10,000 Attempts

Mastery is not about the number of hours spent, but the number of meaningful repetitions performed. The key to improvement is not simply the passage of time but the number of times we actively engage with the process, refine our techniques, and correct our mistakes. A musician who plays 10,000 times with focus and adaptation will progress much faster than one who simply clocks in hours of mindless practice. Likewise, a writer who drafts 10,000 paragraphs, refining them with each attempt, will develop their craft far more effectively than someone who spends 10,000 hours mostly staring at blank pages.

Consider the difference between two aspiring painters. One spends 10,000 hours in a studio, occasionally picking up a brush, watching tutorials, or idly sketching. The other completes 10,000 paintings—each one an attempt, a refinement, an experiment. Who do we think will be better? The sheer number of attempts forces the second painter to confront mistakes, experiment with new techniques, and internalise lessons through direct experience.

A bad golf swing practised for 10,000 hours will only ingrain bad habits. But 10,000 focused swings, each slightly adjusted, each reviewed with feedback, will produce real progress. Mastery is not about passive endurance but active iteration—learning, failing, correcting, and repeating.

This is why elite performers in every field—from sports to business to the arts—improve through deliberate cycles of action and feedback, not sheer hours spent. It is not time alone that builds mastery but the number of meaningful engagements with the skill.

Don’t just put in the time. Put in the reps. Make 10,000 attempts. Iterate, refine, and repeat. Time will pass regardless—but skill is built in the doing.

Random Thoughts

I didn’t realise Montaigne was so influential. His words have an echo in much great literature after him, including the works of Shakespeare. Was Hamlet referring to Montaigne in, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."? Was Roosevelt referring to Montaigne in, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”?

There has been an obvious degeneration of quality, hasn’t there? Maybe it’s easy to cherry-pick from the past, but those cherries are a lot more appealing than today’s rotting harvest.

Note to self: learn about AI and think about its application. What’s the future of Hollywood, the BBC, Netflix etc., if AI enables individual creators to make great films and programs from their ideas?

We are hurtling towards AI. I hope it helps us, as we are in need of some saving.

Poetry is words that dance with music.

Poetry was originally meant to be sung. It is musical in its being. Yet many actors perform Shakespeare’s verse in one note.

What justifies the statement, “I am an artist”? An artist is moved to become a new expression in the dance. 

I’m biassed against Byron because he was snobbishly dismissive of Keats. However, art is not the artist, even though we live in a society that glorifies the cult of the individual. Art is not just the result of a person, it emanates from humanity, and more deeply, the world.

Over the past year, I've been on the receiving end of two spectacularly awful bureaucratic blunders, which have inspired some Kafkaesque ideas for a sci-fi horror screenplay I'll be writing this Autumn. 

It is amazing how the odd sentence here and there mounts up over time.

The subconscious is far more intelligent than my reasoning.

Some of the most insightful and prescient comments people make are often throw away, instinctive comments made before rationalising kicks in.

A key teaching of Christianity is that the highest calling is not one of dominion but of service, exemplified by Jesus who devoted himself to humanity, ultimately sacrificing his life. “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” resonates with the paradoxical wisdom of the Tao. It has inspired phrases such as “a servant of God,” “servant of the people,” “in service of your country,” and more contemporary ideas like “servant-leadership.”

A real flaw is the deluded self-certainty of being in the right. "You are a stupid piece of shit,” as often repeated in the febrile modern world, isn't right. "You are behaving like a stupid piece of shit" is rather more likely because virtually all of us has been in that second category from time to time. A better example of this was given with sins and stones a while ago.

To Get Things Done

Optional ways to get things done:

Be incredibly well-disciplined, ever-vigilantly defeating distraction impulses.

Live in fear, constantly in motion because you are terrified of the consequences of failure.

Live in hate, fired up to prove people wrong or in vengeance of some past wrong.

Have an inflated ego, pushing yourself so that you can assert yourself over others.

Be a narcissist wanting others to admire you.

Have warped beliefs that you obey without question, usually due to some perceived reward.

Desire the future reward so much it overrides everything else.

Be a saint working relentlessly because you care about people and want to bring some good into the world. For instance, this could be for a benevolent cause and/or your family’s wellbeing.

Be out of your mind, doing what you do, like a machine.

Be insanely obsessive, driven by a compulsive need to do it at all costs.

Be in love with what you do, so you want to do as much of it as you can.

Or create a routine that is easy to adopt out of habit.

The last one is the most realistic in most situations. Therefore, design the rules of the algorithm up front, so it’s easy to get things done without having to be a great master, a saint, or a sinner. The consistent taking of small steps can become vast in its effects.

Random Thoughts

A version before the “first draft” is a “free-write” stream of consciousness draft, where no editing or filters to thoughts are applied. It’s not for anyone else to see, unless they really want to wade through structural incoherence and undeveloped, inchoate prose.

I’ve still got quite a bit of writing to do, but I’m starting to think now about performance and my physicality.

Adversity motivates change. Difficulty prompts improvement. Failure spurs transformation.

God / the universe gave me everything and I still wasn’t happy. My concerns were mostly about me and the stories I was telling myself. My thoughts created the problems.

Imagine positive things to be true, and this can become your internal experience. It’s not about clinging to beliefs despite evidence to the contrary; it's about welcoming possibilities that can live in you.

The internet was the brainchild of a group of cats who wanted to share pictures of themselves more efficiently. The first web browser was designed to be cat-friendly, hence why we have so many cat videos online.

Keats, Blake, and Turner all spoke with London accents, and were denigrated by less capable people because of it, even though almost all the great artists in British history did not come from inherited wealth.

Random Thoughts

It helps if you live a long time, so that decades of consistent, little, enjoyable steps take you to mountain peaks and back.  

Many people lie out of fear, the tragedy being that deceit covers in ugliness the beauty underneath. Vulnerability, mistakes, and imperfection are far more interesting than the plastic veneer assumed to be appealing.

I do sometimes speak in generic, simplistic platitudes. I’m sorry I’m not smarter and wiser but there you go.

Oh dear, I’m repeating some thought as if it’s new. I’ve started so I’ll have to finish, even though I can almost hear them groan.

Analytical reductionism can be like simplifying all of language to a single grunt.

Protestant / Catholic / Orthodox etc. are cultural traditions, not necessarily representative of the spirit of Christianity.

It’s nice to think sometimes of parallel lives. Even though the scenario playing out isn’t what you might have desired, it doesn’t matter because it all worked out somewhere, and can again.

It’s an example of mental sickness that “sick” was inverted to mean “very good”.

Random Thoughts

When I’m resting, just sitting down or in bed, drinking tea or whatever, I like to let my imagination wander. It’s when I don’t have to do anything that the best things arrive.

In large organisations it is not unusual for there to be tens of people involved at the highest level, politicking and negotiating personalities, discussing powerpoint pictures and talking at each other endlessly about reviews of reviews of imaginary oversight, rather than offering actual work. After all this, often the outcome needed 2 or 3 people, who knew what they were doing, to provide the real work of updating content, docs, and comms. However, people don't usually have time to notice what is really needed because they are too busy trying to survive within the organisation.

Most people are usually in a survival state of mind, constantly busy or thinking about how they might be busy, even if it means packing as much curated fun and selfies in the time available to compare to others later. This default mode allows you to stay on the treadmill for a while, but it isn’t what is fundamentally needed in the long term.

Just as big organisations tend to be extremely inefficient because of their busyness in creating work, the mind will clutter your day with unnecessary preoccupations that cloud your judgement in seeing what is important.

Turn off the treadmill for a while and enjoy your tea.

I’m sorry I was a facade.

Is it love or desire when you have a stream of romantic thoughts about someone? Simple desire slips away easily with any distraction, so it’s unlikely to be that. Desire wants to fulfil a temporary longing in yourself, whereas love wants what’s best for the other person, even if you are not a part of that.

Wouldn’t it be good if you could Ctrl+Z aspects of your life.

I’ve had probably the most creative and productive period of my life over the past 12 months. And with other events happening as well, it’s been difficult balancing everything.

Random Thoughts

Social-mediaised culture has forgotten that true value is in service to others and to the world.

People who blandly repeat the slogans of whatever happens to be the current thing should be reticent to condemn the same current-thing followers of other times and places.

“X said this, therefore that” isn’t right. People say all sorts of things in different moods and circumstances. It doesn’t necessarily encapsulate what they might think, and if it does, they may change their mind the next second.

Mental distress is often caused when the ways you are motivated to think and behave do not resonate with the truth you may be ignoring.

Quality emerges from iteration. Therefore, the ability to iterate is essential. Fixed, fearful, and prideful mindsets inhibit these feedback cycles.

Random Thoughts

I’m sitting on a bench in a church graveyard (as you do) enjoying the smells of spring and the songs of little birds.

I grew up before the internet and mobile phones. When I was kid I used to have to spend ages pressing tape into cassette heads to make sure the computer program didn't crash while loading into memory. When I was very young we didn't even have a video player for our one small TV in the living room. The technological revolution I have witnessed in my life so far has been unprecedented, and it is about to accelerate if the angry little medieval minds fumbling with the power in stars don't destroy everything.

The thought memes copied and propagated in society are crazed and inaccurate, generally. What’s the answer then to help people see more clearly? It’s connected to human fulfilment because unhappy, fearful minds create similar environments. If there is an abundance of opportunity and an economic de-stressing of people’s lives; if there is a lack of propaganda and indoctrination—then that would be a good start.

A lot makes sense when you realise that most important decisions are made by stressed, inexperienced people who don’t really know what they’re doing, but who justify themselves by repeating approved political or corporate phrases.

AI can more easily replace the talk done in boardrooms than the creative solutions of skilled people.

(Only joking. Well, sort of): Personally, I can’t wait to have my own AI robot. I’ll finally have a friend. My AI agents can be my extended network. Who needs squishy humans anyway? Imagine a future with no need for messy human-to-human sex. Robots can fulfil your every need and look exactly like what you are attracted to. An AI partner can be your perfect partner because they will really understand you. Babies (if necessary) can be grown in artificial wombs.

How long before the first blue chip company with zero employees?

I favour one-to-one contact over group interaction.

The hands that held me in the dark gripped too tightly then slipped away entirely.

The Humber is the southern border of the United Counties of Yorkshire. We soft southerners live in the non-Yorkshire wastes from the Wash to the Severn? I must remember to bring my passport.

Random Thoughts

Once upon a time, I saw a thespian’s version of Iago and thought I could do it better than that. I then saw his Hamlet and thought I could do it much better than that. I was extremely arrogant and delusional in my thinking at the time, but I think it was the lack of raw passion rather than any lack of characterisation that made those sorts of exquisitely skilled performances slightly frustrating to me. And so, with the benefit of hindsight, as the sun sets on the day, the more mature, bemused version of me looks back and chuckles at his younger self and realises, I haven’t actually changed my mind at all.

Choosing someone to love is also choosing the one who will make you suffer, so make sure the love is big enough to be worth the price.

One of the silliest widespread human behaviours is dismissing a person into a category based on surface appearances, pre-fixed labels, and personal or ideological prejudices.

I don’t believe that a person’s conscious awareness is the pre-determined result of the biological and societal algorithms applied to them.

We are about to enter a very strange world… changing voices is just for fun now and will improve to be entirely realistic, next up is video content, then integration into daily experience via AR/VR!?

Random Thoughts

It helps a writer to have some aptitude and experience in acting, although appreciation of the art can be enough.

Good actors are natural writers because they use their imagination to explore the world they are helping to create.

I remember once, a while back, someone said, “hey Rob, you’re doing your Blue Steel again.” It was funny because it was true.

A genuine apology would contain: I’m sorry I was a twat; I feel terrible because of what my bad behaviour caused. I promise I’ll not repeat that behaviour by taking steps to not being so much of a twat.

Don’t underestimate the impact of toothache on human history. Chronic pain is an accelerator of untypical behaviour, potentially bad or transformatively good.

It’s a problem if you think it’s a problem.

A helpful question: What will I create today?

Random Thoughts

I would go as far as to say that most of what people believe to be true are delusions; and that people who think themselves to be intelligent are particularly prone to smugness and moral certainty with their delusions. I wouldn’t say that a person with an IQ of 150 is intelligent if they think stupidly, no matter how camouflaged those thoughts are in complex paradigms and skilled words. This is why humility is so important. But more importantly: kindness.

It seems strange to me that people are educated without some training in the nature of thought, helpful methodologies for constructive thinking, or best practice for critical thinking, with an awareness of the common logical fallacies in thinking using real-life case studies. If I were being sceptical I would say the absence of this knowledge makes it easier to control what people think.

Critical thinking isn’t necessarily contrarianism but it should make you wince if you are blindly appealing to authority and what other people happen to think at the time without at least making an attempt to objectively question the evidence.

Social finesse is not the same as decency. Bad motivations are usually hidden behind adept social skills. The very worst people can empathise very well and know how to manipulate this for personal gain.

Pundits often tell stories from a certain perspective. Statement after statement where it is required to accept the reality of illusion.

Just as a comedian will say anything to be funny, a pundit may say anything to court an audience.

I hope that future humans look back and are bemused by how stupid we all were.

Random Thoughts

It is helpful to be aware of low-quality thoughts when you have them. The alternative, in the absence of better or no thinking, is to do something constructive.

A slightly skewed antenna can lead logic to wrong places.

People can be very smart in some areas and behave in ways that drain them of basic cognitive intelligence in others, usually without their realisation, and especially if reinforced by social feedback.

Rather than blandly following expectations, you have an opportunity to create something interesting when you play by your own rules.

If someone keeps getting an answer wrong because they don’t understand the question, they deserve sympathy and help.

Humanity as a group has been and is a psychopath; or at least, the leaders and structures have spread the illness. Individuals are usually far from this but are incentivised and swamped by the culture. What would be kinda cool is if humanity were kind yet strong-willed, funny yet intelligently self-aware.

What’s the point of winning a trophy if you’ve cheated? What does the trophy mean to you? Does it mean the higher perceived social status derived from the acknowledgement of others? In this world, the worst have usually been rewarded with trinkets, titles, and luxurious circumstances. So why would you sell your true value to seek the same?

This should be the emphasis in an educational system: to cultivate the potential to think a semi-original thought; the agency to take action without societal pressure; the ability to be oneself despite the winds of the time. The embedded culture must be rooted in humility, kindness, and generosity of spirit. However, the opposite behaviour is often rewarded in current society.

How will social media change when people can look and sound like anything they choose in realistic AI-generated locations and situations?

If scenes can be designed by text prompts, what’s the point of expensive film sets and CGI?

Actors would need to offer something unique, as AI would be able to produce generic performances.

Perception paints reality.

Random Thoughts

If one views one’s own life as a work of art, then “happy, happy, happy” would be lacking in depth, whereas the layered contrast of colours and textures reveal beauty.

I realised that the words from one of my poems go very nicely with a piano version of a famous piece of classical music. I guess I should record that then. As only a piano and vocal is required, I could singsong rather than just read the poem.

For some reason, I came up with a new board game. Looks quite interesting – I would play it. I’m supposed to be creative writing, but my mind pops up with completely random things.

How to say nothing with lots of words: “I’m glad you asked me that question, look, let me be clear, we’re facing unprecedented times, but let’s focus on the real issue, and I’ll think you’ll find we’re turning the page and making progress in real terms.” Which means: “I’m distracting from the force of the question by waffling.” Good answers are always specific, with examples and evidence. Insightful metaphor helps the explanation. Rhetorical flourishes are great for inspiring vision. Humour is what makes all this entertaining.

It’s always interesting when you’ve been listening to someone on a topic and then they put themselves forward as an expert on a subject you know something about. Recently that happened and I realised he didn’t know what he was talking about. It’s wrong to assume that an expert is supported by expertise.

I’ve done all these things: writing; songwriting, singing, acting, art and photography, inventions, apps, business, politics (solutions), public speaking. It’s been interesting, but I want to make some more so.

Random Thoughts

What if memories could be bought and sold? People would work to buy memories and make extra money by selling some of theirs. Memory entrepreneurs would create experiences to be remembered and sold on. Also, memories would be extracted, traded, or implanted on the black market. The world’s poor would be exploited in memory farms. There would be memory robbery and memory insertion in order to manipulate. Autocracies would have national memory reeducations to make more compliant populations.

What do you want to think about now? Without asking yourself that question, you will be beaten by involuntary thought.

Imagine a reality and live how that feels, as if it is externally experienced.

Random Thoughts

Inspired by Flash Gordon and Brian Blessed, how about a new sport called Hang Gliding Archery where participants on hang gliders shoot at targets suspended from drones in the air?

 

How about “Footby” – combining football with rugby tackling? It’s football but players can also pick up and throw the ball. If a player is holding the ball, they can be tackled like in rugby.

 

At this stage in the story of humanity, human thinking is generally primitive, insentient of the enormous potential. To paraphrase Socrates, at least I know I’m thick.

 

I’m named after a character in a ghost story that my mum was listening to on the radio.

 

Is it normal to be expressionless despite reacting within?

Random Thoughts

I took the direct scenic route through country villages from Colchester to Cambridge. It would have been the route that people pre-motorways would have journeyed, including William Gilbert, who has a monument at St John’s College.

My ears always pricked up listening to Born Slippy at the repeat “going back to Romford”, as that was where I was born, in Rush Green hospital.

Question: A Greek philosopher with name starting with M.

Answer: Mr Plato?

It’s nice when you meet someone for the first time and there’s a sort of recognition in the eye that you know each other.

Random Thoughts

These days I want people to be happy. I’ve gone through phases of degrees of jealousy and “what about me” nonsense. It’s a lot better to be happy for other people’s happiness.

My interpretation of the Jungian shadow: Use any aggressive impulse within you as your personal drill-instructor, your internal defiance against adversity. Have the awareness to acknowledge it, control its utility and put the shadow to gainful employment.

Humans evolved hands to pet animals. Nothing can pet like humans can.

At Christmas I went back to the town I grew up in. It’s now a decaying shanty town. Woods and grasslands paved over, community facilities pulled down, buildings and walkways not repainted in decades. No football posts or meaningful play areas in sight, just concrete and potholed roads.

I see the sorrow in the corners of your smile waiting to be kissed away.

Random Thoughts

Science, through theory and experiment, gives the ability to detect rules and predict phenomena that hold true under set conditions; it doesn’t explain what things actually are or why they are.

It’s worth trying, but why is there an assumption that the universe is ultimately comprehensible? What if its inexplicability is the essential aspect, the prime condition for existence, that makes all things possible?

In sci-fi films and TV, why is Earth always shown aligned vertically on its axis? Isn’t there a tilt? And wouldn’t Earth be viewed from space from any angle – the continents are never shown “upside down”?

When I’m sitting still, calm and relaxed, my heart rate is about 50 beats per minute.

“Please can you recite all the digits of pi” is a type of “just a quick question."

Imagine the potential of humanity if billions of people have the opportunity to flourish within a culture of invention and curiosity.

I do a lot of wandering in circles. Occasionally I break the loop.

Random Thoughts

Life has a way of challenging assumptions, especially about yourself. What if things you think to be true are the other way round? Being open to possibilities is aliveness, in contrast to the rigidness of supposed certainty.

 

Adventures, like good stories, need uncertainty. The adventure of each life is a story within the story of the universe.

 

There are a lot of lonely people out there, even when in relationships. In fact, it’s rare when two people in a romantic relationship understand each other at a deep level and contribute to each other’s wellbeing. Short-term excitement from physical attraction leads to greater loneliness if it’s with someone who is not compatible at the deeper level.

 

Since Imperial sometimes features higher than Oxford or Cambridge in university league tables, should “Oxbridge” change its name to “Oximbridge”? Or maybe forget about that and realise that most people with talent and potential have had no connection with those institutions.

 

Same question asked to me five times in one week: “Are you a fellow?” To which I respond, “No, I’m still a student because I’m very slow at reading, although I am an old fellow without a capital ‘f’.” Any bemused awkwardness is a bonus.

Random Thoughts

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Maybe, but more generally: Necessity creates the conditions for change.

 

“If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.” Someone has to be in the wrong room otherwise the place will quickly empty. Anyway, intelligence isn’t one-dimensional; insight from lived experience isn’t a monopoly. It’s possible to learn something from anyone.

 

I was introduced as “This is Rob. He is a genius.” It’s flattering but I know it’s not true. Many people have abilities that are never developed because of how they have been socially conditioned to think and behave.

 

Dear God, please help me to appreciate the blessings that arrive each day. Help me to live with gratitude, to see the joy in life. Help me to truly know that it is okay to be happy.

 

My dear child, understand that joy does not come from your circumstances but from a heart that is aligned with Me. Put down the unnecessary burdens you carry and let your soul dance free.

 

I’m a brooding artist, not a conformist. (I laugh when I write this, so I’m not too far gone.)

New habit: no more looking at social media. It doesn’t make me happy, so why do it? I’ll read instead. I will occasionally read TwitterX because the posts can be interesting/funny/informative if filtered well.

In my life, I have produced interesting creative things from 1998 to 2002; then from 2017 until now. I think I have accelerated this year.