0:01 This one fiction book has been more
0:04 useful to me than any self-help book I
0:06 have ever read. It's The Martian by Andy
0:08 Weir. It doesn't just tell me how to
0:10 think. It shows me how to think through
0:12 the story of a guy stranded on Mars with
0:14 nothing but potatoes, the will to
0:16 survive, and a journal. It's not just a
0:18 sci-fi story. It's the clearest road map
0:20 I found for thinking clearly when it
0:22 feels like the world is against you. Hi,
0:23 I'm Sam Mass. I'm a writer and
0:25 filmmaker. And in this video, we're
0:26 unpacking what The Martian can teach us
0:29 about solving real problems step by
0:31 step, system by system. First, we'll
0:33 define what computational thinking means
0:35 and how it shapes the mindset and
0:36 writing style of The Martian. Then,
0:38 we'll take a look at each of its core
0:40 pillars: decomposition, pattern
0:42 recognition, abstraction, and
0:43 algorithms. And I'll show how each one
0:45 shows up in the book and how you can use
0:47 these same principles to solve problems
0:48 in your own life. Finally, we'll take a
0:50 look at why this system works. How it
0:53 helps you stay calm, think clearly, and
0:54 keep moving forward even when everything
0:56 feels broken.
0:58 Before Andy Weir became a best-selling
1:01 author, he was a computer programmer.
1:02 And it shows because The Martian reads
1:04 less like a science fiction novel and
1:06 more like a debug log. The main
1:07 character, Mark Wattney, isn't just
1:09 surviving. He's thinking like a
1:10 computer. And this method of thinking
1:12 has a name. It's called computational
1:14 thinking. Computational thinking is a
1:16 way of solving complex problems by
1:17 breaking them down. spotting useful
1:19 patterns, ignoring distractions, and
1:21 creating step-by-step plans. That is
1:23 what Wattney does throughout the entire
1:25 book. When things go south, and they
1:27 always go south, he doesn't just spiral
1:28 out. He gets systematic.
1:30 Our service mission here was supposed to
1:33 last 31 souls. For redundancy, they send
1:35 68 souls worth of food. That's for six
1:37 people. So, for just me, that's going to
1:39 last 300 souls, which I figure I can
1:42 stretch to 400 if I ration. So, I got to
1:45 figure out a way to grow 3 years worth
1:47 of food here
1:49 on a planet where nothing grows.
1:51 Computational thinking is broadly broken
1:53 up into four main pillars. We're going
1:55 to take a look at the first one, which
1:57 is called decomposition.
1:59 Decomposition is a fancy way of saying
2:01 you take the big problem and you break
2:03 it into all of its smaller parts. So,
2:05 Wattney in the book is stranded on Mars.
2:07 He has no backup. He has no real rescue
2:10 plan. He has not enough food to survive.
2:12 So there's his big problem. Survive on
2:14 Mars. If you stop there and start
2:16 working on that problem, you will be
2:18 totally lost and confused and feel
2:20 utterly defeated because that as a
2:22 problem is too big. How do you survive
2:24 on Mars? Really, that problem is made up
2:26 of a bunch of smaller problems. So
2:27 that's what he does. He he starts
2:28 breaking down that problem. How am I
2:30 going to survive? How will I stay warm?
2:32 How will I get food? How will I
2:34 communicate with NASA? etc., etc. And
2:36 then he'll take those problems and some
2:37 of them are still too big. So he'll
2:39 break them down even further. So looking
2:41 at how do I get enough food to survive.
2:43 So he breaks that down. To get calories,
2:45 I need food. To get more food, I'll need
2:47 to grow food. To grow food, I'll need
2:49 dirt. I'll need water. I'll need
2:52 fertilizer. I'll need seeds, light,
2:54 time. Now he's breaking it down into
2:56 parts that he can start to solve. Right?
2:59 He has dirt. He has fertilizer. He
3:00 doesn't have enough water. So now he has
3:01 to solve how he's going to figure out
3:03 how to get enough water.
3:06 The problem is water.
3:09 I have created 126 square meters of
3:12 soil, but every cubic meter of soil
3:16 requires 40 L of water to be farmable.
3:19 So, I got to make a lot more water.
3:21 That's decomposition. You're breaking
3:23 down problems until you can get to a
3:24 point where they're actually solvable.
3:26 Here's the trick, though. If you're
3:28 still stuck, keep breaking something
3:31 down until it gets so easy that you feel
3:33 silly not to do it. If your goal is to
3:35 get in shape, that's a big problem. So,
3:36 you start putting together a plan,
3:38 eating plan, it feels too big, you're
3:40 not working out, you're still not doing
3:42 anything to actually solve this problem.
3:43 That's where you break it down to the
3:44 point where you're like, "All right, I'm
3:46 going to do one push-up today." Okay,
3:48 that sounds silly, but then guess what?
3:49 You're actually doing something. You're
3:51 actually taking a step. The goal isn't
3:53 to solve the whole big problem all at
3:55 once. The goal is to just break it down
3:57 into something you can address right
4:00 away. Okay. The second pillar of
4:01 computational thinking is called pattern
4:03 recognition. Uh there are two big types
4:06 to this pillar as I see it. There are
4:08 patterns that we recognize from the past
4:09 and then there's patterns that we
4:11 recognize as we're moving through in the
4:13 future. This is what the author Henrik
4:16 Carlson's calls unfolding. And Wattney
4:17 does both. So let's take a look at the
4:19 at the first. So when he decides to grow
4:21 food on Mars, he doesn't invent
4:23 agriculture, right? He asks, "What do I
4:24 already know about farming? What do I
4:26 have? What resources do I have? How can
4:28 I apply that here?" It's pretty
4:29 straightforward. You use what you
4:30 already know, apply it to your current
4:32 situation. So, if you're stuck in your
4:34 career, for example, and you think, "Oh,
4:35 I don't I don't even know what I want to
4:37 do next. I just know I hate my job, but
4:38 I can't figure out what I want to do."
4:40 Well, one of the great places to start
4:41 is to remember what has worked in the
4:42 past. Have you ever felt like this
4:45 before? Maybe when you were getting out
4:46 of school, you didn't know exactly what
4:48 you wanted to do, and so you went and
4:49 you targeted somebody and that actually
4:51 helped you get further down your path.
4:52 Okay, now let's talk about the second
4:55 kind um that I refer to as unfolding.
4:57 Unfolding basically means letting the
4:59 next step emerge out of what you're
5:00 working on right now. applying that to
5:02 our own lives. Let's say you're trying
5:04 to figure out your career, right? The
5:05 default approach is to start with a
5:07 vision. So, the default approach of a
5:09 vision is saying, I want to become this
5:11 type of person in this kind of role. I
5:14 want to be a writer. A lot of times
5:15 people that want to become writers that
5:16 don't even really like to sit down and
5:18 write because they're chasing a vision.
5:19 They're not they're not paying attention
5:21 to the current context of what they
5:22 actually like doing. But folding has us
5:24 look at what are the activities I like
5:27 doing day in and day out? What naturally
5:29 feels easy to me? what are the types of
5:30 people I want to work with? You're
5:33 looking at the context and having that
5:35 guide your decisions as opposed to
5:37 having a vision of what you want to do.
5:39 So that's pattern recognition in a
5:40 nutshell. You think about what's working
5:42 in the past and you think about what's
5:44 working or not working right now and you
5:46 keep building from there. Okay. Next up
5:48 is abstraction. It's a fancy way of
5:51 saying tune out what doesn't matter and
5:53 focus on what does. Why these problems
5:54 are massive. He has to figure out
5:56 oxygen. He has to figure out food. He
5:57 has to figure out communicating with
6:00 Earth. He's surviving on a literal death
6:02 planet that nobody should ever survive
6:04 on. So, he doesn't try and do everything
6:05 all at once because that would be too
6:07 overwhelming. He picks one thing to
6:09 focus on and he starts working on that.
6:11 That's what abstraction is. You don't
6:14 fix everything at once. You isolate the
6:15 next thing we're solving and you focus
6:18 on that. So, applying this to our lives,
6:20 there is so much more noise that we run
6:21 into when we're making big decisions.
6:23 So, we're thinking about making a
6:25 relationship change or changing our
6:26 careers. Like we talked about, a lot of
6:27 things that will come up will be, well,
6:29 what will people think about me? What if
6:31 I fail? What if I'm not qualified? What
6:33 if I don't find somebody else? And
6:35 abstraction says, you need to let go of
6:36 all that for now. Those are valid
6:38 thoughts and feelings, but those are not
6:39 helping us to solve this problem. So,
6:41 we're going to set those aside and we're
6:43 going to focus on what does actually
6:45 matter. So, it's a pretty simple pillar
6:46 here, but there are two pieces of advice
6:48 that I know that make this process much
6:50 easier. And the first one comes from
6:52 Getting Things Done, a book by David
6:54 Allen that I found through Cal Newport.
6:55 And it's basically this idea of
6:57 capturing everything that enters into
6:59 your world. So one of the reasons that
7:01 things keep bothering us is because we
7:02 don't write them down. We don't get them
7:04 out of our head. So whether it's an idea
7:06 or something you need to do that's not
7:08 relevant to whatever you're working on,
7:10 it helps to just have a a journal and
7:11 write that thing down. Get it out of
7:13 your head somewhere you know you'll see
7:14 it again so you don't have to worry
7:16 about it. You don't have to worry about
7:18 it being lost and you'll come back to
7:20 it. The second piece of advice is decide
7:22 what you're willing to be bad at or
7:23 decide what you're willing to bomb. This
7:25 comes from John Akoff in his book Finish
7:27 where he's talking about prioritizing
7:28 things. And a lot of times that means
7:30 other things are going to be set aside.
7:33 So you're making your career change, you
7:35 might have to say, "Okay, this month I'm
7:37 I'm not going to set any PRs at the
7:38 gym." Then when you're at the gym and
7:40 you're not doing as well, you don't
7:41 stress out about it because you've
7:42 already made the decision that we're
7:44 going to take it a bit easier here to
7:46 give ourselves more time to do the thing
7:49 that's more important right now.
7:50 Once you've broken down the problem,
7:52 spotted the patterns, filtered out the
7:54 noise, you need to build a repeatable
7:55 plan, especially for the things that you
7:57 can actually control. And that's where
7:59 algorithms come in. They turn the
8:01 insight into actual action. So, going
8:03 back to the career change example, let's
8:06 say you've identified from the past that
8:07 talking to somebody helped and you
8:09 decided you want to get a coach. Well,
8:11 let's turn that into an actual system,
8:13 right? So, instead of saying, "Oh, I
8:15 should talk to somebody." You you make
8:17 it a system. At this time, I talked to
8:20 this person about making career change.
8:23 Make it repeatable. Make it trackable.
8:25 Make it easy to run.
8:27 The biggest thing that comes across in
8:29 this book, The Martian, is how fun it
8:31 is. Wattney is funny in his journal
8:33 entries. They're not dry. They're full
8:35 of jokes and pop culture references, and
8:38 he's he names his failures. He complains
8:40 about things. Well, that makes for a
8:42 compelling story. It's also a great
8:43 thing to incorporate into your mindset
8:45 because so often when we're thinking
8:48 about changing your career or making a
8:49 relationship adjustment, we get so
8:51 serious about it and the seriousness of
8:53 it stifles our thinking because we're
8:55 not loose. We're not relaxed. So, as
8:56 you're thinking through, remember to
8:59 have fun with it. You try something
9:02 that's so so off what you thought. Maybe
9:03 you thought you wanted to become a
9:05 graphic designer and then you try and
9:07 you realize, "Oh, I can't even draw. I
9:09 don't know why I thought I don't know
9:10 why I thought I could do this. And
9:12 instead of getting upset with yourself
9:13 or thinking it's some sort of failure,
9:15 it's good to just laugh and and make it
9:18 and make jokes about it and and move on.
9:20 Okay. Number two is to stay positive, to
9:21 celebrate the small wins. There are so
9:23 many days where Wattney will just say,
9:26 "I didn't blow myself up today. Yay me."
9:28 That's a win. You didn't die. Good job.
9:30 Maybe everything else failed, but you
9:32 didn't die. One of the issues that I've
9:34 always had in the past was with staying
9:36 positive is that it feels productive to
9:38 be negative and to really focus and hone
9:40 in on failures and repeat them over and
9:42 over again because it feels like you're
9:45 solving it or addressing it in some way.
9:47 And it wasn't until I read the book
9:50 Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz where
9:52 he's talking about if you replay failure
9:54 over and over in your head your brain
9:56 sort of it learns to repeat that. What
9:58 you should do is that when you think
10:00 about the failure you had now visualize
10:02 yourself doing the thing correctly and
10:04 that's what you want to replay right so
10:05 you want to build on wins even if
10:08 they're imagined even if there's tiny
10:10 stay positive it's going to help this
10:12 book actually drives me to action which
10:14 is why I love it so much where sometimes
10:16 the self-help books they get me thinking
10:20 too much but seeing Wattney apply this
10:22 to his situation this mindset this way
10:25 of thinking watching him apply it and
10:28 actually get down to work always spurs
10:30 me to do the same. It rewires my brain
10:33 for action, for clarity, for optimism.
10:35 It makes this sort of process fun to me.
10:37 And the system that it gives you is
10:39 really simple, right? Break down the
10:41 problem, look at what's worked, filter
10:44 out the noise, write the next step, keep
10:47 showing up. That's how Wattney survives
10:52 his mission on Mars. Spoiler alert, but
10:53 we've been through a lot already if you
10:55 made it this far. And that's how you
10:57 will move forward as well, right? One
10:59 small step at a time. If you found this
11:01 video useful, please leave a comment and
11:03 a like. It helps out a ton. Subscribe
11:06 for more content on writing and creative
11:10 systems. I post a video every week. So,
11:12 until next week, keep writing, keep
11:16 creating, and I'll see you soon. [Music]
11:18 [Music] [Applause]
11:19 [Applause] [Music]
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