discord (@laurva) is probably the best place to msg me (?) i check discord daily-ish and i read every msg i get within 24h of receiving it (altho i dont always respond uh read this first: <a href="/babble/ghosting">/babble/ghosting</a>)

u can email me (gaolauro at gmail dot com) & i also check that like a few times a week but replying to emails is so much pain lmao

u can also dm me on twitter ([@laurgao](https://twitter.com/laurgao))

i don't enjoy scheduled zoom calls. i enjoy irl meetups! if ur in tokyo in aug or philly from sept onwards ... ;))


how to contact me

i want to think less and build more. talking w u/g is fun but i vaguely dont like who i am when i talk to them 

but lets talk about technical things or smt

I'm gonna hypotehsize that if I work on actually technical things while living with technical people then things will probs be good compoundingly by default

sollo goals??

“bye laura. love you.”

pause.

“love you too. see ya.”

I do love him, right ???

idk. I think I was 50% sure I felt whatever feeling you call love. Idk. I know I was feeling strong emotions, but idk what they are. Maybe I do maybe I don’t it’s okay to only say it sparingly and only when I feel the strong emotion or maybe idk

HOLY FUCK laura why are you rationalizing this too aaaaaaaaaaa this is so bad. Please do not rationalize what love feels. Please. Just like you should not rationalize anything about sex. Just let the human feel what the human feels. Idk. 

It feels useless to label feelings as “love” or not. whatever happens, future me will probably believe that I havent felt love when im 18. 

but does this mean I should hold off on saying “ily” ?? what if he says it first? It feels so mean to not say it back, and I do actually feel warm and miss him very much and want him to know this, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


---

dear [person], you are v analytical with ur feelings, but I think maybe you should try not being so analytical and just letting urself feel ur feelings

stuff i took out from /believing

To answer William James’ question: I don’t think you can change your beliefs by will. 

“I want you to feel safe,” he says, “and I want to be worthy of your trust.” Well obviously, now I have to say “I feel so safe in your arms and I trust you and etc.” And I do feel safe, right? Why wouldn’t I? Like, he has been good to me, right? He bought me food and stuff. He flew here for me. He tries to help me improve and points out my flaws. 

So I tried to convince myself that I feel safe. But deep down, I lowkey kinda didn’t??? The unsettling feeling is still there. He accused me of “not trusting him enough” when I said I wasn’t ready for sex, which at that time I denied, but in hindsight, yes this is true, I did not, I did not feel safe enough. [1]

But because I wanted to believe I feel safe, I just. Ignored this feeling of unsafety. I didn’t allow it to register in my system 2 and make decisions with it. Ignoring the feeling didn’t make it go away, it just, was a pareto loss because I LOST VALUABLE INFORMATION FOR DECISION-MAKING.

In hindsight, this is. Literally the definition of rationalization. There is a conclusion I want to reach, then I generate reasons why I can believe it. (If only there was also a lawyer for the other side, and I had asked “what are reasons I shouldn’t feel safe” and spent 5 minutes trying to generate those...) [2]

---

My dad tells me to close the window when I sleep.

When he grew up, person in his village left his window open. The next day, he woke up with half of his face paralyzed. He tells me he has heard of many people of similar stories.

My oldest cousin on my mom’s side is 28. She slept with her window open, and woke up the next day with her face deformed. My mom met her in China and saw this, and she was visibly insecure and wanted to socialize less because of this.

My dad says: look. Look you have these examples. Of other people making this mistake. Is this not enough for you? Anecdotal evidence is the ground truth more so than scientific theories. He says, it’s not worth gambling with my health. It’s not worth it for me to test out if opening this window will cause my facial deformity, because some prices are not worth paying.

AND I IN GENERAL AGREE WITH THIS POINT of learning from other people’s mistakes, yes this represents a higher level of wisdom than merely learning from my own mistakes, this is how human knowledge is acquired through generations and why human generations go exponential boom while other primates are the same as 200k years ago. I also agree that anecdotes are insanely valuable when it comes to health, I trust my body’s response to food more than I trust some guideline of whether something is nutritious. I also agree that some prices are not worth paying, some mistakes I can’t afford to make, and I would very much not like to learn those via trial-and-error.

BUT I STILL DON’T BELIEVE IT. I don’t believe that opening my window at night will give me health problems. I’m sorry, I don’t. I have tried to convince myself this, and I still DON’T BELIEVE IT. 

And I think. This is fine. This is how I feel. I can’t control how I feel. It’s okay to feel this way, Sammy would say calling your feelings “wrong” is a type error. Damon said the same thing in different words.

---

sorry, first boyfriend, I’m still not over this, apparently. I have tried to convince myself that I’m over it, but I think trying to do this would be ineffective and harmful. I guess the fact I’m writing this shows that I’m not over it, that I still feel like I need to learn lessons.

(potentially it would be harmful for current/future partners and myself if I date them without being fully over past relationship bullshit? Idk, hard to assess)

---

I don’t believe my dad in other things he tells me too. He thinks that me being messy at home indicates that I’ll be messy elsewhere and piss off my roommates, and I guess I really don’t believe it. People I respect also leave their belongings strewn around when I had lived with them, so I also leave my belongings around in an “acceptable” amount. It’s harmful to try to be fully organized. Let the suitcase be on the ground, shrug, who gives a fuck, my roommates all do the same thing so I know it’s not pissing them off, and shrug idt fully unpacking would really make my life better right now.

Wow it feels freeing to be able to declare “sorry I don’t believe this and I don’t need to try to convince myself otherwise” and NOT GIVE A JUSTIFICATION

---

tks self help content vaguely gives me bad vibes. So does “im a 15 year old innovator at the knowledge society”, so does a quota of 1 external meeting a week, so does “I am making videos to document my journey of growth,” so does “spending time with you makes me less productive so I’m going to hang up now,” so does tech twitter and people shilling their products and

I DONT KNOW WHY

well I can make guesses, but it would 100% be “I have a feeling and im making up reasons to explain them,” so it actually seems more useful to not guess at the reason and LET THE HUMAN FEEL

---

sorry I might be overupdating on how much my feelings matter. Like there is a perfectly good logical explanation for 1 external meeting a week and “spending time with you makes me less productive so I’m going to hang up now,” and perhaps it is perfectly sensible that he said that and I shouldn’t bring it up to him and my feelings are valid but sometimes bad gauges for decision-making???? idk. Idk idk idk

but wtv I can overupdate I am reclaiming my feelings <3

when u are insecure, confidence feels like arrogance. When u have spent ur whole life not listening to ur feelings, listening to ur feelings a normal amount feels like ur not being logical enough ?? perhaps I’m not even overupdating. There’s no way for me to tell rn from the inside view so im gonna have to iterate from next decisions, or ask for second opinions.


---

in conclusion, beliefs are a feeling. Like all feelings, you can’t control what you believe. It’s useful to notice when you truly *feel* you believe something.

---

[2] In the moment, I didn’t realize I was doing motivated reasoning! I believed I was using my logical brain and my wonderful gift from fortune, the faculty of reason, to make best decisions <3 Rationalization is so dangerous because it deceives you into thinking you’re getting closer to the truth.

It seems like me doing rationalization is a big obstacle to: feeling my feelings accurately. Getting an accurate read of my intuition / judgement in social situations, [Jessica Livingston](http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html) style.

[1] This is not a problem with any specific person. Like. I just have a really low prior on how much to trust people, and it takes some time of being around you and you being not-bullshitty and some other traits for me to start trusting you. Like I started feeling a deep trust for N after being close for like. 3 months? Although he like never gave me a reason to doubt him, I admire his character so much, it’s just, it takes time for me to fully believe you, idk. So wrt the relationship, I think trying to fuck me on the first night was just lowkey kinda doomed to fail (other than the part that was like, I’m trying this out bc it’s exciting and I’m like looking out for myself the whole time rather than doing this as an emotionally safe bonding activity with you)

Ok wait idk why I felt the need to include this footnote. You were an asshole and that’s why I didn’t feel safe around you, regardless of how long we’d been together. But I guess if you are my current friend reading this, know that me not trusting you does not imply you did anything wrong. Sometimes I just need more time.


---

for some reason I feel the need to include this caveat: I am not writing this in bad faith. This applies to all my babbles/essays on my shitty relationships. I am writing this out of a frame of, “oops laura made some mistakes and had shitty judgement and didn’t realize she was in a shitty situation for a lot longer than she should’ve, and now she cares a lot to be better at recognizing and avoiding these situations in the future.” 

in 100% of the situations where I was the “victim,” I could’ve not been harmed so much if I had simply realized that this was a bad situation, and, left !!!! nothing was stopping me from leaving other than my own unwillingness. I guess I have it lucky this way, I wasn’t physically constrained, just emotionally constrained. 

(I guess this is with the exception of my parents, where I could not just leave if I wanted to, but I do believe that if I had been confident in my judgement that parent-child relationships should not be this way, I very much could’ve made it better. Two weeks ago, I sat down with them for 10+ hours across the week and yeah they have noticeably changed since then, I guess they realize that they were kind of wrong. So yeah a big cruxy constraint was the emotional constraint, although the physical constraint also would’ve been cruxy)

noticing what not believing feels like

non exhaustive list, i have probably read on the order of 100 blog posts i wanna link, so i'll link them gradually when i think of them

# have changed my worldview significantly, and when i read it:

- the elon musk series by waitbutwhy (grade 8, 2019)
- the lesson to unlearn, what you'd wish you'd known by paul graham (grade 10, 2020)
- peter thiel's religion by david perell (grade 10?, 2021?)
- the enchiridion by epictetus, that buddhist book i forgot its name (grade 10 summer, 2021)
- meditations on moloch by slatestarcodex (grade 11, 2022)
- worldviews of some humans. naman. damon. emotions contain information era (2023)

# writing guides

- david perell's 50 days of writing. and just his general ideas. i binge read his essays like no tomorrow during 2021-2022. and i just in general kinda absorbed his way of thinking during this time period (wrt writing and life.)
- lazy, stupid, and mean. by jim pryor
- julian shapiro's writing guide. specifically i love the "rewriting" and "style" sections <333

# also:

- JACKIE LIU ART her youtube videoss
- https://quantum.country/qcvc
- https://numinous.productions/ttft/, https://andymatuschak.org/books/

## 2023:

- http://paulgraham.com/mean.html
- http://paulgraham.com/lies.html
- http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html
- ben kuhn outliers
- ben kuhn staring into the abyss
- looking for alice
- https://www.alicemaz.com/writing/program.html hot

## 2022:

- richard hamming's talk
- our perception of love is messed up (yt video) (or maybe this was 2021)
- david perell: the humanity advantage, the taste article (laura should find the link sometime, idt you can find the link of these by searching bc they were newsletters)

moloch adjacent bullshit:

- finite and infinite games
- integrity for consequentialists
- functional decision theory, that post by nicky case

philosophy era, take 2:

- clifford's famous piece i forgot its name
- the will to believe
- aristotle's nichomachean ethics (just do the right thing it's a vibe <3)
- THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS BY ALBERT CAMUS

## 2021

- navalmanack <3

discipline era:

- do the real thing by scott young
- tkp podcast with nir eyal
- tkp podcast with seth godin
- the next big idea podcast with nir eyal

## 2020, tks initiation era

- serendipity post by david perell
- tkp podcast with naval ravikant

---

(again, the years are when _i_ read the stuff, not when they were published.)

---

- typora.io - samson default typedown editor
- caret.io - samson says this is so pretty
- splime.design - figma but 3d
- coolors.co - tool for generating color palettes from rishi
  ![color palette from coolors.co](image.png)


cool things i have read

I get out of bed at 12:47pm. I sit in front of my laptop and open a new Premiere Pro project on my brand new windows dual-install, but the blank timeline is uninspiring and the cabin is too dim and I don’t want to do this. I’m still half sleepy. “How do I feel more awake?” [1]

I go to the bathroom. I take out my retainer, I clean it, and I brush my teeth. The mint toothpaste is refreshing, leaving a coolness in my mouth, and I feel a bit more awake, maybe. I want to feel awake, so I also wash my face, then I even put acne cream on my face for good measure. (I’m “supposed” to be doing this every morning, but recent mornings I haven’t been doing this, and my acne doesn’t get worse when I don’t, so shrug, I put it on when I want to feel good about myself.)

Now that my retainer is off, that granola on the table looks enticing. I turn on the stove to heat some milk, but the milk pan has yesterday’s pasta in it, so I grudgingly grab the sponge. “I’ll just scrub it a little, enough to get rid of the noticeable pasta, then I’ll heat the milk, it’s okay if I don’t have this pan perfectly washed clean, I can drink milk with bits of pasta in it.” I start wiping it, but hmm if I’ve wiped off all the noticeable pasta then surely I can just scrub a few more circles and it would be completely clean. I put this pan aside, but hmm, now that my hands are already wet and a bit soapy, I might as well clean a few more pots… And before I knew it, I had washed the sinkful of dishes, half of which aren’t mine. (“But just one more dish!”)

I heat the milk. I boil some water. I fry two eggs. I pop a piece of bread in the toaster. 4 stoves, 3 are used. I’m juggling a circus. The gas stoves require a lighter to ignite each one. I’m proud that I’ve managed to wash all the dishes without touching cold water and worsening my cramp. [2]

I assemble the fried runny egg on top of my toast then the scrambled one beside. I wipe down the counter with a paper towel before eating.

“Be skeptical of people who act one way in front of you and another way when not in front of you.” Some Confucius teaching goes something like this. My dad says that however he observes my behavior at home, he assumes I’ll act this way when I’m outside the home.

At home, I am messy. My suitcase sat open and unpacked 8 days after I returned home, the unfolded clothes hanging out from the sides. I come downstairs when my mom calls me for dinner and go back up when I’m done eating. I put my dish in the sink, but I don’t help with cooking, don’t wash dishes, don’t even cut my own fruit.

I know that my parents think this is how I act when I live alone. I know. It makes total sense from their perspective. If I am this messy when I’m at home, how can I suddenly change when they aren’t watching me? If anything, I’d be worse when they aren’t watching me. I know how I’d sound like a hypocrite **and** a liar if I protested, so I don’t. I sit there, I smile, I nod, “yes yes yes this makes sense.”

But empirically. Idk. Empirically, this is exactly what happens. I am messy at home, but for some reason, when I don’t live at home, I tend to be better. I think about how my roommate would feel walking home to an empty sink, so I want to wash the dishes. I only leave my toothbrush out on the bathroom counter after she does. In the cabin, I have cooked for myself, 2-3x every day. [3]

By the time I finish eating, and put all my dishes in the sink, it’s like 2pm.

I don’t know why. Perhaps, when I’m living in a place where I’m paying rent, I feel more responsible. I’ve walked into this AirBnb the first day, when all the china dishes with ornate blue flowers were neatly snacked underneath the cutting board table, and the glasses were displayed on the rustic wooden shelf equidistant apart, as if they were relics on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. I want to leave this place just as good as I found it.

Driving home with Kerstin today, I told her that despite not getting much work done today, I felt proud that I was taking care of my lifestyle. <3


---



[1] Today is the second last full-day of the cabin, I need to get into the video-editing groove I need to I need to, after tomorrow I will be in Boston probably socializing and if I don’t already have momentum there’s no way that I’ll start it then. I can’t keep lying in bed. I can’t. I won’t live with myself if I paid $250 for this detox cabin and then waste it relaxing.

[2] When I touch or drink anything cold during my period I get cramps. It’s a dull yet strong pain that expands outwards slowly and you are completely helpless.

[3] Feels important to clarify it’s far from perfect. My electronics are left strewn out on the coffee table beside the couch, but so are my roommates’, so I think this is like mutually accepted as fine. (But yes I am lazy and it would take 5 mins to tidy them up.) At Kairos, I left my suitcase open and clothes on the floor around it. I was one of the messier people. I didn’t put in my contact lenses for the past week since I’ve left home. 

---

identifying the thing of the day that you care the most about seems important. If you do that well and do literally nothing else well, you still feel good about today. 

Steel wool literally wipes off so much stains off of metal pans. Like I got my egg stuck to the bottom of the pan, it was brown and almost burnt and disgusting. Sponge wiping, no good, still the entire bottom pan is brown. Then I scrubbed it back and forth twice with the steel wool and the whiteness of the pan showed through immediately.



I have better life habits when I don’t live in my parents’ home

i think maybe i am self critical in unhelpful ways?

like. when i write online. when i write multiple blog posts a week, my brain goes "you are writing so much and not like. actually making anything real? ur just spending an hour jerking off to ideas and not like doing anything practical."

or sometimes it says "smh you only write so much because you dont have friends to share your life with. no one else writes multiple blog posts a week because they would just tell these things to individual people!!"

or "the tao that can be spoken is not the eternal tao" and your writing can never perfectly map to your stream of consciousness so it's only a distraction to clear thinking and youd think more effectively if you just let urself think without needing to publish.

but like. david perell has made a *career* out of writing online. he writes 90 mins/day and he says it's the most rigorous intellectual work he does. he has written so many multiple articles shilling online writing. you reap all these benefits of serendipity and etc etc.

and then when i spend a period of time not rlly writing, my brain goes "ah see you used to have this amazing habit and reaped serendipity on autopilot and you lost it, you lazy fuck".

ok now that i write this out it seems obvious that my brain's first level criticism is just instinctive and not well thought through. like i didnt take some time to weigh the tradeoffs of serendipity and having a record of my conclusions vs a fuckton of time spent and [idk there are other harms of writing too much]

i think it's like. dangerous. that like. responding to my brain's instinctive criticism makes me *feel* like i am doing self improvement when in reality it like. distracts me from thinking more about. like. what are actual things i can improve on.

**conclusion**: self improvement requires having good *taste* in criticism. like discernment/judgement over which criticism is worth following. this is like, just as important than the actual part of following criticism, and a thing i havent rlly appreciated in the past.

developing taste in criticism

i should listen to more french songs. when *balance ton quoi* comes up in my shuffle it is so satisfyinggg to hear the french et je compris !! tout le monde devrait apprendre une deuxieme langue.

---

maybe i only find meditations and confucius so refreshing and HUMAN to listen to bc the majority of the media i consume are shitty pop songs. i wonder how listening to shitty pop songs for multiple hours per day influences me in subtle ways over the long term. im sure there are some effects but idk what and i kinda doubt there are studies on this or whether reading studies is the best way to understand

i also cant pinpoint atm what exactly about shitty pop songs makes them so shitty. like i can feel that overall this media is more [shallow? focused on frivolous things? no that's not right. it's more like the frames they use to analyze situations are like immature?]

to illustrate with an example:

# Olivia Rodrigo - vampire

released 2 weeks ago, vampire is an amazing piece musically and lyrically. I LOVE U OLIVIA UR VOICE IS A GODDESS BUT holy shit girl it's been 2 years since Sour and you still havent changed?? personal development, what's that? it's been 2 years and ur still writing angry songs blaming men for relationship problems??

like. ok yes, the song is relateable. I CAN RELATE TO IT. but like. "oh these are things that i couldve done better. here are some warning signs that were apparent in the first week, or first month, of this toxic relationship. i noticed them but if i had better judgement or was more vigilant about flagging bad patterns, i couldve left a few months earlier than i did and saved myself some emotional turmoil. but it's okay, that was my first relationship, i rlly had no idea what to look for and didn't talk to other people about it bc i thought it was best not to make my friends potentially hate my partner, so yeah i did my best and im proud of it. but now i know to look for these next time and if you made this goddamn mistake again, uh that is more stupid." idk like olivia rodrigo im sorry but ur attitude is unhelpful

anyways, i write this after i had my "liked songs" on shuffle play for the last like. 9 hours. including, having listened to vampire like 40 times since it was released. probably more. that song is addicting im sorrrry

# more examples

*epistemic status of this post: i am vaugely dissatisfied with pop songs and like the way i listen to music in general? and here is a fuckton of thought dumps while i try to better understand how i feel. all of these things are mere guesses at how i feel and like. i think in 2 days i wont agree with some things i write here. so YEAH take grains of salt.*

taylor swift is objectively a wonderful storyteller. the imagery. "glass shattered on the white cloth, everybody moved on, but i sit here, dust collected on my pinned up hair." i lived like 5 other lives through her albums. but IDK MAN like across multiple years of albums, there are so many songs about the smae themes? lots of lovesick songs. lots of angry at men in relationships songs. idk it's just so sameeeee how do you write 10 songs about the smae thing??

ok actually i take that back at this point ive probably written 10 pieces on how kids are treated like shit.

ok hm that's not it either.

then what does bother me?

balance ton quoi is a song about feminism. idk i guess i feel like it presents. a rlly shallow ass stereotypical viewpoint? like. "no means no." "men, go fuck yourself." the shaved armptis scene of the music video was a rlly nice touch i love its execution <3 but like the msg about women being socially pressured into shaving is also a stereotypical, unpersonal one. (or maybe i just find it unpersonal bc i havent experienced it and havent been made to feel that shaving is something i should pay attention to.) the line where angele talks about people saying her success is due to her brother helping her is p nice but idk there arent many lines like that also it just feels stereotypical and like a good song to belt out as you shake your fists and let your anger channel through. but not like nuanced or helps you better understand why i should care about womens issues ??

like guys. i am a biological woman. and ?? 0% of media ive consumed has made me believe that i should care about womens issues. or be angry at men for relationship problems.

i feel like this hints at some larger unsatisfaction with pop media that i am not able to pinpoint rn.

oh there's also a thing where the fact that before dating, 50% of my beliefs about relationships came from POP SONGS has like deeply fucked up my brain. in some ways i cant fully articulate.

like for instance. idk it made love seem like a huuuuuge deal to me ?? i was doing things in relationships that i hear artists sing about in music videos and it's like performative, the way that having sex copying porn positions is performative and not like feeeeeling what you want and noticing whether you want things and

and like when ur young and in ur first relationship most of the time you. dont rlly. uh. idk. have that deep of a bond with the person ur dating. like as soon as i slap a label on a relationship it feels dfiferent which is why rn im happy being poly and not dating anyone and just fucking around idk. (i am. not articulating this point clearly. read this instead)

aaaa this also like isnt anything wrong with pop songs tho. like people are just making art about their experience in relationships which is fuzzy and human !!

BUT idk like, all the love songs present the same viewpoint of relationships? like literally all of them. yeah the specifics are different but like literally most songs about romance are "fuck you partner" "breakup is sad i lsot everything :(" "i am so in love" and idk it doesnt talk about hte nuances of love enough for you to actually see what a relationship is like on the day to day it's just aaaaaaaaaaa

idk what im trying to say. just dont do what i did. touch grass dont base ur relationship viewpoint on music or books, they are so fucking incomplete.

BOOKS TOO. like even self help relationships books and love philosophy and "deep" shit. is like. useless for you to read before you get into a relationship it's just smtn you cant know unless you feel it ?? the tao that can be spoken is not the tao. and ESP W RELATIONSHIPS WHICH IS SO SO SO MUCH BASED ON FEELINGS, the knowledge/experiences that can be translated into words are usually bullshit if U HAVNET FELT IT

---

> closed hearts make closed minds

>


bullshit lines that sound all profound and deep but are based on bullshit.

---

happy hungry sad by mr beard is a good mockery of it. listen to the song. yeah it seems to say nothing other than basic sentiments like "snails taste rlly bad, bad things make me sad". BUT LIKE most pop songs if you strip away the artsy language and visual storytelling, it's not saying more than sentiments on that calibre?

i guess i kinda find the standard of pop song lyrics are like. low. any bullshit i write out on a mediocre day can be pop song lyrics if they are fit to a tune. like sure the music being emotional compensates for the lyrics being shit.

idk it just feels vaguely low standards. like if i wrote a piece like a pop song lyrics, it would NOT work as a standalone writing piece. at best id send it to 3 friends and be like "lol that's daily reflection #258, i kinda used some craft moves this time and it felt cute".

---

ok ykw maybe this is nothing against popsongs and more of a general vague unarticulateable feeling about how words mean a whole lot of nothing. like 

> Diagnosed with OCD, what does that mean? Well, gather 'round  
That means I obsessively obsess on things I think about  
That means I might take a normal thought and think it's so profound (Leave me alone)  
Ruminating, filled balloons full of doubts  
Do the same things, if I don't, I'm overwhelmed (Leave me alone)  
Thoughts are pacing, they go 'round and 'round and 'round  
It's so draining, let's move onto something else, fine  

means a whole lot of nothing to someone who hasnt experienced this ??? (me)

i can try to guess how it feels but rlly im j tryna map my experiences and it's like im sure im not accurately understanding how he feels.

i spent SO MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD reading books like. my dad says i probs read like 1000 novels between the ages of like. 8 and 13 or smtn. like reading more was always encouraged but

idkkkk i think it mightve fucked up my social life that i experienced it all vicariously before touching grass and having friends irl. like around 4 months ago i felt like i understood what it means to *vibe* with someone without the convo being intellecutal, when i RLLY FELT IT and aaaa degeneracy is so fun

it's dangerous to read philosophy before you have the experience to understand what it meanssss

also rules for life bad. i am skeptical of absolute rules. most things are judgement calls and golden means and situation-dependent. as n says, you only have general vague ass guiding principles.


---

look at the billobard top 10 hits right fucking now. what are their themes

it wouldb efun maybe to make playlists of all taylor swift songs by theme



the way i listen to music is unsatisfying

when you listen to a good song, and then it gets skipped or it pauses, it *hurts*. you want the beat to continue. when you're listening to music that's *good*, you *actively want it* to continue. if you're debating whether to skip a song, it already means you aren't enjoying it.

if ur debating whether to fuck then dont!! ok maybe there is an argument for listening to music that isnt immediately gratifying. but i think [sex/cuddles/kissing] should be? when it feels right, it feels *so* right. you sit on the couch with your body peeled on top of his and you can't get up, although your housemates made you breakfast and the pancakes are getting cold. you spend the entire day glued together, although you have contracting work to do, but in that moment you dont feel like doing it even for $100/hour. there is an emptiness next to you when you sleep without him.

idk this is probably how it *should* feel. you should actively want it. if you are unsure whether you want to, it already means you dont actively want it strongly.

---

if during sex i ever go "ah it's good to do this to get experience for the future" then i should stop. i don't want this.

same with like "ah this wall has lil grooves that's fascinating" 



noticing what unwillingness feels like

my mistakes have impacts on other people!!

the missed call from chinese embassy. dad: "the way you handle situations is a disaster." i am confused. i missed a call, i spent half a day going to the embassy which i didnt need to, i figured out that my visa will be delayed 4 days later than i couldve. it is an ouch, i couldve been in boston like a few days earlier, i couldve not wasted a day. but oh well i am like, not complaining about this??? this mistake hurts me the most and like the way he criticizes my actions is like from the angle of *i am bad at Doing Things* which is like ??? ok ??? you're not even getting hurt over this, i am, why are you so angry??

but no that line of a thinking is a pretty immature naive laura moment. like dad and mom are both emotionally invested in me getting this visa. when i didnt get any call, they assumed rightfully that there arent any complications, and had hope that we would get it today. (false hope is actually really mean.) mom was like contacting j's mom about like potentially picking up the visa for me. and like if that went through then her and j's mom and the dad wouldve put effort into like doing me a favour that went nowhere. and like she already invested time into semi-coordinating the visa pickup although she ended up not going through with that. and like. mom believed that if there was a call i would take it. i had one job. i told her i am gonna be careful in monitoring calls this week. i told her that. she like believed i would do this job well. and it's like ouch she'd be more skeptical of my competence in future

my mistakes hurt other people!!

i dont feel other people's hurt. it's like easy for me to be borderline sociopathic. like. right now i understand that yes deflation and false hope and wasted effort feels REALLY BAD. but i dont feel it?? like my brain is genuinely okay with being inconvenienced because of my own mistakes. i am okay with going to boston 4 days later altho i was rlly excited about boston and etc.

but the consequences arent contained to me!! and im a lot less comfortable with my mistakes hurting other people. i rlly would like to. not. 

i want to be more empathetic etc. how does one train empathy? [related](/babble/rationality-is-not-the-way-to-live): "to be trustworthy / hold my promises, i didnt need game theory or thinking about my reputation or confuscius. i needed frickin EMPATHY."

what if i can design a way for me to suffer every time i hurt someone else. make the externalities have an impact on me!! give up $[x dollar amount] every time? create apology? write blog post about the lesson and feelsbadman? broadcast online that i hurt people which uh would make people more wary when interacting w me probably? (lmfao not actually gonna systemize that, doing this now bc i felt like it and *do* want to learn this lesson but dont know how to.)

---

lol. more times i hurt other people:
- all the times i show up late TM. waiting hurts lmao you have waited 45 mins for [redacted] at Don Mills subway station. in the recent past, people ive made wait: K (i showed up 1.5 hours late ??), E (.5 hours late)
- finishing the tops night senior video like. <36 hours before the premiere. and like DURING INTERMISSION of the actual show. not even beforehand. like imagine the stress of the tech people AND organizers and ,,, literally anyone vaguely invested in the production of tops night would be slightly nervous if they knew the situation
- not communicating w C abt when im going to boston as clearly as i could. schedule changed bc visa and didnt inform her (still havent, no longer going on the 4th probs going on the 8th i should tell her like right fucking now)
- mom making dinner for me and me not coming home (ouch i flinch reading this)
- [all the dms i didnt respond to TM](/babble/ghosting) (or responded like 3 weeks late). people put emotions into writing you those messagesssss. like this is fine tbh just communicate with them that ur digital detoxing (??) like the problem is that people's expectations arent met and then they think you might be ignoring them or they wrote smtn wrong and they might be less willing to write long heartfelt msgs to new people they meet and aaaaaaa. maybe people dont feel secure in texting you bc of the possibility that youd ghost them without warning. i DONT KNOW how to reconcile this with the fact that my productivity (and hence general life satisfaction from striving towards goals) is ZERO when i have notifications on and SOMETIMES i need to take a break and close discord and i feel so cleansed. maybe writing a script to auto reply to people that *im on detox and i care about your message and appreciate the energy you put into it but,,, sorry i am overwhelmed!! if i dont reply it's a me problem, i want to but i dont have the energy to.*
- The Mistake

loving me hurts

- vim vscode things. oh yeah before wiping i should probs copy the settings.json
- vim is default mode in terminal?
- nvim is p cool
- super+enter opens terminal, super+shift+w chrome, super+arrow key splits screen, super+m toggles whether window is maximized
    - open laptop then click super+shift+w right away does wonders??? these are life efficiency optimizations you don't realize till you have them. like before this, on my windows laptop, i would be doing super+r then type "chrome.exe" to open chrome anyways. like i already *liked* using the keyboard more and defaulted to it. this just. makes that. more efficient. every. single. time. you open your laptop
    - also im realizing i use terminal more than file GUI file explorer on autopilot of terminal takes less friction to open lmfao. #buildhabitswithfriction (the atomic habits idea)
    - other things i can do in this vein: shortcut for opening obsidian? (lmao actually i dont rlly even use obsidian anymore i just use vim editor...) what other apps do i use often? a shortcut for vscode maybe. is that necessary given `code .` in terminal exists? maybe worth implementing and like. seeing whether i use it by default.
- super + {1, 2, 3, 4} for switching between desktops (but maybe i like ubuntu or macos' desktop switcher more)
- [leechblock]() is kinda nice (prevents default slip into distraction mode kinda, more friction building habits. copy leechblock whitelist before wiping)
- the bookmark titled "obvious advice"
- the chrome extension that blocks yt recs and makes it look nice
- the chrome extension that like speeds up videos to like 4x or however fast you want
- probably some other chrome extensions, look through them
- defaulting to open toggl track on chrome
- make discord leechblock like 20 seconds lauraaaa
- super+r chatgpt!! more useful if it was perplexity or metaphor lol
- ublock origin chrome ext

i am probably wiping this laptop soon. these things i would want to include in my own linux setup at first.

lol tbh if i switch to ubuntu and have a low friction way of setting up custom keyboard shortcuts, probs a pareto improvement over current setup. like beginner linux user you rlly should not be on arch, harder to find support and wacky ass package managers and lots of bugs when i try to install new packages and i have no idea where to start troubleshooting


things i appreciate about uli's setup

![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04414.JPG)
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04411.JPG)
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04412.JPG)



older one. the one that i currently apply to everywhere except forehead. less strong.
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04416.JPG)
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04417.JPG)

newer stronger one. just forehead.
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04418.JPG)
![](/images/babble/meds/DSC04419.JPG)

prescription info

important info

*background: attended [tks](https://tks.world/) toronto in 2020-2021. the covid year. when i was 15 / in gr 10.*

*it was a good year. i learnt to code. i felt like i can build any website. i learnt quantum computing and made a few videos and implemented some algorithms and got a software engineering internship @ zapata, a quantum computing startup. i made a few youtube videos im rlly proud of !! all of this is very very directly attributed to tks.*



## frequently asked question: Is TKS worth it if everything you learn is self-taught? is it a scam? can't you get all the benefits of tks if you just [learnt quantum computing/build ai projects/read stoicism/worked on things] on your own?


tks *gave me a reason to work on side projects.*

<img src="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/835204767465603073/1122980806973997056/image.png" class="sm:w-2/3 mx-auto"/>

there is a way in which posting my personal website on instagram feels *cringe*. instagram, where my classmates and school friends follow me. everyone else is posting pics of friends and hangouts and food and scenery.

i finish project -> post to tks slack, that shit is celebrated.

<img src="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/835204767465603073/1122982751998578839/image.png" class="sm:w-3/4 mx-auto"/>
<img src="https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/835204767465603073/1122982648244097145/image.png" class="sm:w-1/2 mx-auto"/>


most of my childhood (pre-14 years old) was characterized by [intellectual loneliness](https://perell.com/note/intellectual-loneliness/). my days my nose buried in astronomy books and buddhist teachings. "buddhism is so beautiful," i wrote in a journal, "what a shame i dont have anyone to share it with." i remember in grade 5 taking the bus home from fairview with faunia and telling her abt ionic vs covalent bonds i watched a video abt this morning. idk, i found it elegant. she nodded, "uh huh," "laura is being a nerd again."

but at tks i can be a nerd! i can be ambitious and declare i want to get 10k yt subscribers and implement this quantum gan paper and i dont have to nod and *yes, yes, oh no you got a 70 on your english presentation what a shame, ah yes this teacher is a hard marker you shouldnt take his class, yes, yes, i want to go to waterloo cs and work at faang that doesnt sound soul-sucking at all.* there is a way in which at school and w family i had to hide the part of myself that wants to pursue [weird](https://lauragao.ca/2022) [esoteric](https://lauragao.ca/film/tops-night-2022) [side](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NoqFzcu2_Q) [projects](https://youtu.be/tg9ohMY7lro) or else i get made fun of for being a nerd. with family i couldnt talk about elon musk role model things bc "get a degree first do well in hs first, take it slowly chill"

at [warp](https://warp.camp), tks founder navid comes to talk to us. after he leaves, us kids remain sitting around the circle, i tell them this.

k says, *but most smart teens will find their way into these circles anyway, so tks is useless/scam.*

*shrug maybe*, i say. *looks like you did, and most people here did, all ur online math and cyber discord servers. but i didnt. tks, with all its flaws, was all i had.* i can feel tears coming to my eyes lol

c looks at me. *do you think if there was another place that had this community, would it have done the same thing as tks?*

*yes, i think so,* i say. 

so to answer the question. the stuff i did in my tks year: learn quantum computing, make youtube videos, start a blog, learn webdev, make notetaking apps, etc. YES in theory i didnt *need* tks to do them, bc they were all self-taught. BUT would i have done them if i wasn't in tks? HELL NAH.

tks told me to make my silly little youtube videos when my teachers and classmates and parents told me to study for the bio test first. tks gave me an outlet for my ambition. it believed in me when i didn't. it *gave me a reason* to keep going.





---

ALSO certain mentor-ish figures i met during tks: samson. sigil. harrison. big big shoutout, conversations with yall fuckin changed my life

---

c is part of hackclub. i think, hackclub is a similar community. high school kids that encourage each other to learn to code and build and ship. if ur thinking of joining tks for the community/learning tech, then look into hackclub maybe. seems like it woudlve had a similar affect on me if i found out about it 3 years ago.

---

also, here is a podcast i recorded 2 years ago (around halfway through the program)

<iframe src="https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/firstprinciples/embed/episodes/Is-TKS-worth-it-if-everything-you-learn-is-self-taught----Review-of-The-Knowledge-Society-13-epdr8j/a-a4ejcba" height="204px" width="800px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

is tks worth it if everything you learn is self-taught?

today, i made [lauragao.ca/essays](/essays)

![](/images/babble/essays/green.png)

<p class="text-center text-stone-500 text-base mb-24">green??</p>

the design, objectively, is not bad. it passes. it looks semi-professional.

but it's *mid*. it doesnt pop out. it doesnt make you feel *wow that's inspiring, i wanna make smtn like that*

i feel disappointed nonetheless. the website i designed for sammy was cool wasn't it. it looked cool. it looked cool!!

my personal website, design wise, is objectively mid. every page of it. /core. /babble. /essays. homepage. /film. can i even call myself an artist?

/babble was made fast and mvp and "just have some site to host ur writing it doesnt have to look good." it doesnt. it's the most basic bitch shit. basic bitch ass font. basic color scheme, monochrome without a single splash of saturation.

so. when i went to /essays. i wanted this page to look nice. i browse google fonts for a nice serif font that gives the posh newspaper vibes. i add 9rem of margin to the top of each essay. i tried to feel the vibes. the coziness.

the hover triangle thing that comes in. the green. i wanted a theme color. not another monochrome page like /babble.

---

HOLY FUCK that was the most useless 30 mins of my life. like. experimenting w different shades of fucking green for the /essays. i originally used tailwind green 600 as primary but it felt too saturated for the oldtimey vibe of the essays page. so i made it less saturated but then that made it look too unsaturated. evergreen tree. /babble has a modern vibe and dm sans.

then i fucked it and used a different green for /essays!! then. wowie. that felt freeing. that's fucking crazy i. can have. different themes. for differnet parts of my website. "one color theme for the entire website" is a myth and should die.

huh honestly. did that green even add anything to /essays? compared w grayscale stone or background that is like. faded yellow newspaper vibe. idk. wtv. 

---

it's ok the inspiring part of ur blog was never meant to be its design right. it's the writing that blows em away :sparkles:

dennisc.net, perell.com, substack, paulgraham.com/essays, slatestarcodex: all the blogs i read that objectively do not look fancy as websites. i love them all the same.

---

i want a lower bar for posting to /babble. i feel scared to post this without adding ltos of context but like FUCK U THE BABBLE IS UR PLACE TO POST BULLSHIT STREAM OF CONC

---

*but if ur site also looks fancy design wise, it **extra** stands out!* nicky case interactives!! the articles in [/babble/cool](/babble/cool) - ncase.me/ballot, jesse's fourier thing, madhav's 2021 reflection.

hmmm maybe i could do smtn weird. weird and quirky. kognise's rainbow background mode. it can be a weird new esoteric feature. it can have sm colors ur eyes bleed. it can be imperfect and fucked and okay, because it's the babble where imperfections blossom.

lauragao.ca/essays

i'm just the press secretary frfr

perfectly rational cognition is impossible. perfectly rational cognition has been my north star. i have been thinking, "ah i guess i better force my consciousness to not be the press secretary then. this just is an extra challenge to overcome."

but now. i dont wanna strive for that, it's not a terminal goal. dont be rational !! everything is ephemeral and meaningless and absurd !! get attached. make those judgement calls off instinct. notice your cognitive biases without needing to correct for them. live and iterate and fail and iterate and learn from iterating !!

---

related post: [rationality is not the way to live](/babble/rationality-is-not-the-way-to-live)


the elephant in the brain

# webdev inspo board
cool immersive websites:
- https://bruno-simon.com/#cybertruck
- https://www.klick.com/
- http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/
- https://ncase.me/ everything here lols. but some of my faves: ncase.me/polygon, ncase.me/wbwwb, ncase.me/trust, ncase.me/ballot
- https://acko.net/ SO BASED animation that doubles as a loading bar so pageload time is 0

also:
- https://www.htwins.net/scale2/
- https://www.madhavmalhotra.com/blog/2021-Annual-Reflection
- https://www.jezzamon.com/fourier/
- https://quantum.country/qcvc interactive blog posts are based
    - similar: ncase.me/nutshell
- https://bio.school2point0.com/
- https://unpigeon.me/
- this other gamified personal website, i rmbr it exactly in my head but dk how to find it
- kognise.dev
- celeste.exposed
- https://planned-obsolescence.vercel.app
- gwern.net
- lauragao.ca/2022 ;)
- neuroqa
- lauragao.ca/dev

cultivating taste is important. (link david perell taste article.)



the medium is the message.

your sweater sits unworn in my closet

# i.
![](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/859788380232482837/1118021360216711228/image.png)

you can logic everything, d says. but you shouldn't. or, you don't want to.

social things is one. u says listen to black box social intuitions---there isnt rlly any benefit in questioning them. (takes longer, "humans are intractable" d says; not as accurate, likely)

# ii.
> In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
> 
> -- Yogi Berra

s says, you improve your judgement through iteration. through trying to start a startup and failing and failing again. from trying to *do something impactful*

not from being an EA and thinking about "hmm according to this interpretation of utilitarianism, AI safety is the most impactful thing i can do."

thinking a lot can be: pseudointellectual. "mental masturbation." fun intellectual exercises, but useless beyond that.

the people with the best judgement, he says, arent the ones who think the most. someone with higher IQ and thinks more can have a lot worse judgement/impact than someone who doesn't think as much.


# iii.
i think sartre's existentialism, camus' absurdism, and nietzsche's nihilism all say the same thing.

existentialism: existence prececes essence. how you spend your time is who you become. life is meaningless, but you can create your own meaning.

nihilism: life is meaningless. this can be liberating, knowing that shrug nothing you do will matter, so you can do whatever you want. you can be hedonistic you can chase short term pleasures you can choose goals and work on them, you can find joy in human connection, but shrug, doesnt make a difference what you choose.

absurdism: life is meaningless. your existence is absurd. but why not live! there is beauty in your absurd existence. you can choose to live in spite of the meaninglessness of life.

they all try to answer, "what is the meaning of life." and they all seem to have come up w different answers.

but like. whether i follow existentialism or absurdism or nihilism does not change how i spend my time? they all lead to the general conclusion of "there is no meaning in life so shrug i make out of it what i can and try to enjoy it while i can." "i will try to live a good life, wtv that means to me." each way, i will have goals. i will choose goals. i will work towards goals.

i think any philosophy that tries to answer "what is the meaning of life" all says the same thing. PEOPLE DEVOTE THEIR LIVES TO COMING UP W THESE FRAMEWORKS but like. who cares lol? dont think about living, go live?

# iv.
to be a more trustworthy person, i didn't need prisonner's dilemma and utilitiarianism and newcomb's problem and functional decision theory. i needed *empathy*.

# v.
r says rationality is a trap. and an easy one to fall into. he's seen many smart people get into rationality and then like. stop doing things. they used to ship every week. now they just sit around and think.

# vi.
gosh. who even *cares* if a worldview is self consistent? like. useful models have to be *true*. goddammit. self consistence implies nothing about truth.

# vii.
> The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao
> 
> -- Lao Tzu

# viii.
*so you're telling me i can say "i find [this man] sus" without being able to logically explain why?*

in the past 2 weeks that i've let myself listen to my social instincts... apprently my judgement isn't that bad??

*i know it would hurt all parties more if i do [action]. i know. i know. i know. itd be unfair for [ ] to give into an impulse he doesn't retroactively endorse, itd be hurtful for [ ] if i put myself in his shoes. i know bc both e and d both think this would hurt them. i know bc when i mentioned this possibility at post-socratica lunch, everyone visceral reaction of nooo lauraaaa* ... [1]

---

thank you to: d, u, n, s, e. for being with me during this tumultuous past 2 weeks. for being with me as i discover a previously-untapped avenue of "laura social judgement," i'm a kid in a sandbox. thank you d for showing me how much empathy i was lacking.

---

[1] ... u get judgement from iteration and not from logic. u know what the right thing is. i know, i know, i know. so do it. whether u have thought for 20+ hours about newcomb's and fdt and game theory of integrity DOES NOT MATTER if when the time comes for you to act w integrity, u dont.

(+ the former is not a prereq to the latter. perhaps laura who has thought a lot abt integrity theory isnt more likely to have integrity than laura who follows their black box intuitions?)

after philosophy

The feature I want to add to lesswrong, "i want to ask lesswrong team if theyd accept my PR before I code anything." 

"Oh, its easy to talk to ruby, j interrupt sydney when shes on a date with him."

we look at each other and we laugh, your mouth wide across your face, the way you laughed that night in my bed as we video called the atlas 2023 server, them asking "why are the atlas fellows together?"

"look at all these rationalists," i say, "they're all dating each other."

"that'll be us in a few years down the pipelkne," you say. you poke my arm.

we're sitting on the couch and you pull up some anime. "i'm cold," i say, and you grab the blanket from my bed and drape it over me. you tuck your legs under too. your toes poke mine and i poke back. when you get up to switch to the next episode, you sit down forcefully against me, legs sliding underneath mine.

// idk it's exciting. flirting is not any specific move, but a set of moves, gradually escalating, less and less plausible denaibility. i enjoy flirting with you and i hate myself for it, because [sob i dont wanna have a long term relationship with you and i love my bf].

it's exciting. *how far can i push it?*

by the end of 10 episodes, i'm leaning against you, your arm around me.

i am enjoying this shit in the moment. i think there is >=50% chance i **will not** retroactively endorse this behaviour. but in the moment, my heart says yes yes yes at 120 bpm and so i run my finger up and down your arm as you grab my thigh

idk the 2nd reason consent is blurry: instant gratification. in the moment, i say yes. but it's instant gratification. but do i rlly want it? what does this say about me, being such an *easy girl*, giving you my body after like just a few days of flirting? [1] what if in a few days, or right after you get off my bed and put your shirt on and start reading alignment papers, the shame hits?

[1] sigh everyone i've fucked/dated in the past was also within a few days of flirting. i feel like a whore sometimes :)


consent is blurry, pt 2

background story: vulnerability good, sigil says. how u make actual connection/trust is opening up. sigil would post moments of him in downtimes on his instagram stories for vulnerability. one of tks mindsets of the week was vulnerability.

some of my [fav](/essays/art-of-vulnerability) [human](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIqIbgv_K5XDGhZh1LXAZRfr6hi19K6-0DPw5f5tn1M/edit) [connection](atlas er changed me) [moments](/essays/im-a-metal-monkey) were pog vulnerable human connection moments.

i started using updately in dec 2020, 2.5 years ago. daily updates. i wrote everything. all my thoughts. sometimes, epople would tell me they read my updately and wnat to meet me. dron and samson would give me advice. security by obscurity, they call it. i figured, i am j a boring regular 15 yr old, i'm not famous, people probably don't care about me. i am just writing bullshit. like my shitty ass writing. who wants to read this shit? i have like, [no personal sense of privacy](/babble/privacy).

but then idk being full-on vulnerable has problems

- jonas thing (accidental oversharing in professional contexts is quite... bad.)
- sammy tells me he read my consent post and i cringe inside, look at the sidewalk in front of us, till he's like yeah i know it's hard then i dare to make eye contact
- uli: "that updately about that night i taught u transfomers" and *gosh he fucking read the stuff i said about him* and i look to the left, take a step, throw my head in my hands, gah "oh no u read that," and he's like "nono i liked it, like your writing made it seem like we're in a movie." @ brennan calling [what'shisname that russian author]'s writing cinematic. and gosh this is such a fucking good writing compliment

[/babble/write2](/babble/write2) would not have happened if i made my babble, or updately private


- ugh. all those ^^ "fav human connection moments" links are like. stories. about cool human connection moments w friends. where we wewre vulnerable. and like, by defn, they are abt things that [friends] said that they may not want public. so like smtn feels bad abt writing abt them publically. like if they read it it could be bad and they might feel bad idk fuck my life maybe i shouldnt write them maybe i should show them first but that is AWKWARD esp since havnet talked to some of them in a year, but we had these moments we shared and *we were the only two alive* and these moments still have a sweet spot in my heart altho we havent talked in a year...

the price of vulnerability

ive been noticing a trend in the compliments i get

![](/images/babble/write2/20230523162519.png)

![](/images/babble/write2/20230523162559.png)


![](/images/babble/write2/20230523162616.png)


![](/images/babble/write2/20230523162643.png)


![](/images/babble/write2/20230523162702.png)

[note to self: this isnt' meant to be an exhaustive list of all the writing compliments u ever got. j a reminder that ur writing has impact (?), that a decent # of people told me nice things abt my writing *and read my shit*. all of these are after i started my babble room (<1 month ago). like all within a short amt of time. hm psuedo-blog-posts w shitty grammar and shitty epistemics and undeliberate craft moves (babbles) maybe are the 80/20 of writing a blog]

why i write (pt 2)

you can get sexually assaulted if you arent clear about what you want. a hand in your hair, then undoing your buttons, under your shirt. he reaches into your pants and you kindaaa maybe (?) don't want this, your legs clench, but maybe you're unsure because it's new, and hey if you're scared of new things will you ever do anything? so you reach for him too, keep escalating on autopilot as you wallow in your indecision. he asks you if you want this and you nod your head yes yes yes. it's easier to go with the flow. cutting it off requres an explicit decision.

lines are blurry. it's okay to say you're unsure.

---

[ note: i don't blame you. i've had a similar experience w multiple (n>=3) ppl. i'm writing this as a "thing laura didnt do well in the past and would benefit from doing better in the future." ]

consent is blurry

> Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
> 
> -- Benjamin Franklin

hpmor was my introduction to infohazards.

in harry potter, powerful spells, hexes, dark arts and rituals are only known to a select wizarding population. Quirrell criticizes muggles for being loose with their secrets, open spirit of scientific research and all, even when said scientific advancements are dangrous. how to build nuclear weapons, NileGreen jokes that Mark Rober is legally not allowed to release this info to the public. openai should rename itself to closedai and keep gpt4 closed source, uli (?) said. ampdot doesn't tell me about what's the name of his alignment group, bc they're scared people can use this information for malice. uli's office with SERI MATS, his AI alignment research team, is a secret location.

sophia is talking about how alarmy forces you to get out of bed, walk across the room scan a QR code, you can't uninstall it. "you can power off your phone," i say. uli turns to me, wide eyed, "why did you say that? infohazard!"

O snapchats me. "during our relationship, we promised each other that we'd keep info between us. i dont go around telling other people what you said," he says. he's concerned about his reputation. things i said has already hurt it, he believes, although he knows i didn't intend to, i just wanted to understand how to feel.

the way O only messages me on snapchat, even 2 months later, to discuss, even while only prodding at the subject in vague terms like hot coal.

---

privacy is a weird concept to me. it doesn't come naturally.

i told anthony and jw that i dont rlly care if everyone sees my data lol? i dont rlly have secrets. i have other people's secrets. 9/10 times i dont share info, it's bc the other person involved might not want this public. other people probs dont want me to write certain things in blog posts, which is why I use fake initials instead of their first name, which is why they're hidden behind a password on my blog, idk, idk, idk.

---

![](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/835204767465603073/1109354551561166858/image.png)

after this poll, i removed names from some pieces: *why i write*, *atlas er changed me*.

all good writing is specific but not exposing other ppl in my blog posts requires me to be less specific ???????????? in one certain atlas post. even after i removed names, it's still rlly fucking obvious who the people are. the former mormon with 4 siblings, wow, i wonder who that can be.

*art of vulnerability* is behind a password, bc H probably doesn't want the shit he said to me that night to be known to the world. i omitted the sexual assault discourse even when submitting to brennan. something about it feels *wrong* to share his trust with another person.

i spent an afternoon, 5 hours and counting, bettering the security of this password protection. i made my repo private although i'm generally against closed-source, my first one. i don't publish the blog post about my opinion on sex, because A and N probably don't want what they said to be visible to anyone who knows how to check console log.

updately seems semi-private enough, so i sometimes mention names in my writing, idk. i posted some house pics with uli and sophia and galen on my spam insta. i didnt ask for permission. maybe they dont want it there. galen said something about not wanting his face in photo recog models. maybe i shouldnt have posted.

---

security, encryption, authentication should be done on the backend, they're big concepts in cs. data breaches are scandals to corporations.

i guess privacy makes sense. when i write my journal entries on updately, they're like, slightly less honest, bc in the back of my mind im thinking about dron and samson and crystal reading it. how i'm perceived.

naman wouldnt like it if the world saw our dms. "our little secret." sex is nice bc it's like a world between the two of you and your love for each other. my life is designed around being in control, he says, but here, in bed, with one other person i trust, i can relinquish control. the world doesn't have to know. you wouldn't want the world to know you're a sub, she's a dom, he likes being pegged.

---

[there is a certain piece of info i can't leak because it would get _other people_ in legal trouble.]

i leaked some info to u and s in the last week. and to s, the other s, at warp. this is bad. i believe they wont use this info in malicious ways but this is dangerous. ugh.

keeping secrets is hard for me, as seen by this empircal thing. all the people who know [this piece of info that i swore i wouldnt tell]: n, s, s, u. hm is that it? (s and s will not share this for sure bc they will also be in trouble if it gets leaked. N wouldn't tell because i love u naman u said u wouldnt do anything to hurt me :pleading_face: and i've explicitly asked you not to tell, you definitely won't, i'm pretty sure of this. u is, uh, i explicitly asked him not to tell but... fucky. *i didnt explicitly say it, he solomonov inducted it. all i said is that id get in trouble if atlas found out i broke this rule, and he guessed the rest, and i made a facial expression that lost plausible deniability.*) c too perhaps but idt not the dangerous part. maybe? j? idk. t but he doesnt know who it is. q perhaps. jw and sarah too kindaaa but not the incriminating part. a probably knows something, he can guess, but probs not the incriminating part. i think that's it. i think that's it. i think that's it.

---

A is like, smug, "if u wnat to know about eating a girl out i can give u tips, but it probs isn't as applicable to your situation." he looks to the side, eyes slightly downcast, hiding the curl at the edge of his lips. U complains he cant be discreet. U says that if A didnt brag abt bagging bitches, he'd have a lot easier of a time hiding it, no romance policy and all.

i feel smug when i post n's "time vs moaning" graph on my spam insta. a slight hint that i am getting fucked. idk. our relationship is fucking great and i wanna share the joy with the world, but at the same time it's great bc we feel safe in *our* little world?

contradiction?

---

suddenly, i'm paranoid. is pushing this to github ok? is linking this to naman on whatsapp ok? 2 more databases for a potential hacker to get through. maybe i should snapchat instead? every time i paste this link is a vulnerability.

*alternate title: the post i can't share*

*this is like a good piece of writing, i think, rn, judgement biased by having just written it. too bad no one will be able to read it...*

i am bad at keeping secrets

cooking policy: im ok with putting a fuckton of soy sauce and salt and making stuff i cook taste good, even at expense of slightly unhealthier. the counterfactual would be ordering restaurant food which definitely has more soy sauce and shit and is probs less healthy

hmm acc idk if this still stands. still tho want this bc counterfactual of restaurant is worse along money axis


saucy food

roasting onions in olive oil makes them crispy and sweet and amazing
             

onions

kinks often represent an unfulfilled need, N tells me. you end up developing kinks that are opposite to your life experiences. it's the reason i'm a sub, he says. my life is designed around maximizing control.

he's indeed one of the most agentic people i know. moving out at 17, running his own company, droppping out & learning aero eng/deeptech thru the internet. building his own workshop and always there when i cried about [yet another insult from my dad] and "it'll be much better when you move out" and idt i wouldve done it without you <3

"so in a safe environment like sex, it's nice to completely give up control. i would not stand being told what to do in life or in work or otherwise. but, yk, in bed... 

i literally came up with this just now," he adds, "it's an extremely bad theory and i can think of many ways to refute it. but i do think it's why i'm a sub."

the second time we sext, the kinks come up. let me cum, he begs, [but you can deny me if you want i just want to beg for u] and wtf i can literally do exactly what

i remember when i climbed into bed with O, he undid his belt and the dick in the middle of the mass of hair, "do you wanna suck it" and did i wanna suck it? so this is what a dick looks like. ive only seen them in porn. i've. hmm. when i was 12 i'd daydream about the first time i suck a dick and id imagine id throw up right after, dicks seem disgusting in my mouth? [consent is blurry](/babble/consent) and i'm unsure, do i say no, do i say yes, but his dick is right here and his eyes downcast at me expectingly, kneeling in front of me, so i say "yeah it's good data lol ive never had this experience before let's find out how it's like," and i get on my knees and

[retroactively, i realize i kinda didn't want it, it wasn't a hell yes, reason is a slave to passion and with sex it was futile to try to reason, just listen to my intuition, if i don't feel a "hell yes i want this" it should be no. sex should be: "fuck i want N to fly around the world rn and fuck me, i ur skin." sex should not be: "hmm im unsure, but his hand is in my hair and it's easier to keep escalating as i wallow in my indecision, instead of cutting it off which requres an explicit decision." sophia agrees with this, naman agrees with this, so does samson and dron i think (a variation) so i'm just gonna set "follow my feelings" as my new sex/romance policy]

but idk, here, N is asking me what i want, do i want him to cum, do i want to deny him, do i want him to go slowly and edge or do i

and he says he wants to be in fully my control and he finds this hot and i can say wtv i can set the mood i can

i cum and the aftercare and i'm lying there and i text N, lol now i see the appeal of BDSM. BDSM is good therapy. for learning to be assertive.

"aw, i'm glad i can create that safe space for you."

---

i guess being dom is nice as an assertiveness training thing, telling him that i want him to do X or im not in the mood rn mm im gonna make u hot and bothered and not let u finish rn hehe. i want u to hug me im not rlly feeling it rn.

voicing my wants and seeing how it feels. yes this is what sex should regularly and u dont have to play dom for it, but eh it's me i'm a people pleaser by default so the dom thing helps?

that one or 2 dom roleplays were fun as an assertive training? but idk if im actually into it in a *kinky* way?

i don't think i understand kinks [1]. i read eliezer's bdsm "rat"fic with L and the way ketham knows he wants to bite carissa's ear, leave his marks over her back, and carissa goes *smh, innocent child, still cares about consent* when he asks her for permission to finger her [she wants him to just fuck her and do what he pleases whether she likes it or not]. edging/ruining is fun as a sub thing (??). Ah yes here's the quote:

> As soon as you can't stop yourself from falling over that edge, you snatch your hands away and feel the empty pulsations inside you, contractions without real pleasure.  It's more of a torment assigned to submissives, than something that people naturally enjoy.

I don't think I've felt anything like that before, sexual pleasure derived from dom/sub/feet/pain/inflicting pain/[object]/[whatever people's kinks are]??

Ha. Funny to say that *reading bdsm fiction taught me that i dont rlly have kinks (yet)*.

---

but if not kinks, i know what i want though.

i fantasize about sitting next to you, staring into your eyes and we don't have to say anything, we can just soak up each other's existance, we can just stay in bed and look at each other for a few minutes or hours or an entire day

i fantasize about leaning into your chest and crying for 10 or 20 or 30 straight minutes, and you'd stroke my hair with one hand and pat my back with the other, and tell me it's okay, you can let it all out here, i'm here for you, i understand it hurts, yes, really, i understand how much you care

regarding kink theory: smtn smtn i'm emotionally deprived. your life is designed around being in control. my entire life is designed around trying to be a better rationalist, i swear to god. you wouldn't stand to be told what to do in work or otherwise, but bed is a safe environment with one person you trust. i wouldn't stand to be emotional, to let down my rationality guard, to not care if i'm self-improving or thinking logically or making the right choice, but in bed, with you, maybe i dont have to be rational for a bit??

even before i found out about lesswrong-yud-esqque rationality, my entire life is designed around trying to be better, learn more, achieve more, make the better logical decisions, be correct more, have better opinions, don't fall to confirmation bias/believing what i want to believe, believing what is comfortable.

- i lie down in my bed and L lies down next to me, his shoulder pressed against mine. *fuck what will N think what will A think what will E think is this cheating is poly ok is it cheating if i have no bad intentions and i still love u first* no laura stfu you are making excuses you just want to believe this *am i making excuses? or maybe you want to tell urself the simple narrative of cheating, huh cheating is j a societal norm does it acc hurt N to know this*
- i didn't enjoy a sexual experience? well it's not things that harm u it's ur judgement of things. *you just want to believe that you are traumatized from sexual assault bc it's a societal narrative and it's easy to believe and it's comforting and it offloads responsibility from yourself*
- i see uli cleaning the kitchen rn instead of me and i think, wow he's taking initiative, i'm not joining to help him bc i'm in good flow state writing mood with NF in the background *no that's just comfortable to believe, you can help him if you really wanted to, maybe you just don't want to clean*
- i don't want to comfort myself bc emotions are only in my head and i need to use logic to find solutions, and actually improve my life
- i shouldnt make decisions based off emotions bc that leads to lack of foresight. like impulsive short term decisions 
- i feel like i want to fully share my life with u? well, how unstoic, bc i am putting the keys to my happiness into someone else's hand
- i'm bored in class? well fuck you you're being a bad student. if i pay attention hard enough, i will learn something!
- i don't like this toy from my dad? well try harder. you haven't discovered its beauty. if you spend enough time with it, you'll like it
- i don't want to learn about chem and i want to text u on discord? well no pain no gain
- i don't want to be scared because courage is a virtue and i will not be successful if i cant overcome my fears to pursue my dreams
- i don't want to cry in front of others, that's weak and playing into the weak feminine sterotype, and gosh i dont want to be perceived as a girl 

most of my life has been designed around *not* paying attention to my emotions. i watched an asapscience video about confirmation bias when i was like 11, and since then ive been trying rlly rlly hard to avoid it, every time i form an opinion.actively questioning my feelings all day every day  

[evoluntionary psychology had a huge impact on how i think.](https://postulate.us/@laura/personal/p/2021-07-18-Instant-gratification-is-emotional-sugar-1XQmZdtQtxZxT2tiywLzVB) every time i have an emotion, i ask myself, what is the evolutionary reason for having this emotion?

i feel happy when i get 40 likes on a tweet? haha this is bc ur ancestors needed social approval to stay alive in their tribe. right now u no longer need this, so feeling happy by this is a distraction from ur goals.   
i feel horny? this is bc ur evolutionarily programmed to like sex bc ur genes need to reproduce.   since u dont want to reproduce, jerking off is against the evolutionary reason of this dopamine so therefore it's empty dopamine  

in summary, i designed my life around actively questioning my feelings (bc i see feelings as a barrier to logical thinking and making good decisions)

tbc i still do, with the caveat that feelings are useful aggregations of intuition and contain useful information so they are worth updating for

but i still would want to live my life logic-first and feelings as a tool to rationality
most people live on autopilot, doing shit on default (which is following the incentive stream of their feelings) and their lives are bad as a result! i dont want most people's lives! i think i can do better than autopilot

*alternate title: the price of self-improvement* [2]

[1] the first time i said idt i have any kinks, O was like "vanilla only mf," and i felt hurt. do i have any kinks? can barely figure out if i want this vanilla shit

i feel unsure about bdsm the same way i felt unsure about whether i wanted to suck the dick, idk, it's not a hell yeah, it might be fun but idk cuz i havent rlly tried, but it's easier to go with the flow, but i want to make him feel good he was vulnerable he told me his fantasies and i dont want to be the asshole gf i want to help him satisfy them and if we're in this forever and i dont wanna do this then he'll spend the rest of his life without a partner that is sexually compatible and

nah

it's okay to say i'm unsure if i'd like it, id be willing to try sometime maybe but not feeling like it rn, let's take it slowly, i'm unsure, we can work this out tgt :)

[2] *or, trap. rationally, u should pay attn to ur feelings [they contain info](https://updately.us/@Laura-Gao-mXDtPhnMp5kCYvjnLUaYVc/2023-03-20-emotions-make-sense-cM1zQmX9s6vFG79sKnDWAs)*

my life is designed around questioning my feelings

i often get dms like

> Hi! I was applying to Atlas and was wondering if you had any tips for me?

first of all,

[that's a terrible question](https://dontasktoask.com/).

as naman said, why would you talk to a person individually and ask them for general tips!!

![](/images/babble/atlas-advice/tired.png)

second of all,

i am tired of answering everyone individually so. my thoughts:

if ur genuinely interested in the program's values and would enjoy it (ur ambitious / want to be agentic, care about truth-seeking / independent thinking, enjoy moral dilemmas, enjoy funky math puzzles, care abt making the world better, intellectually curious / have deep knowledge in a technical topic, the values on the atlas website resonate with you, or you enjoy the type of questions on the atlas application and you'd enjoy 2 weeks of discussing questions like that), then just wholly be urself and be honest, and itll come across. like try to demonstrate how u vibe with their values. u can read abt it more on their faq i think. if you dont vibe with their values, perhaps i wouldnt recommend applying.

some things other atlas fellows said that i agree with:
> for atlas there is really no advice other than "be genuine"  
> be 200% genuine  
> don't like the question? say it's stupid and explain why  
> a bunch of fellows last year got in while doing this!!  
> but yeah, literally just be super duper genuine  
> let your individuality shine through
>
> —ampdot

> pay attention on the quantitative qs + dont try to goodhart cause the ppl reading it are smart enough to tell if youre full of shit
>
> —pranav

> Think outside the box! Imagine the wildest, most unusual interpretations to the questions on the application and write an answer nobody expects.
>
> —patrick

other frequently asked questions:
# what made you think you got in?

lol. idk. i do resonate quite strongly with atlas values. [i enjoyed atlas a lot](https://updately.us/@Laura-Gao-mXDtPhnMp5kCYvjnLUaYVc/2022-09-24-Atlas-er-changed-me-dh1pnKbKPFsEfBUu6Cs9C4). i liked the "intellectual" conversations of this community. [i care a lot about independent thinking](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bSD6lzHQPOe7j61IAZ51vJmLirOmxuP0xbuKEFEqlpo/edit) but i'm not claiming to be good at it. i also care about being agentic but i think i'm generally bad at this.

luke says that before he applied he thought he had a 15ish % chance of getting in. and like even if he were to send his same application 100 times, maybe about 15% of them would get in. i'm a bit more arrogant so i think my odds are like 30-40%. but yeah smtn like this. 

i think i stood out because my takes were well-thought-out and surprising/unconventional/contrarian/wtv.

# what do you do at atlas?
In short, it was the most intellectually stimulating two weeks of my 2022. Great nerdy environment. People *care* deeply. (about ideas and learning and the world). Made a bunch of close friends.

70% of what i learnt at atlas was not from the official classes. but from 1-on-1 conversations, the culture, the implicit curriculum, the way people conduct themselves.

if you want a proper answer read/watch these things:
- https://updately.us/@Laura-Gao-mXDtPhnMp5kCYvjnLUaYVc/2022-09-24-Atlas-er-changed-me-dh1pnKbKPFsEfBUu6Cs9C4
- https://laurgao.github.io/2022/ (go to "6. Atlas" on the bottom navbar)
- https://www.instagram.com/p/CiOzSGorvz7/ 
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIqIbgv_K5XDGhZh1LXAZRfr6hi19K6-0DPw5f5tn1M/edit


atlas fellowship application

# sollo berkeley finances log

- transportation: clipper card a few times untracked. loaded $20 on first day and $11 to get from sfo to downtown berkeley on bart.
- arriving flight: CAD260.90
- bike: US50 but probs more for paypal fees
- bike repairs: US32
- bike lock is like $9 and helmet like $30
- power strip on amazon
- rent: US750 but probs more for paypal fees
- food: sammy and everything was $45 after tip. he paid for 2 ubers. i still kinda owe him an uber.
- may 13: $80 in groceries SKULL
- lemonade like $3 at cafe milano, to work there
- lemonade at the movies like $5
- ~$26 gym membership. on dad's card.
- ~$44 for shampoo and sunscreen stuff at target. on dad's card.
- may 18: $44smtn in groceries

owe:
- groceries is everyone splits @ end
- $20 sleep thingy i owe sophia
- friday may 19 did not go to gym, $20 to uli
- food: split w sophia + iced tea maybe like $12 may 15
- $25 whiteboard contributing to the house

implicit costs:
- sammy got me a subway sandwich - do some form of reciprocation @ some point
- free scooter from sophia may 13
- may 13 and 15, use scooter on uli's phone. there was a me ride which is $5 and then him and i ride tgt maybe $15 combined. so like yeah he doesnt want my money but keep in mind to be generous in buying them stuff.
- devansh $33 pizza
- more uli scootering, borrowed it to go get bike w sophia
- peter paid $7.50 for movie ticket. also peter paid for our popcorn, of which i ate a fuckton.


other people were generous in buying stuff for the house and social events. i want to be generous in buying stuff for everyone in this house. please laura. should've pushed to buy sammy a drink that dinner or smtn.

sollo berkeley finances log

ok i talked w dad about this post. and he read it and listened to me so W!

i had some misunderstandings.

when he said stuff like "writing isnt important," he didn't mean it as like writing isn't importnat. just that, it's not important for you to do writing _right now_. it's not urgent. (this means that the stuff like "if you write it, no one cares and no one will read it" is completely uncalled for and not the main point, just some tangential aside statement.)

in the first original conversation, he said somehting like, why not take notes now? like quickly write it down. then you can write the rest tmr.

and i was scared that. if i don't write it now, i lose the ideas. even if i take notes. there's a certain quality about writing like its mood, ambiance, the way you talk about the moonlight piercing through your blinds and cast a dull yellow glow against your dark walls. sometimes when i write, i don't set the mood right. now, i'm in the mood. now, i'm in a flow state. now, i want to seize the moment, bash out the shit.

dad thinks it's not that important and if you write it tmr you don't actually lose much.

ok this is a point of disagreement. but it is not a main one tbh. bc i do agree that fundamentally, **there is a bar of what is worth staying up for.** there will always be smtn to do, smtn to lose if u dont do it now. dad thinks that these mood things are like, worth losing to build this sleeping habit.

and i can see a world where, i'm 30 and have pulled many late nights in the past and now just have a much higher bar of what is worth staying up for. and would stay up for almost nothing, other than your kid having a medical emergency.

i also do believe that there is a skill in outlining that would cause you to be able to re-pick-up your points quickly, and i obvs do not have this skill rn bc i never outline, but yeah potentially worth cultivating. also potentially worth experimenting with - if say im in a good mood now and i stop, and actually try to write tmr, how much _do_ i lose? get the data.

i think it's interesting. that. this was actually a pretty productive conversation with dad. we identified where we disagreed. in a civil way. and turns out it's not some big worldview uncompromisable thing of "writing is not important."

# takeaways

in conversation #2, dad had some good points.

1. yeah you can romanticize the writer who has a spark at midnight and slays away at writing till dawn. but. sustainability. dad was like, _why do some writers die at 80 and some die at 30?_ ok i think it's not that deep, like there are many many factors contributing to this and idek if it's correlated with sleeping hours, but laura, you have to admit that fundamentamentally agree with sustainable lifestyle. sustainable lifestyle isn't mutually exclusive with hard work, giving everythign you have to [be successful/solve [problem]]. work hard during the day and sleep during the night and you're in for the long haul, the marathon not the sprint.

besides. when you sprint, you usually end up like having to go through recovery periods right after, and it's not actually more output over time in the long run.

2. nothing is absolutely urgent. except for life/death situations.

if you want to, you can say no. the consequences are _usually_ less than perceived.

i think this seems true.


part 2 of last post

_The world is beautiful. Why waste it by being sleep deprived?_

tl;dr:

the first time i screwed up my sleep schedule _really badly_ was atlas, august 2022. slept at 2am-4am every night for a week and half before I gave out. the ensuing pain that followed taught me that my quality of life is [dangerously](https://www.lauragao.ca/babble/invisible) worse when I'm sleep deprived. i feel my best self when i'm in bed for 8-9 hours and I wake up 2-3 hours before school starts. in the recent 4-5 months, i haven't been adhering to this value, sleeping consistently between midnight and 2am. then, the next morning, when my alarm goes off, i want to stay behind the blissful darkness of my eye mask. id spend my day tired and in pain. but the cycle repeats, mostly due to [texting people, seeking comfort on autopilot](https://www.lauragao.ca/babble/comfort). [1]

i maintain that staying up late last night is justified and a good decision [2]. i believe it's okay to stay up late once to twice a week, but i do not wish to live a life where this happens on more than 50-70% of days, because my quality of life would be substantially lower.

_dad, i understand that reading english is difficult for you. you can feel free to stop reading here._

---

[1] What I found helped me is: tuning into my emotions. [Emotions contain useful information](https://updately.us/@Laura-Gao-mXDtPhnMp5kCYvjnLUaYVc/2023-03-20-emotions-make-sense-cM1zQmX9s6vFG79sKnDWAs). If I take a minute to breathe, pause, get away from discord at 11pm, I'd notice the aching down my legs and the "veil of tiredness" across my visual gaze. I'd notice that I want to sleep rather than keep texting.

For the past half-year or so, I believed in sleeping early. I _know_ I'm not doing a good job and I already feel terrible about it. Therefore, when you, mom or dad, remind me that I'm not sleeping well, you're not really helping. (You do, however, help me feel guilty.)

To be clear, this is fine. Perhaps your goal isn't to help me, but to point out where I'm doing wrong so I can improve. I don't expect you to help, because this is my problem that I am capable of fixing on my own. I just would prefer it for you to acknowledge that you are not helping, and any progress I will make is attributed to me.

[2] this week i had been fed up with myself. then, sunday, i didnt text that much and i stayed focused on writing and i was one of the most productive days id had in 2 weeks! i am rediscovering [deep work](https://www.lauragao.ca/babble/deep-work) writing flow! i was sosososo proud of myself.

i sit. down. at my desk. i am typing in obsidian. i am writing out the "recap of my arguments" of the parenting essay that id been struggling to articulate for the past week-ish and now im finally doing it! i hear footsteps up the stairs. i consider shutting off my laptop and pretending i'm asleep, but nah, that's against [my policy on honesty and integrity](https://www.lauragao.ca/essays/i-hate-moloch).

dad opens the door.

"Laura! Why can't you be a normal person?"

My body involuntarily jolts upward.

"Do you see the time? Why aren't you asleep? Why can't you be a normal person -- go to bed when you're supposed to sleep, wake up when you're supposed to wake up? Instead, you work when you're supposed to be asleep and then sleep during the day when you're supposed to be working."

My dad's voice is loud. Harsh. It's the sound of a teacher screaming at a grade 1 student to STOP TALKING IN CLASS GODDAMIT THIS IS 100TH TIME IM TELLING YOU!

He continues. "What can you be working on that's so important?"

"I'm writing an essay. This essay is pretty important to me. I've been trying to write this essay for the past week, and it hasn't really been working. Today, I finally managed to sit down and write a draft, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm planning to finish up this draft."

_Rookie mistake: interpreting this as a genuine question._

"What essay is it? For your website, to publish for no one to read?"

"No, actually. This is a letter to you."

"Well, if you really want to write a letter to me, write it in Chinese."

"Yeah, I planned to do that, but I think that might take me a year."

"That's not the point. The point is, what can you be writing that's so important? No one cares about your essays, did you know that? Even if you finish it tonight, no one will read it, because no one cares."

My dad's voice is piercing. Sharp. The needle in a haystack when you comb your hands through and scoop up a fistful of hay, a sharp pinch as your fingers curl around and suddenly your skin is unzipped open. It's the iron blanket of words that wraps around your body in a dome, and you want to just cut it open and poke your head out for some fresh air but YOU CAN'T.

"I care. This essay is important to me. This has been an issue that has been bothering me for many years, and I'm finally trying to write about it."

"Well, if it has been bothering you for many years, then you can write it slowly. Write it tomorrow, in the daytime. Why does it have to be at night?"

"Like I said, I've been trying to write this essay for the past week. And only today have I actually started to feel good about it. So I want to continue my train of thought before I lose it. I am actually worried that if I don't take the opportunity to it now, I won't be able to write it for another week. Writing is hard."

_Rookie mistake: interpreting this as a genuine question._

"There is no way this is that important. This is only important in your imagination. You can write it tomorrow, there will be difference. I know, I've written stuff before."

I look at him.

"Ok, think about it this way. If right now, I get sick, and I need to go to the hospital. Would you sit here and write? No. You'd take me to the hospital! Therefore your writing isn't that important. What do you lose if you don't write tonight? Nothing."

_I lose my week of agonizing over this essay and being a depressed ass to the people I love that I interact with because I'm trying to sort out my thoughts, how do I communicate 17 years in a few pages?_

_Besides, if you are going to the hospital, it'd be more important than sleep too? This feels like, a false comparison. A red herring? No. That's not right. Definitely some logical fallacy though, although I can't put a name to it._

Dad shuts the door.

Oh well. I do pretty much have a [skeleton](https://lauragao.ca/babble/parenting) today already. I guess it won't be too hard to touch up the rough sections tomorrow, put some placeholders now.

---

Dad, I know. You didn't really come up to my room to tell me that my writing isn't that important and no one will read it.

You're concerned for my health and sustainability.

I think that conversation we had misses the point. The point isn't about how important my writing is.

The point is that sleeping well is a good habit. Your habits have a big influence on your life.

Not sleeping feels terrible. I know, trust me. I'd wake up in the morning, I'd try not to put my head down during biology test because I might fall asleep. Everything hurts everything hurts everything hurts. Sleeping well raises your baseline level of happiness.

**Life is too beautiful to waste it on being sleep deprived**. i feel my best self when i'm in bed for 8-9 hours and I wake up 2-3 hours before school starts. in the recent 4-5 months, i haven't been adhering to this value, sleeping consistently between midnight and 2am. then, the next morning, when my alarm goes off, i want to stay behind the blissful darkness of my eye mask. id spend my day tired and in pain. but the cycle repeats, mostly due to [texting people, seeking comfort on autopilot](https://www.lauragao.ca/babble/comfort).

Texting has been like an issue. Primarily AoC, tbh :skull:. it's very easy to passively scroll, unlike dms, [which require well-thought-out responses](https://lauragao.ca/babble/ghosting).

Also an issue with day to day work. I probably spent an average of 4-6 hours per day texting, with aoc and [redacted] and tops server/frens. I felt guilty I lost my ability to focus on deep work. I've been trying to write this piece for the past week or two, both the parenting piece and the "history of laura," and i never really properly sat down to write except for an hour at a time before getting disciouraged that my writing wasn't making sense so id go waste time on discord again.

so today i actually sat down to write for a few proper hours, I was so proud!

I was like overcoming this. wheeee. i am stopping my default boredom behaviour of going on discord, which would help me with sleeping better too if i keep this up!!

---

dad walks out the room. his words ring in my head.

_your writing is not important. it's only important in your imagination. even if i write it, no one cares. no one will read it._

I know don't mean it, dad. You're just concerned about my health, I am too, and this was your way of expressing it. You wanted to say that you think sleep is more important than my writing, not that my writing is useless.

_What I don't say: David Perell says writing is the most rigorous intellectual activity he does. I think it might be the same for me. Argumentative essay writing is: starting with a tangled thread of arguments in mind, trying to parse them onto the page in a clear, linear way, but the first two or three drafts are just words on a page that don't flow as nicely as they did as in your head, and then you realize maybe you don't understand this topic as well as you thought. [I rely on writing to think clearly](https://postulate.us/@laura/philosophy/p/2022-05-20-Writing-as-a-Path-to-uZryNzkVCWuF36BeqT5Ytt)_

I know you just want the best for me, so it's illogical for me to feel hurt, but I feel hurt anyways.

_What I don't say: ive been full-time focusing on improving my writing for ~4 months, and part-time for like a year and half ever since i took philosophy._

_those insults are completely uncalled for given the situation. all they achieve were hurt my feelings. (they don't actually make me more likely to sleep?) in an ideal world, I guess I'd hope you say sorry. but even if you don't, i forgive you anyways. if i keep feeling hurt, it'd be my responsibility._

i want you to see that i am trying my best, i really do believe in sleep and yeah i failed at it in the past but today was a rare day where it was actually justified. i guess it'd be hard for you to believe that, oh it just so happens the one day you catch me awake at 1, it's the day it's justified.

> Nobody's perfect, yeah, I guess we all fall short
> And I can't hold this unforgiveness in my heart no more
>
> -- NF, MAMA

_What I don't say: i guess im lucky that i have enough of a support sytstem that i don't believe that my writing is useless._

-   _anthony, as he read he sent over quotes that resonated, asked qs, an hour convo spining out of the piece discussion. "ah. made it to the end of the piece. fun read, can't wait to see it finished."_
-   _sophia, starting a discussion about what were the moments that caused people to stray from the path. hmm first principles is an inefficient approach_
-   _naman, "hehe i guess i'll have to diligently studying ur work"_

but wtv im admitting to having slept before midnight a grand total of <7 times in the past 3 months. and yesterday night was probably one out of less than 5 days it was justified for productivity reasons. i think there mighve been ~10 days where it was justified for social reasons.

_What I don't say: david perell says it's a skill thatd help you stand out in **any knowledge work**, and i agree. thigns that writing has gotten me in the past include: getting into university. ms brennan, a person i look up to, telling me im the earnest type of student she wants to encourage everyone to be. sigil, my 2022 review, im one of the ppl he's the most consistently impressed with(?), a job interview. technical blog posts so ppl thought i had tech skills enough to do a softeng internship at 15. emil bet that id be a millionaire at 24._

maybe you'll believe this.

_what i don't say: when i write, i pour my soul into these words. trying to replicate the content of my brain. writing is preserving a slice of ephemeral memeories, [a photograph in a kaleidoscope of words](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIqIbgv_K5XDGhZh1LXAZRfr6hi19K6-0DPw5f5tn1M/edit)._

---

update, 1 day later: [part 2](https://lauragao.ca/babble/sleep2)


sleep. and, my home is an emotionally shitty environment, part 2

the yellow glow from my ring light at the corner of my right eye. it casts a bright radiance on my notebook as my pencil scratches against it. I'm thinking about whether to introduce the essay with "i can do wtv i want and owe you an explanation" and then transitioning to "but i care about you so i will try to show you why these deiciosns = my flourishing anyways," or open with empathy and show that i understand they care about me.

And then noises outside my room jolt my mind away.

"Bianca. Daniel's left hand has skin issues. Wiping his ass uses his right hand. Why can't he do it? Why does he have to ask me to help him? He is this old and he still cannot take care of his own bathroom needs himself?"

My dad's voice is loud. Harsh. It's the sound of a teacher screaming at a grade 1 student to STOP TALKING IN CLASS GODDAMIT THIS IS 100TH TIME IM TELLING YOU!

My dad's voice is piercing. Sharp. The needle in a haystack when you comb your hands through and scoop up a fistful of hay, as your fingers clench in suddenly sth unzips your skin open. It's the iron blanket of words that wraps around your body in a dome, and you want to just cut it open and poke your head out for some fresh air but YOU CAN'T.

Mom: "You can say that nicely. You can tell daniel."

He continues. "Do you know how much time I spent in the past week wiping his ass for him? How did you raise him, why did you let him be like this. How come all of these things you need me to scold him for? I don't understand. You guys are bothering me to death.

Daniel. Things you can do on your own, do them on your own."

"Can you talk nicely???" mom yells up the stairs. voice stern. rising in pitch at the end.

"uHHHH UGHHHHH. DAD'S NOT COMING." my brothers voice.

sister: "BUT THERE'S A BAD WORD THEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. HERE IS A CLEAN VESION. daniel listen. YOURE NOT LISTENING. dan-NIELLLL."

brother: "WAIIIIIIIT. can't you see i'm in the BATHROOM?"

---

Anyways, at like 8:30 to 9:30pm, the daily bedroom routine, the hallway outside my bedroom is riddled with screams. All four fucking voices of them. (ok actually it's like, my dad talking loudly. he thinks this is justified and this is what parenting should be - scolding your kids until they learn to do the right thing. mom is usually chill. siblings' normal voice is just 20db higher than a normal person, and are also always beefing with each other. like. every day. if there is a day where they do not fight, it's a miracle.)

I wonder when I go to sollo, if living in an enviornment where there's not constant yelling will have a noticeable impact on my hedonic setpoint.


my home is an emotionally shitty environment

what if i live with no being my default response.

mom asks if i want dress: hmm it looks kinda cute. would be fun to wear. but i dont see myself wearing it in near future. i'm uncertain, so no. having more items would be clutter.


i have some opinions abt parenting

I’m sitting in Cafe Inside, Amy across from me. “I don’t want to rewrite my common app essay.”

“Then don’t.”

“But I can’t submit my current one about math. I can’t compete with IMO kids. I should write about making videos or coding or something I’m actually good at.”

“Then write about making videos.”

“Is it really necessary to rewrite it? What if I do portray myself as a math kid… would I really be that disadvantaged?”

“If you know you need to rewrite it, then do it, Laura.”

Starting again, for the 3rd time, about a completely new topic, would be pushing out shit after a being constipated for a week. I open Obsidian and type out a paragraph following the framework of my math essay. When I was 12, I wanted to be a YouTuber when I grow up. Nope. How about, making videos was my electrifying significant other that my parents didn’t approve of. It doesn’t work. None of them work. An hour in, I have multiple paragraphs but no essay.

I look at Amy's [insert fancy drink name] and my tongue begs me to order something, my fingers itch to "ctrl+t -> discord.com/app" but I think about my Slack status, a paraphrased Lincoln quote: “Discipline is choosing between what hurts now and what will hurt the most.” I know it’ll hurt more to quit, to go home today with the unfinished essay, than the pain of shoving the threads in my brain on the page. I guess I’ll start again. Expanding the moment. I'm 12 years old. My hands grip the sidebars of my chairs, my knuckles turning white as the magical combination of the violin in the background, the footage of a child playing with sunflowers, and Freshtastical's voice sends electricity up my blood. The next day, all I can talk about is the 4-minute YouTube video "The questions we never ask". This time, 600 words later, a smile creeps into my face.

Writing is more of an exercise in discipline than an exercise in writing.

---

(oh btw here's [this piece](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VPhBgWXuuwrXqo4NyZOas7Amvv0dxfVtdasCnlCHDpU/edit) if u want it)

---

I was good at getting myself not distracted. It's June 2021. I stretch my arms as I sit up in bed, sun peaking in through the blinds, streaks on my blanket. Today, I'm going to finish up the updates page of beta testing manager. Use migrate-mongo to add [property] to user objects and make flexbox buttons properly centered. At 9 am, I open Ms. Wang's zoom link and mute it (while she teaches some for loops in python), and stackoverflow this npm installation issue.

It's 6pm. "Hi, laura, dinner is ready," dad calls from downstairs.

"thanks. can you give me 5 mins?"

_cmon. just have to try this fs.readdirSync and then every file in the folder shoudl be read properly. cmon im so close._

when the filenames console log poperly and yay, the clock reads 6:40.

_oops_.

i run downstairs, but dad's already back in his office. cold broccoli left on the table. i eat. while thinking about whether the buttons should be horizontally or verticlaly positioned.

---

"laura, what are you doing in your room all day? what's so important for you to work on?"

"uhhh." swallow. i study the stickers my brother left on the wall. _i'm learning web development. i'm making a beta testing manager for samson. i'm making software that other people would use. if i finish this, it would be the first fullstack project i did alone. id feel like i can build anything!_ i look back at my dad. "uhhh... my teacher gives a lot of homework."

---

from ~march 2021 to ~january 2023, work was life!! my projects consumed me. i would spend, like, 12 hours a day in my room, on vscode, on adobe after effects, coding, editing a video, writing a blog post, idkwtv.

i wasn't always like this. it's november 2020, and i'm trying to draw this comic. but hmmm. ugh. ive been trying to blend this grey into this blue. changing paintbrush colors varying slightly each time. and... still can't tell if this natural. hmm... what if i watch some youtube speedpaints for art inspiration?

and then i look at the clock and it's dinner and oh where did my afternoon go?

but hey it's okay, i have tomorrow!

15 days later, the comic is finished, i think.

![comic avail here: https://mailchi.mp/5836b3e01570/3-hackathons-in-3-weeks](/images/babble/deep-work/listless-guilt.png)

every day: the same cycle of, wake up, have big dreams, get those dreams crushed by distractions, say i'll do it tomorrow. same cycle of self hatred and procrastination and ugh why cant i just be better, why do i spend 4h/day avg on discord talking to ppl idk irl!!

then, march break 2021. [Velocity](https://notes.lauragao.ca/velocity.html) mindest of the week: discipline. a video from harrison. _motivation is the desire to work. discipline is doing work even when you don't want to. motivation will fluctuate up and down, naturally like all feelings. so to stick to a commitment, you can't rely on motivation. you have to rely on discipline. people think they have a motivation problem, but really they have a discipline problem._

the knowledge project podcast with nir eyal. as i summarized in a newsletter,

> Distractions are not caused by social media or by any outside factor, [according to](https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/nir-eyal/) psychology writer Nir Eyal. Distractions are caused by a desire *from the inside* to escape negative emotions — boredom, anxiety, stress, you name it.
>
> Time management is pain management. [Procrastination is the inability to deal with emotional discomfort.](https://twitter.com/laurgao/status/1376166379225821185)

another podcast, with seth godin

> Professionals don't do their work because they are passionate, according to [Seth Godin on The Knowledge Project](https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/seth-godin/). You don't want your heart surgeon to do a good job because she's passionate about the heart, but because she told you that she'll take care of you. You want her to do a good job regardless of whether she feels like it or not.
>
> Amateurs show up whenever they feel like it. But **being a professional means showing up when you don't want to.**

and a quote from lincoln:

> Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want the most.

And suddenly it was like woooooow it all clicked at once. I was lucky, running into all these concepts within 1 week of each other.

When i make vid or draw or code, sometimes, it'll be painful. but what distinguishes whether im focused is whether i stick to it when it's painful! i only go on discord bc im bored and im escaping the pain...

---

fuck this wasnt the main thing i wanted to say. the main thing was like. deep work is very cool. deep work is book by cal newport. basic premise is like, u work for 4h on 1 task. AND U ARE SINGULARLY FOCUSED. productivity = intensity x time. deep work maximizes intensity.

I LOVED DEEP WORK. i would yeah code for 8 hours straight without a break, then nom nom some dinner fast and then more coding!

i wouldnt want to sleep until [function] was implemented.

i cared. i wanted every frame of my animations to be perfect.

yes, you need discipline to get over the initial hump. but after that, it doesnt tkae any to keep going, bc coding is just so intoxicating lol. i write a line of code, and the button immediately turns orange. it's like, fingers wielding magic. ur limited only by ur creativity and ur technical skill.

---

i was very good at focusing intensely. when i started at zapata, i said this as my superpower for their interview website profile lol

-   learnt french to C1 in 4 months or smtn
-   learnt webdev fullstack in like 5 weeks or smtn apparently, to go from 0 js knowlege to the feeling where "i can build any webapp i want"

i sucked at replying to dms. (thank u luke for fixing this). like i actually. just. didnt. chekc. discord/twitter/instagram. and. rn id look back and "wow this person msged me in feb but i went on instagram for the first time after in april. so. ghosted for 2 months. oops."

idk deep work was a precarious state and didnt want to ruin it.

---

april 2023 update: i felt like i spent all my time coding which was fun but i had no social life. and network was a bigger bottleneck on my career advancement than technical skill. so i decided to stop prioritizing deepwork. in jan 2023. byebye after 2 years :(

recently, yeah, social is a lot better. in 2021 i had 1 close friend. now i have like, 5-10x that. also friendships are more meaningful now. it's vibey.

idk i also lost some of that sweet ability to focus tho :( i am sad but.


deeeeep work

middle school was when i sortof started realizing that school is dumb but didnt have the language to talk about it, didnt believe in my ability to form independent opinions, and didnt have anything better to work on

so i just

got in trouble at school a lot

smh i had so much drive back then


middle school

"Oh, if it was an event, then it's ok."

The boldness to declare, this is what i believe in, this is why i believe it, and stand your ground. like yes, it would be easier soften your beliefs little, gap year means i'll go to college next year instead of "fuck college," but i want to be able to say, hey dad, i am at a social event, yes, i can leave an hour early and be home at 8, but i want to naturally leave when everyone else leaves, and go home with everyone else. it's still bright outside when i got on the subway, i got indoors before it was dark, im with other people, so i think it's safe.

i want to be able to live my life not thinking back of my mind "oh i can't go to sigil's party bc i'll be home too late and parents won't like it."

for the past wtv years, i make decisions based on fear, based on what parents would think. i don't wanna have this mindset anymore.


i want to live boldly

so I was gonna do a thing where. before i leave, i write a letter to my dad. im gonna say everything. the way he makes me feel when he scolds me, like there's some chlorine gas being released, crawling up and surrounding my head in a black mess of scribbles and words and insults, invisibly seeping into my lungs till i can't breathe and can't articulate why. tks and unconventional paths and first principles thinking, how ideal laura refuses to inherit the beliefs of her parents on autopilot (that's fucking dangerous goddammit do you understand why?), and in the future pls if you tell me "how can you be so ignorant to think you dont need a degree" and "its dangerous for you to have false beliefs like ths" and "im so happy you no longer want to do youtube bc that shows u are now mature" please know that wont change my mind. how from gr7-11 i did not say shit i believed in (yter, gap, college, advocate for 1517 meetup THEY PAID FOR MY FLIGHT AND ACCOMODATION GODDAMIT) bc i didnt want ur chlorine gas and on the surface it seems like our relationship was great and no tension and wtv. and dude that said referral is all you need and 5k-10k/month is ez and i believe (70%) i dont need a degree for signal purposes.

i was gonna say everythign i didnt say. it is so fucking dangerous to keep making decisions ruled by fear (like ive been doing in past when making decisions about you) and so, after im 18 and away and wtv, i refuse to make choices based on being scared of what youd do about it.

but then i talked to sigil like once and i dont need to shit on college. empathy and see his subjective pov and his concerns about not going to hs -> fail a course -> rescinded is yeah valid. "i will go to school in a year" not "fuck college." i dont need to convince u of all my beliefs, i dont need that for u to approve of gap year or wtv.

ok and sigil is like right. but

sth about on principle, i dont wanna have to convince dad for every decision.

**so now it's sth between choosing to drop the entire bomb now and just say "i am making this choice whether u agree with it or not" vs slowly building up to it, revealing my polarizing beliefs a little bit at a time so he can slowly accept them more and more.**

con of latter: a thing where it feels Bad that i have to hide a part of me in front of parents. I don't hide my beliefs in front of any of my close friends. have to be a different person in front of parents. also, every time i "expand the overton window", we'll have more argument and from his pov it'll seem like im getting more and more extreme (when in reality i had this belief from the beginning and there's sth to be said about standing my ground since the start)

pro of latter: i make one choice (gap year) and it turns out well and he'd respect me more as an independent adult and then he'd be more tolerating of the next choice. he dont treat me as adult bc i say "i am adult and now i make choices u dont agree with." obvs it would not be pleasant to hear for him. he will accept me making choices he dont agree with after **time**, after i have once made a choice on my own and it worked out not too bad.

idk. ideally i want my parents to respect me. i think i somewhat deserve their respect bc i actually work hard or whatever and dad doesnt know about 70% of the things ive worked on.

but if he doesnt respect me. doesnt want me to make choices he dont agree with. i like, dont want that to be a blocker for me to make choices.

status: i am unsure which choice will make (choice as in the bolded paragraph).


decisions dad disagrees

i walk out the irish pub and bar and i was gonna pull out my wallet, slap a ten on the table and covering the fries. but then it felt awkward and. imagine the warmth u feel when ppl are kind to u about money, a small gesture, bro that gave me 20 bitclout to get started, archi dont worry about it. increasing the likelihood theyd feel warm abt maybe future $, and how i forgot to etransfer archi back last time. smh i really need to take archi out one day. imagine the signal u send when covering someone elses shit as a broke student, the implicit curriculum that this is a value that is core to u. godfcuking damn it i really should've.

the difference between going to sollo berkeley and staying here is thst the costs of the former are visible, the latter invisible. the arguments with dad, the ++ fallout with ms oliver, the marks thatll drop, the legal liability in the back of my head and i am fucking not lying to galen fuck you this lying new wave cannot spread to this circle, the way that imaginary people in my head tell me that im crazy. of the latter, it's what couldve been. the future mentor i couldve bumped into at the wework, the potential friend at a bar, the potential ais learning and a technical field that id love for a few years. the way i couldve talked to yudhi late night 1 on 1 and id almost be surprised if this doesnt happen more than once, how by default id get closer with galen and uli, the swimsuit adventure or baking competition or hot tub hot seat we wouldve played, or some other crazy shit we could laugh at 10 years later. one of these people will introduce me to a tool i cant stop using, recommend me to a startup, take me to my first party, push me to finish that youtube video, show me how to knit or skydive or some hobby that id love, or teach me a third of multivar in a night. id learn abt ais and wtv and build intuition abt professional settings thr way michal dpeaks at the bar so openly ant unwritten rules. in a few months id present at a conference hosted by someone id met here, where id get recruited. didnt atlas come from a 45 min call with chris lakin, who came from davide tryna get me to go to sf? didnt tks come from one night volunteering at tops event? didnt zapata come from dan knowing pierre luc? the way that michal and davide and chris and elias and samson each singlehandedly changed my life, directly or indirectly, in a way thst i couldnt even _imagine_ before meeting them, some with a single action they probably dont know about. who knows where I'll meet the next one? atlas was a series of unlikely coincidences since elias' presentation, the presentation then mafia then chris. m&t was too, probably sigil doing breakthrough and samantha's chem in aeropure and deciding to pay $20 for a chance to visit the US for the first time, at 23:49 of the due date. these are my best 2 legible achievements and they would have 90% not have happened if it weren't for cool people i respect that for whatever reason god knows what decided to invest in me, be my friend, nominate me, act as a mentor figure. sollo is 90% gonna be a catalyst like this.

opportunities multiply as they are seized - sun tzu

invisible costs are the most dangerous because they go unnoticed.


invisible costs are dangerous

shoutout to the starbucks baristas that greeted me with a smile and i didn't feel a single bit out of place as a nonpaying customer ordering water.


kindness is warm

"why are you reading in my class?" mr sun, gr 7 math teacher, would ask.

"ms munro says reading is good for learning," i would say. ms munro, my english teacher, let us read in her class.

he would look at me, mouth open, eyebrows slanted downwards, and i would put the book in my bag.

he turns back to the whiteboard. next problem: if 4x+5 = 17, what is x? oh this question is a bit harder than the previous ones. there are 2 seps. firs u subrac 5 from boh sides. 4x+5-5=17-5. please i want u to show this step before simplifying to 4x=12. [1] now divide both sides by...

in chem now, gr 12, i notice myself doing the same, keeping my head up, tucking my phone ino my backpack so ms woods doesn have a chance o hink im no paying aenion. i old myself los of reasons why i should: if ms woods sees ha im no paying aenion she migh feel bad and discouraged from eaching as well, creaing a worse amosphere for classmaes ha wan o learn if hey see me blaanly working on sh else, if his was prisonner's dilemma id be defecing on cooperaors, i he oxic polluor of a common resource. besides, if i lisen, i migh learn somehing i mighve no oherwise, if i really commi o rying every problem she gives a 0.5x speed. a learn habi o feel guily when i don pay aenion, im a bad misbehaving kid.

bu i noice i am bored. ive been doing a variaion of his for he pas like 2 years, or like pas 12 years bh, and empirically i don learn much. i am unsimulated and do not feel desire to do problem, bc i look at new problem and can immediately see the whole solution. he slope of ez-> hard is not steep enough.

bu by defaul, i suck i up, sare a he eacher w a smile on my face while resenmen builds up inside. by dfaul, i make my exisance more painful for no good reason. [2]

[1] wanting to make meaning out of this, i convinced myself that this helps me avoid errors. as i grew up, high school then ap physics and calculus bc, was never told when i could stop. walked into first month of physics writing out all the steps i believed necessary before i realized i wrote 2x the steps as my classmates.

(then when i wrote my first research paper, realized id appear dumb to my colleagues if i showed too many steps. assumed scientific knowledge in every paper smh)

[2] ideally id get a mcat chem book and read that during class if i find class unstimulating. maybe do problems here. and if im acually doing advanced chem then fuck everything i will jus no pay an blaanly. idk in pracice how well i can do his since noise and some pressure o keep 20% of my eye on he board o know if we move ino unfamiliar erriroyr. bu we'll see.


unlearning masochism

showed cerave lotion to mom j now and it's worth sharing parts of ur life w her

how will they believe ur responsible if u dont show em ur Ws

i made a budget of my gap year but they dk


share more with your parents

so j now i was all motivated and gonna pump out those 3 blog posts and write the descrip of the babble page i see it so clearly in my head, then i can do cinderella's dead 30s vid then espr app then uni vid discussion then mega long hs reflection + video. i jump out my bed. my thumb on the home button of my galaxy j7, a discord notif so i scroll up and read the latest msg on aoc, robert asking galen about some lesswrong post about a tree diagram. my thumb swipes right to check for any other unreads in servers i lurk, KSJDKFJSDKKSDFD i slap my thumb. the phone slips out of my hand. fuck you. gosh. INSTANT passivity/seeking comfort mind state.

so THIS is how i spend 3 hours scrolling insta reels sitting on the toilet before showering. sth sth avoid that just now bc paying attn to my internal state/feelings @harry


seeking comfort on autopilot is dangerous

something feels bad about spending $ without an income. like it's just uncapped burn?

maybe this'd feel better w a budget. at least this is capped burn.

sollo berkeley i wanna keep under 3k. 750 is rent. 300 is burn money i can do wtv no qs asked. $400 for social things, more would have to come from burn money. $40 for altruistic purposes.

fligh id wanna keep under 500. (nope undoable let's say aim for 600, but 700 max)

food (nonsocial) les j say 70/week = 300/month.

transportation id give like fuck ubers. i would bart/bike. id give 100 for (group) ubers and 150 for bart transport. (can be underesimae.) more would be from burn money?? hm idk if that is reasonable. ok feels under so. eh more would be if i fucking fail on ime and have o individually uber, or if i wanna ravel o ucla or sd or sana monica. so had be burn money. so his is 250.

gym membership id give i 60. ugh can be more bc init fee.

phone plan and w sim card i'll say EV 50 but might be up to 70.

i would budget so ik where i went over.

**ok that adds up to 2750. sure. ok id wanna x1.1 for cushion. 3025.**

penaly for going over budget is i somewhat lose integrity in myself if it was human error. or if budget was unrealisic in first place, good data for future.

# is this how i wanna burn my atlas money

roughly atlas money id wanna spend it on

-   living
-   projects/hardware (arduino, wood, vr headset)/upgrading laptop/film equipment
-   tuition

proportions of 3 would vary (ex gapping w alright job and side gig vs gapping w startup or gapping w side projects or going to school for 4 years)
for living, i am comfortable with spending 5-10k/year (non-uni years) on living. 5-10 depends on whether id uni or not (if i go to uni id give like max 20k to tuition). if in 4-5 years i still cant pay for living costs comfrotably then idk what im doing (not worth the security net that far out to sacrifice current shit anymore).

id expect like 1-3 years with living support would be enough. and rest projects.

so 5-10k this year. (no ur not fine w higher u want $ in later years too stop the excuses. yes in future years even if i can pay to live, 5-10k to work on projects burn for a year or 2 is fucking dope wtf)

id feel comfortable with 2k burn on summer travels (id probably afterwards settle at ascension or bangalore or sth longer term and wont move around for another at least 3ish months but probs half a year to a year if bangalore. 3k is 30-60% so stretching it but the most id take. the rest would have to be like, earnt during the time there.)

i guess i dont feel comfortable with this 3k burn on 1 month bc it's 30%-60% of my atlas budget for this year or smtn.

update 1 week later: actually now i feel like comfortable with it. bc i have a few job prospects. and if i go to uni then im like good financially (it's 5k per semester for everything), and i'll still have some room to like buy my own stuff. if i gap i will 80% be doing it on salary and not atlas burn.


sollo berkeley finances // may 2023

a working doc

most numbers are 1 sig dig

there is >50% chance i made a core oversight

# basic needs

-   rent: 1k-2.5k a month probably closer to 2k-2.5 atm (if i wanna group house). say 2k for ev. -> 24k
-   food (cooking): hm farmers markets in chinatown are great, can probs eat healthily at $40/week. (buy lots of fruit and noodles and rice and bok choy and tofu, can eat less meat i wanna be pseudo-vegetarian anyway.) this wont actually happen unless im aiming for this, by default id go to the food basics near my house that my roomates go to and it'll be up to $100/week. let's say ev $70. -> approx $3500 (flagging this feels like an overestimae)
-   transportation (local): in toronto it's 150/month (cad) for transit. idk about other cities. nyc is 127. bart is 165. boston is $90. london is £94.90. i'll leave some room for jesus and call it 150 -> 1800
-   clothes: idrk but guessing max $30/month -> 360

# non basic needs that would bring me joy enough that i wouldnt feel financially secure till i can comfortably afford these

-   food (going out): i dont wanna be stingy socially as a general rule bc that shit creates resentment. i dont wanna be stingy on tips bc [i care abt cooperating in PD](/essays/civilizational-inadequacy). each time going out w friends for a meal ranges from $15 (chinatown) to $40 (italian pasta). usually like $20-25. going out once a week seems like maximally reasonable. going out once every 2 weeks probably wont create like resentment. also bbt which can be like $10 each run. so maybe let's count like $60/month -> $720. hmm this number is calibrated in canadian dollars. so i'll say 500 annually as a straight conversion of usd, but intuiion says it'll be more like 600
-   transportation (travel): my ideal lifestyle would be moving to a new city every few weeks or every few months. every ttim ei ttraveled in the past i exceeded expectations so i have high priors on how much id spend. let's say like idk anywhere from 4 to 10 flights a year, average flight being like 400 for cross NA and 150 for same-region-of-na and like 800 for cross continent. i call big flights the 400s and 800s, let's say sure 4 to 10 big flights or sth. let's call it 4000 then leave some room for like ubering or wtv costs so 5000. [can omit this and just live in boston or bangalore or sf for a year w like 2 round trips home, this would be 1.5k then.]
-   gifts: bc of some law of power and feelings, i dont wanna be stingy on gifts. other people are one of the things most spending money on. yk how warm it feels to feel taken care of. so let's say idk anywhere from 3-10 friends and like ev 40 on each gift for like1.5 gifts a year. -> 420
-   patreon: rn i support 1 creator 2 usd/month. i have at least 5 id support. lowest tier might be more than thatt. 15-30/month on patreon. let's say 25. -> 300
-   wtv monthly subscriptions: spotify premium, auible, amazon prime, wework (?), i wanna have freedom to get shit that improves my quality of life. wework is too expensive so id omit. the others are currenly like 25/month. give me room to double that -> 300-600
-   wtv donations: i want freedom to support causes i believe in. ideally wren climate thing id offsett at least my own carbon (like $40/month). + some otther stuff (charity water?) up to $40/month i guess. 80 -> 960
-   mistakes: $40 uber to the wrong location, $100 taxi to ewr bc nj train didnt run at 2am. more mistakes will happen. $500-1k/year
-   the whatever fund bc i probably undercounted. one time purchases like a chair. random painings or aesheics hings i find beauiful i should have freedom to buy. $500-1k/year.

so far it costs 39k/year to raise a laura. we can say 40k. for more "whatever fund bc i probably forgot sth" and bc i am confident abt this to 1 sig dig.

(tbh i think the "whatever fund bc i probably forgott sth" should be like 3-5k lol)

(i probably won't gap if my burn rate is 40k/year on current assets. (for reference my current net worth is like 56k, 54.5k of it is currently nonliquid.) which means i need to get job to at least break even, or live in india or sth)

# not crucial but part of my ideal medium-term (ex. if i gap for more than a year) lifestyle

-   spontaneous shi idk: $160 to visit mit for one day, $110 to niagara falls for one day. $1-2k/year
-   projects/buy hardware/tech upgrades idk: $1-2k/year seems reasonable but like up to discretion can use atlas money comfortably
-   invest: everything else but ideally like 5k/year or sth for retirement into index funds bc compound interest
-   savings: i wanna have like 1 year of runway liquid-ish at all times ideally (rn more like 3-6 months is good but in the long term when i can afford, have 1-2 years)


finances

i walk out of saint germain's carrying my pink lady (grapefruit drink). it's tart yet sweet, like the sting of a freshly cut pineapple soaked in salt water. i set it on a trash can, try to stab in the straw, but the lid flies off, toppling the cup sideways. by the time my brain reacted to pick it up, its about three quarters spilled. the juice pours down the side of the trash can, puddling on the floor. it takes 24 paper towels to soak it all up.

i go back, ask the cashier for a refill. i think about how it takes a certain mindset to be the kind of cashier who says "i have to ask my manager," as opposed to, say, believing that giving customers a refill or not doing so is better for the company, and doing it anyway, ready to defend the decision later if questioned. he comes back, his manager said no, eyes downcast, apologetic.

i sip up the remaining few sips and realize that im perfectly happy not getting another 400 mL of sucrose solution. i discovered a unique drink for $4. this quarter cup provided like 90% of the utility of drinking the entire cup.

david perell in his [28 Pieces of Life Advice](https://perell.com/note/28-pieces-of-life-advice/):

> Most of the pleasure in a dessert comes in the first three bites. After that, you should stop eating it. As a reward, you can eat dessert more often because you don’t binge it

I think this applies to like, not just dessert, but like, eating out in general. Where most of ur utility comes from first quarter or half of the food. I craved chinese noodles (the thick ones wiht soy sauce) and i ate leftovers, which were like 20-30% of the whole meal, and it was enough. by the end of that, i was already tired! and if id eaten more, it wouldnt have made me actually feel better. sth sth average portion at restaurant too large, and if u order a too large portion id just eat and eat and eat till its done on default. eating it on autopilot, or to give u sth to focus on when the conversation isnt the most engaging.

almost always better to split a snack or drink or even meal w a person/a group of people. the slushy at staten island w olga zdneck and uliana. the meal at chinatown w sigil matthew amy. u get a little bit of the drink or the you tiao and congee, not enough for it to be "just eating it," but enough to soak in all the flavours.

the problem w cravings being that even after the craving is satisfied you keep eating more.

when ur not sharing w others, the internal awareness to recognize when ur full, ask the server for a takeout box, eat the rest later in the week. i think this would be the play in the future when i have my own fridge. i get an extra meal out of each time i go out and i save my stomach from being stretched thin.

eating one oversized spaghetti plate alone (the default):
![graph 1](/images/babble/eating-out/1.png)

eating one oversized spaghetti in 2 sittings (or splitting with a friend):
![graph 2](/images/babble/eating-out/2.png)


get takeout more often

i hate the irony where you ghost the people u care about. so rn i have like 6 new insta dms and like 59 on discord, then michal just emailed me asking to read his blog post and chat (he actually first emailed last week but I DIDNT SEE IT). maybe half of these ppl i want to hold a long convo with, catch up since i last saw her a year ago, hit him up on the offer to travel around europe tgt, show her that i reciprocate her thoughtful response and write sth back thats interesting. alvin you typed out 3 paragraphs abt penn entrepreneurship for me and now i feel the spark in the air again when i was 13 and wanted to make sth real in the world and now maybe if i go to penn it can happen! junzhi dming to ask why im stressed abt course selections, holding my virtual hand thru my paranoid explanations. andrews toronto jokes ahaha. these penn 26ers that made the server warm and welcoming and i want them to know the emotional impact of this, say sorry that u talked to me when i wasnt my best self, hey if u meet me in person next year im usually not this disengaged. michal and 3 hours at the new office, i can get a job in australia for a gap year why the hell not, the radiant beam thru all of zapata and i actually love him sm but his email sat unread for a week. i feel overwhelmed w messaging ppl recently, i wrote in a hasty apology, and im not sure what to do about it. crystal put this well:

> sometimes i end up ghosting the people i care most about because i want to reply Interestingly and Well to them. comparatively shooting off a yeah for sure to acquaintances requires less effort

ive been one foot in one foot out, not fully committing this moment to texting, half of my brain wishing i was doing sth nore productive. i see a notif from naman or audrey or janet i wanna give a thoughtful response to, and _hey nows not the time for texting_ so I'll do it later when i can commit.

by default, i ghost some of the convos i want to have the most. idk what to do abt it, bc i am physically incapable of having every text convo i want to have. i have a limited supply of friendship to give and current demand is higher than supply available.


i ghost the people i care most about

_BABBLE IS NOW DISCONTINUED. IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT I'M UP TO, MSG ME ON DISCORD AND I'LL SEND U SOME ESSAY DRAFTS, THEY ARE BETTER REPRESENTATIONS OF ME & MY WRITING I PROMISE_

--

Generating ideas often follows the process "[babble and prune](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/pC6DYFLPMTCbEwH8W)." Babbling is generating lots of mostly-bad ideas; pruning is filtering for the best ideas. [1]

This is my babble room. This is where I dump lots of raw ideas in pseudo-blog-posts, most of which are bad. Many have poor grammar and punctuation, or contain takes that I thought about for 2 hours and might change my mind about 2 days after I write the post.


Babble Room