both are true
on holding two conflicting ideas at once
both are true
both are true: I hold a lot of conflicting beliefs, and have become happier the longer I’ve sat with them and realized that internal conflicts are a fact of life.
“Life is not like formula fiction. The villain has a heart, and the hero has great flaws.”
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
There is so much mystique around the creative life. It’s fetishized and coveted and seen as mysterious even by the people who inhabit it. We have a cultural script that says: There’s too much consumption, not enough creation! If you want to be a [tasteful/interesting/admirable/happy] person, you should make more things. But then also: Social media ... See more
Ava • Making Things Is Hard
On the one hand you have — the point you’re making Woz — is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable — the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have the... See more
Seth Godin • Information wants to be free*
Logic requires that people find universal laws, but outside of scientific fields and once human psychology has a role to play, it is perfectly possible for behavior to become contradictory. A tax rise can cause you to work less because the returns of your labor are lower, or work harder to maintain your present level of disposable wealth. There are... See more
Two conflicting perspectives I’m trying to reconcile:
Having a “north star” mission is critical.
Difference between success and failure on everything I've worked on has always been in persisting and getting unsexy details right.
At Stanford’s dy/dx program, founder Tony Xu was asked about the qualities he interviews for at DoorDash. One of the five traits is holding and making sense of opposing ideas. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to fu... See more
Holding Opposing Ideas
nuanced piece by Anthropic CEO