Angela’s review of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World > Likes and Comments
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Exactly. You pierced to the core of what this book is about - not just the substance, but the anti-service-oriented subtext - and how/why we should distill useful information form it anyway. Thanks for this wise and constructive critique.
Yes! I also had problems with the free-riderism and the boys club elements (though more of how I guess wives are supposed to do all the emotional (also very encompassing and distracting) work of keeping a household with kids and family obligations running smoothly).
And the productive meditation was also cringe worthy for me, but I didn’t connect the dots as well as you did. Thanks for formulating this so well.
Yeah, I can't imagine working for or living with this guy. The ideology is so exploitative of everyone even remotely connected to him. And he is thoughtful and rational and methodical, so he's probably not receptive to new ideas that don't confirm the ideology. But still, the thinking here is smart and curious. Maybe after he gets everything he wants professionally his mind will turn, and then maybe he will write about the learning process. Seems likely. That would inspire a lot of free-riding "winners" out there and be a far greater service than one could be just by hacking his insights here to serve a purpose greater than careerism. You on it, Cal?
I also agree with this review--and I liked the book, overall. Good stuff.
Follow up comment on Cal's worship of Feynman. Feynman wrote a book bragging about his own misogynist exploits, something that was published before Cal did the research for this book.
https://restructure.wordpress.com/200...
https://galileospendulum.org/2014/07/...
I agree that "productive meditation" *sounds* bad but the ability to use one's mind in a focused way without external props is a real, valuable, and difficult skill. Though I'm not convinced he outlines a clear pathway to achieving it. There could probably be a better term, but I suppose personally I didn't find "productive meditation" offensive because my cultural and spiritual priors are not such as to regard meditation as sacred. I've been surprised by the line of critique expressed in this and some other reviews - since the problems I seek to work deeply are on basically impossible to monetize, I guess I just bracketed the whole material success framework and tried to glean what was relevant. However, I do know enough of that world to realize that he is wildly unrealistic and privileged with regard to how much communication people can get away with refusing, and with little of value to say to people who don't share that privilege.
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Jul 08, 2017 03:14PM
Exactly. You pierced to the core of what this book is about - not just the substance, but the anti-service-oriented subtext - and how/why we should distill useful information form it anyway. Thanks for this wise and constructive critique.
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Yes! I also had problems with the free-riderism and the boys club elements (though more of how I guess wives are supposed to do all the emotional (also very encompassing and distracting) work of keeping a household with kids and family obligations running smoothly). And the productive meditation was also cringe worthy for me, but I didn’t connect the dots as well as you did. Thanks for formulating this so well.
Yeah, I can't imagine working for or living with this guy. The ideology is so exploitative of everyone even remotely connected to him. And he is thoughtful and rational and methodical, so he's probably not receptive to new ideas that don't confirm the ideology. But still, the thinking here is smart and curious. Maybe after he gets everything he wants professionally his mind will turn, and then maybe he will write about the learning process. Seems likely. That would inspire a lot of free-riding "winners" out there and be a far greater service than one could be just by hacking his insights here to serve a purpose greater than careerism. You on it, Cal?
I also agree with this review--and I liked the book, overall. Good stuff.
Follow up comment on Cal's worship of Feynman. Feynman wrote a book bragging about his own misogynist exploits, something that was published before Cal did the research for this book. https://restructure.wordpress.com/200...
https://galileospendulum.org/2014/07/...
I agree that "productive meditation" *sounds* bad but the ability to use one's mind in a focused way without external props is a real, valuable, and difficult skill. Though I'm not convinced he outlines a clear pathway to achieving it. There could probably be a better term, but I suppose personally I didn't find "productive meditation" offensive because my cultural and spiritual priors are not such as to regard meditation as sacred. I've been surprised by the line of critique expressed in this and some other reviews - since the problems I seek to work deeply are on basically impossible to monetize, I guess I just bracketed the whole material success framework and tried to glean what was relevant. However, I do know enough of that world to realize that he is wildly unrealistic and privileged with regard to how much communication people can get away with refusing, and with little of value to say to people who don't share that privilege.
