I saw a bit of a condescending post on twitter today, which despite its tone, delivered a powerful message. The picture that sums up the idea is below, and the gist of the tweet below that.
8/ There are THREE ways to fail at this.
a) Thinking you can be Great Minded all the time.
b) Trying to be Great Minded on low latency information diet (upper left red box)
c) Trying to consume high-latency information diet without aspiring to more than small-minded thoughts
— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) October 4, 2018
The way I think about it is there is an optimal way to spend your time learning, based on what ideas you are trying to achieve. Big ideas around spirituality and achievement aren’t influenced or learned by following an evangelical church on twitter. They are built into over your life most likely, and if you want to try change them, you need to give yourself time, and a lot of resources about the subject. I don’t think the chart above should be seen as negative in the left corner. It’s OK to be a small mind sometimes. It’s good to submerge in the current culture. But don’t expect to learn anything there that is going to have a lasting impact on your life. It will satisfy the small mind part of you, and that’s cool. I think the place to be is skewing towards the top right 65% of the time with the rest of your time split between the rest. That feels like the right balance, and also won’t make you an insufferable snob.