This is a linkpost for https://hidefromit.substack.com/p/dont-be-too-clever-to-take-obvious
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This one time, I was having computer issues. Tried everything. Dispaired. Someone mentioned i should try turning it off and on again. It worked.
Eternal shame.
8When I was a boy, it seemed to me that all the proverbs, fairy tales, Aesop fables, and moral vignettes I encountered growing up served a function opposite to advice. They were passed around as cliches that no-one was expected to take seriously, that indeed people were expected to speak of only in scoffing tones. They were repeated for that very purpose, to prevent anything being learned from them. [1]
Religious observances were the same. One went to church because it was "the done thing". It would have been thought strange to take any interest in the ideas, still less to put them into practice.
I don't think this was just me, or my family. It ran through the whole culture I grew up in, Edinburgh in the 1960's. But America also has the contemptuous term "cracker barrel wisdom", so maybe it's more widespread.
I wonder if encountering the words too early is the problem. By the time I was old enough to have experience of the real things that they are about, the words were too familiar.
Compare the concept of rahom, a Láadan word meaning "to non-teach, to deliberately fill students’ minds with empty data or false information". ↩︎
1Interesting! I grew up in New England, in a family that was college educated. The attitude I remember was very different from what you describe. If I had to try to put it in words, I would say that people weren't cynical about virtue. The churchgoers listened to their sober Protestant sermons, and tried to live as good people. The atheists respected the Christians for caring about the less fortunate. Something like an Aesop fable might be seen as sort of simplistic or aimed at kids, but not actually bad advice, if that makes sense? The rich downplayed their wealth, and often invested some part of it in helping their communities.
But one of the firmest rules was that you never bragged about your virtue. Ever.
And by and large, these people did well in life. They married and generally stayed married. They mostly taught their kids to work hard. The scrimped to pay for their children's education. They mostly avoided drama, or at least kept it behind closed doors. These are all the actions of people taking the common, obvious advice, including the cliches.
These were people who would have largely understood Chesterton's remark:
Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father.
Now, were these folks perfect? Of course not. But there was a culture pushing in this direction.
I have encountered other cultures where reflexive cynicism about virtue is the norm. This is often combined with loud public piety. I find it to be a very alien mindset, honestly.
I suspect that is a good suggestion and we all benefit keeping it in mind. But I do think it's only part of the picture. Just as when someone tells us to get back in the saddle or have more faith in ourselves. Making the mental transition from whatever state (perhaps some form of denial or "over thinking/complicating" things versus just moving past) into that follow the cliche.
I suspect the big trick here is identifying why one needs to troubleshoot the computer problem rather than just rebooting, getting back up rather than thinking about why they are all dusty lying on the ground or whatever. But I agree that before one even gets to the "solution" one has to acknowledge the solution is a known one.
IDN, maybe some of it is about the need to be different or special or unique so we don't want to accept that the simple, well knows approaches can possibly apply to "me and my situation".
A few: Bad people will often tell you they are bad, pretty explicitly, you aren't clever for seeing nuance. "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." -Maya Angelou
On persistence over intelligence: "It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer." — Albert Einstein
On favoring complex approaches that best show off intelligence: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." — Shunryu Suzuki
"It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent." — Charlie Munger
The greatest example of an eye-rolling cliché is also one of the highest impact pieces of advice ever articulated.
I fail to see how this is obvious advice. My immediate question is “how the heck am I supposed to cultivate this belief?”. It doesn’t prescribe a course of action that allows me to generate the intended result. What the course of action, if any, is to believing in the nebulous entity that is me, is a total mystery.
It’s not a matter of being too elitist. It’s a matter of it just not being actable advice.
Sleep well
I assure you, if I could choose to sleep well, on command. I would. The reason why I chortle is because a good night sleep seems as unobtainable and desirable as, Pedro Pascal or Sydney Sweeney.[1]
Sure it's obvious, but it’s not a matter of being too clever to follow it. It’s a matter of being at a loss to whatever metabolistic process is the cause of insomnia.
- ^
I'm not up with popculture nowadays, so I don't know who people are thirsting for - so insert whoever works for you in this analogy
It is worth changing everything about your life to get better sleep if necessary IME. Also most people I speak with about it have tried lots of complex schemes but nigh refuse to eat at the same time everyday and get sunlight as early in the morning as possible (not actually logistically challenging, just step outside for 5 minutes).
Re: believing in oneself, if I give that advice to someone, I typically provide evidence they may not have considered (or may not currently be something they're thinking about) about why they should do so. Typically this is a case where they are dealing with doubt, fear, anxiety, or a pattern of under-valuing themselves or their abilities. They may have experienced a recent setback and so be over-weighting negative information about themselves for emotional reasons, for example.
I may also point out that sometimes self-belief can lead to effects that cause the belief to turn out correct (in the case where whether you will be successful at something is not knowable in advance, believing you can do something causes you to try, which increases your chances of successfully doing the thing quite substantially over the counterfactual, for example) A saying I've heard passed around that lossily summarizes this is "whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right". But to help the person I'm speaking to keep a hold on reality while recognizing the causal effects of self-belief, I'll typically say something like "it seems likely that you can do this" or "this seems worth trying", rather than "you can definitely do this, you've got this, don't worry".
Self-belief that's fully detached from reality and not open to feedback, does not have good effects. But generally, I notice a tendency for people to be too afraid of failure (most failures are not catastrophic, but many can mentally seem like they will be, or at least will have far more serious and long-lasting consequences than is actually the case), and over-weighting their chances of success can counterbalance this. It's kind of a hack, dealing with one bug in human psychology (loss aversion and the salience of negative information or imagined outcomes) by using another (unrealistic levels of optimism). Ideally you'd reduce the first bug by other means, and then not need the second, but that's trickier to get a standard human to implement, than "believe in yourself, here are some reasons you should".
An insidious pattern among smart people is feeling that because something is familiar and obvious, you are impervious to ignoring or forgetting it. In challenging times, I have often heard these clichés and reflexively shrugged them off.
“Oh, I should dust myself off and pick myself up? What a lazy aphorism. What a patronising throwaway line. They must think I’m some kind of idiot. No, it must be something else…”
There is a filter in many people’s heads that functions to ignore clichés on the basis that they are mere clichés. However, looking closely at your actions, decisions and attitudes will almost invariably reveal you are dropping the ball on at least a few of the most obvious bits of pop wisdom that are all clearly good practices.
Some (non exhaustive) examples of these “yeah, obviously” pieces of advice that are worth deliberately checking on a regular basis include:
The greatest example of an eye-rolling cliché is also one of the highest impact pieces of advice ever articulated. Self-belief is the foundation of morale, and without morale, you are doomed. If the words “believe in yourself” evoke a sense of exasperation when you hear them, that’s probably a bad sign. Do you believe in yourself?
Often offered as a generic pacifier when nothing practical seems to be available - and nonetheless essential. Looking on the bright side is not a logical fallacy. No human is so clever as to transcend the need to find silver linings in favour of ruthless “objectivity”. Believing most facts about a thing are negative, and therefore it will do no good to regard the positives, is a surefire way to render yourself miserable and ineffective. Are you looking on the bright side?
A more modern aphorism - that most of your outputs come from a minority of your inputs, and it behooves you to focus on the most productive inputs. Many smart people will pay lip service to this but ignore it and waste their day with busywork. The 80% of low ROI outputs still matter to an extent, but this is often used as a thoughtless excuse to do nothing to shift the balance of your efforts toward the most beneficial, productive ones. Are you applying the 80/20 principle?
Everyone knows that sleeping well will improve your productivity, health, and quality of life. Yet, it is common for people to chortle when this is suggested as a contributor to their problems. “Yeah, that sleep thing is great, but you see, I’m really busy right now, so it doesn’t apply to me at the moment. I’m sure that advice is great for other people, but for my case - it must be something else”. Are you sleeping well?
It is nearly impossible to be happy and productive when you are constantly lamenting the past, or worrying about the future. Many capable people will endlessly agonise over “analysing” (ruminating on) their past mistakes, and doing “feasibility checks” (worrying) about everything they might attempt. We spend almost half of our waking hours this way. Ruminating wears a disguise of due diligence, so it’s easy to fall for the trap of ignoring the saccharine cliché of living in the moment. How much subjective time are you spending outside the present moment?
If things aren’t going the way you’d like them to go, it may be a good idea to stop and check if you are applying the obvious, cliché advice you have heard all your life.
You may be surprised how many “no duh” habits you are missing, and the vastly better life you can live if you actually apply them.