Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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We Limit Ourselves and Need to Stop
April 24th, 2012
I was watching Stephen Colbert interview Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works. He said something that was very powerful for me, that everyone is creative. It’s one of our species’ better qualities. Lehrer amplified this statement by describing how nearly all second graders describe themselves as creative, but this fraction drops dramatically with a few more years of school, and only some 10% of adults think of themselves as creative.
Here’s the thing. I don’t think this trend applies to just creativity.
Everyone can learn to write, do math, understand science, and the like. So many of us learn that we’re not as good as others, which is not a remarkable statement given that the average person is only average at anything. We extrapolate incorrectly from that to a state where we don’t think we’re good at all, or even that we lack the ability altogether. That’s unfortunate.
Everyone can improve their abilities at almost anything with determination, practice, and coaching. Maybe not to superstar levels, or even to superior levels, but certainly to some level of ability.
When you say “I can’t do that” about something that is a birthright of being a human being, you’re lying to yourself. Those lies become self-fulfilling prophecies too often:
I can’t do math.
I can’t write well.
I can’t draw.
I can’t understand complicated things.
I can’t sing.
I can’t speak in public.
I can’t travel.
I can’t talk to the opposite sex.
I can’t…you name it.
If other people can do it, chances are excellent that you can, too, if you just stop lying to yourself. Next time you start saying this about something challenging, try to change the “I can’t…” to an “I can…” and see if that opens up some possibilities. Doing something hard starts with believing that it’s possible. I have no doubt much of my own personal success lies in simply not holding on to limiting beliefs. If I had, I would not have gotten a PhD, become a professor, written novels, run marathons, lived abroad, or be happily married to my wife. Give it a shot. Say it.
I can.
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Well said. I spent most of my life in the “I can’t” state of mind. If only I had thought differently. Good thing is that it ain’t over yet..
I’m not saying that many things aren’t hard to do, but man, they’re not impossible the way it’s too easy to think!
I agree with you in the most part. Anyone can get better at anything. However, there are some times when a person is genuinely bad at something.
I’ll use myself as an example. There are certain things I’m good at – some of them through natural talent and some through a lot of effort. There are things I’m average at and often haven’t bothered to put the effort in to become good because they’re not things I care that much about.
But there are things I’m genuinely bad at. Music. I had three years of piano lessons and, through serious effort, managed to pass my grade one. I tried learning guitar for a couple of years. I’ve tried singing. I eventually came to the conclusion that music and me didn’t mix. All the effort in the world would probably only ever get me to average.
Isn’t it better to accept that there are some things you have no natural talent for so you that you can focus on the things where you do have talent? You can put massive amounts of energy into turning awful into OK. Or you can put the same energy into turning good into amazing.
I’m not sure my argument applies to creativity though, since there are millions of different ways to demonstrate creativity – from writing a novel to putting together a corporate presentation to painting to singing to coming up with a new business model for a company.
To be a math nerd, if skill level is some product of innate ability and training, then there’s a practical limit for everyone, but I suspect no one scores a zero for innate ability on almost anything. Some learning curves probably are really, really steep, I totally agree.