oooh I can feel a reformat of my 12 Favourite Problems coming on, perhaps 12 Favourite Questions would be more useful, and seeing how they all combine to the higher level one question I am really asking at present, “what is my purpose in life?”.... which Packy has just nudged me to realise is not specific enough and I will keep noodling on what it REALLY is 🥰
Packy McCormick, I don't exactly know how I came to read this essay in this moment. But having finished it only minutes ago, I feel as though your words are going to be transformative for me. I am 58 years old. Aimlessly driven to arrive at this moment in relative comfort. I realize now that I don't know what drives me. Clearly some question I've been trying to answer my whole life. I don't know what that is. But thank you. A thousand times... thank you. I'm now on that quest to find the question. I feel renewed.
Love this and 100% agree. I love asking first principle question where I assume I know nothing and ask what appears to be obvious. I’ll also call out the Mom Test for some killer question formats.
I’ll also note that asking good questions takes confidence, you must expose your lack of knowledge which can makes you vulnerable. Worth it!
Feedback on your post: I’ll be honest, as a person with ADD I bailed after a few scrolls deep. Not saying you should change, just that I lose interest in long form content after what I perceive to be the core insight.
Last Friday I asked a high school classroom I was subbing for why they came to school today. I had just read this amazing essay and gave them as good of a summary as I could in 15 minutes. I told them they had the rest of the class (50 minutes) to come up with a burning question of their own. 95% of the students said they have never been asked to do something like that before, and couldn't come up with anything. One of the students had his burning question - how can I make movies like no one has ever made before? He has already created 10 short films as a junior in high school. Another student I have been working with has a burning question - how can we give anxious/stressed teenagers more support - and she has been doing hours of research on top of her normal school load and built a website from scratch in a weekend. Long questions clearly drive more learning. Unfortunately, most of school is currently built around short answers.
Just bringing your thinking into the classroom helps me identify ways to refocus valuable classroom time. Excited to pursue my question (how can I help teenagers find their burning question in high school classrooms) for the next decade.
Sir, you do excellent work, thank you for thoughtful, optimistic writing that forwards human discourse instead of grinding an axe or having the answers
Your essays keep getting better and better. You are continuing to bore into life's most fundamental (and incredibly exciting) characteristics. And I am pretty certain that the cloud was in the form of a question mark!
this might be my favorite blog post yet... on the core topic of being a better writer, I'd love to suggest you consider reading some fiction too - not because it's *directly* helpful but because like your sons world building, it takes you to a different dimension. I specifically recommend https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6485178.Fredrik_Backman - I think he writes the most interesting, layered, compelling human characters. He does an amazing job helping you to "climb into his skin and walk around in it" [to quote Atticus Finch].
Pakcy I’ve been thinking about this for some time, check tweets below!!!
I want to know if there’s another way (cognitive structure, grammatical syntax if you will) to explore the universe outside of questions… I think Noam Chomsky’s work in linguistics and the whole field of erotetic knowledge (sub field of logic that examines questions themselves!!) might grow greatly in importance in years to come.
I don't know you but I feel like we are on the same tip. I've written about synchronicity a few times- feels incredible. And I want to meditate to find my question too so I just picked back up my practice. It's still very short and patchy but this has helped me. I also like the sources you share. I like to draw on a hodgepodge.
Do you think writing is a stained-glass window or a very sheer curtain? There's no "correct" answer, but it is definitely one of those two. It generally behooves one to make sure that the reading one does to improve one's writing falls into the right category.
my question: Packy, do you ever read or reference women writers? It's frustrating to see a list of writing references by someone with such reach not even mention Susan Sontag or Joan Didion or any contemporary women magazine writers.
Thought your insight around how we use questions as a filter to make sense of information coming at us, and how having a burning question can provide that filter for not only all the information we take in but also as a filter for choosing which actions to prioritize is really interesting.
Then, an hour after reading this I was reading a chapter from "Awakening the Buddha Within" that says 'Often raising the right questions- your own real, deep-down, burning, questions- may actually be more important than having the right answer, should there even be one.' Thought it was a nice coincidence.
Your essay gave me a helpful framework for thinking about how these burning questions actually help us.
oooh I can feel a reformat of my 12 Favourite Problems coming on, perhaps 12 Favourite Questions would be more useful, and seeing how they all combine to the higher level one question I am really asking at present, “what is my purpose in life?”.... which Packy has just nudged me to realise is not specific enough and I will keep noodling on what it REALLY is 🥰
Packy McCormick, I don't exactly know how I came to read this essay in this moment. But having finished it only minutes ago, I feel as though your words are going to be transformative for me. I am 58 years old. Aimlessly driven to arrive at this moment in relative comfort. I realize now that I don't know what drives me. Clearly some question I've been trying to answer my whole life. I don't know what that is. But thank you. A thousand times... thank you. I'm now on that quest to find the question. I feel renewed.
David, that makes me so happy to hear. Enjoy the quest!
Love this and 100% agree. I love asking first principle question where I assume I know nothing and ask what appears to be obvious. I’ll also call out the Mom Test for some killer question formats.
I’ll also note that asking good questions takes confidence, you must expose your lack of knowledge which can makes you vulnerable. Worth it!
Feedback on your post: I’ll be honest, as a person with ADD I bailed after a few scrolls deep. Not saying you should change, just that I lose interest in long form content after what I perceive to be the core insight.
Fair enough! This was actually short for me haha
Don’t change a thing :)
Last Friday I asked a high school classroom I was subbing for why they came to school today. I had just read this amazing essay and gave them as good of a summary as I could in 15 minutes. I told them they had the rest of the class (50 minutes) to come up with a burning question of their own. 95% of the students said they have never been asked to do something like that before, and couldn't come up with anything. One of the students had his burning question - how can I make movies like no one has ever made before? He has already created 10 short films as a junior in high school. Another student I have been working with has a burning question - how can we give anxious/stressed teenagers more support - and she has been doing hours of research on top of her normal school load and built a website from scratch in a weekend. Long questions clearly drive more learning. Unfortunately, most of school is currently built around short answers.
Just bringing your thinking into the classroom helps me identify ways to refocus valuable classroom time. Excited to pursue my question (how can I help teenagers find their burning question in high school classrooms) for the next decade.
That’s an amazing question to pursue - hard to think of a much higher impact one!
hello I'm in 5th grade
hello matthew
Sir, you do excellent work, thank you for thoughtful, optimistic writing that forwards human discourse instead of grinding an axe or having the answers
Your essays keep getting better and better. You are continuing to bore into life's most fundamental (and incredibly exciting) characteristics. And I am pretty certain that the cloud was in the form of a question mark!
this might be my favorite blog post yet... on the core topic of being a better writer, I'd love to suggest you consider reading some fiction too - not because it's *directly* helpful but because like your sons world building, it takes you to a different dimension. I specifically recommend https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6485178.Fredrik_Backman - I think he writes the most interesting, layered, compelling human characters. He does an amazing job helping you to "climb into his skin and walk around in it" [to quote Atticus Finch].
https://adamgrant.substack.com/p/the-case-for-reading-fiction
Pakcy I’ve been thinking about this for some time, check tweets below!!!
I want to know if there’s another way (cognitive structure, grammatical syntax if you will) to explore the universe outside of questions… I think Noam Chomsky’s work in linguistics and the whole field of erotetic knowledge (sub field of logic that examines questions themselves!!) might grow greatly in importance in years to come.
https://x.com/SofiasBio/status/1781766380838134172
https://x.com/SofiasBio/status/1823172093388698075
https://x.com/SofiasBio/status/1784268576322388374
I don't know you but I feel like we are on the same tip. I've written about synchronicity a few times- feels incredible. And I want to meditate to find my question too so I just picked back up my practice. It's still very short and patchy but this has helped me. I also like the sources you share. I like to draw on a hodgepodge.
Oh u have 239k subscribers...haaaaaaaa! That feeling like ur first to something only to find out your literally last lol
haha i hope you're still early!
In terms of becoming a better writer--
Do you think writing is a stained-glass window or a very sheer curtain? There's no "correct" answer, but it is definitely one of those two. It generally behooves one to make sure that the reading one does to improve one's writing falls into the right category.
I like that framing but I think it’s a false dichotomy
my question: Packy, do you ever read or reference women writers? It's frustrating to see a list of writing references by someone with such reach not even mention Susan Sontag or Joan Didion or any contemporary women magazine writers.
Thought your insight around how we use questions as a filter to make sense of information coming at us, and how having a burning question can provide that filter for not only all the information we take in but also as a filter for choosing which actions to prioritize is really interesting.
Then, an hour after reading this I was reading a chapter from "Awakening the Buddha Within" that says 'Often raising the right questions- your own real, deep-down, burning, questions- may actually be more important than having the right answer, should there even be one.' Thought it was a nice coincidence.
Your essay gave me a helpful framework for thinking about how these burning questions actually help us.
hello I'm in 5th grade