Hello. If you’re reading this, you’re alive, presumably. It’s been a long week, so make sure you’re sitting down— and hey, grab a hot beverage. Rest a little while and think about the fact that you’re alive: that’s temporary, and you’re spending your time here? Then shrug, smile, and dive in anyway.
That’s the story of my favicon, anyway; it’s what I feel the main goal of this small space on the Internet is. What would yours look like? Last week, I wrote about imbuing a space —my dorm room— with meaning in intentional fashion; it seems only right that we impart meaningful principles to our virtual creations as well. That’s part of the reason I changed my Twitter icon a little while ago; it used to be an impersonal, amateurish insignia I drafted up (in, probably, a halfternoon.) I want to approach the Internet with as open an intent as I can muster— so why not match my outward appearance to those ideals?
For completeness, here’s a side-by-side:
Upper: old Twitter profile picture; Lower; new Twitter profile picture.
Here’s another comparison, this time of my attempts to become a third Winklevoss twin:
Upper: me just having left a Dorm Room Fund informational meeting; Lower: me halfway through the rowing team’s swim test.
One is mind, more or less, while the other is body, but there’s a necessary synthesis of the components to achieve anything meaningful; that’s something that I’ve tried to keep more front-of-mind recently. Beyond a certain necessary level, it’s foolish to trade off sleep, nutrition, exercise for work output; anecdotally, I’m less effective, and that’s backed up on a wider level by a wide number of studies. If it worked, I’d do it— but it doesn’t, and it’s a fallacy I need to remember to avoid.
Personal News
This is particularly true as I delve more deeply into my schoolwork; many of my assignments are cumulative/long-term, and there’s a lot to do outside of class. That means uneven distributions of time, as hard as I try to prevent them, and the most common negative result is (and has historically been) that I’m up late. But I don’t make good decisions then; I’m ineffective when I’m tired. So preventative measures are necessary, and they’re only mitigated by addressing the root of the problem: the fundamentals. I’ve written a little bit about diet and exercise previously, but in this case, the one that matters is sleep.
Morning crew practices start the day before this newsletter goes out, and they’re at 5 a.m. four days a week for the time being. So that’s likely going to be a little tricky, seeing as I’ll have to leave Brooklyn around 4:15 (wake up at 4:00) to make sure I’m there on time. Next week, I’ll update with how it’s going.
[Update 09-16-2019: woke up, back very sore from workout previous day. Probably using too much back. Handled boats, mainly, didn’t get in the water but learned all the procedures. Tried Mocha Soylent as I walked back to Brooklyn; I’ll be honest, not as good as the Cacao flavor.]
I have been taking the subway more than usual, with some more varied routes (sometimes by accident,) which is largely a result of me traveling back and forth between four or five different locations: my dorm room, my parent’s house, different sections of the school campus, etc. taking the initiative in different respects. Last week, I wrote about how I’ve been busy; this week it seems necessary to dissect why I feel that wide distribution of time and effort is rational. To do that, I’ll need to explain one of the rough guidelines I use to think about these decisions on a wider scale. That’s Moonshot Theory.
What a moonshot is, assuming you didn’t do the assigned reading, is exactly what it sounds like: an unusual allocation of resources with the aim of producing an outsize, similarly atypical reaction. The term is drawn from one most preposterous, and yet successful such project: the Moon landing. Here’s the basic concept: according to the Pareto Principle, generally, a fairly small percentage of any given input controls the majority of the outputs. If you have a sizeable allotment of resources, therefore, you’re not spending them best by dumping them all in the same place. For example, if you’re Google, or if you’re an investment fund, at least part of your capital should be spent trying to find those individually unlikely scenarios with possible outsize outcomes. That’s how I think about it, anyway; that’s what I’ve decided makes a reasonable heuristic: Moonshot Theory.
Applying this on a smaller scale, to a given person, the conclusions are obvious: if you have enough capital (by which I mean time, energy, and money) to do so, you should spend part of it on things that you don’t think will work, but that would yield great returns if successful. Besides, they’re learning experiences.
Even more specifically —examining my activity through this lens— to me it’s inarguable that some distribution of my comparably vast resources should be spent on moonshots. For me, these are as follows: I collaborate with my friends on blogs, on comics, on music that I go in knowing will never get off the ground. I run a chess blog and a fiction site that will never get traction. I write this newsletter each week; taking into account the insular subject matter and small audience size, that’s probably an objectively poor decision. But starting things, even the weakest forms of them, I find rational; moreover, I find it necessary to function properly. Humans are built to create, to self-express, to learn; why channel all that power into the most traditional of pathways?
I’ll concede, though, despite that heavy-handed rhetoric, that it would be a bad strategy to take only bad-odds, high-risk bets— but the mindset is applicable beyond creative projects. Quick example: it’s possible to apply not only to staid jobs or internships, but to reach to things you’re probably underqualified for— extra credit, surely, if you demonstrate an ability to solve the problem. In all areas, sometimes it’s worth trying to be the exception— both because sometimes it works, and because it’s analogous to dealing cards: you get more information, and that makes your future endeavours more productive.
I wish that school was better at encouraging this idea of exploration, particularly with regards to subjects that are already taught, like reality-adjacent English; nevertheless, the failure of imagination isn’t the only very real roadblock. Personal space feeds into this, which is why I’ve been thinking so carefully about my dorm room, as does the necessity for internal motivation. Perhaps most important is the idea that we’re —by-and-large— the average of our closest friends, and it’s hard to find similarly-driven people to work with and around. Outside of trying to remedy these issues directly, though, which is often difficult or impossible, what can we do?
We can take away some of the stakes, whether it’s a project or ourselves, and just attack the problem in whatever way we’re able to: the personal version of doing things that don’t scale. Just keep doing it; always be doing it, and build up the ability to recognize when you’re truly on to something. That’s what I intend to do, anyway; that’s what I’m doing now. I’m a crusader.
[Brief intermission: several of the linked posts in these link-dense paragraphs are an emphatic H/T to the brilliant What Should You Do with Your Life? by Alexey Guzey. Read it, then the rest of his site.]
Here are some of the side benefits to this scattershot method of work: it’s often more productive, because you’re procrastinating not with meaningless crap, but by taking rewarding gambles; it’s a completely different frame, and it feels much better than watching or scrolling without intent, because things are being accomplished in the background through sheer momentum. It’s procrastiworking, but intentionally so— within a loosely defined structure. You get things done when you didn’t even mean to. It’s not ideal, but it’s something; ergo, it’s not a waste.
Having a number of side projects —moonshots— makes you more effective. It’s another step towards unlearning what school does teach us: to procrastinate unintentionally and without fallback plans. Invest your resources more effectively; reduce your burn rate. Then each time you reach the core, kick back up through the outer layers you couldn’t bear to start on in the first place. Inception your way out. That’s what I do, anyway. Sometimes I end up playing speed chess, but it’s a hell of a gambit.
So what am I procrastinating? Let’s skip past the (now!–)common, easy book chapter (which I mention, briefly, only because I feel it’s important to me.)
I did a lot of ancillary effort this week: sending out some internship emails, filling out paperwork, writing some project applications, finally starting to put together a résumé and LinkedIn account. All of that feels like a lot like treading water, but will allow me to move a little faster in the future, I think. A few of these are simply one-time background things I’ll have to periodically update (my time-tithe to Reid Hoffman’s empire, for example) but I can elaborate a little on the specifics: the rowing team, a radio show, an automotive engineering project team, and some prods at the jello that seems to constitute venture capital.
None of that is common for me, or particularly easy, but it is boring, so here’s a fun thing I did amongst all that clerical busywork: I arranged some meetings with friends (and thought, hey, why not my Twitter friends.) From that success, I set up a Facebook group for sharing interesting opportunities and working on cool projects— and a few people joined! (If you’re interested, reach out; I’d rather not stick the link here for the time being.) This started with DM-ing a few people the Dorm Room Fund application and realizing it took too long: so why not engineer a more effective solution to the problems I’ve described above?
Links
Sidenote: I’ve decided that reading I’ll probably write more about in the near future will be tagged [Earmark] for convenience; the other stuff is still great further reading, though.
If you’re interested in reading even more about procrastination, and preferably a more levelheaded take on it, I highly recommend Tim Urban’s explanation/advice: The Procrastination Matrix.
If you care more about those building blocks I mentioned at the outset —the seemingly boring-but-necessary tasks which constitute vast percentages of our lives— there’s a James Stuber post tailor-made for you: Master Boring Fundamentals.
[Earmark] If you want more specifics on the toolbox I’m trying to build, and the general philosophy I’m taking towards hewing a career stack, you might be interested in Marc Andreessen’s thoughts on the matter: Guide to Career Planning: Skills and Education.
The Music Report
I’ve been playing You Spin Me Round on repeat recently; it’s a great song for working to: upbeat enough to keep me motivated, relatively constant yet with enough variation not to wear thin.
In terms of playlists, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 69 Awesome Mix is about as complete as it gets— when I’m looking for that general vibe, I’ve been browsing through and queuing up a few tracks.
The Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack is a nice compilation for ambient video game music. Each Galaxy has its own recognizable feel, and it’s neat to listen for the reoccurring themes. Plus, if you’re up against it, boss battle music always helps.
Finally got around to re-listening to Masks and Mirrors by Robert Leslie; funnily enough, it’s the one record I own on vinyl: I bought it from him for twenty bucks while he was busking at —I think— Christopher Street about a year ago. Apparently, he’s been doing this for a while, which is pretty cool if you ask me: drop a listen!
I’ve been working to catch up on the Reply All back-catalogue I’ve got downloaded; as always, I went on a little bit of a Breakmaster Cylinder tear.
It’s worth mentioning that some percentage of my music listening is done via the channel 8 Bit Universe; I’m not often in the mood for chiptune, but when I am, they scratch that itch with, for example, The Avengers Theme
In the same vein, I often listen to unreleased/obscure Eminem tracks and freestyles on YouTube; recently, for example I’ve been captivated by his opening verse on Hellbound. (Similarly, here’s a brilliant remix of Forever with the Macklemore track Wings.)
If you’re interested in the full details, here’s the weekly list.
Top Ten: YouTube Channels
Save those for the breaks you take intentionally, not the ones you fall into by accident. Climb out of that coffee cup, towel off, and fix your hair; we’ve got work to do. Keep at it— I know I will. Good luck.
Orion Lehoczky Escobar