This is why I started a diary. It's hard to understand who you are, what your interests are, what you were thinking about in the moment and how that changes over time. You have to some corpus of work that you can look back on to see that.
I would also append some caution to that. Your current biases can significantly distort your perception of the past. You can get caught up in zeitgeist or have rationalized away a ton of deeper truths you're now too old to comfortably confront.
You can easily overlook details you meticulously labored over in the past and fail to appreciate how much of it is now way over your head. You cannot assume you're "better" today just because you have more experience.
In fact, experience does have a tendency to throw away critical insights and give an arrogant and false sense of confidence. This doesn't only apply to judging your own work either. Just because something "worked out" for you doesn't mean you were right. Just because someone less experienced than you tries a different approach doesn't mean it can't work or maybe even be better than what you think you know now.
How many people spend too much of their later lives settling for the same patterns over and over wondering where their creative edge went? There it is, and it's all because you thought you figured something out that you never really did.
No. I'm agreeing with the person I'm replying to while adding something else to watch out for. Some people either cringe at the past or self-congratulate. Both are bad habits in my opinion.
The more you capture, the better your chances of catching yourself later.
Fair enough! I think both cringe and self-congratulations are healthy to a degree. The former signals that a change was made and the later that it wasn't (and it's good it wasn't). But I agree with you it's important to take a step back and try to look at it as objectively as one can.
As someone who's kept a journal since high-school -- I genuinely don't understand your comment here? Which is to say, yes -- keeping the journal has prevented me from doing too much of exactly what you're warning against?
ImaCake · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
You can easily overlook details you meticulously labored over in the past and fail to appreciate how much of it is now way over your head. You cannot assume you're "better" today just because you have more experience.
In fact, experience does have a tendency to throw away critical insights and give an arrogant and false sense of confidence. This doesn't only apply to judging your own work either. Just because something "worked out" for you doesn't mean you were right. Just because someone less experienced than you tries a different approach doesn't mean it can't work or maybe even be better than what you think you know now.
How many people spend too much of their later lives settling for the same patterns over and over wondering where their creative edge went? There it is, and it's all because you thought you figured something out that you never really did.
ArcHound · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
The more you capture, the better your chances of catching yourself later.
ArcHound · · focus · HN ↗
ImaCake · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
I just felt compelled to elaborate since I think journaling can easily become toxic and narcissistic. I think we can all fall into that accidentally.
jrm4 · · focus · HN ↗
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rolymath · · focus · HN ↗
I sense a lot of frustration in your comment. Perhaps it would do you well to journal.
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