7 October 2026

Waiting attentively

Greatness doesn’t come on command. Sometimes doing your utmost means waiting, not idly, but attentively.

Everything at once

Rick Rubin and Russ Roberts both talk about patience in a very rational manner.

I feel like what’s expected from a “performer” in the current age is that everything gets done as quickly as possible, with a focus on quality, and in parallel. AI accelerates this belief further, with its capability to kick off a shit-load of processes at the same time. Though most of the time this leads to lesser quality of output. That’s a fact its users seem to ignore.

As long as we’re moving

I’ve heard a bunch of people, great and not great, say something along the lines of: “As long as we’re moving, we’re getting somewhere.”

That seems to be a double-edged sword too.

Greatness doesn’t take commands

Rick argues in multiple ways that real patience matters, because when we’re working on finding greatness, it does not abide by our commands to manifest immediately.

It’s not something we can control. It’s a process with a multitude of moving parts that all influence each other, parts we don’t even have the capacity to comprehend. And there is a time for everything: “You can’t be thinking about publishing while you’re writing the book.”

Sometimes doing your utmost means merely waiting. But it’s not waiting idly. It’s waiting attentively. It’s about paying attention. Sometimes doing your utmost means doing nothing but being ready for what comes next.

Russ Roberts, Wild Problems. I think these lines are beautiful.

Two kinds of nothing

There is a difference between eating chips on the sofa while watching a movie, and reading a book about the topic you’re working on.

There is a difference between playing video games, and listening to great music to inspire your next song-writing idea.

The beauty of the difference is that we might be reading or listening to something that’s not much related to what we’re trying to unearth. Yet it may spark the deepest of insights.

That’s only possible while nonchalantly waiting for it to strike, and understanding that it’s not going to come from D-tier time spent on other nothing-y things.

The caveat

Long stretches of nothing can feel very unproductive. Nothing much is happening. There are no shocking revelations. Our expectation that something will happen declines, and we get impatient.

When you get to this stage, you will probably feel lesser about yourself. Especially if you’re used to a steady stream of W’s.

A hidden treasure

But… there is a hidden treasure opening up to you.

Lowered expectations opens us up to a heightened state of receptivity.

It WILL happen

Lowered expectations doesn’t mean we stop believing that something great eventually WILL happen. It doesn’t mean we’re sleeping on it.

It just means we start to care less, and that’s exactly where the magic is.

First written in August 2026.