A tour inside my brain, as captured by my journal:
June 24, 2021
#createvideosinpublic was a success. The draft I tweeted accumulated more views than any finished youtube video.
I got the idea so I just tweeted it.
“Impulsively.”
Shows the importance of Scott Young’s “do the real thing.” Bias towards action.
Sometimes I lose the will to live. It’s nice to look into my happy box. Or check twitter replies to your videos.
I thought my video was pretty bad with noticeable audio static but no one pointed it out. A boost that most people won’t notice 90% of the flaws you see in your own work.
Quote I saw today:
Free yourself from the need to be right —Seth Godin
June 28, 2021
Zapata Day 1
TL;DR: Hazy
Would this be a successful internship if every day is like today? No.
Why not? Not taking ownership, “Today is my first day and Idk what I’m doing.”
Bullshit.
Dec 2022
A 30 min investigative journaling youtube video can go pretty deep into roblox’s corruption but is not long-termly fulfilling because it doesn’t make you work hard? It doesn’t make you critically think, and you don’t feel like you’re growing, you know that 2 weeks later this time won’t have much ROI and that’s a scar across your soul. It doesn’t make you sweat for the information like a research paper, or provide the technical rigor that makes breakthroughs satisfying.
Duolingo 10, or even 30 mins a day is not that bad. But any time over, and def over an hour, becomes a hedonic treadmill for XP. That’s how long it takes for you to lose sight of the bigger picture, and get consumed by desire for shiny object.
March 14, 2022
I once had the mindset to relentlessly code out every task that came to me. But recently, I've been a bit reluctant. After wanting my work to be impactful, I questioned, how much would people want an Updately mobile app? If no one is going to use my chain rule Fourier gradients, why bother? Maybe this has been paralyzing. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to start React Native or talk to [NAME] rather than going into it. Jump in, don’t romanticize. Opportunities are just as much created as they are found.
March 15, 2022
By confessing, by facing rejection head-on rather than hiding behind a screen or an April fools joke, you take back the reins to your own happiness. LIke this, facing rejection head-on is empowering.
The fact that your problems stem from our own actions shows that your actions can address them. Defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy, says The Precipice.
March 31, 2022
To be able to be happy without money is better than having money itself, Seneca writes. So I guess to be able to be happy without [NAME] liking me, to love myself is better than [NAME] liking me. The former is a permanent renouncement of all the dukkha that comes with wanting, the latter a temporary patch on an unbounded desire.
May 11, 2022
please i hope to double down on listening to french for tmr and fri and this week. once listening is down, i’ll feel a lot more confident about C1 because big hurdle over. on the contrary, i don’t think reading more without listening will give the same. i found listening fun / exciting today. i think i'm on the edge of a breakthrough.
So much joy is lost in our desperation to keep it / cling onto it, I felt that today. The joy I think we both get when solving the gamma function of _i _because we are curious, the imagination to propose the question, the curiosity to want to know the answer, the audacity to dive in–the last one especially, valuable energy he brings. “School doesn't make you learn just gives a basic extrinsic motivation to learn.” I daydream, imagining possible futures. Why? To cling onto, relive the good feelings? Will I always just keep wanting more, even when I have all that I wanted a 2 months ago? In chem kinda not wanting to answer all of Emma’s questions because wanted to keep an eye on what [NAME] was doing, that's suffering. I sorta ignored Gloria / hurried to rush off because wanting to grasp every moment together, that’s suffering. There is a lot of self-imposed suffering in my life.
May 17, 2022
Optimizing for tests is shitty but so is all work in their own unique way, thus we suck it up and commit ourselves fully to what we promised to do.
I dislike feeling the fear of making mistakes, a source of some recent anguish especially when doing practice tests. It tightens my chest, makes my soft flesh body go all rock solid like I’m holding in constipation.
How to live better despite fear of mistakes:
- realize the irrationality
- accept the negative visualization
- the ephemeralness of it all. even if I pass C1 or the plaque for avogadro? now what? will i feel my Harvard chances boosted (no. i didnt with NLC)
- Just don’t have that worry, because you can control your feelings but not the outcome / can be content w putting all of you into shooting the arrow & u don’t need practice test good score to know that you put your all into shooting your arrow
June 8, 2022
Spaced rep / active recall actually helps so much. I think it’s the 3rd day of going through vocab list and re-looking at words I had no idea of, and for like 80% now I just see the word and a meaning pops into my head? Idk where it comes from and it’s great.
June 22, 2022
Groupwork is fulfilling in a way that working on my own cannot be. Sketching golden ratio rectangles with Quan, blown away by Emma’s storytelling that first time I fell though the empty black block, Emma saying she loves our game and I do too – our love for our creation intertwine and multiply with each other in a way that is impossible to happen for something I built alone.