The art of learning

If you were God and knew in advance whatever would happen, you'd make one helluva hedge fund manager!

This is not a book about about learning. It will not help me learn Spanish (my current study). What it's about is competition and winning and what you learn along the way which in his case doesn't include that competition and winning isn't always a worthwhile goal. It's a memoir of a sort, disguised as a self-help book. I "read" the audiobook version and it ends with an interview of the author by Tim Ferris. If you don't know who that is (I didn't), he's described as a New York Times best-selling author whose book teaches you how to escape the 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich. Tim and Josh, both in their 30s, it appears, are good friends.

Why did I read this book? I don't remember. Someone I trusted praised it. I no longer remember who. I never saw the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer," but I have played chess in Washington Square (though not in years.) And I've meditated quite a lot. Whatever else you might think, you have to respect the man's achievements in both chess and martial arts.

What did I get from the book? Well, it's interesting to hear of what goes on in high level chess--the amount of psychological battle which seems to Waitskin as where the real action takes place. You don't see that aspect when you play over a game on line. I hadn't realized it was there before this book, but now it seems obvious that it would be.

I also enjoyed the inner game of tai-chi pushhands, though I'd personally never gotten past a judo white belt a long time ago. It made me want to learn tai-chi (but not enough that I'd actually do it.)

From chapter to chapter, I'd go from hating Josh, to seeing him as not understanding his own blind spots due to his youth, to deciding maybe he was all right after all, to wondering why I was having the emotional reactions to him that I did. From the beginning, the authority with which he speaks about the learning process annoyed me. He describes the well known distinction between those who think it's about smarts vs. those who think it's about hard work and he predictably lands on the side of the hard workers. (I'd never read [b:Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking|40102|Blink The Power of Thinking Without Thinking|Malcolm Gladwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440763417s/40102.jpg|1180927] which I understand makes similar claims.) It's as if Josh doesn't know the skills he is bringing to the table and thinks he just worked a lot. He did work a lot, but it's a lot easier when you have native abilities that are extraordinary. He's sort of aware he's good at certain things, but his claim that anyone can do it is disingenuous. Or, at least naive.

That, plus the belief that everyone is more or less like him. (Later he backs off this a little and talks about following the unique way that matches who you are--that there isn't a single path to greatness, that we should take from him what works for us, and stuff like that, but I think he learned that writing the book and still needs to learn it some more.

I wonder if he's aware of how privileged his background is and how it compares to those against whom he competed. Few have the time to put in the training that he did, both for chess and martial arts because they have to scrape out a living. Not that there's anything wrong with privilege, but he seems never to notice it. So much for razor sharp awareness.

In the end, talking to Mr. Ferris, he says he trains finance people and hedge fund managers and I think about the poor of this world with whom they are in competition and I wonder if financial success in what you'd like to believe is a meritocracy is what all this excellence is about. He says he won't train people whose ethics aren't right, and how important love is. It's like we're back in the 60s whose supposedly lasting influence seems to be diminishing daily. Meanwhile, his friend Mr. Ferris seems to believe that the proof that mindfulness works lies in the size of the income of its practitioners.

Josh says he's not attached to the worldly manifestations of his skills (which is easy to say when you have a lot and are confident in your abilities to make more if necessary), and I believe he is sincere, but his understanding lacks the perspective of someone who isn't an awful lot like him. I hope he someday realizes the limits of his insights, and when he does, I'd like to suggest he not write a book about it.