5. Take simplicity as a maxim. A useless piece of work that is simple will be empty. So, a non-empty piece of work that is simple will be useful. “There is life in a pray without paraphernalia.” Most people don’t waste their time by sitting doing nothing. Instead, they have a convoluted behavior that leads them to do non-simple useless things such as reading the news or running from one place to the other.

4. One form of freedom is when you are able to accelerate and stop. Most ambitious people were prevented from accelerating in high school. They didn’t have enough freedom. Then I went to college and started to accelerate a lot, only to realize I was doing many things but none in an excellent way. Because of the grades, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t have enough freedom.

3. I observe the teaching assistant giving a very energetic lecture with the ten minutes that the professor left to him. It will be the only thing I’ll remember from that lecture. What does he do to be so energetic? What happened after class has the answer. I went to ask a question, and he was erasing the whiteboard with the same energy as he was giving the lecture. He was focused on erasing for the class that was going to come. He didn’t answer my question at the moment and asked me to wait until he erases the whiteboard. To me, all of this means he has a very high sense of duty, and this doesn’t come from trying to please a particular student or the professor. He just strongly feels he has to do the correct thing. The smartest is beaten by the just smart if the latter has an extreme sense of duty. And you can cultivate your sense of duty.

2. I noticed I tend to assume that two people are equally ambitious if I meet the two at the same time and they are good friends with each other. This bias tends to stick for a long time. This relates to: “People can become formidable, but it’s hard to predict who.” Though that quote tells us that the bias is not actually a bias, it is an example of the quote.

1. I see a correlation between how seriously people play soccer and how good they are at it. Regardless of how good I am at something, I should take it as seriously as possible.

0. If you don’t feel like doing your intellectual job standing up, then think about what you are doing. It might be too boring or you might be too tired.