The Case for Dennis Rodman is one of the finest things on the entire internet.
If you hate statistics, you'll hate it.
If you can merely muddle through statistics -- you don't have to like them -- it's a set of essays where bombshell after bombshell of epiphany and mental models break through.
It looks at bias, naive and advanced statistics, hubris, winning, contributions to team efforts, resource usage, utilization, media, narratives, historical eras and change... it's sometimes meandering, sometimes laser-focused, highly aware of itself and its own potential flaws... it's a masterpiece.
You should probably read it, but that's not the point of this post.
No, the point of this post is actually prompted by reading a bunch of Taylor Pearson essays recently --
"But “actionable” is never going to dramatically upshift trajectory. Vision, recombinant ideation, is what does that. Being a dilettante, exploring a lot of different fields and I’m increasingly seeing, taking time off, is what does that. Good ideas come in the shower not the sweatshop.
There’s been a dramatic shift in resource scarcity that we still haven’t quite adjusted to. I still feel guilty and lazy when I take time off or block out time to think and plan even though in retrospect it’s consistently the most valuable thing I do."
From this post. Emphasis added by me. Warning: mild profanity.
I have no intention of using Rodman as an example for The Strategic Review or any future upcoming book. There's a decent shot I'll do a math series at TSR at some point, but the current Series (Toughness) runs through March, and the series after that is already half-written too, and neither are particularly math-y.
Roguelike had a lot of math in it, but my best candidates for next books are both not-at-all math heavy.
Really, by any definition of "working," by reading about Dennis Rodman I'm not working.
And yet, I can't help but feel that, so as long as I'm not neglecting core duties, re-reading that series about Rodman is a terrific usage of time that'll lead me to make many better decisions across my life.
Despite that, I have no way to account for this in terms of traditional productivity metrics.
A quandary. Oh well. Back to re-reading about The Worm.