---
layout: post
title: "Ought to teach this in school"
description: As a kid you learn many new skills.
category: works
tags: [school, skills]
image:
  feature: shoelace.jpg
---

Many people feel shame in not knowing --- in all the gaps and holes in knowledge that are inevitable for any mortal some-knowing person. On the other hand, there is a sense in which 

Is it possible to be both happy with where you are and what you know, and also to have ambition and want to improve? One extreme is complacency, the other crippling self doubt. The feeling of shame and dissatisfaction with your own knowledge or work is uncomfortable, but there's some reason to believe that it's essential to achieving mastery. Three relevant bits of evidence:

The first is a clip from Scrubs, where Dr. Cox says that hating his body is essential to his motivation for working out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwh8ygvNdgo). And of course Scrubs is right about everything.

The second is a quote by Ira Glass on being a beginner and having good taste. He points out that early on in a person's career they are able to tell what's good but unable to produce something that they consider good (http://vimeo.com/24715531).

The third is advice from Robert Greene, in his book Mastery: "You must cultivate profound dissatisfaction with your work."

Perhaps there is a middle ground, a way to feel happy and ambitious, at the same time. What if we try very hard to always keep in mind that we are learning all the time and that the rate of this learning and changing and doing things is necessarily limited. It then becomes possible to be happy with the current state, insofar as it represents timely progress towards mastery, but also to recognize that we haven't yet met every goal.

See also http://xkcd.com/1053/.

I still remember the day I said "indict" out loud for the first time.

Add draft of post on ambition
Add draft of post on ambition
