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How did Newton, lacking the stimulants that fueled the productivity of so many later great minds—from caffeine-driven mathematicians to nicotine-powered physicists—maintain the relentless intensity required to reshape mathematics and physics?

1) The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful.

2) What you’ve got to do from this night forward is stuff your head with more different things from various fields . . . I’ll give you a program to follow every night, very simple program. For the next thousand nights, before you go to bed every night, read one short story. That’ll take you ten minutes, 15 minutes. Okay, then read one poem a night from the vast history of poetry. Stay away from most modern poems. It’s crap. It’s not poetry! It’s not poetry. Now if you want to kid yourself and write lines that look like poems, go ahead and do it, but you’ll go nowhere. Read the great poets, go back and read Shakespeare, read Alexander Pope, read Robert Frost. But one poem a night, one short story a night, one essay a night, for the next 1,000 nights. From various fields: archaeology, zoology, biology, all the great philosophers of time, comparing them. Read the essays of Aldous Huxley, read Lauren Eisley, great anthropologist. . . I want you to read essays in every field. On politics, analyzing literature, pick your own. But that means that every night then, before you go to bed, you’re stuffing your head with one poem, one short story, one essay—at the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you?

I am working on it. I am forced or want to cut whole lot of functionality that they have. Any advice will be really useful. Thanks.

Is there a book you’ve read or a course you’ve taken that levelled up your game so much that it felt almost unfair?

Jerry Seinfeld to NYT: The first thing I do each morning is splash water on my face. I got this idea from the movie "The Hustler" with Jackie Gleason and Paul Newman. This act helps me switch from lying down to standing up, much like a curtain drop between acts on Broadway. As I look at my face with water dripping off, I clap my hands and say, “All right. Let’s go.” It makes me feel energized, like Muhammad Ali on a coffee-table book.

Inspired by this, I want to ask: Is there a part of your routine that others might find helpful right now?

Yes. I am in that situation. It is personal.

I would love a more of relaxed approach as a freshman.

Dear HN! Make me immortal! After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote! In return I vow I will give you my chastity - my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life. And I will help my fellow man all I can.

I own a copy of sicp & let’s say know very little about your world.

P.S. this is a request from Antonio Salieri to God from Amadeus (1984). I genuinely felt that way.

Hey HN,

I'm 25, completed my Marketing Management Degree and I feel like I made a huge mistake.

I studied marketing as it was my only option to move to Canada (I know it is dumb). I have always loved physics and I think I am alright at it (Doing graduation self study) and more involved in it these days and I'm pretty sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I like Math & coding. Now I am thinking of getting a "BSE" in physics to get into the field but I no money or a job support as it will be expensive. And It will take four years and I will be 30 by then.

I'd like to hear your point of view, maybe I'm missing something here. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Please Share your experiences with Physics, Science, Math or anything that requires a ton of time to get used to.