A friend told me a story about two philosophers arguing about the nature of reality. The first believed reality was objective. The second countered that it was subjective, \u201cYou can\u2019t prove to me that this wall exists.\u201d The first replied, \u201cWell if it doesn\u2019t exist, then walk through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem with the subjective philosopher is that everyone can have theories about the world. It\u2019s only when those theories regularly make contact with reality that we gain understanding.<\/p>\n
My philosophy has always been to try to live as close to reality as possible. Not how I want the world to work, or even how it \u201cshould\u201d work, but how it does.<\/p>\n
I love entrepreneurship because it forces you to live closer to reality. You can have theories about what the world needs, but theories don\u2019t pay your bills\u2014only being correct in your model of reality does.<\/p>\n
This is a difference between entrepreneurship and many other professions. I often hear from people struggling to find a job, or claiming that they aren\u2019t being paid enough. Embedded in these notions is the idea of fairness, or how the world should<\/em> work.<\/p>\n As an entrepreneur, notions of fairness quickly get replaced with reality. It doesn\u2019t matter that you worked 60 hours per week on a project and generated $100, or that someone else did 30 minutes of work that led to $10,000. Reality doesn\u2019t care about what you \u201cdeserve\u201d–only the value you produced.<\/p>\n Because your livelihood depends on directly ascertaining reality (as opposed to appealing to the filtered reality of a singular employer), you end up living closer to that reality.<\/p>\n Somewhat surprisingly, the more successful you get as an entrepreneur, the further you can live from reality. New entrepreneurs must be exactingly efficient to reach success. Established ones have resources and connections that afford a certain amount of slack to reach the same goal.<\/p>\n One of my fears since becoming a full-time writer, is that my advice will grow stale because I\u2019ve moved away from the reality I once wrote about. Struggling for success, in the moment, is quite a different experience than looking back with the benefit of hindsight.<\/p>\n The majority of my business is in teaching rapid-learning skills<\/a>. Now that I\u2019m no longer a student, it\u2019s easy to live further away from the reality of students I write for. I worry about it enough that I\u2019m taking on a big learning project in October, in part, to bring me closer to reality.<\/p>\n Within their chosen field, I feel academics, scientists and researchers live closer to reality than anyone. That\u2019s why we get them to specialize in the generation of new knowledge. Physicists must live very close to reality within the domain of physics, or they won\u2019t keep their jobs.<\/p>\n But I also feel academia affords a certain distance from reality in all the areas outside their field. Salaries are fixed, tenure gives incredible job security and the institutions of research isolate individuals from many of the realities outside.<\/p>\n In my mind, the difference is that while entrepreneurs must be somewhat close to reality on many issues (psychology, industry, technology, economics, etc.), academics must be even closer on their chosen pursuit, but have comparatively more slack in the others.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been equating here the necessity to live in reality with actually living in it. Of course, this isn\u2019t entirely true. You could be intelligent and evidence-seeking in all areas of your life, even if life doesn\u2019t necessitate it.<\/p>\n However, I feel fantasy, or the ability to have theories which aren\u2019t thrust into contact with reality on a regular basis, is a luxury many of us enjoy. We like our superstitions, especially when they don\u2019t cost much.<\/p>\n In many ways, the career path I\u2019ve chosen suffers from this more than any other. Being a writer with a relatively stable business allows me to generate the impractical theories of an academic, without the rigor and methodology of peer-reviewed journals.<\/p>\n A broader goal of mine is to live as close to reality as possible. I want to actively remove my false beliefs, not accumulate feel-good falsities simply because I can afford to.<\/p>\n The scientific approach to this would be to run experiments, or at the very least, watch other experiments and interpret those results. That\u2019s why I try to read as many science books from different disciplines, to remove the folk intuition and stay closer to the reality that people spend their entire careers seeking to discover.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s also a much more pragmatic way to live closer to reality. Doing projects, whether that\u2019s starting a company, living in a foreign country or training a skill, all force you to live closer to reality. It\u2019s sitting back, well within your comfort zone, that allows you the luxury of unprovable hypotheses.<\/p>\n Living smart means exposing your ignorance. The way to be right, in the long-term, is to be shown to be wrong every day.<\/p>\n Quick announcement, friend and fellow blogger, Adam Baker, just released a course to help people get out of debt<\/a>. I’m not an affiliate or anything, I just like his stuff (check out his free blog too<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A friend told me a story about two philosophers arguing about the nature of reality. The first believed reality was objective. The second countered that it was subjective, \u201cYou can\u2019t prove to me that this wall exists.\u201d The first replied, \u201cWell if it doesn\u2019t exist, then walk through it.\u201d The problem with the subjective philosopher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[656,681],"tags":[647,645,29,646],"class_list":{"0":"post-2231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life-philosophy","7":"category-nc-mindset","8":"tag-empiricism","9":"tag-knowledge","10":"tag-learning","11":"tag-reality","12":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nProfessional Advice-Givers Live Further From Reality<\/h2>\n
Academia and Reality<\/h2>\n
The Luxury of Fantasy<\/h2>\n
Trying to Live Closer to Reality<\/h2>\n