questions are the guide to life
But I think that for most of us there exists a question that could impact each of us similarly, and I know that most of us have not spent nearly enough time asking what that question is.
Let’s test that: what’s your question?
Packy McCormick • Long Questions/Short Answers Long Questions/Short Answers
Each person’s mind is hungry for different things (different nutritious things, at least), and each person’s big question will be different.
Packy McCormick • Long Questions/Short Answers Long Questions/Short Answers
Questions are places in your mind where answers fit . If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question — you have to want to know — in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.1
Packy McCormick • Long Questions/Short Answers Long Questions/Short Answers
People who read widely and attentively—and then publish the results of their reading—are also arguably performing research as a leisure activity.
Celine Nguyen • research as leisure activity - by Celine Nguyen research as leisure activity
“How do you see someone, including yourself, clearly?”
Packy McCormick • Long Questions/Short Answers Long Questions/Short Answers
Graham Duncan, Investor
Graham has made an art of understanding people – Patrick introduced him by saying that his “reputation was as the most discerning people picker on Wall Street” – and in his essay, he writes that one of the best ways to do that is to see what kinds of questions they ask:
It also helps to have the candidate you’re trying to see clearly ask you questions. Questions have very high signal value compared to most anything else you can get from a candidate… I write down each question and sometimes respond with “I’ll answer, but first I’m curious, why did you ask that?” I’m looking for the felt sense of a “hungry mind” based on the way their questions flow. That’s very hard to fake.
Research as leisure activity is directed by passions and instincts . It’s fundamentally very personal: What are you interested in now ? It’s fine, and maybe even better, if the topic isn’t explicitly intellectual or academic in nature. And if one topic leads you to another topic that seems totally unrelated, that’s something to get excited about—n
... See moreCeline Nguyen • research as leisure activity - by Celine Nguyen research as leisure activity
When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything wi... See more
James Somers • More People Should Write
Your mind can’t fit everything. Questions filter out the things you don’t care to fit and find a place for the things you do. So having a question becomes more important in proportion to the amount of information available to you, which these days is way too much. A question keeps you from getting sucked into the algorithmic noise, and surfaces som
... See morePacky McCormick • Long Questions/Short Answers Long Questions/Short Answers
The questions we ask reshape our reality.