Thread: About Discipline

Originally Posted by Mario F.

I'll have to disagree. Eventually I suppose I could come up with known cases of success being achieved by undisciplined, lazy, dumb, lucky or undedicated people.

... and that person would most likely be...

...a child prodigy that accomplished something tremendous at a young age and then subsequently got hit by a bus (or some other tragic end).

I would say you're definitely talking about a different kind of success... at least different than what I'm talking about. Perhaps not different than what the OP was talking about, but then I suggested his question to be vague in the first place.

... Now shouldn't you be out buying chips and beer or something... making sure your TV is in the perfect light... gagging the children and locking them in the bathroom? This is no time for you to be browsing a programming forum.

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

... Now shouldn't you be out buying chips and beer or something... making sure your TV is in the perfect light... gagging the children and locking them in the bathroom? This is no time for you to be browsing a programming forum.

Ahah!

I'm way too nervous. First half ended. We are playing our football and well. But Spain is not to be trifled with. Great team, great players. Definitely a great match.

I will predict the result after the end of the game.

Some fields also don't need discipline. I wouldn't give discipline as a major feature of success to a painter. Then you have people that have in excess one quality and make up for their lack of discipline. Take Dr. House from the series House MD as an example. I am sure there are a lot of real examples as well.

Originally Posted by C_ntua

Some fields also don't need discipline. I wouldn't give discipline as a major feature of success to a painter.

As a former fine art student, I can tell that you don't know much about painting.

No, no, Bubba... you misunderstand him. He's just giving an example...

Like... take Superman for example. He didn't really have much discipline when he flew around the world really fast to turn back time and save Lois did he? ... but he did it anyway because his need for discipline was outweighed by his pure awesomeness... He didn't even save Jimmy who was hanging from the dam the second time around... but he ended up alright.

But, but... Horatio Caine from CSI Miami is super disciplined and he's a success. Except that pain in the neck that has him talking with people with his head down. Anyways, I need a real life example of a disciplined successful person.

For a undisciplined one: Picasso

Originally Posted by MK27

Because I'm undisciplined, I'm gonna test a hypotheses here that it doesn't matter, and head for the water! Will report back later...

Okay, well I dunno if being more disciplined by jumping up and down on the beach first would have helped, but I will commit my statistic by admitting I did not, in fact, learn to surf in one day.

I'll further refine that WRT the concept of "standing up", which I did plant my feet on the board a few times, but I most certainly did not stand up.

So I did not, in that sense, achieve success, altho I have a few observations:

1) Even extremely cheap wetsuits are plain and simple AMAZING wrt body temp in the water. Like the difference between stepping outside in freezing weather wearing nothing (wow, that is unbearably cold) and wearing a nice synthetic fiber outfit (hey, i'm happy).

2) Surfing is a much more vigorous activity than I would have guessed via casual observation. At this point, I'd almost compare it to mountain biking WRT to the amount of energy you consume getting to the point where you get to bounce down the hill for a while. Hopefully this is reduced as you acquire some finesse.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Eventually I suppose I could come up with known cases of success being achieved by undisciplined, lazy, dumb, lucky or undedicated people.

Well, I did not really surf from a standing position today, so I am not one of those cases. Can I be considered successful as undisciplined later if I do it? Or will the fact that I failed on day one prove that some kind of discipline was necessary?

Originally Posted by Mario F.

For a undisciplined one: Picasso

Okay, now I am confused because as I understand it Picasso spend much, much time drawing and painting *before* he created any art of note. Like there are no famous works created by Picasso created in his first year of painting, so in what sense is he "undisciplined"? Who on earth would bother to keep painting for years meaninglessly* without discipline?

* by which I mean, achieving no kind of "success"

Originally Posted by whiteflags

Inspired by the discussion, I went and looked up discipline's etymology (and again to refresh my mind at the time of this writing). Essentially all it takes to be disciplined is to either take instruction from a sensei, impose a reward system to guide personal growth, or both, I guess.

Yeah, I was a little bit disappointed too. I always linked discipline also with method and self-control.

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Yeah, I was a little bit disappointed too. I always linked discipline also with method and self-control.

Ah so that was the sense in which Picasso is an example of undisciplined?!???! Because he lacked "method" and "self-control"?

Originally Posted by Bubba

You didn't just do that did you? Tell me you didn't just use a TV show as an example to apply to real life. Nah....you couldn't have. I must be seeing things.

A painter needs a lot of discipline, BTW, having personally known a few. In fact the discipline required for me to write a program is far less than is required to paint a picture. And if you meant painting as in houses and buildings that, too, requires discipline since the task at hand seems monumental at first.

God, it was really just an example. Because if I told you about all real life Mr. Konstantinou you wouldn't know who he is. And what if I gave you a real example? I would just be telling you that there is one out of a billion that shows the truth of my phrase. Not great importance. Examples are not proofs, they are, well examples. If you think that the given imaginary example "couldn't possible happen" that is another story.

I said I wouldn't give discipline as a major feature. I have met/heard about undisciplined artists with their talent making up for it. If I am a talented businessman but I don't have the discipline to work in a team, I won't succeed. I chose an artist because he is more a work-alone type. You can argue that if you work alone you need more discipline since you have nobody to supervise you and "force" you to be disciplined.

In greek it means to be "convinced to the rules". Or simply follow the rules. If my rules are different than yours you would say "you are not disciplined". I can consider my self being disciplined since I obey my rules. So I would defer being disciplined in a group and being disciplined alone

How good you are on something depends on a millions of factors. You would sum everything up and the result would be "how good you are".
How good you appear depends on a thousands of factors. Every single one would show. They can say "he is talented, but undisciplined". You might do the job better than anybody else but the fact that you are undisciplined would show.

Concluding, I consider discipline important for success if being undisciplined would sound bad on your field. For an artist it doesn't sound bad.
If we are talking about self-control, self-discipline or however you call it, its useful for everybody. It is something that would help you use the rest of your talents more efficiently.

Originally Posted by MK27

Ah so that was the sense in which Picasso is an example of undisciplined?!???! Because he lacked "method" and "self-control"?

I said "also". But even if I hadn't, your liberal use of exclamation marks doesn't intimidate me at all. Just so you know.

But yes. That's the main reason. Of course, I share it with the man himself (see below) and with art critics. Who do you share yours with? Meanwhile, Picasso was also a nonconformist and despised theory as much as he despised trends (even the ones he helped create). Was also largely libertine, and largely unfaithful to his own methods. He liked to consider himself a poet which also did some paintings.

...
Quotes:
"By amusing myself with all these games, all this nonsense, all these picture puzzles, I became famous... I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time."

"Enough of Art. It's Art that kills us. People no longer want to do painting: they make art."

"People want Art. And they are given it. But the less Art there is in painting the more painting there is."

"Art is a finger up the bourgeoisie ass." (I'm unsure if this one is actually Picasso's or Pollock's, another undisciplined artist)

It seems to me that the discussion of discipline here was being applied to the practice of an art (programming or painting) and not (somewhat) subjective observations about it's style or orthodoxy/school. So with regard to painting, an "undisciplined" talent would be someone who never practised and yet still produced great art. Eg, maybe Mozart is also undisciplined because of his personality? And yet I am sure he spent tremendous of amounts of time actually working and practising.

I am pretty sure that describes Picasso (that he did, in fact, practice a lot) and certainly Pollack, who was a fanatical and voracious painter -- he was so dedicated to the actual practice of painting (eg, with a brush and canvas) that it made him somewhat anti-social. I suppose like Picasso he was an ICONOCLAST, but being irreverent is not the same thing as being lazy or undisciplined.

So we are using the word somewhat differently, I guess (me meaning dedication and effort, you meaning adherence to an orthodoxy). Which I believe both uses of the terms are valid -- I actually prefer yours*, but in context it seems to me the OP did not mean a "a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity" (dictionary, and in this sense Pollack and Picasso were "undisciplined") but rather "a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c : self-control" (also from the dictionary, and in this sense Pollack and Picasso were both well disciplined -- the "order" being prescribed meaning the habit of painting, practising, developing a very strongly defined style through such practice and repetition), since (eg) in post #9 the OP refers to "Self-discipline", which has nothing to do with whether you do something in an externally prescribed manner -- it just means applying yourself and not being lazy, and techniques for such ("1. Wake up, 2. Eat, 3. Prepare materials, 4. Paint, paint, paint").

WRT to "adherence to an orthodoxy", I know Pollack was at one point, and I would assume Picasso also -- I think this is like the old musician's motto, which probably applies to programming well too: You have to learn how to obey the rules before you can break them effectively.

* altho I think applying it to the work of a master, like Picasso or Pollack, is somewhat non-sensical -- qv. the etymological relationship between "discipline" and "disciple". Of course, the master is not a disciple.