2023 — Year in Review
A difficult but exciting journey
This was so far the worst and the best year of my life, simultaneously.
All of my grant applications for a personal project were rejected. I started walking in the mornings and also got much stronger through physical exercise. I barely found and then almost immediately lost an interesting job. I spoke more English than I had ever spoken before. My wife and I, we went through a major crisis in our family life. We managed to survive it and strengthened our bond. I had a pretty hard time finding another interesting job. I finally joined a great startup, not that long ago. I was depressed and couldn’t focus on anything at times. I have met many new wonderful friends and I am extremely happy about meeting them all!
I went through a lot and gained some XP points. (Putting them all into WIS1 now.)
Worst
I won’t lie if I say I had high hopes for my personal project, Architect of Thought, to be funded with grant money so I could bootstrap it from there on. I also reasonably expected it not to be funded, so that wasn’t a fatal blow, and yet my year would be much easier if I had that secured. In hindsight, that’s for the better: I was not standing on solid ground back then so I might have managed the funds unwisely. I am much more prepared now!
Applying for job openings was a sad, long, and fruitless quest at first, and it would have been an utter nightmare if not for Twitter. I had never looked for a job abroad before. All offers I had gotten before leaving Russia had come from the HR managers I knew personally. But people from Twitter were super friendly and helpful and taught me most of the secrets of Western job-seeking rituals. Aside from that, blog posts from
and Haseeb Qureshi helped me tremendously when the time for negotiations came. Here they are if you need that guidance: one, two, three. Still, the looking-for-a-job part of the process was quite stressful, and I would have rather avoided it.Being subjected to the lasting stress and uncertainty, both my wife and I were not in our best shapes sometimes. We never had fights, thankfully, and we always talked through the things that bothered us. But even then, it was increasingly difficult to reciprocate from time to time. I am glad all that is past us now.
At some of the lowest points throughout the year, I noticed I tend to drink alcohol to relieve stress. Don’t get me wrong, those were always laughable amounts, and my maximum has always lingered around 3 (three) bottles of beer, and I didn’t do that more often than once (rarely twice) a week. But still, that’s how things start getting out of hand so… I’m just making a note for myself.
Best
I learned to care about people without making them feel oppressed. I’m still internalizing those lessons but it’s already a core part of me, so it should rewire all of my peripheral behaviors soon. In short, sometimes you should give exactly zero fucks about someone’s well-being in order for them to benefit long-term.
I met a few dozen people, offline and online, most of whom I can with certainty call good friends. It’s a fascinating thing, probably the one that contributed the most to my staying afloat throughout the hardships. Ten years ago I wouldn’t believe that I’m saying this, but I love humans. Humans are great. Almost all the great things I’ve come to appreciate and cherish are made by humans. Humans are truly blessed.
Speaking of blessings, going out and witnessing the sun has been a powerful one. I started doing that in the spring, and by the summer a close friend joined me (we live basically next to each other). Now we’ve both grown stronger and more resilient, both physically and mentally. I had my own dark hour early in the autumn, when all the newly acquired energy allowed various patterns in me to unfold, both beneficial and hurtful. But now I feel like I have harnessed that power. Things feel under control.
Another empowering practice is exercising regularly. A strong body allows you to withstand a lot. Really, a lot. Emotional baggage too. And the discipline itself builds up into a wholesome and reliable meta-skill. It’s often much easier to make yourself lift weights rather than do creative work, and then you can carry over the discipline you have trained from one task to another.
Stats
I’m eager to share some numbers, yet I haven’t accumulated many over this year. Let’s go with what little we have here:
Bluesky Overhaul, a browser extension I built early this year, is now used by more than 500 users in Chrome and Firefox. And who knows how many built it from the source code! Bluesky is popular among open-source developers.
I read
’s Introspect in hopes of finishing it before the end of the year, but alas! And, while it doesn’t go against the letter of my birthday wish for Visa, it sort of eludes the spirit, and here I confess that I have slacked, even if just a little bit.sixfive books. Here’s the list. I’ve startedI made 838 contributions to code repositories on GitHub. That’s not much, but that’s an obvious number to share, so since I’m rolling with it, why not?
I don’t have a precise number since I haven’t been counting, but I guess I have done ~250 morning walks this year. Started in early March, missed a few days when I was particularly lazy or not feeling well.
My Twitter account has grown by 816 followers. I am not fully sure in this number, getting the data from this website.
Conclusion
After all, it was a great year. Great in variance, first of all, but also great because it allowed me to change so much. I’ve gotten more responsible in the mature sense of the word, more wisely caring about people around me, and a more long-game player.
What are your experiences this year? Share stories or links in the comments, it will be a pleasure for me to read what you went through and learned!
A few links on what the Wisdom stat means in D&D:
- dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Wisdom
- reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/31jgrk/what_wisdom_really_is
- reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2xkrzl/how_do_you_define_intelligence_vs_wisdom