Something of a Personal Update

But really just a few random thoughts

Every six months, you should look back at your past self in horror.

— definitely not Elon Musk even though it’s often attributed to him

“Horror” is probably too strong of a word but come on, a bit of exaggeration won’t hurt. And it’s definitely helpful, now and then, to reevaluate what you do in life. Looking at my past selves, I feel mild amusement at how inefficient and misdirected those little lost guys were, but how smart, competent, and aligned with their goals they all deemed themselves. And of course, the guy writing these lines right now, he is the epitome of efficiency and self-righteousness. This too shall pass.

Changes have always been qualitative more than quantitative for me, even though I’ve tried to follow arbitrary numeric scales many times. But in the last couple of years, I have been thinking: if I don’t feel like it, probably all those “quantified self” concepts are just not for me? And so the little guys trudge on, keeping track of their life narratives with greater attention than they pay to their spreadsheets.

Great places to work at

Over the last decade, I’ve worked in about a dozen companies (very briefly in some of those). That allowed me to witness how all the things were done not exactly as I would have done them myself. So I contemplated, and contemplated more, and talked to people, and then a bit more of that too, and finally I compiled a formula of what constitutes a great job. Let’s say that making at least some money is self-evident, but at the same time, I must mention that money has never been the crux for me.

Here it is, a very simple formula. A bit weird it took me so long to realize.

Important goal + Great team + Interesting problems

A company must feature at least one to be a deal for you at all. It won’t be satisfying but you’ll have some time to get a better option.

To encounter a company with two of these is pretty great. A worm may start gnawing at you after a year or two but you’ll have a great experience in the meantime.

If you find a company that has all three, that’s a golden ticket. You’ll contribute to the betterment of the world, meet great people, and deal with complicated tasks. But wait, may there be anything that will darken that picture?

Easily, it turns out.

The problems may be objectively challenging, but for you personally, that particular brand of challenge gets stale and obsolete. Puff! It’s boring now.

The people, however great and cordial, may not be aligned with you on some minor, unimportant axes that suddenly explode in significance. And it becomes virtually impossible for you to be friends anymore. And yes, I do mean politics.

Finally, the goal may be one you value but simply don’t want to work on anymore. Like, I surely understand the importance of both AI and AI alignment research, but I don’t want to contribute to those fields. And even a long-standing affection for a domain may cease to exist.

But on the bright side, it’s perfectly possible to find a company that will have obvious flaws in its formulaic representation, but which you’ll fall in love with at first sight.

Talking to your close ones

Here might have been a long list of very specific turns in my dialogues with either my parents or my wife, but that’s not interesting anymore even to myself, so please enjoy the two important things I’ve been highlighting for myself lately.

First, there are topics that you better never touch. Once initiated, they won’t lead you to understanding or reciprocation, only to hostility. Unhappy death spirals.

Second, it’s great to keep in mind that any relationship may die and that you may be so much better off if both of you are ready to put an end to it. The use of the verb “to die” is intentional. Similarly to how we can use the inevitability of death to sharpen our awareness, we can employ the finitude of a relationship to make it more cherished.

Writing texts

I’m not doing a great job writing texts. Not yet. It’s similar to when I tried to draw pencil sketches: while you think you have a very clear vision of the drawing in your head, once you start putting the strokes on paper you realize that you have missed almost everything. I’m aware of that and I’m attempting to speedrun the first hundred of my texts, so that I have enough substance precipitated in my head that I can mold it into something more elaborate and mature.

It’s also a function of repetition frequency. I bet I could write more and more often if I completed most of my posts in one sitting…

Another thing I just noticed while writing the Barbie × Oppenheimer text, it’s that I’m probably getting blocked because I’m trying to make my texts short. Somehow, it seems, I’ve internalized the idea that “brevity is the soul of wit” and I’m trying to apply it to my texts. But probably I should not?

My writing is my playground, I don’t need to keep it constricted! I am free to write as lengthy pieces as I want. The clumsiness of my literary craft will go away faster if I allow myself to write a lot.

Ha! Writing is such a magical process. It really just happens by itself.

Deep networking

Opposite to shallow networking—when you barely know people, and have talked exclusively about weather and your shared professional interests—deep networking is about opening up, attentive listening, and thoughtful participation in the other one’s life. That creates opportunities beyond your wildest dreams and makes you powerful in the sense of being able to help people become the best versions of themselves.

I think that’s all I want to say on this matter. Simply to inform you of that dichotomy.

Things I’m making and doing

• Building my new shiny personal website: blisstweeting.xyz. A place for all the experiments large and small, links to my projects, etc. Under heavy development.

• Learning physics! In broad strokes for now, so just reading a dozen pages from Thinking Physics every other evening, but that’s already incredibly exciting. Hopefully, by the end of the year, my model of the world will get much richer.

  • By the way, you can subscribe to my Twitter alt where I log my studies.

• Spending extensive hours in Unreal Engine. Since I’m very loosely employed (which I’d love to fix soon), I finally have time to BUILD THINGS. Building things is very satisfying, but also requires a lot of effort. Thankfully, Unreal Engine is a tool crafted by gods and bestowed upon humanity. What could have taken years will only take months for me to implement.

• Throughout the fall and winter, I will be hosting a series of

  Interintellect
  salons inspired by the various topics from The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch.

• All the other little regular things: walking in the morning, exercising, juggling (though I only rarely make the videos, oopsie daisy), and reading books.

• Oh, and playing Baldur’s Gate 3, of course! The game is pure gold.

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Thank you for reading!

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