Lessons from Simon Sarris

Simon Sarris, a writer, thinker, and software developer, has cultivated a following for his thoughtful essays on a wide range of topics, including learning, craftsmanship, philosophy, and living a deliberate life. His writings, primarily found on his Substack, "The Map is Mostly Water," offer a wealth of insights and quotable maxims.

On Creation and Learning

"The Muse arrives to us most readily during creation, not before." [1]
"It is an error to wait around for inspiration, or to demand some feeling of readiness for an undertaking, or for a teacher or some other golden opportunity." [1]
"When you stop waiting for others—for either their permission or instruction—and instead begin on your own, fumbling through, regardless of how ready you are, this could be considered one of the true beginnings of adulthood." [1]
"I think there is value in pushing learning and doing as close together as possible." [1]
"If no teacher is found along the way, then the mistakes will be my teacher." [1]
"A meaningful first project should have sufficient difficulty that there is some real chance of failure. It is in approaching the edges of our abilities that we are really learning." [1]
"A chance of failure ensures your hands are firmly touching reality, and not endlessly flipping through the textbook, or forever flirting only with ideas." [1]
"Someone once mentioned to me that 'Write what you know' is not particularly interesting advice, and 'Write what you're learning' is much better." [1]
"The imperfect reality of creation offers more insight than the merely studied, if that study stays in the realm of the unreal." [1]
"Every difficult thing you do, for that matter, acts as a multiplier on the rest of your knowledge." [1]
"Learning is simply the consequence of doing." [2]
"It is building skill that builds self-possession." [2]
"After selling thousands of dollars worth of pastries over the summer, a child does not only know that he can make pastries. He knows that he can make anything." [2]
"There is almost nothing more gratifying than building and improving the world around you." [3]
On Mastery Beyond the Common Path: Look for opportunities for mastery: learning and practice deeper than the common path demands. — School is Not Enough
On Science as Process and Belief: "Real science is not about consensus or expertise, but about process and belief." — In Praise of the Gods
On Question Foundational Assumptions: Intellectual progress requires questioning what we think we know about the past and the fundamentals of any field, even when experts appear certain. — In Praise of the Gods

On Life Philosophy and Effort

"You should have ideals, but you cannot only love an idealized future, you must cultivate a love of effort, too." [4]
"Dreaming alone is seductive, even a little sweet, since it lacks the pain of trying. So it feels proper to prize attempts more than dreams." [4]
"Every difficult thing attempted is worthwhile. With success or failure, effort (and a little courage) gives you something vital in return." [4]
"When we are at our most vigorous, our most alive, we think and talk of our goals and aspirations." [4]
"Over long time frames, the pessimist becomes an unobservant man, and the optimist creates the world." [4]
"I maintain a religious respect for effort, process, and the willingness to try." [4]
"Most of my life felt like waiting. Much of it unnecessarily." [5]
"It's important to do [things], live and flourish; don't avoid “doing” because it feels temporary at the time."
" [3]Tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity is a kind of skill." [3]
"The surest tell that someone knows very little is if they claim to have a solution for everything." [3]
"We should try to be happy, if only to set an example." [6]
"In labouring to be concise, I become obscure." [7][8]
On Resource-Rich, Onramp-Poor: "Our era is resource-rich, especially with educational resources, but onramp poor. The legwork is up to you." — School is Not Enough
On Pierce the Film of Inertia: "A lot of problems in life seem to come from a thin film of inertia spread over everything. But you can pierce it." — The Third Oikos Interview, Part 1

On Goals and Ambition

"You should always have an abundance of goals — more than you could ever hope to achieve." [9]
"If you travel to a new place or meet a new person goals should practically spill out of your pockets as you collect more of them, though you should pick most of them back up." [9]
"Goals should be bathed regularly, out of a cleanliness for destiny that could only be called self-respect." [9]
"It is a mistake to try and arrange your life or mind to have no desires, instead you should respect them, cultivate them, prune them, and grow the ethic needed to achieve them." [9]
"One of my goals in life is to become head waiter of a refined cafe (white apron, silver tray), with tables set in a quiet and shaded garden." [9]
"The goal then, remade broadly, is to see to it that something is done as well as it feels it should be done." [9]
"Aspirations — even unlikely ones, maybe especially unlikely ones — are an essential part of living well." [4]
On Shorten the Distance Between Thought and Action: "If you want to do something, you should try to shorten the path between thinking about it and acting on it." — The Third Oikos Interview, Part 1

On Relationships and Community

"Relationships, marriage especially, should feel like a shared consciousness that verges on a shared madness." [10]
"You should have not only an internal logic but an internal map, internal customs, internal language. There should be a ritual world that is your own and some day your family's." [10]
"Very good relationships cannot be 'made,' so to speak, rather they are grown." [10]
"There is an understanding that we are gardening together, and strangely enough I think this togetherness is what is absent in many people's relationships." [10]
"The separation made by cordiality paradoxically allows for a level of sympathy that is rarely accessible otherwise." [9]
"To serve many people well, one must learn to love people's idiosyncrasies, to grow a fondness even for their flaws." [9]

On Education and Childhood

"If we fail to allow children continuous contact with the world, we risk them coming to see their own lives as mere abstractions." [2]
"The purpose of education is to develop agency within a child." [2]
"It is difficult to blame young adults for thinking that work is fake and meaningless if we prescribe fake and meaningless work for the first two decades of their lives." [2]
"When the purpose of education is continually deferred into the distant future, then education becomes a drudge job with no intrinsic value or reward." [2]
On Agency as the Capacity to Act: "Agency is the capacity to act. Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something different from the rigid path of events that simply happen to you." — School is Not Enough
On School as Opportunity Suffocation: "The time sink of school is a kind of opportunity suffocation, it makes it more difficult to imagine what good opportunities might even exist for most children." — School is Not Enough
On Make Making Normal: "If you want them to make things, it has to be a normal part of your life to make things." — The Third Oikos Interview, Part 2

On Aesthetics and The World

"The world could be ten times more beautiful with ten times the effort, and even within that goal there are probably millions of jobs going undone." [10]
"Most of my life is very mundane." [5] He uses this as a reason to consciously create and document memories to find more fulfillment. [5]
"Hunger is the natural companion of the utterly idle man." [10] Sarris interprets this not as literal hunger, but as a deep dissatisfaction with life. [10]
"Religion cannot 'explain' the world. Religion should leave you in wonder." [3]
"Become religious. Fill yourself with wonder and stay open to mystery." [3]
"PLEASE, get comfortable with going to events, movies, concerts, coffee shops, museums by yourself so you don't miss out on life waiting on people." [8]
"Social media platforms should be closed every night at 8 PM, like a library." [8]
On When Rationality Makes Minds Brittle: "Rational insight is a powerful tool, and one of our worst excesses. When it becomes the only tool it brings about a mixture of certainty and naivety that makes minds brittle." — In Praise of the Gods
On Virtue Gives Each Faculty Its Place: "Virtue lies in giving things their proper place. To lack reason is to be inhuman. To rely on it solely is to be disembodied." — In Praise of the Gods
On The Supernatural Glorifies Nature: "The supernatural is not the opposite of natural, it is what we created to glorify the natural." — In Praise of the Gods
On Humility Renews Wonder: "The meek are blessed: It is only to a person with the proper amount of humility that the sun is really a sun, and to whom each sunrise is new." — In Praise of the Gods
On Art Should Show Its Effort: "I like sweat. I like art that shows its thumbprint and effort." — The Third Oikos Interview, Part 2
On Simplification Can Remove the Good: "The more you simplify certain things, the more you risk leaving out what’s good about them." — The Third Oikos Interview, Part 2

Sources:

[1] Sarris, Simon. "Start With Creation." The Map is Mostly Water, 6 Aug. 2022, map.simonsarris.com/p/start-with-creation.
[5] Crone, Max. "Exploring the life vibes of Simon Sarris." Max Crone, 15 May 2021, maxcrone.org/essay/simon-sarris/.
[7] Sarris, Simon. "Simon Sarris." Medium, simonsarris.medium.com/.
[9] Sarris, Simon. "Sympathies (influences pt. 1)." The Map is Mostly Water, 24 Apr. 2023, map.simonsarris.com/p/sympathies-influences-pt-1.
[3] Vitucci, Nick. "Simon Sarris: a thinker, a creator, a do-er & much more." Nick Vitucci, 28 May 2020, nickvitucci.com/blog/simon-sarris/.
[8] Sarris, Simon. "Simon Sarris." Substack, substack.com/@simonsarris.
[2] Sarris, Simon. "School Is Not Enough." Quoted in David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing, 7 Aug. 2023, nepc.colorado.edu/blog/simon-sarris.
[4] Sarris, Simon. "Efforts and Goals and Joy." The Map is Mostly Water, 31 Dec. 2023, map.simonsarris.com/p/efforts-and-goals-and-joy.
[10] Sarris, Simon. "The Map Is Mostly Words, and Simon Sarris Shows The Way." Interview by Sotonye. NeoNarrative, 7 Aug. 2023, www.neonarrative.us/p/the-map-is-mostly-words-and-simon.
[6] Sarris, Simon. "simonsarris (Simon Sarris)." GitHub, github.com/simonsarris.
[11] Sarris, Simon. "About." simonsarris.com, simonsarris.com/about.

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