a day ago
- The author regrets imitating bad writers in high school, assuming fiction was the highest form of writing and that complex suffering was admirable.
- In college, the author tried to imitate philosophy papers, but later realized they often lacked substantive, refutable content.
- In grad school, the author was impressed by expert systems, a fad that proved uninteresting and overhyped.
- A key lesson is to copy only what you genuinely like, not what is admired by others.
- To identify true likes, ignore impressive presentations (e.g., museum settings) and consider guilty pleasures or how much you'd pay without context.
- When copying good work, focus on replicating its strengths, not its flaws (e.g., brownish paintings in history).
- Painting taught the author to distinguish between doing good work and being an insider, and to trust one's own judgment over authorities.