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For a long time — for most of my life — I believed that my inner state should match objective reality. First, it seemed more honest. Second, I thought it would make me more effective, since I’d be aligned with how things actually are.
But given the last few years, when objective reality has been pretty bleak, I’ve come to understand that you can’t mirror objective reality if you want to get anything done. You have to make sure your inner state is as resourceful as possible — not as accurate a reflection of objective reality as possible. You have to do everything you can to keep yourself in the best shape you can. And if things outside are a mess, the inside doesn’t have to be one too.
It’s dumb, but I only just realized that doing what you feel obligated to do and doing what’s important - what actually moves you forward - are completely different things. And it’s hard, because when you don’t do what you feel obligated to do, you feel bad.
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Skateboarding gives me structure, focus, confidence, and the feeling of being seventeen again, none of which have anything to do with how well I skate.
Today feels like spring #dailyphoto
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Orange people #dailyphoto
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Impressions of yesterday. #collage
I’ve started new thoughts thread about what skateboarding means to me. Not how to ollie. Not how to not get hurt. What it actually means to stand on a board and choose something difficult, pointless, and entirely your own. On fear, identity and time.
I try to capture everyday moments as an exercise in managing my attention
For long-term results, you need to do not what’s most effective, but what you can do every day.
I finished listening to Philip Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect. It’s an unpleasant, rather boring and repetitive book that I probably wouldn’t have read if I were reading it on paper, but during my commute or while driving I operate in a different attention mode, and I listened to it from beginning to end.
It’s unpleasant, but undoubtedly important. It’s a thoroughly illustrated argument that any person is capable of cruel and vile acts under the influence of a situation, and “any” here means “any, including me”, not “any, but not me, I’m not like that”. Despite the fact that some logical transitions and arguments seemed strange and excessive to me, it all sounds, of course, convincing.
But what I’m thinking about after it is this: in creating situations where ordinary people torture, humiliate and kill other people, Zimbardo blames not only the system, but also specific people who form the system, climbing higher and higher up the chain of power (in his case it ascends to President Bush, but for my reasoning this doesn’t matter).
Suppose we reach the end of the chain, to the person who turns out to be responsible for everything. It appears that Zimbardo’s reasoning somehow doesn’t apply to them, and their motives for committing evil are different, but what are they? I don’t believe it all comes down to this person being pure evil, that would be too simple.
This question seems more important and relevant than ever to me, but Zimbardo doesn’t seem to address it at all.
I failed at writing large, polished articles.
So I decided to try writing thought threads, sharing how my thinking develops, without pretending to be someone I’m not.
Since New Year I’ve been going to the gym. I thought it would be boring, but I run there happily. No super results yet, but still.
Figured out why: I’m training with a personal coach. He plans the program, tells me what to do. For an hour I don’t have to make any decisions, just execute.
As much as I’d like to think of myself as a super-agentic person, turns out this gives me a lot of rest. Was unexpected to realize about myself.
Finished the first part of my new project. It’s nothing fancy yet, just a clock, but I have quite big plans for its development. I’m an almost total beginner in electronics, so I learned a lot from this project:
- how to program ATtiny85 using Arduino Uno as a programmer;
- how to use DS3231 timer IC;
- how to use transistors to control current;
- how to use a power block to power your circuit (instead of Arduino);
- how quickly everything can end up in a huge mess and that there are never enough breadboards..
And it would have taken ten times longer without Claude. It helped me to design a scheme, to choose components and to investigate and debug problems. It answered tons of my questions about how things work, why it suggests using some unobvious (for me) components, and while some electrical stuff is still quite unclear for me, I learned a lot and I hope to improve my understanding.
It’s a really great and empowering way to use AI to create projects in areas which are new for you, and not get stuck forever in obvious beginner’s mistakes.
