A new day. Yesterday I entered rage mode at work when a couple of ideas collided in my head (productivity + dating site prompts + behavioral change) and I hammered out a blogpost. I then posted it on Hacker News and it got to the front page. The whole thing took me about fifteen minutes from the point of “activation”. What I want to do is to create as many of these “activations” as possible. I think the chemical reaction metaphor might be valid here- put two or more things together, right environment, maybe a catalyst and boom, exothermic reaction, lots of energy.
Some people say that you can’t schedule inspiration. Yup you can’t, but you can schedule these collisions- which may or may not take off. What I do know is that I rarely, if ever, get these collisions while surfing the internet. Yesterday’s collision was partially inspired by thinking about dating sites, but the second half came entirely from coffee and a few sentences of Founders At Work. I don’t even think those sentences mattered- I can’t remember whether they were- something about workong in weird conditions. It got me to decide to immediately ship what was frothing about in my mind. Done. Ran upstairs to my office and hammered out the entire post on one sitting, without pausing to worry about formatting or even spelling.
I suspect this word vomit format is what triggered many of the ADHD diagnoses I got on Hacker News. This is something I’ve been deliberately practicing- raw volume at the expense of almost all else. The idea is this- you can’t write a million words and not be somehow changed by the process. So I’m doing 1000 word vomits of 1000 words each. It’s something I can get behind and be excited by even when it seems a little daunting. There is no doubt in my mind that writing is going to be a big part of my life until the day I die. The doubt lies in what to write about. Writing as a tool of exploration (both Paul Graham and Venkatesh Rao have described this, and you can consider this a +1) works for me. It helps me think. But it also led me full circle into questioning its own limitations. How much can you write about if you’re stuck in some sort of rut? Eventually you have to get out of it and do or see interesting things so you have interesting things to write about.
Anyway. I’ve been down this path before. Just because you get significant public attention doesn’t mean anything at all. In fact, as Nassim Taleb warned (I got to meet him when he came to Singapore recently!), it can distract from the work that needs to be done. And I do have work that needs to be done. At many scales. I started out writing about the local music scene in Singapore. I got tired of that. Then I started writing about local politics. Got tired of that. It’s a losing game. You get drawn into petty, personal arguments instead of getting anything meaningful done. So now we come to procrastination, which I think is one of my deepest problems- something I’ve spent years thinking about, and something I think few people have really spoken or written about in a way that is compelling.
I’m beating around the bush. Let me be clearer. I want to be a procrastination success story, like one of those before/after fitness people. No, I don’t want to be a person who makes money as a life coach/strategist type person. I want to be a person who clawed out of the pits of procrastination and help others like me to do the work they want to do, sans cheese.
The main thing going in my life right now ia my job- I have the honour and privilege of working in a great environment with people far more talented, disciplined and intelligent than myself and I want to help them be successful. I want to make them proud and earn their respect and admiration. Sounds cheesy but it’s true. I’ve cut myself off from my old social circles, which was somewhat traumatic (but also cathartic).
I have a lot of work to do, a lot of writing and thinking… mostly writing.
I’m trying to talk about two different things here- the work I need to do, and how blessed I feel at getting responses from people. Let’s focus on the latter. I promised $100 to the best solution to my problem and I plan to make good on that promise. I have some attention here spilled over from the HN hits. I’m going to seriously try and review as many solutions as I can.
It’s possible that the best thing I got out of all this is actual people online throwing their weight behind me, telling me that they’re in similar situations, that they feel like they’ve got the same problems. That might be all the motivation I needed. I wrote that I needed help no human could provide, but it seems quite likely that I undetestimated humans. I’ve only interacted with less than 0.5% of humans, after all? How could I possibly claim that there’s nobody out the who can help me?
Yes, I know, nobody can help you if you don’t help yourself- they can lead you to the water but they can’t make you drink. Anybody who’s said that has never picked up smoking. Peer pressure is a very powerful thing when it comes to getting stuff done. I have a bunch of people who’re keeping an eye on me now. Me and my wife like to joke that one of the main reason our relationship works so well is that we’re doing it to prove that it can be done- almost more for others than for ourselves. Deep down I think there’s a part of me that doesn’t care very much about anything at all. I don’t need to prove anything to myself, because myself doesn’t care.
My self-worth is a strange thing. Even when I’m confessing to my failures and weaknesses, deep down I think very, very highly of myself. Is this good, bad, right, wrong, stupid, arrogant, uninformed? I think it’s possible to make a compelling case for any of thode claims. I believe that I can survive any personal failure because there’s a detached part of me that doesn’t really care what happens to me as long as I’m alive and things aren’t too chronically painful. (I think chronic pain is the key- I tolerated some toxic relationships for a long time but eventually they started to be just… in the way of me living my life.)
So maybe I’m writing this to reconcile my supposedly limitless self-worth and the chronic annoyance of being limited by my own procrastination.
For the longest time I was bumming around and I was convinced that bumming was good, bumming was fun. I romanticized Diogenes– that guy who lived in a barrel, wanked in the marketplace and told Alexander the Great to gtfo. I could do that, I thought. Spout witticisms, get all the upvotes, renounce the trappings of power. Mock them from a distsnce. Live a simple life of coffee and cigarettes, beer, books, philosophical arguments.
But what happened is- I got tired of bumming, and thought hey, let’s see what it’s like to get up and work hard at something. Let’s build something cool, like when we (the many facets of me) were a kid. Lets go for a run and feel the sun on our face, feel our lungs heave, break a sweat. Let’s travel and see the world beyond our borders. Let’s go talk to people and make a difference of some kind. Let’s do something interesting.
The bum says no. The bum says we’ve been chilling here for so long, surely this is our natural state! Surely we’re happy the way we are. Doesn’t it feel good to just sit back and relax? No bum, I’m actually quite sore, and hungry. I think I want to do some other things. NO, says the bum. There’s nothing out there! It’s all a sham. It’s all illusion. The world outside the cave is ugly, fake. Here it is cool and dark and comfortable. If the bum had some drugs, he’d take them out now. C’mon, what are you so cranky about? Smoke a cigarette. Chill. How long do you think it’ll be before humanity gets past Nation-States?
Those are parlor game questions, bum. They used to be fun to contemplate but now… now I think I’d rather do things then talk about them. We’ve been talking philosophy and theory for so long. Don’t you want to test these ideas outside?
THERE IS NO OUTSIDE! yells the bum. You will die out there. This is all you’ve ever known. This is the life we were born to live. This is our home. We are brothers, you and I. Nobody out there cares about you the way I do. Nobody else will be there for you the way I am.
I need to go, bum. You have to let me go.
You will NEVER succeed! You need me, bitch. I am the blood in your veins. I am the language of your lips. I have held you in my embrace in your darkest fucking days. You owe me. You owe me more than you can ever repay. And you love me. You love me, as I love you, you know it. Why are you making this so difficult? Nobody else will ever know you like I do- as deeply, as intimately. Nobody else has seen you broken the way I have. Who will hold you? Who will save you? You will be empty without me. Your victories hollow, your life bleak. You will be stuck on a hedonistic treadmill, always trying to keep up. You seek the life you mocked before? I was with you then! It was your idea! I supported you then, how can you leave me now? You’re a selfish little cunt.
I’m sorry, bum. I’m very, very sorry. I have nothing but love in my heart for all that we shared together. But I have to go. You have to let me go.
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