人生在竞技场中度过Life is Lived in The Arena
Naval：人生是在竞技场上度过的。只有通过做事，你才能真正学到东西。如果你不去做，那么你学到的一切都太过笼统、太过抽象，那就真的只是贺卡式的格言了。你不知道什么该用在什么地方、什么时候用。
而且这类笼统的原则和建议并不是数学。有时你用"富有"这个词表达的是一个意思，有时你用它表达的是另一个意思。"财富"这个词也一样，"爱"或"幸福"也一样。这些词都是一词多义的术语。所以这并非数学。
这些都不是精确的定义。你无法从它们当中整理出一套操作手册，像计算机一样照着执行。相反，你必须弄清楚该在什么情境下运用它们。所以正确的学习方式是真正去做一件事，而当你去做的时候，你会悟出这件事该怎么做。
然后你再回头看我发过的某条推文，或者你在多伊奇那里读到的某句话，又或者你在叔本华那里读到的某个观点，抑或你在网上看到的某个内容，你会说："哦，原来那个人是这个意思。他说的是这个普遍原则。我知道该在这种情况下运用它——不是机械地、不是百分之百地照搬，而是把它当作一条有用的启发式原则，下次再遇到类似情境时用得上。"
你从推理出发，逐步建立起自己的判断力。当你的判断力磨炼得足够精细时，它就变成了品位、直觉或第六感，而你正是依靠这些东西行事。但你必须从具体入手。
如果你从普遍入手，并且停留在普遍的层面——只读那些讲原则、格言和年鉴之类的书——你最终就会变成那种上过大学却依然教育过度的人：看似博学，实则迷失。他们会在错误的地方套用所学。这正是纳西姆·塔勒布所说的"有知识却愚蠢的人"，即 IYIs。
Nivi：我正想提到的一条推文恰好就是这个。来自6月3日：
"获取知识很容易，难的是知道该运用什么、何时运用。
这就是为什么所有真正的学习都发生在"工作中"。
人生是在竞技场上度过的。"
Naval：我喜欢这条推文。
其实，我当时只想发一句"人生是在竞技场上度过的"，就到此为止，想就这样直接抛出去。但我觉得还是得多解释一点，因为"竞技场上的人"是一句名言，所以我想从自己的角度稍微展开讲讲。不过，这个领悟我一直反反复复地体会到。
Naval: Life is lived in the arena. You only learn by doing. And if you’re not doing, then all the learning you’re picking up is too general and too abstract. Then it truly is Hallmark aphorisms. You don’t know what applies where and when.
And a lot of this kind of general principles and advice is not mathematics. Sometimes you’re using the word rich to mean one thing. Other times you’re using it to mean another thing. Same with the word wealth. Same with the word love or happiness. These are overloaded terms. So this is not mathematics.
These are not precise definitions. You can’t form a playbook out of them that you can just follow like a computer. Instead, you have to understand what context to apply them in. So the right way to learn is to actually go do something, and when you’re doing it, you figure something out about how it should be done.
Then you can go and look at something I tweeted or something you read in Deutsch or something you read in Schopenhauer or something you saw online and say, “Oh, that’s what that guy meant. That’s the general principle he’s talking about. And I know to apply it in situations like this, not mechanically, not 100% of the time, but as a helpful heuristic for when I encounter this situation again.”
You start with reasoning and then you build up your judgment. And then when your judgment is sufficiently refined, it just becomes taste or intuition or gut feel, and that’s what you operate on. But you have to start from the specific.
If you start from the general, and stay at the level of the general—and just read books of principles and aphorisms and almanacs and so on—you’re going to be like that person that went to university: overeducated, but they’re lost. They try to apply things in the wrong places. What Nassim Taleb calls the Intellectual Yet Idiots, IYIs.
Nivi: One of the tweets I was going to bring up is exactly that. From June 3rd:
“Acquiring knowledge is easy, the hard part is knowing what to apply and when.
That’s why all true learning is ‘on the job.’
Life is lived in the arena.”
Naval: I like that tweet.
Actually, I just wanted to tweet, “Life is lived in the arena” and that was it. I wanted to just drop it right there. But I felt like I had to explain just a little bit more because “The Man in the Arena” is a famous quote, so I wanted to unpack a little bit from my direction. But this is a realization that I keep having over and over.