Blogging through the next 28 years

I tried to start writing this on my twenty-eighth birthday and then I stopped. I’ll leave the title and the themes the same nonetheless. I’m trying to build a new life for myself. One where I wake up and feel happy with who I am. I make my bed in the morning and feel a sense of comfort and reassurance from knowing that I’m taking a good approach to what I want out of this one life’s worth of time.

I suppose I should move to San Francisco. That’s where you gotta go if you want to make the biggest difference in your career in tech, so many people will say. But who knows? Uma Thurman never lived in Los Angeles, but she’s gotta be one of the most successful actresses of the past few decades.

I feel thrown off a lot by all the other stuff going on in life, the basics, like food and sleep and exercise but then sometimes when I’m getting those basics right I still feel thrown off. I have a gross uncomfortable sensation at boxing my life in by some kind of strict routines. I didn’t always feel that way. Maybe it’s something to do with life since I moved here to New York City.

I need to figure out what I want to do and I’ve spend a lot of the past few months of my life doing that. I still don’t know exactly what kind of company I want to build and what kind of impact I want to have in my life other than the basics, but I find the pursuit of long-term goals difficult to focus on in the day-to-day. Somebody asked me five years ago what my five year plan was and I didn’t have an answer. I don’t really mind that I didn’t have an answer but I can also see how that’s impacted my life in less-than-the-best ways in the years since. Maybe I have a bit more concrete of a five year plan now.

Here it is, espousing my goals and values simultaneously:

I want to keep building my skills in the technology sector. I want to be totally AI-fluent and a capable builder in the field. I want to make money that enables a life in which I then worry a lot less about money and just focus on the most effective uses of my time. I want money to be a null point.

I want to build a startup again that points in a powerful direction and leads me to a good place in life. I want to stop having to feel irritated so often by the style in which I make change and adapt to new patterns in life. I want to feel absolved of the struggle and ugliness of the past decade of my life. It’s been weird for a while. I don’t feel like a good person a lot of the time. I want to make friends that feel good to be around. I feel strange even writing some of this out because these goals have been so strained and repeated.

I had some ideas about companies I would want to build but I kind of forget what those ideas were now. One of them was like a payment networks company, another one was a smart glasses software company obviously, and then another was like AI infrastructure. I used to be really interested in renewable energy. I don’t think I want to get back to that now.

I need to become less frantic and have more calmness as a mature stable adult again. I see too many silver hairs on my head and I know how my day-to-day life contributes to that. I gotta figure out a path forward that allows me to mind my health and take good care. I’ll figure this out. I have a growth mindset toward this process.

I almost feel like I don’t want to nail down one particular thing I “want” to do or want to accomplish because then it’s like that idea, that goal, can hold me hostage for weeks, months, years, twisting my life in ways that wouldn’t happen if I followed the natural momentum instead. It’s a tough one for me to figure out. Where does all of this stuff land, you know? How many times will I turn to my journal or markdown file in VSCode to write out my thoughts and solidify a clear direction, only to feel just as pulled and torn about by the whims of life? This is a tough puzzle. The weight of human existence hits hard sometimes. Being human is hard.

I feel some relief when I write in this blog. I can document my ideas as they unfold. In one of these posts coming up, I’ll try to have more coherent ideas about what I want to work on and whatnot. I don’t think I want to work on space tech, now that I thought about it more. Not now at least. It’s too out-there. I want my life for right now and for the years to come to be more grounded than space tech. I’ll always think it’s cool but it’s not the right next step for me now. This is tough, but I’ll figure it out. I could keep striving for opportunities in fintech, consumer and enterprise AI, AI & Data infrastructure, and other stuff. I gotta keep thinking about this and exploring all the kind of companies that are even out there right now and in need of building. What does the world need? And what would I like to do?

Talent, passion, opportunity. Find the intersection.

I’ll keep doing my little one man consulting firm stuff for now. We’ll see where it goes. I’m happy with my work so far and I’ll keep growing and contributing to more organizations hopefully. I have Ruslan, Brandon, and Ruslan’s friend to pass work off to if I need to at any point.

What do I really need to figure out? Where to spend my time, when to be there, and how to keep growing no matter where I am. I think I know the answers to each of those questions so well I don’t even have to recite them. What I don’t have a particularly good answer to is what I want to build for myself. What’s the next company that would be a pleasure to work on? I don’t know yet. I know some companies I definitely don’t want to work on like JOVR or certain crypto projects, but I need to figure out the positive side. What DO I want to work on? I need to see. I need to increase the surface area of exposure I’m getting to different ideas right now. What do I need to build? What does the world need that lots of people would pay money for because it’s that valuable? I can figure this out and build something great. I know it.