Floccinaucinihilipilification
The action or habit of estimating something as worthless, trivial, or insignificant
You’ve seen the beginner, intermediate, and expert bell curve meme on the internet. Well, it’s used to talk about how both beginners and experts go for the most basic solution for their problems.
Meanwhile the person in the middle will go around and hit their head on every signboard cross town. We came up with “first-principles” to break down a problem into smaller fundamental chunks to make our solutions more basic.
Sometimes, I feel like people don’t understand the person in the middle up there. The reason why they hit their head on every sign cross town is not because they want a “different” solution, but because they fail to see the basic solution as something worth considering.
How many times in life have you had a killer idea, that you’ve killed because in your head it was stupid? Then, you see someone else go along, do the exact same thing and succeed.
Most people I know, they just assume, whatever they’re thinking of is “worthless”, “trivial” and “insignificant” and they don’t act. One man’s trash in another man’s treasure. People who don’t know about XYZ topic and are interested in the niche, they’ll find the information you considered worthless to be valuable.
Back when I was 12, I made a stupid project on the internet, a CSS reset, one of the most boring things in frontend, you add it and you forget which one you were even using. I built one and published it on GitHub. I thought it was worthless and stupid, but millions of people ended up using it and it pulled me into the tech ecosystem.
This is where I reel in and blame floccinaucinihilipilification. If we just stopped, dismissing ourselves, we’ll be so much further than where we are today.
Last month, I emailed a YC general partner to get feedback on my idea. If it were me two months ago, I would’ve never emailed, but guess… because I didn’t think that the attempt to email would be futile, I did it and received a response. His advice… You will never know what works, until you do it.
To end it on this note… Do things, don’t dismiss them. Your thoughts are incredible and they should live to see the light of the day.
amazing read, the css reset story actually got me. you thought it was the most boring thing ever and it hit millions of people. that's insane. i think we all do this and kill ideas in our heads before they even get a chance to breathe. the "double tap to right click" example is such a good way to put it too, we just stop seeing what we know because it feels too obvious. shipping it anyway is the hardest part but clearly the only part that matters.