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Ask HN: Do you agree with Paul Graham?

7 points by vladmk ↗ HN
http://paulgraham.com/fn.html

In his fierce nerds essay he says meditation dulls you.

“ Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness, by devoting yourself to meditation or psychotherapy or something like that. Maybe that's the right answer for some people. I have no idea. But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. If you're given a sharp knife, it seems to me better to use it than to blunt its edge to avoid cutting yourself.”

It seems to me he thinks meditation makes you less sharp...for me it only helps me focus better and work on more hard problems, kind of like taking a nap. Does taking a nap make you less sharp? Or increase your alertness?

This is what I want cleared up because I don’t wanna waste my time practicing meditation, personally though there’s tons of study that show the mental benefits so My concern is giving people the wrong information about it.

30 comments

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yesenadam
> for me it only helps me focus better and work on more hard problems

Ok great, then keep doing it! How on earth could it be a waste of time for you?! You seem to have a misconception that there's a single objective answer for this kind of thing, "X is good/X is bad", true for everyone. Everyone's different. Let them be different. Do what works for you.

Spending a lot of time worrying about what works for other people, and reading a lot of papers trying to get the elusive single objective answer, are possibly wastes of time.

vladmk
Agreed, but I think its not a great sentiment to make towards meditation when it can actually help startup founders. Recharging is key amidst all the chaos big meetings, founder fights, etc. Rechar
yesenadam
Ah, maybe I misunderstood, I thought you were mainly concerned with knowing if it's right for you, but it seems you are mainly concerned that pg is wrong and shouldn't be telling people it's bad. Well, he does say

> Maybe that's the right answer for some people. I have no idea. But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me.

I wouldn't have thought anyone could have a problem with his saying that.

Since you ask on this page for critical viewpoints: It does seem you want him to be more "politically correct" here—saying what he thinks true isn't good enough, as it doesn't sufficiently strongly support the message you want him to give out.

It probably not unrelated that one of the qualities I like best about pg's essays (particularly the older ones, and not on the subject of startups—I haven't read those) is his willingness to say what he believes, regardless of how it might seem to people. The courage of his convictions.

vladmk
I know it’s right for me because my mind is a almost too on edge that it doesn’t even let me sleep.

I just question his thesis here, you’re correct. I do admire his candor as well

awb
PG and all investors are incentivized to create environments that produce extreme results. So it makes sense that they want 100 sharp knives knowing that the 10 that succeed will far outweigh the loss on the 90 that don’t.

I agree that meditation makes you sharper, but it does also give you the tools to keep your fire from turning into an inferno. PG wants an inferno because he doesn’t have to deal with the damage afterwards. His losses are limited to his investment. Your losses are unlimited.

If you want to play the odds, meditate and strive for average or above average while being decent to yourself and others. If you want to swing for the billionaire fences then I’m guessing a little extra fire in your belly might help from time to time, but I wouldn’t know, I meditate and am not a billionaire.

Black101
> PG and all investors are incentivized to create environments that produce extreme results. So it makes sense that they want 100 sharp knives knowing that the 10 that succeed will far outweigh the loss on the 90 that don’t.

yeah, because they barely give any money for their equity...

vladmk
My challenge is there are nerds who meditate especially billionaires. Steve Jobs is the most famous example, but there are a ton more. Meditation Tim Ferris has noted it with some of the most successful people in Tools of Titans, I can name a lot more. This is why it confuses me.
awb
I wonder how many start meditating after their success though. But yeah I think you can definitely be successful and meditate. I think PG and investors in general want to create a pressure cooker to create extreme results.
vladmk
Which is why I'm curious, I want those results. I mean I've done extreme things such as run Marathons, etc. So I'm happy to stop, just wanted to learn about the other perspective of it being unhelpful.

For me personally I'm probably too on edge and need to slow down (everyone around me tells me that) which is why I meditate daily, but I can see from Paul's perspective if I was to "slow" then it may be harmful. Therapy can also have the same effect.

Thanks for your response.

awb
I guess you'd have to talk to or listen to interviews with billionaires. Somehow I doubt that being more composed and in tune with your inner self would have a negative effect. Any decrease in personal drive is probably accounted for in better relationships with yourself and others. And you need others to help you be successful.

And I doubt meditating is a huge determining factor. Other things like education, domain expertise, support network, professional network, access to capital, luck, etc. are probably going to have a far greater impact on your professional success.

vladmk
Lol listen to Ray Dalio, meditation is his sole reason he says he succeeded and Marc Beniof mentions it publicly too.
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jay_kyburz
He is just thinking out loud. He is not saying that meditation will dull your fierceness, just that he doesn't think you should go looking for something to deliberately dull your firecness.

I don't know about meditation, but I like going for long walks.

vladmk
Sounds great, that definitely sounds like a great meditation practice.
rogerkirkness
I tend to feel this isn't really optional short of medication. Successful founders I know are neurotic messes. Nothing short of second line anxiety medication seems to make a dent in the existential drive forward. So it does feel like self awareness loop leads to a lot more internalizing behavior, but it does feel impossible to turn the switch off.
vladmk
Yeah I know I can be a bit too much on that side which is why I need to meditate to get rid of the anxiety
spfzero
"Maybe that's the right answer for some people" Maybe you're one of those "some people".
vladmk
Thanks, makes sense to me :-) Success isn't a one size fits all formula.
vladmk
I understand this isn't a "one size fits all" statement he's making. I just think meditation can make people sharper for the most part vs. dull. I wanna be as sharp as possible so I'm looking for the opposing views :-)
eimrine
I have hard time to study what meditation is and what isn't. It is like doing nothing but not kind of having a rest because sleep is definitely not a meditation. As far as I understand, it is maybe having a rest but with special conditions like no think and possibly no interrupts on something like phone calls. Please correct me where I am wrong.
vladmk
That’s the other challenge I have with his statement. Meditation can be whatever you’d like, there’s multiple types. It can give you clarity on a topic or peace of mind, etc.
sibeliuss
In a sense he's correct: meditation teaches one non-attachment as a byproduct of the practice. In business, status and wealth can be powerful creative tools. The longer you meditate, the less these two things matter, and the less other peoples opinions matter. It's simple. You meditate to let go. If you keep at it you might just gain peace of mind, and that peace of mind might actually make you a better business person in the ways that matter most.
vladmk
That’s how Ray Dalio thinks about it, and I agree.
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joshxyz
Counterintuitively mindfulness in general detaches you from things which lets you see them objectively as they are.
AnimalMuppet
The problem is that my fierce sharpness cuts people around me. Some of those people are close to me. And even those who aren't, they are still human beings and deserve to be treated as such. They often don't deserve to be hurt.

When your daughter tells you to your face not to do to her sister what you did to her, it brings home that you are at least using the sharpness wrong. (It wasn't abuse per se - it was mostly treating them as things that I wanted to get to shut up so that I could get on with what I wanted to do. Kids should not be treated like an interruption to your agenda.)

For the record, meditation isn't my answer. Prayer is - though there are those who will say that it's the same thing. The difference is whether God is really there or not.

vladmk
Someone once said prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening
rattlesnake45
brain waves. Depends on what you are going for.

If you meditate to separate yourself from the material world then paul graham may be right.

But if you meditate to clear your mind and solve problems then I would think paul is wrong.

vladmk
Exactly this. If you meditate to recover it’ll help, I don’t think people meditate to escape, that’s more in line with tv
71a54xd
I do not. It's pretty easy to see the slant most of his essays have, although I do like reading them since he's incredibly articulate and writes in an intelligent yet plain style.

His essays and opinions generally seek to aggrandize what I like to call the "startup industry". Getting young people to take huge risks they can't even start to gauge so that the startup industry (vc) benefits. My personal favorite is when he makes the claim that "working on side projects for money isn't worth it, you should just commit to your employer and try to get a raise". However, I can't agree more with his views on why Cambridge MA is by far the best place to study and think deeply. His essay, in which he visually recants a walk in Cambridge brings back so many memories of my college days in Boston, it's one of my favorite things to read.