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Metacognition + reading


In terms of raw thinking, I'd say my throughput is most notable. My reaction time has never been the fastest and likewise neither is that first thought. Quite a lot comes pouring out all at once though, and as such I often stumble on words if I don't take a second to collect my thoughts. My thinking is almost like a lossy compression in that way.

So when it comes to solving a certain problem I can kind of instantly retrieve all the most reasonable ways it'd be solved. I check each of these pretty quickly too, but I find that I'm a very lazy thinker. In maths and physics this might be not wanting to think more than 3 steps down, my precision is incredibly poor, and in chess I tend not to want to think more than 6-7 (lol!) moves ahead. I feel like I could go further but I always seem to miss a negative. I'm a big romantic in that way: all ideas, not very practical in their implementation. Oddly, in the big picture I am the complete opposite.

If you think in a similar way, I think you'd appreciate fields that are deterministic. The iterative process of programming (also design + maybe trading) really complement this archetype of thinking. The feedback is worth even a penalty assuming that you're rewarded for (good) completion and speed. I think it's also quite helpful in analysis and in giving feedback. I can rip into basically everything since all the pros and cons just populate instantly in my head. Unfortunately being a novelty-seeking romanticist I don't like reviewing my work as much.

I wonder if this all stems from all the books I read as a kid. I really optimized for quantity rather than quality since I really loved world building and would almost exclusively read multi-part works. I'd contend that I had read more than almost anyone else in early middleschool (1). I'm also quite good at analogies since a lot of the ideas just rush in, though I've been trying to reason from first principles more often these days. I think this archetype of thinking complements both well though, so I have no regrets there.


(1) I have a few dozen pictures from maybe 3-10 years old reading comically sized books. Not only did I read Harry Potter when I was still in kindergarten, I had learned how to download and transfer over books from a desktop to my Kindle via USB at around 5-6 years old. I wasn't even really shown/taught this I was just incredibly tapped in. I was reading on Kindle Unlimited before this and I had basically cleared out all the 'young adult fantasy fiction' series. I actually remember there being a ranking for most books borrowed in primary (elementary school) and I was either top 2 or 3. One went to Cambridge and I don't know about the other, but I was totally reading longer books plus on my Kindle so it wasn't really fair. I remember one time going to middleschool to borrow the next book in the tetralogy and feeling very cool. By the time I actually went to middleschool I stopped reading paperbooks entirely and was instead reading webnovels. I was reading obscene amounts, like 16 hour days easily on the weekends. Even on schooldays I'd read at least 3 hours worth in school/on the way, and read for another 6-7 (sadly not a joke) hours till I fell asleep. I am by no means proud and actually think this was a tremendous detriment at times, but don't worry I was also crushing game leaderboards before and after these long periods of extreme reading. I just had a ton of time really, I'd blitz through my homework and I didn't have tutoring like my friends. Back to webnovels, these vary a lot in quality though some genuinely good ones, with an English origin, include Mother of Learning and Lord of The Mysteries. I also read tons of translated ones, e.g. Paragon of ____ and Omniscient ____ as well as some machine translated ones like ISSTH that I quite liked. The tropes were largely the same but I really appreciated the world building. It's sad that I read probably 20-30 over a million word count webnovels but remember only a few. I actually remember a fair amount of moments to some I don't even remember the names of. A common idea is the Dao of XYZ that a cultivator strives towards and I remember this one character severing a billion things for a hundred chapters straight to awaken the Dao of Severing that became obsolete a hundred chapters later. I don't read as much nowadays, and honestly I haven't read a lot of classics. I haven't even read the Lord of the Rings! I've found myself favoring short stories a lot more, I quite liked White Nights since I was able to finish it just reading little and often on every metro ride on a vacation to Taiwan. Going to university I've once again come to appreciate the paperback book. I want to fight back against an algorithm that curates me things and instead just pick random books I think look cool on a shelf. Today off a recommendation I went to borrow Spring Snow but also saw The Sound of the Mountain right next to it, which frankly had a way cooler cover. Will probably update soon on which was ultimately better, I always have high hopes for the underdog. Not sorry for this formatting btw, I'm not proud of a lot of this reading.


This was oneshot in about 30 mins of straight typing. If you've actually read everything here, I would love to know what you think (and how you think). Also, doesn't the structure of this entire thing just reflect my archetype of thinking?