Brilliant article as always. What startles me is how true your observations are even with respect to the Indian education system, particularly of engineering entrance examinations like the J.E.E; which is confounding because in eastern thought one gets lifetimes in pursuit of an 'ill-defined' goal as part of his/ her process of self-discovery. Perhaps India is no longer what it used to be.
Your observations also ring true when applied to sports in general. Take chess for example : nowadays people get trained in chess tactics, that is they memorize thousands of combinations which greats of previous generations created. There is hardly anything they do in their play that can be termed as truly original. This also explains why hardly anyone plays the long format anymore. The intoxicated high of winning trumps all subtler sensibilities.
Perhaps society on the whole has geared itself in a direction in which no one recognises the worth of slow thinking and what it can accomplish. We live so far away from Nature that we have forgotten to appreciate how slowly and over what timescales Nature herself works. We see ourselves in opposition to Nature and not as a part of Nature anymore.
Two books come to mind - ' Zen in the art of archery' by Eugen Herrigel and ' Small is beautiful' by Dr E.F Schumacher that explore similar ideas.
Agree with your viewpoint. Unfortunately IQ has become ingrained in our mindset. It relates to our result based society. It neglects a human element that is important for knowledge progression. IQ is good as a datapoint to use to evaluate future "academic" success, since it reflects the mountain on which academia is built. We should understand its limits. So many huge leaps come from slow thinking. We cannot monetize it so we cannot realize its benefits.
I resonate with this. The nature of fast for the sake of fast ignores exploring the fog of war for true breakthroughs.
Jakob, care to tell us what you're slowly working on?
Hi Jakob,
Brilliant article as always. What startles me is how true your observations are even with respect to the Indian education system, particularly of engineering entrance examinations like the J.E.E; which is confounding because in eastern thought one gets lifetimes in pursuit of an 'ill-defined' goal as part of his/ her process of self-discovery. Perhaps India is no longer what it used to be.
Your observations also ring true when applied to sports in general. Take chess for example : nowadays people get trained in chess tactics, that is they memorize thousands of combinations which greats of previous generations created. There is hardly anything they do in their play that can be termed as truly original. This also explains why hardly anyone plays the long format anymore. The intoxicated high of winning trumps all subtler sensibilities.
Perhaps society on the whole has geared itself in a direction in which no one recognises the worth of slow thinking and what it can accomplish. We live so far away from Nature that we have forgotten to appreciate how slowly and over what timescales Nature herself works. We see ourselves in opposition to Nature and not as a part of Nature anymore.
Two books come to mind - ' Zen in the art of archery' by Eugen Herrigel and ' Small is beautiful' by Dr E.F Schumacher that explore similar ideas.
- Sayan Datta (Kolkata, West Bengal)
Captures what I have been thinking, but failing to articulate, for a long time. Hope to read more from you.
You are a original thinker
Agree with your viewpoint. Unfortunately IQ has become ingrained in our mindset. It relates to our result based society. It neglects a human element that is important for knowledge progression. IQ is good as a datapoint to use to evaluate future "academic" success, since it reflects the mountain on which academia is built. We should understand its limits. So many huge leaps come from slow thinking. We cannot monetize it so we cannot realize its benefits.
Keep writing.