Word Vomit
I don’t know how to organize this post yet. So listen for now.
People should have hobbies that are contrastive with their day jobs, or at least contrastive with how they spend most of their time.
For example, the mistake I see a lot of
Why does it matter? Because aiming for contrasts increases the likelihood that you will stumble on a creative insight that would not have otherwise been available to you if you had not explored outside your normal mode of thinking.
The book, “Frames of Mind”, even talks about the impact culture has on our intelligence.
Look at nature. The area between two biomes, the Ecotone, contains the greatest biodiversity.
My Personal Experience
I come from a big family, consisting of five other siblings–some older, some younger; some biologically related, some as half-siblings.
I used to thing having such a big and diverse family was bothersome because there was such massive difference in personality.
It wasn’t until I experienced the opposite end did I truly appreciate the value of my big family.
When I was among people of diverse ideas, my creativity and natural openness and tolerance of other people was insanely high, and others would generally describe me as likeable.
When I was isolated to a core group of people for an extended period of time, I lacked creativity, felt shy, and even a bit emotionally hostile towards “outsiders”.
Leonardo Da Vinci even reaped benefits by living in the city of Florence, as opposed to the countryside of Italy.
Granted, we also have Nikola Tesla, who seemed to have done well on the country side. But that’s not what I want.