I recently added the blog Cosmic Variance to my reader. It's great. I know you probably don't have much time for more content ... and the posts are all rather longish, but I'm really glad I stumbled on it.
As an example, I really identified with this post on the cult of genius. It really got me thinking about kids and the damage that can be inflicted unwittingly with too much general praise. I was told repeatedly that I was smart or a genius all the time at home growing up, and I turned out to be the prototypical skater. Disengaging when things would get remotely challenging. It didn't hit me (or maybe I didn't acknowledge) until I was 23-24 that I wasn't "exceptional" or "brilliant". The post really cemented some thoughts that I had been arriving at on my own ... that it's ok to struggle with stuff, that some things in life *are* hard, that practicing/working on something is sometimes the only way to advance in it. It seems odd to be realizing that stuff at age 34. Also takes the sting out of this.
Monday, January 12, 2009
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