Ken Liu, Writer

Author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie

thinking

Sheltered

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It seems that a popular way to “win” an argument is to belittle your opponent by claiming that the person has lived a “sheltered life.” Because the other person has not lived as authentic and gritty a life as you, the theory goes, he cannot possibly understand all the experience/passion/feeling/moral force behind your position, which is drawn from the quintessence of life itself. Indeed, he has not even earned the right to debate you.

I do not think there is much to recommend this strategy — though I’ve often been tempted to yield to it myself. Each of us has lived an authentic life in our own way, and we have all been deprived of other experiences. We are all sheltered.

Fishing

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Because we are not free to say what we really mean:

蓬头稚子学垂纶， 侧坐莓苔草映身。
路人借问遥招手， 怕得鱼惊不应人。

The Top Idea

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Paul Graham:

I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That’s the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they’re allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it. Which means it’s a disaster to let the wrong idea become the top one in your mind.

…

I’ve found there are two types of thoughts especially worth avoiding—thoughts like the Nile Perch in the way they push out more interesting ideas. One I’ve already mentioned: thoughts about money. Getting money is almost by definition an attention sink. The other is disputes. These too are engaging in the wrong way: they have the same velcro-like shape as genuinely interesting ideas, but without the substance. So avoid disputes if you want to get real work done.

Words to live by. Certainly makes me rethink a lot about how I ought to go about dealing with disputes.