Second post, or Welcome May 1, 02007
Now, I’m going to explain this whole blog’s concept.
David Galenson came up recently with an interesting theory about creative people. Briefly, he divides them into conceptualists and experimentalists.
«What he has found is that genius — whether in art or architecture or even business — is not the sole province of 17-year-old Picassos and 22-year-old Andreessens. Instead, it comes in two very different forms, embodied by two very different types of people. “Conceptual innovators,” as Galenson calls them, make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young. Think Edvard Munch, Herman Melville, and Orson Welles. They make the rest of us feel like also-rans. Then there’s a second character type, someone who’s just as significant but trudging by comparison. Galenson calls this group “experimental innovators.” Geniuses like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers. (Wired).»
David Galenson surely has a point. At least, my observations fully adjust with this theory. As for me, I am a definite experimentalist. Not that my age doesn’t leave me a chance to be a conceptualist, it just reflects my method of learning :) When I start doing something, I rarely know exactly what will happen, in spite of all my efforts to figure out the outcome. It’s just an unknown, deep, beautiful dream I follow. Then it starts growing and developing, and I start getting the outcome vision. And then I adjust the process and get the result, which isn’t the end, but rather a path to a bigger dream.
I think this approach reflects the way a lot of other people learn, too. So, Second Sight is a blog about personal development and lifetime learning, in the spirit of experiments and constant search for better.
Then, there is a second reason for this name. I believe that one of the most needed skills in life is the skill of seeing through current patterns of perception and thinking, which I conventionallly call second sight. So, this blog is about real as opposed to apparent. This is where the name of this blog came from. So, Second Sight is a blog about the art of discerning real as opposed to seeming and about the ways of learning this art, with main themes like vision, motivation, creativity, productivity, lifehacking, and so on.
Another reason for Second Sight’s name is that in fact, I already do have a blog, so, Second Sight is really my second blog. By the way, my first blog is an a-lister, the only trick is that it’s in Russian. After people started translating my posts into English (thank you, Alex), I realized that there is a chance to be heard by a wider audience.
And, finally, the reason is you, the reader. Because it’s a blog, not a sermon. Discussion helps sharpen the vision and broaden its horizons. Feel free to join in and share your views and experiences.
