I was at a reading the other day by a famous writer with a good vita who is writing every day but declared he would not rush his book. He also said he had never submitted for publication anything he thought he could still improve upon. This attitude has not kept him from publishing but has, rather, made publishing easy and non frustrating. It has also kept the writer beatifically young.
Speaking of youth, one cohort of assistant professors I worked with was entirely foreign and did not discourage each other the way Americans do. Someone would say they were going off to do work and they wouldn’t tell this person not to be a killjoy; nor would they make signs in sympathy with suffering. They would say, “You go! Give ’em hell!”
Would you not rather be like them when young, and like this writer when old, than be morose? Do you not think they, and the writer, both seem intelligent? The idea that you should suffer and rush while working, to deliver imperfect products ahead of time seems inefficient to me, but it seems to be American.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I hope I am not veering off topic, but I have been around people in the “recovery” movement lately: ex-addicts, 12 steppers, depressives, abuse survivors, etc. It’s a whole subculture of support around not being able to cope with life. They get together and sympathize about how awful everything is. They seem either to be putting on an elaborate act of poor me bravery or are just wiped out.
It’s not the world I live in, usually, where people are more or less rational and functional. Not that they are perfect or any of that stuff, but they are real. They have their own ideas and can get along without plans or programs for their personal lives.
Of course the bane of my existence is the recovery movement, since I went to that shrink who was a recovery type and I didn’t realize it (or what that was) … it really messed with me and I’d love to know what my life might have been like without it.
But the other part of it is capitalism or something, the advice given graduate students and assistant professors about efficiency, which seems to be somehow in the same vein. The image is of barely making it, of not really being worthy to make it. This seems to be some kind of professional hazing which goes on.
There is some sort of intersection between these two cultures and I guess it is the self help attitude — some time ago you said Dale Carnegie.
Me, I thought the hazing was part of it with the goal to knock most contenders out of the competition.
On me, that worked fairly well although nothing else, like giving hard exams or having higher standards for women, did. This is why I am fighting mad about it — the cant of, you must have solidarity with those for whom things are hard, if you were mentally healthy you would find this hard, etc.
This is my greatest problem. I rush to submit things for publication without even looking them over, let alone working to perfect them. And this isn’t anybody’s fault for giving me bad advice. This is my won personal issue that I still haven’t been able to resolve. Its name is instant gratification. And that’s what makes me a good blogger but a lousy academic. 😦