Getting older, getting married, having kids, living in different parts of the country in different types of cities. Basically anything new gives you a broader perspective.
About ten years ago, after my grandmother died, I got really into Robert Anton Wilson. That sort of set the trajectory for the rest of my life.
While I think RAW was wrong about a lot of things, the meta-lesson of erring on the side of agnosis -- trusting that, when the world doesn't behave in line with your expectations (and often even when it does) it's because of unknown unknowns, and that the world is stranger and more complex than any of us can imagine -- has helped me a lot. It's helped me rein in my control-freak nature, deal in healthier ways with unexpected events, and get rid of some of my ego-based fixations on particular mental models that don't survive collision with reality.
This is not the first time I see a RAW reference when it comes to personal growth/mental health. But he has written so much. What should I start with and how should I continue?
His whole canon fits together somewhat, in that he refreshes and repeats ideas throughout his writing career, which means that you can almost jump in anywhere and pick up the thread. I'd recommend "Prometheus Rising" and "Quantum Psychology" as a good place to start. Also, don't be put off by his use of the word 'illuminati' in his work - he started that whole joke.
Yeah, Prometheus Rising is a good starting-point for sure.
His work can be usefully classified into three categories: loose essay collections, fiction, and conventionally-structured non-fiction. Prometheus Rising & Quantum Psychology are the closest to conventionally-structured non-fiction (though they both flirt with the loose-essay-collection format) and so, for new readers coming at it from a self-help perspective, they're less off-putting. In particular, Prometheus Rising does a pretty good job of explaining RAW's 8-circuit model (which was also helpful for my emotional self-regulation) in an accessible way -- showing its origins as a doctoral thesis reworked into a textbook.
Of course, almost everybody starts with the Illuminatus! trilogy (and so did I). This isn't necessarily a good idea. There's been at least one casualty from somebody starting with the Illuminatus! trilogy and missing the point (documented in The Cuckoo's Egg), though I guess you can blame cocaine and soviet espionage in that case!
I can't agree more with this. Robert Anton Wilson's books are extremely readable, entertaining, and will definitely help you see a new perspective. For programmers and tech people I'd recommend RAW above Godel, Escher, Bach, for example. One of his many intriguing ideas, borrowed from Alfred Korzybski, is that "The Map is Not the Territory". Always know that whatever map or idea you have is only ever, at best, a fragmentary and limited version of whatever in the objective world it's meant to represent. Kudos.
Hm I've never heard of RAW, but I will check out his work based on this thread. From what I see here, if you like his ideas, you might also like the books of Nassim Taleb (Black Swan, etc.) He has a style that rubs some people the wrong way, but I believe his ideas are the kind that can "change your life".
I have been a bit obsessed with the idea that "the map is not the territory". I think it's because I grew up with some strong mental models that turned out not to be true.
I used Google and found that I mentioned it at least 3 times on HN, going back years:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7074831 -- With regard to Taleb, "I share Taleb's problem with models". I compare him to Nate Silver. I liked Silver's book very much at the time, and saw a lot of parallels in "learning about the world". (But I have since become disappointed with Silver.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7913435 -- Static typing doesn't prevent the important bugs. Static types are a map; they're not the territory -- which is runtime behavior, interaction with the end user, interaction with the world.
I still have this rant a brewing: you cannot learn ANYTHING about the world if you don't actually run your program! Of course, most people who use static types do run their programs. But it's not a strawman; there's an extreme solipsistic school of "modeling with types" where programmers try not to run their programs and instead rely on the compiler. I suppose this may be effective for some very limited kinds of software with small interfaces to "the world" (which includes hardware), but IMO it's the wrong default. You can't learn anything about hardware without running your program, let alone end users!
I think sticking to things I start has contributed the most personal growth for me. I think for anything to have any effect on you, you have to stick with it for at least 6 months or more (though it definitely depends on each activity).
In the last 2 years I have been able to lose 8kgs, increase my business, cure my chronic backache and become a lot happier using this one trick of sticking to things daily without fail.
One thing that has helped me tremendously to keep at it daily is a simple Google Sheet in which I put my progress daily and it gives me a "X days streak" using a formula (let me know if you want the template). After a month when I have a 30 day streak it makes me more and more committed to follow through and I rarely break my streaks.
P.S. The only thing which this never worked is sleeping at 10 <strike>a.m</strike>p.m. Can't even get a 2 day streak. I guess nothing works for that :D
I don't think it's always best to stick to it blindly. You start shifting your perspective from "I want to achieve my goal" to "I don't want to break the chain" and if you falter once you feel weak and worthless, and quit completely altogether. You just have to constantly remind yourself why you are doing this, know that repetition is the key and it's OK to miss some days here and there.
I use a similar technique [1] and I’ve also yielded great results from it, but my goals tend to be more progressive. Everything that you do better than yesterday is streak, so if your aim is going to bed at 10am (why!?) the streak is what takes you closer to it.
P.S. This is the newer version[2] I'm using to track my daily work (goal is to do 40 pomodoros per week). I've left the data in it because still developing this new habit
How did you cure your chronic back ache? I'm having issues right now which I think are being caused by anxiety but I'm not exactly sure how to address them. I've started doing a lot of exercise though, perhaps that will be all I need.
Sounds basically like Benjamin Franklin's method, detailed in his autobiography. He ruled up a page with all the virtues he wanted to see in himself down the left side, days along the top, and putting a black spot for each virtue he'd lapsed in that day.
Working in "edge" roles. I've always been the "digital" expert in teams I've worked in, and doing so has meant I've been partly responsible for building up organisational knowledge on all kinds of things that (as far as the org is concerned) have never existed before.
Now that "digital" is baked into most marketeer's roles, I'm looking for the next frontier to build across. Probably AR or machine learning.
My personal remit has always been to make myself redundant, it's always pushed me to explore the novel and build out the next set of skills to make myself relevant when my current "edge" becomes the norm.
Reading. I used to tell myself that I loved to read, but I never read any books. It was a feel-good saying I told myself because everyone likes to think they love to read.
The past few years, I started to actually read. I've fallen in love with reading. The world is more open, my critical analysis is stronger, and my school and engineering work has improved. Overall, I have a much happier disposition than before I read.
I don't know whether to attribute this change to reading or maturing; it's probably a mix of both. However, I think I really enjoy reading now because I select works that I consider well-written. This single characteristic, reading something that is well-written, has changed my outlook on reading. There is some incredible writing out there, and I wish I started reading these pieces when I was younger.
> A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one.
>
> - George R.R. Martin
Strongly agree. Something that really helped me was to start listening to audiobooks. It made reading something that required just a little less effort, and so it was easier to do it more often. And I can listen at times when I can't read, like driving or walking.
What types of books have you read that you've found helped the most with your critical faculties and such?
This year I've finally got around to Infinite Jest. I don't know that I'm enjoying the book itself so much as I enjoy the mental exercise that I get from its reading, if any of that makes sense.
Have you read any of the other Odyssey translations? I'm very curious Wilson's translation. I read the Fagles, Latimore, and Fitzgerald translations in college and did a few weeks of translation myself in our Greek class (I went to one of those hippy-dippy "Great Books" schools).
I think I was in the minority, but I found the Fagles translation to be far and away the best. I definitely subscribe more to the school of poetic translation than literal translation, so I was intrigued by the Wilson translation. What were your thoughts?
I haven't read Fagles' translation or any others. I wouldn't have picked up the Odyssey if it weren't for reviews from others [0] and reading articles [1][2]. I really enjoy her translation, and I wish I could compare hers with others. As someone who knows very little about Greek mythology, I found her 70-page introduction in the Odyssey to be a great primer on what to expect in the epic. After her introduction, she has a shorter translator's note discussing some decisions she made in her translation. If I remember correctly, she does throw a little shade at other translators in the introduction or translator's note.
- Growing up with a maker dad and an artist mom. I would routinely come home from school and my Dad would be doing something like building a robot mouse trap with an IR tripwire, and my mom would be on the phone working connections to get a radio interview to talk about a new project. Nothing seemed out of bounds or too hard to try doing yourself.
- Studying music, and learning that nothing is objectively difficult, just relatively unfamiliar. Learning that any skill is attainable through the right kind of practice.
- Joining a 2-person start up and growing with it through to an exit. Learning there's no magic to a successful company or project, it's about solving a series of practical problems like anything else.
“ Studying music, and learning that nothing is objectively difficult, just relatively unfamiliar. Learning that any skill is attainable through the right kind of practice.”
Seconding this. I was in a bad rut for many years after college, not making much money or much of myself in general, before a friend told me about a job opening at his company within my wheelhouse. So after getting that job and having a few side-projects go well, I got myself back on-track and living the sort of life I had been hoping for. To a certain degree you can make your own luck, but sometimes you really do just need good old fashioned random good luck to get on track.
But the question was about personal growth. Bad luck more usually triggers/catalyzes personal growth, doesn't it? Makes you think, reassess.. So maybe it's luck to have so much bad luck. (Read the stories of the wisest, greatest, most..personally-grown - the most embiggened - they've had more than their share of bad luck.)
You're suffering from survivorship bias. When you think about "bad luck", you seem to be thinking about minor mishaps (along the lines of "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger"). However, consider the huge number of people which are literally killed by bad luck (along the lines of "being born in a poor country with ongoing civil war/without potable water/without enough food"). Or, less drastically, think about those who are born into relatively poor families, are thus never properly nurtured (because their parents are too busy earning money to feed them etc.) and fail to realize their potential.
For example, going back to the original question, one huge factor of my early personal growth was that I had relatively wealthy and caring parents who could afford to send me to a good school, to music lessons etc., and who pushed me to realize my potential. Being born to such parents is sheer luck. All the other important people that I met in my life, that's luck, too. (At least by Occam's Razor. I obviously cannot know how my life would've looked if I had taken a different path.)
My first experience was spending a year abroad in High School when I was 15. (Classical exchange program managed by one of the big non-profit orgs.) So I lived with a host family and was fully immersed in my host country's culture.
I kind of consider that experience the beginning of my conscious development of my own personality.
Completely changing your point of view and starting off as an outsider in almost every situation (language barriers + cultural norms) really makes you reconsider so many details of things you always took for granted. I'd say you learn more about your own culture and country than about the host country.
After that you will just naturally acknowledge that lots of things are arbitrary rather than god-given. This in turn I believe leads to the next step of realization that you can design and shape things rather than having to accept the status-quo as is.
After that I first got involved as a volunteer in my exchange organization, and later lived abroad two more times (in university and for work) while also naturally surrounding myself with people who had similar 'changes of perspective' in my social life. I find that those people are generally extremely curious, open, driven and generally inspiring.
Knowing about the Conspicupus Signalling Theory (Geoffrey Miller's book).
Understanding how flirting really works with Dan Bacon's The Flow.
Meditation and going beyond materialism by experiencing many lucid OBEs.
Jordan Peterson in general and self authoring in special.
Understanding how poisonus Postmodernism is (Stephen Hicks book).
Understanding how the Cultural War works (a global issue).
Becoming a socratic method aficionado.
Having a financially independent friend to become my financial mentor.
Not 100% convinced about it, but I wanted to say: that I stopped smoking pot.
Told myself well in advance that I'd quit 11 months in to my girlfriend's pregnancy (EDIT - obviously the residual effects are still there. I quit 8 months in to her pregnancy. This is what drugs do, kids.)
Since then (now almost a year later) my ability to comprehend and concentrate on technical things has improved a lot. I've learn things in web development that I just couldn't back then. Probably due to the fact I was a daily smoker for almost 20 years.
Only February contains exactly four weeks (28 days), and only in non-leap years.
The average month 4.345 weeks:
365 / 7 = 52.142 / 12 = 4.345
Therefore:
10 months * 4.345 = 43.45 weeks
9 months * 4.345 = 39.105 week
Neither is 40 weeks. And anyway, 40 weeks is only an approximation as it is common for births to occur from 37 to 42 weeks from the first day of the woman's last menstrual period.
I gotta disagree with you here. I smoke a little bit every day and I've gone through periods of a month or two without smoking and the only difference I found was that it was easier to get up in the morning if I didn't smoke the day before. My cognitive abilities don't seem to be impaired at all. It's possible that smoking pot for you was associated with other lifestyle affects (like sleep quality/duration) that were negatively affecting your cognitive efficiency.
I never claimed to be conducting an experiment. This whole thread is opinion-based, so I'm not sure why you are holding me to any kind of scientific standard.
I was simply asserting that I could perceive no difference in my abilities between times that I smoked and the periods of time where I didn't. At least not enough where I could make a statement similar to the OP where he detected a significant improvement in cognitive functioning after quitting.
No, but you did essentially shoot down someone else's statement about what led to their growth. You can't have it both ways. You can't shoot them down and assert they are wrong because your experience disagrees with it, then say it is all just opinion, man. Either respect their opinion about their own life experience or defend your assertion that they are wrong with something stronger than personal opinion.
I take your point. I did not intend to shoot them down or suggest that his personal growth was imaginary.
However, I think you missed the main point of my post, which was to suggest that perhaps there was a comorbid reason for his perceived cognitive deficiencies that were not a direct result of marijuana, but related to known side effects, such as REM sleep disruption.
It comes across like your point is "Stop implying that I, personally, need to quit toking every day." Because the idea that drugs impair cognitive performance is hardly novel.
It sounds like you feel personally threatened and you feel some need to shoot down the well established scientific fact that drugs impair cognitive function.
There may be more going on in his life than marijuana impairing cognitive function, but you have absolutely no basis whatsoever to assert that they are wrong about their own life and there is some other explanation for the cognitive effects they experienced.
How do you mitigate the effects of marijuana on REM? I (mostly) quit even light drinking because I need a good nights sleep to function.
I don't smoke much anymore, but more because I don't feel like I have a safe place to kick back and smoke than anything else. When I do smoke I feel tired the next day.
Very very occasionally, like when the wife & kids are out of town and I have the place to myself. I've smoked maybe 5 joints since I quit. Unfortunately I still indulge in other substances more than I'd like to.
Without an inkling of doubt, Richard W. Hamming lectures and the book based on them “The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, Learning to Learn”. Nothing has had a greater impact on me.
Marriage, parenting, bankruptcy & then learning proper financial management from Dave Ramsey, almost getting a divorce and then going to marriage counseling, OA & other 12 step groups, reading the entire Bible, leaning into hobbies (like learning electronics, learning guitar), home ownership.
Exercise, and books. To name a few (in no particular order):
"Choose Yourself" by James Altucher
"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill
"Mindset" by Carol Dweck
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie
As a kid / young teenager - Star Trek, particularly The Next Generation. The hopeful, utopian world valuing high moral standards, teamwork and competency, the world that assumed organizations are good and efficient unless proven otherwise - this world colored my worldview and still determines the kind of world I'd like to see, and hence what I want to build towards.
As a young adult - LessWrong Sequences. A lot of the topics covered were something I was thinking about myself, so I kind of got halfway to the same answers independently, but beyond that, they helped me clarify and sharpen my thinking about the world.
Beyond that, I had lots of smaller influences. "Getting Things Done" shaped my thinking about productivity. Writings of Joel Spolsky and Paul Graham made me discover Lisp and Emacs, which subsequently reshaped a lot about how I approach programming. Helping set up and then run a Hackerspace taught me much about interacting with (and trying to coordinate) a group of smart and skilled people. And then HN contributed a lot to broadening my worldview too.
track all my habits. It allowed me to become aware of all the important habits I'm doing in a day, to see the historical data and to select ones and discard others.
177 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 288 ms ] threadWhile I think RAW was wrong about a lot of things, the meta-lesson of erring on the side of agnosis -- trusting that, when the world doesn't behave in line with your expectations (and often even when it does) it's because of unknown unknowns, and that the world is stranger and more complex than any of us can imagine -- has helped me a lot. It's helped me rein in my control-freak nature, deal in healthier ways with unexpected events, and get rid of some of my ego-based fixations on particular mental models that don't survive collision with reality.
His work can be usefully classified into three categories: loose essay collections, fiction, and conventionally-structured non-fiction. Prometheus Rising & Quantum Psychology are the closest to conventionally-structured non-fiction (though they both flirt with the loose-essay-collection format) and so, for new readers coming at it from a self-help perspective, they're less off-putting. In particular, Prometheus Rising does a pretty good job of explaining RAW's 8-circuit model (which was also helpful for my emotional self-regulation) in an accessible way -- showing its origins as a doctoral thesis reworked into a textbook.
Of course, almost everybody starts with the Illuminatus! trilogy (and so did I). This isn't necessarily a good idea. There's been at least one casualty from somebody starting with the Illuminatus! trilogy and missing the point (documented in The Cuckoo's Egg), though I guess you can blame cocaine and soviet espionage in that case!
I have been a bit obsessed with the idea that "the map is not the territory". I think it's because I grew up with some strong mental models that turned out not to be true.
I used Google and found that I mentioned it at least 3 times on HN, going back years:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15866856 -- Programmers should learn a little philosophy
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7074831 -- With regard to Taleb, "I share Taleb's problem with models". I compare him to Nate Silver. I liked Silver's book very much at the time, and saw a lot of parallels in "learning about the world". (But I have since become disappointed with Silver.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7913435 -- Static typing doesn't prevent the important bugs. Static types are a map; they're not the territory -- which is runtime behavior, interaction with the end user, interaction with the world.
I still have this rant a brewing: you cannot learn ANYTHING about the world if you don't actually run your program! Of course, most people who use static types do run their programs. But it's not a strawman; there's an extreme solipsistic school of "modeling with types" where programmers try not to run their programs and instead rely on the compiler. I suppose this may be effective for some very limited kinds of software with small interfaces to "the world" (which includes hardware), but IMO it's the wrong default. You can't learn anything about hardware without running your program, let alone end users!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#Analo...
In the last 2 years I have been able to lose 8kgs, increase my business, cure my chronic backache and become a lot happier using this one trick of sticking to things daily without fail.
One thing that has helped me tremendously to keep at it daily is a simple Google Sheet in which I put my progress daily and it gives me a "X days streak" using a formula (let me know if you want the template). After a month when I have a 30 day streak it makes me more and more committed to follow through and I rarely break my streaks.
P.S. The only thing which this never worked is sleeping at 10 <strike>a.m</strike>p.m. Can't even get a 2 day streak. I guess nothing works for that :D
[1] https://medium.com/@duopixel/the-qualified-self-7f69c6b23623
Do you mean "at 10 PM", or "until 10 AM", or do you just have a bizarre biorhythm?
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nf5IfzmRephJJFiT1VWY...
P.S. This is the newer version[2] I'm using to track my daily work (goal is to do 40 pomodoros per week). I've left the data in it because still developing this new habit
[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vwxiz_eh3KnwuziKUqvM...
Now that "digital" is baked into most marketeer's roles, I'm looking for the next frontier to build across. Probably AR or machine learning.
My personal remit has always been to make myself redundant, it's always pushed me to explore the novel and build out the next set of skills to make myself relevant when my current "edge" becomes the norm.
The past few years, I started to actually read. I've fallen in love with reading. The world is more open, my critical analysis is stronger, and my school and engineering work has improved. Overall, I have a much happier disposition than before I read.
I don't know whether to attribute this change to reading or maturing; it's probably a mix of both. However, I think I really enjoy reading now because I select works that I consider well-written. This single characteristic, reading something that is well-written, has changed my outlook on reading. There is some incredible writing out there, and I wish I started reading these pieces when I was younger.
> A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one. > > - George R.R. Martin
Edit for parallelism.
>[A] mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
This year I've finally got around to Infinite Jest. I don't know that I'm enjoying the book itself so much as I enjoy the mental exercise that I get from its reading, if any of that makes sense.
In this area, I feel I've learned the most from reading commentary in the New Yorker.
For enjoyment, I've read:
* Stories of Your Life and Others by Chiang
* The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson
* What The F by Bergen
* Blindsight by Watts
I think I was in the minority, but I found the Fagles translation to be far and away the best. I definitely subscribe more to the school of poetic translation than literal translation, so I was intrigued by the Wilson translation. What were your thoughts?
[0]: Comments from other HN readers, some who have read Fagles' translation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15624881
[1]: A note from Wilson in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-translators-re...
[2]: NYT article: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-wom...
- Growing up with a maker dad and an artist mom. I would routinely come home from school and my Dad would be doing something like building a robot mouse trap with an IR tripwire, and my mom would be on the phone working connections to get a radio interview to talk about a new project. Nothing seemed out of bounds or too hard to try doing yourself.
- Studying music, and learning that nothing is objectively difficult, just relatively unfamiliar. Learning that any skill is attainable through the right kind of practice.
- Joining a 2-person start up and growing with it through to an exit. Learning there's no magic to a successful company or project, it's about solving a series of practical problems like anything else.
Also,
“ Studying music, and learning that nothing is objectively difficult, just relatively unfamiliar. Learning that any skill is attainable through the right kind of practice.”
The Growth Mindset!!
Perspective taking.
I was going to reply with a personality trait, but let's be honest, 90%+ of every success story is plain luck.
For example, going back to the original question, one huge factor of my early personal growth was that I had relatively wealthy and caring parents who could afford to send me to a good school, to music lessons etc., and who pushed me to realize my potential. Being born to such parents is sheer luck. All the other important people that I met in my life, that's luck, too. (At least by Occam's Razor. I obviously cannot know how my life would've looked if I had taken a different path.)
I kind of consider that experience the beginning of my conscious development of my own personality. Completely changing your point of view and starting off as an outsider in almost every situation (language barriers + cultural norms) really makes you reconsider so many details of things you always took for granted. I'd say you learn more about your own culture and country than about the host country. After that you will just naturally acknowledge that lots of things are arbitrary rather than god-given. This in turn I believe leads to the next step of realization that you can design and shape things rather than having to accept the status-quo as is.
After that I first got involved as a volunteer in my exchange organization, and later lived abroad two more times (in university and for work) while also naturally surrounding myself with people who had similar 'changes of perspective' in my social life. I find that those people are generally extremely curious, open, driven and generally inspiring.
Told myself well in advance that I'd quit 11 months in to my girlfriend's pregnancy (EDIT - obviously the residual effects are still there. I quit 8 months in to her pregnancy. This is what drugs do, kids.)
Since then (now almost a year later) my ability to comprehend and concentrate on technical things has improved a lot. I've learn things in web development that I just couldn't back then. Probably due to the fact I was a daily smoker for almost 20 years.
(But maybe with a seal or llama)
I don't know where the 9 months myth came from since I also believed on it. I just learned recently with my first baby.
The average month 4.345 weeks:
365 / 7 = 52.142 / 12 = 4.345
Therefore:
10 months * 4.345 = 43.45 weeks
9 months * 4.345 = 39.105 week
Neither is 40 weeks. And anyway, 40 weeks is only an approximation as it is common for births to occur from 37 to 42 weeks from the first day of the woman's last menstrual period.
Next ... 11 months in to your girlfriends pregnancy? How does that work exactly (since full term is usually 9 months)?
do you use some sort of external metrics to verify that?
using the same brain for smoking pot and determining that smoking pot causes no impairment isn't exactly a well-designed experiment.
I was simply asserting that I could perceive no difference in my abilities between times that I smoked and the periods of time where I didn't. At least not enough where I could make a statement similar to the OP where he detected a significant improvement in cognitive functioning after quitting.
However, I think you missed the main point of my post, which was to suggest that perhaps there was a comorbid reason for his perceived cognitive deficiencies that were not a direct result of marijuana, but related to known side effects, such as REM sleep disruption.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4660250/
It sounds like you feel personally threatened and you feel some need to shoot down the well established scientific fact that drugs impair cognitive function.
There may be more going on in his life than marijuana impairing cognitive function, but you have absolutely no basis whatsoever to assert that they are wrong about their own life and there is some other explanation for the cognitive effects they experienced.
I don't smoke much anymore, but more because I don't feel like I have a safe place to kick back and smoke than anything else. When I do smoke I feel tired the next day.
Whew.
Wow. I'm surprised I'm still alive!
"Choose Yourself" by James Altucher "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill "Mindset" by Carol Dweck "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie
Good things that happened to me:
I travelled in all the region to diversify my pictures.
I bought the books of master photographs to learn their technics, so I can now "read" a picture.
And of course I watched a lot of photos on the internet to diversify my tastes.
Now that I have reached a level that I am proud of, I praise that hobby very much.
Josef Koudelka, Henri Cartier Bresson, Greg Girard, Masahisa Fukase, Sergio Larrain, Jean Dieuzaide, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Brett Weston, Kourtney Roy, Franco Fontana.
Searching those names on Google is already a journey by itself.
As a young adult - LessWrong Sequences. A lot of the topics covered were something I was thinking about myself, so I kind of got halfway to the same answers independently, but beyond that, they helped me clarify and sharpen my thinking about the world.
Beyond that, I had lots of smaller influences. "Getting Things Done" shaped my thinking about productivity. Writings of Joel Spolsky and Paul Graham made me discover Lisp and Emacs, which subsequently reshaped a lot about how I approach programming. Helping set up and then run a Hackerspace taught me much about interacting with (and trying to coordinate) a group of smart and skilled people. And then HN contributed a lot to broadening my worldview too.