Yeah one-on-one tutoring is the best I think.
Yeah I do this. I will work differently if there is a colleague around. (In my work, colleagues don’t often work together the same time. Maybe ~5% of the time?)
I don’t think I do worse in those situations, like Loomis and Simpson. If anything I am more careful and put in more effort and focus more and get better results. It feels like I am trying to push myself more. I don’t think that makes it less second handed. I think I would burn out if I tried to work like that all the time, and not just in those situations.
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I’m wondering if it’s necessarily second-handed if it’s your boss whose watching. It’s definitely second-handed if what you want is to impress the other person for the sake of it. When the end goal is making other people have a higher opinion of you, then it’s second-handed. When the boss is watching, the goal is presumably to keep your job, get a raise or get a promotion, i.e., rational self-interested goals.
When you have a higher goal is it necessarily second-handed to try to achieve it by impressing someone? Is it second-handed to try extra hard to impress in a job interview, for example? I guess Roark wouldn’t do it? He just always does his work naturally and wants to be judged based on that? I think Roark would just work naturally.
The idea might be that you can’t gain values by second-hand means.
Is it lying to try extra hard when your boss is watching? Maybe the boss assumes everyone tries extra hard when he’s watching, so not trying extra hard would unfairly disadvantage you. And it’s understood that you will try extra hard so no deception is really going on. But isn’t that everyone just playing a fake game which you shouldn’t take part of? It doesn’t make it any better if everyone goes around in a circle fooling each other.
Impressing a colleague in my line of work can open up more opportunities for work pretty quickly. So it may be dishonest to intentionally communicate that I am doing an average work performance when actually I’m trying to do a high percentile performance that I can’t always achieve and can’t sustain the effort of for every work day.
If you try to impress someone else, you’re trying to appeal to their values. You almost certainly have different values to them. But you almost certainly share some too, maybe a lot? Trying hard to communicate about the values you do share with them, seems fine? Some of where your values conflict can be deal breakers like with Roark though. Idk I’m a little confused on this. I don’t think I understand secondhandness and how to apply it well enough.
It could lead you to a position which is beyond your ability. You’re now expected to keep up that level all the time. Like how Keating starts stressing once he actually gets his promotions and stuff.
Here’s an extreme example of conscious and calculated strategy to fool your boss of your ability:
At least as far his work goes it seems to have worked out fine for him. I think it erodes his soul though, like Keating got his material goals but was destroyed nonetheless.
I think so. That’s just looking for win-win cooperation, in maybe a truth-seeking manner.
You know at least some stuff about it and don’t know other things about it, as do I. It should help to guess about it and discuss it :)
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It’s not necessarily about eroding. You have to be a certain kind of person to do these things. And that kind of person has a doomed soul.
Me too.
Me too. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Roark. He seems super relaxed and not liable to burn out.
My initial thoughts were:
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Maybe Roark finds a balance(?) between demanding the best of himself and acting in a way that is sustainable.
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Maybe it’s a mistake to think that being fully heroic/rational requires continuous tension (being “Joan d’Arc all the time”). Relaxation—or even taking one’s “time about discarding a blunted pencil and picking out another”—isn’t lazy or bad.
But I’m not sure that either of those are quite right. After all (from The Fountainhead):
“It’s uncomfortable to be in the same room with you. Tension is contagious, you know.”
“What tension? I feel completely natural only when I’m working.”
“That’s it. You’re completely natural only when you’re one inch from bursting into pieces.
Also:
It was an act of tension, as the great things on earth are things of tension. It was tense as electricity, the force fed on resistance, rushing through wires of metal stretched tight; it was tense as water made into power by the restraining violence of a dam.
Maybe Roark somehow unites the two: tension and relaxation. Like the “joy of an unobstructed effort” line from Atlas Shrugged (i.e., effort being regarded as joyful).
My first thought watching this is I wonder if his boss knows he made this video? I wonder how they’d feel about it.
Tangent, but I just thought what he says here was strange, I do not know what he means by this:
I don’t know why [the distribution of] human intelligence is so wide ranging. I honestly think it’s unfair. I feel like the world would be a much simpler place if the normal distribution behind human intelligence was a little more narrow. Because it causes a lot of issues in society when some people are so much smarter than other people. I won’t get too into that because it’s politically incorrect, but, if you’re a person who studies history you know this is true. And I think, you know, we saw a lot of it in WWII for example.
What does he think we saw a lot of in WWII? Could he be talking about the holocaust? That seems like the salient feature of WWII to me. Who exactly does he think were the smarter people in that situation?
I cringed at him saying this:
I was actually dating one of the girls from the fresh and fit podcast
Anyway, yeah, I find his cavalier attitude to what he did disturbing. He’s laughing about it. Again I wonder wtf a future prospective employer is going to think about this guy if they see this content.
I thought ‘doomed’ seemed kind of harsh. But I think I was thinking of it in a fatalistic way. Like that if you were doomed for some fate, there could be no hope of escaping it even if you tried really hard. Do you mean it in that way? Or just like, if you go down this path, and don’t change, you are doomed?
Either way, I don’t really know what it would mean to have a doomed soul, actually. Like they’ll lose their soul? Their soul will become corrupt beyond repair? Is soul like their inner kind of mental framework? not sure.
The majority of the work he does he probably has excess capacity for. Like his average performance at archecture is really high, with little effort, and lots of subconscious automatisation. I think like most work, a lot of it would be repetitive stuff. He would have mastered a huge amount of architectural skills and most of his work wouldn’t cost him nearly anything.
Idk though there are things I’m forgetting about Roark and I’m feeling like I’m projecting ideas of Elliot’s onto him. Like I’m thinking that Roark must’ve discovered a lot of CF stuff himself or something. But I think that’s not giving Elliot enough credit, or something. I haven’t quite formed the idea of what I mean, but I think there’s a problem there. I can’t remember if Roark got burnt out or not, or some equivalent, like almost working himself to death or something, it does ring a bell. I’d like to re-read AS and Fountainhead soon. It’s been like, 3 years since I read AS and 2 since The Fountainhead.
Roark refers to himself as feeling natural when working, and without tension. I don’t know just from looking at the quote but the other person in the scene (not sure who it is, Dominique? Turns out I don’t have a digital copy of The Fountainhead to search with…) is the one feeling tension, not Roark, and they’re saying that Roark is close to bursting to pieces, not Roark.
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‘Doomed’ is harsh. I don’t believe in fate so they could change in pretty much infinite different ways. It’s more about what’s realistic. I guess at the end of FH it’s still technically possible for Keating to turn things around, but Rand thought he was too far gone and that it was too late. I don’t expect the youtuber to ever become honest.
This is kind of contradictory though: I saw in some comments he admitted to exaggerating his opinions in the videos to make them more entertaining. I don’t think he was pressured into, he just wanted to mention it. I don’t remember which video that was from.
I don’t have a precise idea about what it is. In this situation I’m thinking it means ending up like Keating. I’ll have to think more about it. Because I don’t believe in karma or a God giving out divine justice. But I think morality is about leading a happy and successful life. So following moral principles leads to happiness and violating them leads to sadness of some kind.
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This seem helpful I’m going to try this out. Thanks for sharing. I haven’t gone through Elliot’s live streams almost at all, actually.
I like that explanation and it makes sense.
Yeah, idk. Roark was a good philosopher (e.g., he came up with the idea of second-handedness) in addition to being an architectural genius.
Now you mention it, I remember that he did. He went on a yacht vacation with Wynand because he needed to relax.
Relevant Fountainhead quote
Wynand had said: “You’re killing yourself, Howard. You’ve been going at a pace nobody can stand for long. … Think you’d have the courage to perform the feat most difficult for you—to rest?”
He was astonished when Roark accepted without argument. Roark laughed:
“I’m not running away from my work, if that’s what surprises you. I know when to stop—and I can’t stop, unless it’s completely. I know I’ve overdone it. I’ve been wasting too much paper lately and doing awful stuff.”
“Do you ever do awful stuff?”
“Probably more of it than any other architect and with less excuse. The only distinction I can claim is that my botches end up in my own wastebasket.”
“I warn you, we’ll be away for months. If you begin to regret it and cry for your drafting table in a week, like all men who’ve never learned to loaf, I won’t take you back. I’m the worst kind of dictator aboard my yacht. You’ll have everything you can imagine, except paper or pencils. I won’t even leave you any freedom of speech. No mention of girders, plastics or reinforced concrete once you step on board. I’ll teach you to eat, sleep and exist like the most worthless millionaire.”
“I’d like to try that.”
Incidentally, this part of the quote:
“Do you ever do awful stuff?”
“Probably more of it than any other architect and with less excuse. The only distinction I can claim is that my botches end up in my own wastebasket.”
Reminded me a little of ET’s discussion of quantity versus quality (e.g., photography/pottery class parable) in How I Write a Lot.
Yeah, true. It’s Austin Heller. I guess I still felt that Roark must be a pretty intense guy who’s super switched on virtually all the time if other people feel that way around him. Binswanger said something similar about Rand herself:
her intensity was palpable… a kind of power radiated out from her, high-tension crackled in the air around her. It was a positive tension… a life-giving tension
I think “burnt out” often means that you lost motivation to keep going. I don’t think Roark would ever lose motivation as long as he has artistic freedom. He just got too mentally/physically tired to keep going even though he probably felt motivated to do more, which is evidenced by him saying that he started making awful stuff and that he couldn’t stop unless he stops completely. This qualifies as something equivalent to burning out, I just wanted to make this distinction about motivation and energy clear.
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I thought burnout was more to do with exhaustion/fatigue. Like people overdoing something and not getting enough rest or space from the activity, and it affecting their ability to it and other things as well. Not so much just losing motivation to do something. That’s how I meant it. I can see motivation being part of it but perhaps a minor symptom?
I think I agree but my question is what is motivation then? If you lost the motivation why does it come back to people? Seems like something related to a person’s energy and reasoning. I think people feel better after taking a break from what they’re burnt out because they had the energy to reason to be more motivated.
Does anything I’ve said make the distinction unclear? I thought if I ask what motivation is, the lines between it and energy would blur.
Isn’t that what leads to the burnout? Them not getting enough space from the activity or them overdoing it?
So burn out is bigger than losing motivation? Like, burn out is a whole and losing motivation is a part of the whole?
I was wrong to say:
So I don’t know what burnout should be defined as, but I think just being really exhausted due to long-term over work is something people call burnout. I’m saying there’s a different situation where someone does long-term over work, but when they burn out it’s not just merely physical exhaustion (including the brain) but when they come back physically replenished they have psychological blockers. Maybe the work feels really emotionally draining at that point. It might be that their work feels meaningless and they could bear doing meaningless work for some period, but they can’t do any more of it at some point.
So I think Roark would only have his physical exhaustion stop him from working. I think Roark could have the above kind of burnout if he was forced to compromise on his artistic integrity. Maybe he could bear doing it some but at some level of compromise he would quit over time if not immediately.
@Dface, does the above explain? I don’t know much about motivation, but maybe the above explains some.
I think yeah. What I like is the description of the psychological blockers. Blockers sounds like an obstacle or challenge one goes through.
So if we go through the previous part of the discussion:
Did Roark have psycholgical blockers when he wanted to go the Wynand trip? Why did he need to relax? Is it more that he wants to relax? Idk what “need” means all that well. I think when you need something, it means that’s necessary or a requirement.
Did Roark have the choice to keep working and not go to the Wynand trip? Would he have psychological blockers if he didn’t? I forget what happened at that part of the story. From what I’m reading he looks like he’s getting tired and that’s why needs to relax. But doesn’t sleep replenish you being tired?
I don’t think it would be psychological blockers. He might’ve felt that he just needed some variation. I’m not sure whether wanting some variation would qualify as psychological blocker. I think it was mostly just physical exhaustion (mostly the brain).
You can work so much that tiredness carries over from the past day.
I think yeah, psychological blockers sounds like an important word to use to describe another kind of problem.
Some variation can mean a change of pace I think. Why did he need some variation? Was he burnt out in the sense of being really exhausted or burnt out in the sense of going through a mental block? Is mental block the same as a psychological blocker? What I’m thinking now is I want to know what @LMD and @Jarrod were talking about and see how this all relates to that.
Here’s @LMD wondering if Roark got burnt out:
Almost working himself to death means getting super tired right? Or does that mean literally on going on the brink of death? Like catch a disease or cause harm to the body?
I see the phrase “burnt out” is used in the quote above. I think it means like tiring yourself out a lot, like you get really exhausted.
What @ActiveMind replied with about what burnout was:
I think “burnt out” does often mean that you lost motivation to keep going