May 2021 Articles

“I have another birthday, and another bunch of unsolicited advice.”

Worth the read.

Traits of fierce nerds:

• “They are as a rule extremely competitive…Competition is more personal for them.”
• “…tend to be somewhat overconfident…”
• Intelligence
• Independent-mindedness. “And the independent-mindedness of the fierce nerds will obviously be of the aggressive rather than the passive type: they’ll be annoyed by rules, rather than dreamily unaware of them.”
• “I’m less sure why fierce nerds are impatient, but most seem to be…in the more promising fierce nerds [impatience is] connected to a deeper impatience about solving problems.

On how to avoid becoming bitter: “Work on ambitious projects. If you succeed, it will bring you a kind of satisfaction that neutralizes bitterness. But you don’t need to have succeeded to feel this; merely working on hard projects gives most fierce nerds some feeling of satisfaction. And those it doesn’t, it at least keeps busy.”