Coping with being average: local group. If you want to produce some content like writing, you’re very likely to take popular writers as a baseline. But in times of the Internet, those are super-high-performers from the far end of the distribution. You and I are just not as good them (I’m 99% sure the reader is not in top 1%).
This might make you lose motivation. You will produce less then your reference point. Your content will feel medicore. You will get orders of magnitude smaller audience.
Idea how to cope better: instead of taking the whole internet, take a random sample of 100 people from your reference group and select top achievers (in the desired area) from this 100. They will probably be only slightly better than you.
A simple mechanism partially emulating this random sampling is your local group.
Comparing yourself to people who are closer to you on performance axis will probably be more productive. They might have struggled with similar problems as you only recently. They might have some tricks that are applicable in your case. You have higher chance of reaching their level 2 years from now.
In other words, if you want to be a better writer, aspire to be like the best writer in your local EA group, not like EY or Scott Alexander.
Another method is to be the best (or most patient, or most thorough) writer in your particular domain, or in general being the pareto-best in the world.
That’s an interesting post, thanks. But I think you can bring value with your creations even if you’re neither pareto optimal nor one-dimension top performer. So if you write scifi stories, you might still write some interesting stuff and deliver inspiring idea even if you don’t have unique mixture of non-usual-sci-fi-writer traits in any tangible sense. You’re not the best skateboard-scifi writer. You’re just an average scifi writer and it’s fine.
So my point is in this case you might still need motivation. Maybe to develop your unique style or hit the niche market in the future. But if from the very beginning you compare yourself to superhumans boosted to the right side of the distribution by their unique genome or other irreproducible factors, you might never even start.
Another technique is to compare yourself to your past self.
I’m often dissatisfied with my writing. But when I look back at stuff that I wrote six months ago, I can’t help but notice how much better I’ve become.
The caveat here is that comparing myself to people like Scott Alexander gives me some direction. Comparing myself to an earlier version of myself doesn’t give me that direction. Instead, it gives me a sort of energy/courage to keep on going.
Coping with being average: local group. If you want to produce some content like writing, you’re very likely to take popular writers as a baseline. But in times of the Internet, those are super-high-performers from the far end of the distribution. You and I are just not as good them (I’m 99% sure the reader is not in top 1%).
This might make you lose motivation. You will produce less then your reference point. Your content will feel medicore. You will get orders of magnitude smaller audience.
Idea how to cope better: instead of taking the whole internet, take a random sample of 100 people from your reference group and select top achievers (in the desired area) from this 100. They will probably be only slightly better than you.
A simple mechanism partially emulating this random sampling is your local group.
Comparing yourself to people who are closer to you on performance axis will probably be more productive. They might have struggled with similar problems as you only recently. They might have some tricks that are applicable in your case. You have higher chance of reaching their level 2 years from now.
In other words, if you want to be a better writer, aspire to be like the best writer in your local EA group, not like EY or Scott Alexander.
Another method is to be the best (or most patient, or most thorough) writer in your particular domain, or in general being the pareto-best in the world.
That’s an interesting post, thanks. But I think you can bring value with your creations even if you’re neither pareto optimal nor one-dimension top performer. So if you write scifi stories, you might still write some interesting stuff and deliver inspiring idea even if you don’t have unique mixture of non-usual-sci-fi-writer traits in any tangible sense. You’re not the best skateboard-scifi writer. You’re just an average scifi writer and it’s fine. So my point is in this case you might still need motivation. Maybe to develop your unique style or hit the niche market in the future. But if from the very beginning you compare yourself to superhumans boosted to the right side of the distribution by their unique genome or other irreproducible factors, you might never even start.
Another technique is to compare yourself to your past self.
I’m often dissatisfied with my writing. But when I look back at stuff that I wrote six months ago, I can’t help but notice how much better I’ve become.
The caveat here is that comparing myself to people like Scott Alexander gives me some direction. Comparing myself to an earlier version of myself doesn’t give me that direction. Instead, it gives me a sort of energy/courage to keep on going.