I think it's hard to judge discomfort while you're in the situation. It's usually in the retrospect when you realise "it wasn't that bad" and you actually gained more than you expected at the time.
The concept he discusses of “the edge” is very similar to “edge of chaos” from physics, but has been studied extensively in complexity sciences, specifically complex adaptive systems.
The theory proposes that all complex adaptive systems (CAS) naturally adapt to a state at the “edge of chaos” which is a transition zone between order(stability) and disorder.
The theory proposes this is the zone where maximal learning/innovation/creativity in social systems occur.
We studied complex adaptive systems in 2019, at the time I changed my LinkedIn tag line to : “learning at the edge of chaos” , still have not changed it since then.
I'm currently writing a book on the "edge of human thought" (more from a point of view of inventions over the course of humankind's history) – here's a newsletter signup page, in case you want to stay up to date:
> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.”
> Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath.
Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something difficult? Or have you already leaned in too far and need to back off a little? Act accordingly. As the situation progresses, keep checking in with yourself.
So the difference seems to be the notion that "a little discomfort is okay". You still need to place your tolerable discomfort cut-off point somewhere, right before it feels overwhelming.
I kind of agree with the general content of the post, but find it somewhat simplistic with a focus on oneself. I see conversation more like a dance, a delicate balance where you should be aware of your own feelings, but also other people's. Some people feel comfortable over-sharing with someone they barely met, which can create quite intense discomfort. My understanding is that this tends to be more likely in people who struggle setting boundaries in their relationships. I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance.
This is quite a good exercise to follow but don’t know how easy it would be to actually implement this in situations. I mean bcz of the habits we do not have that liberty to stop and ask this to yourself. Just like controlled breathing.
They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content.
In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone.
And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care.
The proper underlying concept is risk management.
**
If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes.
What is happening is that the underlying problem that you are trying to optimize initially benefits from expanding your comfort zone. People usually are too "safe" to begin with. That's called prudence, it's a good thing that has been hardwire by evolution.
But then when you work to push your frontier zone, you work in a zone where pulling and pushing lever have maximum sensitivity, it's good and allow you to make some quick progress. You learn the good moves which rock is slippery to your foot or not, but slipping is not to important because you are still working inside the underlying safe operating zone.
But now you are getting used to learning with immediate feedback. And if you make this the thing you optimize for, you will slowly drift toward the more danger and less reward zone.
You master pushing and pulling the levers in front of you but as you already know how they work, you don't learn anything new. So you push them more and more because you get bored, and then you get some exciting new phenomenon, the car can drift when you go over 90 in the turn of the speed limit 50 zone. So you're happy you've got something new to master. You master it, and now you drift anywhere you go Tokyo drift style.
But you never learned that the adherence of the car depends on whether it has rained the previous day because the oil and dust in the asphalt get lifted and redeposited on the road. So you are surprised when your car spin around.
You got in an accident but made it OK, but now you've got to do some door dashing to finance the new car. So you are more tired, and more pressed by time and drive accordingly. So what does little Timmy in the back learn ?
**
Proper risk management is looking for the levers you can push, expanding them in a safe and boring way.
It's concept like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier in portfolio management instead of YOLOing.
It's the concept of bankroll management, and management of variance, aggression window style, in things like poker.
But the game of life is not an individual one but a collective one. And people playing an aggressive style are forcing you to play a more loose game. And even more worse than a loose game is a positive expectation game turned negative expectation game because of that. Because the game is not zero sum, in poker there is the rake, but in life many situations are win win, but can be turned lose lose by greediness.
The rise is slow and the fall is fast and catastrophic, see the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure in complex systems that result by taking a myopic approach to optimizing your life.
I think it's hard to judge discomfort while you're in the situation. It's usually in the retrospect when you realise "it wasn't that bad" and you actually gained more than you expected at the time.
The concept he discusses of “the edge” is very similar to “edge of chaos” from physics, but has been studied extensively in complexity sciences, specifically complex adaptive systems.
The theory proposes that all complex adaptive systems (CAS) naturally adapt to a state at the “edge of chaos” which is a transition zone between order(stability) and disorder.
The theory proposes this is the zone where maximal learning/innovation/creativity in social systems occur.
We studied complex adaptive systems in 2019, at the time I changed my LinkedIn tag line to : “learning at the edge of chaos” , still have not changed it since then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos
Excellent article! Thank you very much!
I'm currently writing a book on the "edge of human thought" (more from a point of view of inventions over the course of humankind's history) – here's a newsletter signup page, in case you want to stay up to date:
https://unthinkable.net/
(Posting this is also in the edge area for me... ;))
Keep up the great thinking and writing! :-)
(I just submitted it here, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42004783)
> “You have to listen to your gut. If something feels off, you’ve gotta listen to what your body is telling you and get out. If you don’t, you’ll end up regretting it.”
> Next time you’re feeling some discomfort in a situation, slow down and take a deep breath. Check in with yourself. Where is your edge? What level of discomfort feels challenging but not overwhelming right now? Can you lean in and try something difficult? Or have you already leaned in too far and need to back off a little? Act accordingly. As the situation progresses, keep checking in with yourself.
So the difference seems to be the notion that "a little discomfort is okay". You still need to place your tolerable discomfort cut-off point somewhere, right before it feels overwhelming.
I kind of agree with the general content of the post, but find it somewhat simplistic with a focus on oneself. I see conversation more like a dance, a delicate balance where you should be aware of your own feelings, but also other people's. Some people feel comfortable over-sharing with someone they barely met, which can create quite intense discomfort. My understanding is that this tends to be more likely in people who struggle setting boundaries in their relationships. I'd assume some neurodivergent people would struggle with this as well, as they might find it challenging to sense this balance.
> Do hard things carefully
Seems like my habit is making things hard and do them carefully.
It's very cool you're doing your own voice over reading for your articles.
Soooo many sites have AI read voice overs, and while I understand why, it's a nice touch to listen to a real human with natural prosody.
This is quite a good exercise to follow but don’t know how easy it would be to actually implement this in situations. I mean bcz of the habits we do not have that liberty to stop and ask this to yourself. Just like controlled breathing.
These kinds of article push me over the edge.
They introduce just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be useful in order to sell you a book and course which will be more of the same bad quality content.
In the article they define the edge as the transition zone between the comfort zone and the danger zone.
And they more or less directly tell you to push it and stretch it with care.
The proper underlying concept is risk management.
**
If you follow the advices of these kind of articles, you typically see an initial success, followed by occasional bigger successes, followed by occasional crashes, followed by unrecoverable crashes.
What is happening is that the underlying problem that you are trying to optimize initially benefits from expanding your comfort zone. People usually are too "safe" to begin with. That's called prudence, it's a good thing that has been hardwire by evolution.
But then when you work to push your frontier zone, you work in a zone where pulling and pushing lever have maximum sensitivity, it's good and allow you to make some quick progress. You learn the good moves which rock is slippery to your foot or not, but slipping is not to important because you are still working inside the underlying safe operating zone.
But now you are getting used to learning with immediate feedback. And if you make this the thing you optimize for, you will slowly drift toward the more danger and less reward zone.
You master pushing and pulling the levers in front of you but as you already know how they work, you don't learn anything new. So you push them more and more because you get bored, and then you get some exciting new phenomenon, the car can drift when you go over 90 in the turn of the speed limit 50 zone. So you're happy you've got something new to master. You master it, and now you drift anywhere you go Tokyo drift style.
But you never learned that the adherence of the car depends on whether it has rained the previous day because the oil and dust in the asphalt get lifted and redeposited on the road. So you are surprised when your car spin around.
You got in an accident but made it OK, but now you've got to do some door dashing to finance the new car. So you are more tired, and more pressed by time and drive accordingly. So what does little Timmy in the back learn ?
**
Proper risk management is looking for the levers you can push, expanding them in a safe and boring way. It's concept like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier in portfolio management instead of YOLOing. It's the concept of bankroll management, and management of variance, aggression window style, in things like poker.
But the game of life is not an individual one but a collective one. And people playing an aggressive style are forcing you to play a more loose game. And even more worse than a loose game is a positive expectation game turned negative expectation game because of that. Because the game is not zero sum, in poker there is the rake, but in life many situations are win win, but can be turned lose lose by greediness.
The rise is slow and the fall is fast and catastrophic, see the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure in complex systems that result by taking a myopic approach to optimizing your life.