Interesting Stuff — #1
I just thought to myself — whenever I read or learn about something interesting, I will remember it IF it comes up in some sort of conversation pertaining to the topic — but a lot of useful/interesting stuff falls through the cracks when it comes to bettering yourself as an individual. SO, I’ve decided that if I learn something worth remembering, and worth sharing, I will post it here! It will benefit me by helping me remember, and benefit whoever reads this so they can potentially learn something too!
I’ve been reading a great book called “Outliers”, and found a great quote:
“We sometimes think of being good at mathematics as an innate ability. You either have “it” or you don’t. …Its not so much ability as it is attitude. You master mathematics if you are willing to try…Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something most people would give up on after thirty seconds.”
This quote says a lot of things for me… Firstly, a little background. Outliers is a book by Malcolm Gladwell, and in it, he writes about his theory that the success of an individual is largely based on ones surroundings and culture, not simply due to some sort of innate born-with intelligence. This quote comes out of the end of the chapter “Rice Paddies and Math Tests”, which is a chapter mostly dedicating to explaining how the culture and language of the chinese makes them much more impressive at math compared to western cultures. One of the big things about asian cultures, Gladwell explains, is that from generation to generation, chinese farmers have had to work all year round to ensure a good crop of rice. A lazy man would die out, and “No one who can rise before dawn three-hundred and sixty five days a year fails to make his family rich”. He does a great job in explaining how due to the conditions in China compared to that of Western civilization, the Chinese learned to become a very persistent and hard working culture (not to say western cultures didn’t work hard, they did, but due to their conditions, hard work all year round was not as necessary). It is that very trait that creates a recipe for someone to excel in math — you master mathematics if you are willing to try, and you are willing to persist! The chinese have this trait through their culture. (there is also another fact that humans are best at memorizing in two second bursts, and since numbers are so much smaller and simpler in chinese, they learn numbers much faster then western languages, just one more reason for why the chinese are better at math on average (statistical fact!)).
Yet I still believe that in our day and age with communication and knowledge at your fingertips, you may not be raised with the advantage of a particular culture; but you can sure as hell learn from our neighbours and reap the benefits! Lesson from this — always persist, always work hard.
By the way, I highly recommend the book! Here is a snippet from the description — “..why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots’ culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math”. Fantastic book, worth a read!
–sj