Yesterday a friend called, quite frustrated to be very stuck on a project. My impulse was to find ways to unstick him, but I realized: we absolutely have to cultivate the ability to be content while totally stuck! If we're doing interesting work, we'll be stuck most of our lives!
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(Easier said than done, of course, but it hadn't occurred to me quite so baldly that I should *expect* to be stuck as my default state.)
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Relatedly (about mundane setbacks rather than serious and pervasive creative blocks) I love this 5m mini-talk from Sam Harris called "Solving Problems": facebook.com/Samharrisorg/v (very sorry, it appears the only public URL is on Facebook—transcript below, but performance is v good)
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Rereading my original tweet, I feel I should qualify: of course, apart from that realization, I expressed my sincere sympathy and tried to help on an object level! I don't think the former precludes the latter.
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Yeah, it's tough to always recognize that "stuck" happens because problems are hard, not because we are bad at solving them
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Considering that programming is about problem solving and that finding the solution takes longer than typing it in, I’d guess that the ratio of being stuck and ”working” should be 1:1 at best 🤷🏼♂️