I like the ideas expressed in this post- they reflect an intuition about the way that people work that I share, and that I think is very plausible.

What I would warn against is couching it in pseudo-scientific terms.  The first point is the analogy with muscle, of which there are many, many kinds (Cardiac, Smooth and at least four types of Skeletal muscle).  That's just a small note of caution against using a phrase like "Muscles are made of two types of fibers".  Generally, though, the analogy stands, so maybe I'm nit-picking.  This wasn't really what bothered me.

What bothered me was talking about the "type of brain" a person has.  Without doing any research, it's not reasonable to say that the way you work is down to the type of brain you have.  There could be other explanations.

Reducing it to the neurological is almost fatalistic, in this case.  Maybe you're just bad at being patient, and could improve that skill with practice.  Maybe it really is because of what your brain is fundamentally like.  Who knows?

When Vonnegut wrote his semi-autobiographical stories in /Timequake/, he talked about writers being either bashers or swoopers. Bashers take their time on every word the first time. Swoopers write a version 0.1 as soon as they can, and revise and revise until everything is perfect.

This may carry over to your programming style. Paul Graham says he types his essays in the same way he makes his programs: he cranks out a crappy version 0.1 as soon as he can, and then he goes through and revises it.

A new book is out by nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman called:  "Thinking Fast and Slow".  Kahneman did a lot of research and also used a lot of his colleagues work.  While I am not sure that I can agree with all of his conclusions, he does point out some interesting things.

While I believe fast thinkers and slow thinkers have a place, to me, the combination thinkers are the ones that actually get things done in the real world.  They tend to be the leaders.

Most children start off as fast thinkers.  They are impulsive and usually don't get things done.  As they mature, they move more toward slow thinking.  How far they move, as they mature, is what determines how impulsive they tend to be.  The vast majority of us lie somewhere in the middle, with a tendency to be impulsive on some things and reluctant on others.

You are more in the middle Tynan, with a tendency of fast thinking.  But, you get things done when you need to. 

Hi Tynan, I agree that school is largely tailored to people who tend to have a more patient demeanor. However, it seems to me like there are ways to hack your experience of school and learning to make them more tailored to a fast twich learner. I am an engineering student and I have been finding recently that a lot of my courses are available for free online through projects such as MIT Openware. This has been giving me the ability to go through the classes at a very quick rate without having to go at a slow twitch pace. 

I think that the claim that school cannot become a fast twitch activity is too limited. At least at a University level there are ways to pick up the pace, and hopefully now that the KhanAcademy is becoming popular this flexibility will start to appear in high schools too.

Thanks for the post!

I fing your analogy useful but incomplete.

By you analogy I have a fast twitch brain in terms of how fast I think, much I get tired, and how much I achieve in the long term related to the short term considering the performance of others. But I also think fast twitch brain can produce understanding; when I understand something, not only at a functional level, but a deep level, I discover that what I understand is much more simple than what I thought it was, or more complex, but composed of simpler pieces than what I could have imagined before. Before understanding deeply I think making more effort, and taking  more time than what I need after understanding deeply. This must have a relation with energy and oxigen. It's possible that this increase in efficiency doesn't put it up to par with the slow twitch brain, but maybe it does, if used correctly.

You're spot on that there is a general distinction in mental styles. I'm like you in that I just jump in head first and figure it out as I go. While you're right that it's good to have both types in a startup, having at least one fast twitch brain is a necessity if you want to stumble upon something truly unique.

Then again, maybe if you're too fast twitched, you may end up lost in a world of pretty lights and shallow stimulants.