelty - When you lose energy, change how you're working.

Physical - Code that runs, a printed book in hand.

Public - Humans are so social, they even die for each other. Exploit that: put something out in public, even if only technically, so fear of embarrassment, that someone, even a stranger, will see your dull prose or ugly program. There's also then a chance of someone enjoying your work and letting you know what's really wrong with it, if anything, which is the only test, not the bottomless list of flaws you imagine.

Routine - The mind is associative, so bind work with time, place, tool.

Envy - I recall reading that the ancient Greeks judged envy good. They must have expected the jealous to exceed the envied, not pull them down. Not the most pleasant way to push myself.

Once a worthy goal is well defined, energy, not method, becomes top rank. Without energy, methods won't even get tested. Nothing's less efficient than doing nothing.

On Closer Inspection

Realization: I'm not lazy. Proof: On many projects, say this blog, I'll work till my eyes ache. Why do other projects - I have my book in mind - not attract the same energy? That's the useful question. Maybe I better break that work into vivid and satisfying steps. Maybe the more familiar work is easier because I unconsciously learned to break that work, but only that work, into the right size. For the book, could a step typically be a paragraph?

A Science of Genius

A book I want, one that scientifically identifies the physical and chemical conditions of genius, or of productivity generally. How to sleep (if you delay it, how to avoid illness), fresh air, humidity, diet (fast? protein? vitamins?), sun exposure, exercise (aerobic or anaerobic). Not just tips on planning and prioritizing or avoiding procrastination and distraction. Varying with the kind of work: the philosopher might need isolation, the artist, a busy city.

Serious Bodily Injury

Somehow I remain surprised that the best setup to my day is to nearly break my neck. In today's case, when landing after a small ramp, the front of the snowboard caught the snow, leaving me to spin upside down and land on my right shoulder. Crunch, slam, slide.

Morale

With essentially all my time at my whim, it's embarrassing how little work I do. Of course, I know it's highest to ensure I'm working on the most rewarding job, but that ranking is just another kind of work that I want the energy for.

Usually I'm energized by novelty but can that carry me through a substantial project?

My talent for forming huge plans, to reach a huge goal with maximum efficiency - I neglect to optimize morale. I'm a communist central planner, ignoring my greatest resource. So break my lofty works into one or two week plans with a reward that really gives me a feeling of completion. Don't write a book in one leap; finish a blog post, article, novella, lastly a short book.

I also suspect that if my unconscious thinks some important need is unsatisfied, it will deny me the energy for any other work, but of course without telling me what it wants instead.

Genius

If you're so smart, how inconvenienced can you really be? Not answered for pity, just self-awareness. If genius sees differently, sees from higher up, and if society maximizes the convenience of the majority close to the average (and the sympathetic left half of the curve), then geniuses will find hassle after hassle, like a 7' man needing to duck every doorway.