This link has been bookmarked by 22 people . It was first bookmarked on 09 Mar 2008, by someone privately.
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28 Jul 09
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ou suck as a specialist; you’re not evolved to be one. Your meat wants you to pay attention to what’s around you, what’s inside you, the top part and the bottom part and the inside part. Your head keeps dragging you back into meandering daydreams. Your heart keeps making your head change, from day to day, subjecting your mythical “rational” mind to physiological buffets modern life doesn’t even have nonpathological descriptions for
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All these things you look at, in your role of the “imaginary” generalist in my experiment; all these roses you stop to smell, these friends who interrupt you with demands, these places you go and things you see and people you meet. They are delays of what? Of you?
In what way am I delayed by paying attention to more, different, inarguably interesting stuff? Gratifying stuff?
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You are a link. That’s the point. You’re not watching the world, you’re part of the world. In it. And better yet: you’re the part of the world that links these things together..
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A generalist has no more time or attention than any other person. She doesn’t see the whole of the world all as being the same, as being proof of something.
She slices the world in a different direction. Along a different axis, a personal axis.
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The specialist avoids what distracts, and for so many people the worst distraction is the thing that connotes meaning. When you specialize, you must not seek more questions; you seek answers.
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30 Apr 09
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16 Jan 09
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02 Jul 08
Dante-Gabryell Monsonright to be a generalist : the cultivated ability to span boundaries, cross borders of disciplines, bring what you’ve learned over there to bear over here, where they haven’t seen the connection.
Collaboration Innovation Inspiration learning Philosophy lifestyle ParadigmShift boundaryspanning Passion AlternativeLearning
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28 Mar 08
Robyn JayThere are two ways to succeed in the complicated, burdensome
flowless interrupting world we’ve made. Two ways to Get Things Done;
anybody telling you there’s only one is selling something. Two ways to
satisfice and maybe even to excel.for:sridgway innovation timemanagement knowledgemanagement fromdelicious
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21 Mar 08
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19 Mar 08
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17 Mar 08
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13 Mar 08
Johann RichardThere are two ways to succeed in the complicated, burdensome flowless interrupting world we’ve made. Two ways to Get Things Done; anybody telling you there’s only one is selling something. Two ways to satisfice and maybe even to excel.
**** career collaboration ideas future distraction inspiration learning work generalist life
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10 Mar 08
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09 Mar 08
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03 Mar 08
Tim Staalvery interesting thoughts about being a generalist.
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Howard RheingoldThe notion of Distraction, at its root, is just a symptom of the dominant cultural model. This is a model enmeshing our institutions and our lifestyles, our dominant business culture and our academies. It blocks so many paths, it canalizes our culture.
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There are two ways to succeed in the complicated, burdensome flowless interrupting world we’ve made. Two ways to Get Things Done;
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One way, which is the way Most Often Sold, is to specialize: Look at all that stuff clamoring for your attention. Decide what’s Good, what’s Boring, what’s Dangerous, what’s Too Big. Give the least important things up, and focus like a champ
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Pick the one most important to Everybody, and dammit start Getting Shit Done.
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Now, as I said, there is another way. At least I think there may be. A much harder way, and riskier, and less predictable.
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A way of constant, embodied attention.
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Just stop a second (write it on your little list) and imagine you’re allowed to be a generalist.
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You suck as a specialist; you’re not evolved to be one. Your meat wants you to pay attention to what’s around you, what’s inside you, the top part and the bottom part and the inside part. Your head keeps dragging you back into meandering daydreams.
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In the Real World (not the thought experiment), we call these “attention deficit”. “Inefficiencies”. “Lack of focus”. Distraction. Setback. Obstruction. Unforeseen circumstances. Delay.
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They are delays of what? Of you?
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In what way am I delayed by paying attention to more, different, inarguably interesting stuff? Gratifying stuff?
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A delay is something that comes with an obligation to perform.
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