Comments on: Professionalism and its discontents

By: EllieK

EllieK — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:22:07 +0000

I’m one of the guilty parties i.e. A Procrastinator, well, at the present time.

Taleb’s quote is nice, but I have a feeling that Taleb doesn’t do much procrastinating, as he accomplishes quite a lot. Of course it is possible that quantitative analysis is truly a pursuit that allows his soul to fly free and unfettered… or more likely, he’s just highly self-disciplined.

My father was a cardiologist (and a physicist prior to that). He expressed some of the sentiments that are mentioned here. I don’t know how he had the patience to have an office practice for 40+ years. He even did house calls, right until he retired in 2007 (they are covered by Medicare, or were, as of 2007). At age 79, he didn’t want to be on call at the hospital, up all night taking care of a patient who had a heart attack, then have office hours all day. Unfortunately, he was very bored and depressed when he retired, because he never did much besides work and studying medical journals (and clean the swimming pool and do amateur radio which entails hanging antennas, neither of which he was up for at age 79).

Hobbies are important. Now is probably a good time to acquire some.

By: EmanuelDerman

EmanuelDerman — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:57:56 +0000

Thanks, I like Hollos’s idea of doing things well, and then, if it’s not fun, moving on. I will keep that in mind. And I think that’s one of Taleb’s better quotes, though it’s not always true. I know some people who proscrastinate full time.

By: CarlosMedina

CarlosMedina — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:40:38 +0000

I believe that being an expert up to a point might be a good thing, even better than being “THE expert”. It helps you keep a healthy perspective on things, and it also helps you maintain a certain “potential” curiosity (you might be bored now, but it might come back with a vengeance). There is such a thing, in my opinion, as healthy procrastination and hence a good reason to get bored every now and then. I particularly like this Taleb quote about it: “Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment”.
And no… it doesn’t really matter, but it’s a fun game to play sometimes anyway. I mean… we all are going to end up dead eventually, aren’t we?
BTW Loved Models Behaving Badly!
Cheers!

By: RichardHollos

RichardHollos — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 03:23:55 +0000

Thomas Young (1773-1829) was addicted to doing things for fun. He was a medical doctor, but is not known for accomplishments in his
profession. He is best known for his work in physics, and in
deciphering hieroglyphics. His wife thought he should focus on his
profession and he agreed, so he wrote a book on tuberculosis. Hoping it would earn him a name in medicine, it was completely ignored. He did things very well and thoroughly, but only when it was fun. I highly recommend his biography “Thomas Young: The Man Who Knew Everything” (Andrew Robinson, 2006).

Do things well, but if it’s not fun move on.