Working Notes: a commonplace notebook for recording & exploring ideas.
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The Most Important Work

One line from "The Art of Science and Engineering" that constantly resonates with me is constantly answering the question:

"Why are you not working on thinking about the important problems in your area?" If you do not work on important problems, then it is obvious you have little chance of doing important things.

Then there are other statements that I thought were my own, but perhaps not:

It is a poor workman who blames his tools. I have always tried to adopt the philosophy that I will do the best I can in the given circumstances, and after it is all over maybe I will try to see that things are better next time. [...] Do you want to be a reformer of the trivia of your old organization or a creator of the new organization?

and then there's this amazing line

Change does not mean progress, but progress requires change.

The other bit is thinking through how I learn; I learn with my hands, by building and doing and using; simple problem solving is not satisfying or exciting to me.

• simulating and programming resonate the most with my brain
• but doing math and sketching also works well
• writing and concrete output is particularly important, and not just rote learning or reading and copying, I actually have to think through the problem and observe the results myself.

— Kunal