I've just written this as a first page in the Do Interesting book. (Don't worry, we've also written other pages. This isn't all there is.)
If you’re in a bookshop trying to decide whether to buy this book this is the page you want.
Interesting isn’t something you are, it’s something you do. You get more interesting by being more interested, by paying a little more attention to the world. And there are a bunch of relatively easy, ways to do that. Which we’ve divided into three sections
Noticing - you should spend a little bit of time, dailyish, paying extra attention to the world and noticing something new about it.
We’ve got 23 ways you could do that.
Collecting - you should make an extra effort, weeklyish, to collect and compile what you’ve noticed so you can find it and use it again.
We’ve got 15 ways you could do that.
Making - you should do something with what you’ve collected, monthishly. You should make something that you put back into the world. Something interesting.
We’ve got 21 ways you could do that.
We’ve also interviewed a bunch of interesting people who aren’t Steve Jobs or Picasso but just regular people like you and me who tell us how they do all this.
*if not you’re not an executive please don’t read this page
February 01, 2023 in DI, DoInteresting | Permalink
I'm always looking for people who've divided the world usefully into threes and here are three from John Stuart Mill. From Henry Oliver's guest post about Effective Altruism for The Ruffian.
"Mill’s work is a somewhat neglected corner of Utilitarianism that needs to be revived. In 1983, John Gray wrote a superb book called Mill on liberty: a defencein which he created a new name for Mill’s theory: indirect utilitarianism. Mill did not have, as the EAs do, a touchstone of “doing the most good” to guide his life. Rather, he lived in a state of enquiry and development, investing in three areas of life: morality (what is right), prudence (what is expedient), and aesthetic (what is noble or beautiful). The last two of those criteria often seem to be missing in Effective Altruism.
Indirect utilitarianism states that not everything is a moral question. You will not maximise happiness, Mill says, by maximising utility, but by attaching yourself to projects, people, and activities. Utility is a guiding principle for society, not a way of assessing everything we do in our lives. Get something to do, someone to love, something to enjoy, and you will become happy. Utility is not the one-and-only moral decider."
What is right. What is expedient. What is beautiful.
Projects. People. Activities.
Something to do. Someone to love. Something to enjoy.