The importance (and unimportance) of the conceptual breakthrough

So, when you listen to people who give life advice, it's always the same old horseshit: follow your dreams, take risks, live every day like it's your last, etc. Has anyone ever gotten anything they could use out of a commencement address, for instance? And because of that, I had long assumed that all true wisdom was ineffable: it could not be spoken--in…