Some urgent notemaking questions find answers
From time to time I attempt to answer questions about note-making on Reddit.
It’s a tough job with few perks, but someone has to do it and for no obvious reason that person is me. So here’s a fresh bunch of my recent comments, with a disclaimer that, field-tested as they are, they’re not guaranteed to make you rich, famous or even mildly handsome, even if that’s how it’s worked out for me. I guess life is unfair like that.
Anyway, here goes.
The Digital Humanities Now website has come out of hibernation and kicked back into gear. OK, so it took me a whole year to notice this, but better late than never to spot a very interesting resource.
#DigitalHumanities #AcademicWriting #AcademicResources #ResearchTools
AI isn’t making us obsolete: we already were, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Promethean shame in an age of technological change.
#Philosophy #PrometheanShame #AI #FutureOfWork #ethics #GüntherAnders
Fear of AI is nothing new: Promethean shame in a time of technological change
Günther Anders (1902-1992) is a 20th century philosopher for our time, which is fitting since he saw himself as uncomfortably ‘too early’ for his own.
Almost unheard of in the English-speaking world, he was at the centre of German philosophy before the rise of Hitler and the catastrophe of the Second World War. Student of Husserl, Heidegger, and later Tillich, he was a second cousin of Walter Benjamin, a friend of Berthold Brecht and was Hannah Arendt’s first husband. Given this pedigree I found it surprising he was (to me) so obscure. In post-war Germany he was a big deal. Now he’s back in fashion, thanks to the eery prescience of his masterwork, The Obsolescence of Man (vol. 1, 1956, vol.2, 1980) and its clear relevance to the current AI revolution.
Anders coined the phrase ‘Promethean shame’, which is…
Guy Kawasaki says ‘move fast and break things’ is a myth. True! But since he can’t quite escape its toxic allure, I’ll say it for him, loudly and proudly:
Move slow and fix things. [guykawasaki.substack.com]
Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters is available now.
What's the true path of excellence?
Brad Stuhlberg’s book The Path of Excellence is a great read and it offers what the subtitle promises:
💬 A guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world.
By now I’ve read many similar works and I’ve found there’s often something strangely missing. There’s usually heaps of good advice about acquiring expertise and wisdom, about learning and improving, and about following through; plenty too about commitment, discernment, patience and resilience. And these are all important factors if you want to attain excellence and some sort of mastery.
Well, OK. But there’s almost no mention of the need to find a teacher, coach or mentor — and to work constructively with them. And in this particular case I find it slightly weird. After all, the author is himself a performance coach, so why not at least mention the great benefits of working with a coach?
I see this as the most crucial aspect of learning, of trying to get better at something.
Learning is social: we learn best from other people, directly. That’s a key reason I was driven to write my own book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning.
Reading all these American books on learning and improvement, I can’t help wondering if there isn’t a bias towards individualism at work here. Not that there’s anything wrong with individualism, but surely it isn’t the whole picture. Learning involves teachers. Is this claim so radical that it can’t be mentioned?
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. There’s a well-tested path and it’s clearly expressed in these three phases of the learning-teaching journey.
So sure, read another book about excellence. There are plenty to choose from.
But also, find the right teacher.
Now read:
What Billy Strings learned from his father
What Herbie Hancock learned from Miles Davis
The greatest experts are serial beginners
There’s a flaw in how we learn about expertise
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
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Beginners and intermediate learners fear ‘making mistakes’; experts seldom do. Not because experts don’t make mistakes: they do. It’s just that experts know what to do next.
Here’s Herbie Hancock telling what he learned from his mentor Miles Davis: Every mistake is an opportunity [openculture.com].
💬 I want to be just like him.
Imitation is one of the most powerful and underrated stages of learning. Billy Strings’ story of learning guitar by watching his dad is the clearest example I’ve ever seen.
#Learning #Education #Music #ShuHaRi
"I want to be just like him"
“I want to be just like him.”
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of imitation as a crucial aspect of the learning journey. But it’s also hard to describe it in mere words.
In this deeply engaging YouTube interview with Rick Beato, virtuoso bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings recounts the way he learned his guitar skills early, at his father’s knee, by watching, by joining in. and by continually asking: “how does dad do it?”.
I’ve never seen a clearer example of the role of the imitation stage of learning, and exactly how it works.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
Now read: Find the right teacher.
💬 “If it takes three years, find the right teacher.”
Sometimes the best way to find the right teacher is to start doing the work. Begin your learning journey visibly, and mentors may find you - like the barn builder who attracted an expert just by working in his driveway. Read more: writingslowly.com/2026/02/0…
How did you find your mentor?
#Learning #Mentorship #Writing #Creativity #Action #shuhari