In life-living : you want to be NAIVE. You don’t want to be cynical. You don’t even want to be sceptical

Of course you don’t want to be too naive. You don’t want to hit an absorbing barrier: you don’t want to die, you don’t want to go broke, you don’t want to damage your health, you don’t want to get committed for life, etc.

But you don’t want to be SCEPTICAL either

 

Do you know what is the great IRONY OF SCEPTICISM?

That an attitude of scepticism is itself UN-SCEPTICAL, NAIVE, ARROGANT

How?

You are being “sceptical” by finding all the many ways in which something will NOT work

You actually are correct

Your criticism will likely be valid, your refutations and objections real

Except you’re disregarding one thing: THE UNKNOWN

The UNKNOWN — which neither the naive optimist, nor you, the “realistic sceptic” — has ANY CHANCE OF KNOWING (by definition, it’s UN-known)

And thus, while you are being SCEPTICAL and disregarding all those ideas and plans: someone else just goes ahead and TRIES THINGS

And what you predicted would fail — DOES fail

Of course nothing EVER goes according to plan

And of course he course-corrects

And as he does: some bad fortune happens,

AND some GOOD fortune happens,

and at the end he solves his problem

In ways NEITHER YOU, NOR HIM, COULD HAVE PREDICTED

 

And this is how the NAIVE actually gets something done,

he actually learns something along the way

and he actually KNOWS something, at the end. He KNOWS IT because he MADE IT WORK. This is the very definition of knowing.

And you? The sceptic?

You are the one naive now. Because he made the man fly, he made him communicate telepathically, he made him super-intelligent, he sent him to stars, he rose a bona fide fucking babel tower(s),

And you are the one naive now: you who said that it was all IMPOSSIBLE

Maybe you could prove that the then knowledge was insufficient to make any of that work — but you couldn’t have known what was possible with the knowledge yet to be discovered,

DISCOVERED by the naive, crazy visionary

 

So when I hear a conspiracy theory,

or someone boasting of his BS-detectors,

or someone “debunking” someone else,

or any TALKER criticising the DOER,

media and politicians and academics and armchair philosophers — criticising the entrepreneurs and engineers and inventors,

i LAUGH at it

1000 THINKERS and 1000 TALKERS are NOT WORTH 1 SINGLE DOER

 

now, again

of course don’t get yourself killed,

don’t bankrupt your business,

don’t lose your investors money,

and foremost: don’t leave this place worse then it is,

ALWAYS consider the long term consequences of your actions

the externalities

foremost — the NEGATIVE UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS,

always remember the precautionary principle,

 

but you know what?

likely none of that is your problem

because your insignificant life has no bearings on planet earth,

and nothing you do puts you in ANY danger of dying,

therefore NO RISK you refuse to take is NOT WORTH TAKING,

therefore your scepticism is entirely nonsense

and the Naive outperforms you in every aspect of life

 

The Naive outperforms you in every aspect of life,

He’s less knowledgeable, less smart, less critical, less intelligent, likely less educated, less ambitious even, less sophisticated,

but if he’s optimistic, if he’s inspired, if he’s willing to put in the work — he will do things that the SCEPTIC is rejecting,

he will do things that the PROUD ONE is rejecting,

and he will dramatically outperform

 

he will so dramatically outperform — that it looks like he is cheating

It looks like he has cheatcodes, unfair advantages

And he does

STUMBLING upon a gold-mine is obviously an incident of getting lucky

But first you must go and search for it

And first you must believe that it’s there

NAIVELY

 

Be naive

Child-like

because you have NO IDEA WHAT IS POSSIBLE

you’re NOT NEARLY iterating enough,

you’re doing the same thing every day — OF COURSE you’re getting the same outcomes

You should be iterating like crazy,

ESPECIALLY in XXI century,

you have NO IDEA WHAT IS POSSIBLE — therefore you must STUMBLE upon those POSSIBILITIES — by EXPLORING RELENTLESSLY, AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE

 

My rule is “1 and 1000 kicks”

Bruce Lee: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

I disagree

Try 1000 kicks once

Because this way you discover a new method, a new solution, a new technique, a new idea

Then practice it 1000 times — and actually master it

 

Be naive

Let go of thinking of yourself as so smart

Of looking smart

Of being right

Of never failing

Be like a child learning to walk: free, uninhibited, enthusiastic, curious, tireless

Only DOING matters

And you can do so much more if you can only open your mind