“Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ‘How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts
Last year, I took my first crack at Tiago Forte‘s Building a Second Brain, a cohort-based course designed to help students organize digital notes- and also, as it turns out, to better understand themselves and what matters.
One early assignment in the course is to come up with your own favourite problems. These are the things you return to again and again in what you read, think about, and wake up in the middle of the night pondering (at least in my case). These reflect, ideally, not a moment in time, but something persistent and nearly intrinsic. That said, I will be curious if my future self will still be thinking about these things in a few years…
My Favourite Problems
(in no particular order…)
- What are the implications of social connection on us, from the evolution of the brain and consciousness to our current well-being?
- How can the practice of listening affect every aspect of our experience?
- What can I do to foster a sense of belonging for myself and others?
- How does the design of digital technology affect our brains?
- How can I be more present?
- What is the best way to develop products that are actually meaningful to people as well as ethical?
- How can I stay in the space of curiousity and foster curiousity in others?
- How do groups (made of people) work best?
- How can I play a part in changing systemic inequities for people?
- How do systems play into culture, economics, biology, and individual experience?
- How does learning work in humans?
- What is time?
- What is the most effective way to tell stories and convey ideas?
- Is it true?
- How much can I embrace the feeling of entropy, powerlessness, smallness, AKA reality? How can I be in acceptance and not in the suffering of “things should be different”?
- How am I willing to be known and risk exposure so my experience and synthesis can benefit others?