17 Dec 2025 · 3 min
Brian Johnson (Heroic +1 #1,927) emphasizes moving from understanding to action: he quotes Stephen Hayes on the necessity of practicing techniques rather than merely reading about them, invokes Donald Robertson’s framing and an anecdote from Musonius Rufus contrasting theoretical knowledge and experienced practice, and closes with a direct exhortation—enough theory; practice now.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last one, we wrapped up our exploration of Stephen Hayes's brain. As I was getting ready to move on, I noticed a little quote from the note and realized I needed to do one more plus one on his wisdom. Here it is. Stephen tells us, and I quote, none of the techniques will work simply by reading about them any more than reading about physical exercise will build your muscles. The techniques will be of value to you only only if you do them and do them repeatedly. If you have been reading this for understanding, fine. You understand now. Practice now. It's not possible for me to read anything about the idea of moving from theory to practice without thinking about Donald Robertson's brilliant distinction about moving from being a librarian of wisdom cataloging various ideas in your mind, to a warrior using life's challenges as the training ground for your practice of these ideas. Check out a link to another plus one on that Musonius Rufus, the old school Roman Stoic few people have heard of who trained Epictetus, who trained the guys who trained. Marcus Aurelius talks about this idea as well now. I love his take on it that we discuss in our notes on his work. Check it out in those notes. We learned this on another occasion. We asked him whether practice or theory, him being Musonius Rufus, whether practice or theory is more effective for acquiring virtue. Given that theory teaches what we ought to do in practice is demonstrated by those who have been trained to act in accordance with the theory. Musonius thought that practice was more effective, and in support of his own opinion, he questioned one of the people present as suppose there are two doctors. One of them can talk about medical matters as if he had the greatest possible acquaintance with them and but has never actually cared for sick people. The other is not able to talk about medical matters, but is experienced in healing in accordance with medical theory. Which one would you choose as your doctor if you were ill? His companion answered, the one who is experienced in healing. Given that this is so, said Musonius, isn't being self controlled and prudent about all one's actions much better than being able to say what is involved in prudence or self mastery? The young man agreed with this point that speaking only about self control is less important than and indeed is insignificant in comparison with actually being self controlled? Then Musonius summarized his comments as how then would knowing the theory of a thing be better than practicing that theory and doing things in accordance with its guidelines? Although understanding the theory behind the action enables one to speak it is practice that enables one to act. Theory, which teaches how one must act, assists action logically precedes the practice, for it is not possible for something good to be accomplished unless it is accomplished in accordance with theory. But as a matter of fact, practice is more important than theory because it more effectively leads humans to actions that than theory does. End quote. And that's today's plus one. Enough theory. It's time to practice.
