#27 On working out what you want

Stephen Cope really hits.

Dec 16, 2023

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

I’ve been procrastinating writing this newsletter for 6 months. But within reading 5 pages of Stephen Cope’s book, “The Great Work of Your Life”, I put it down, opened my laptop, and finally started typing.

I’m so tired of not doing what I must do. I don’t want to wait—my time passes with every moment. I have no time to wait.

But what is it that I want to do?

Who is it that I want to be?

I joked recently that my goal in life is to become an intellectual tech bro.

It’s true. I’ve been obsessed with science, technology, and the future since before I could read. As a four year old I begged my parents to stencil astronauts onto my bedroom wall. We had mars on one wall, the moon on the other, and a mobile of the entire solar system on the ceiling. I slept under the stars.

When I could read, I read encyclopaedias cover-to-cover: I wanted to understand everything about the world—why it came to be, how it works today, and where it’s going. I’m lit up by discovering the kernel of an idea—the “aha!” moment that happens when you understand the simple generating functions behind complex real-world processes for the first time.

To me every intellectual discipline is a kind of game. But unlike pure scientists who are led entirely by what Feynman calls “the pleasure of finding things out”, I’m also wired to win.

My favourite games are those with clear winning conditions. The desire to understand the world drove me to physics, and my love of winning, of Being Right, is what kept me studying it.

I think the happiest I’ve ever been is solving physics problem sets.

It’s intensely intellectual work that demands complete focus, and you know that the Right answer is out there waiting for you if you only dare to grasp it. Bouldering is a similar pursuit.

The second happiest I’ve ever been is probably writing words that will eventually be published online—like this newsletter.

There’s a fury and flow to the way I write.

When I finally get started and put fingers to keyboard the energy flows out of me like a dam breaking and I can write and write and write, like Jack Kerouac, except nerdier and with fewer amphetamines.

I feel I must write, but beginning to write is torturous. The hardest thing in the world is holding myself accountable.

Physics problem sheets have deadlines, but I’m not at risk of losing social status by not publishing this newsletter. I’m only at risk of letting myself down; of failing to fully express myself, of shuddering away from my inner “calling”—what Cope calls the dharma. But what is it that I’m called to do?

It’s OK to want to be right

It’s taken a long time to admit, but Being Right is a core motivator for me.

I amass all this information so I can understand the world, describe it accurately, and have a well calibrated view on where it’s going. I write down my thoughts partially to express them, to understand what I think, but also because I think other people will benefit from reading them.

Put another way: I have an inner sense of grandiosity. I really do believe I have something valuable to say.

I see I have no choice but to embrace this motivation. I’m embarrassed by it. I wish I were more noble, more humble.

It’s cringe to think other people might be interested in your unusual curiosities.

But for people who stick at it, their curiosities can grow into their entire careers. To summit any spiritual mountain worth climbing, you first must pass through the valley of cringe.

It’s interesting to attempt to reconcile two apparent truths about myself:

I think I know better than others1
I am extremely open to feedback2

The synthesis is that I know better than others, because I care deeply about understanding how things work, and I am open to feedback because I believe taking on feedback and putting it into practice will get me to understanding faster.

I think I was put on this Earth to understand the world, and use my understanding to help people. But how should I help?

Many people who care about understanding the world remain in science, but I tried that and don’t have the disposition for it.

I’m too impatient, and I’m too impulsive, and I’m too promiscuous with my interests.

I think most parts of science are not working on important things, and of the parts that are (AI, biotech, nuclear, maybe more) I’m unwilling to invest the multiple years required to retrain.

I don’t want to dependably plow a furrow in a corner of a subfield of a STEM discipline. I want to understand how the entire world truly works, from subatomic particles, to startups, to societies, to supernovae. Like I said, I’m grandiose.

Ok so I understand something about my core motivations. My daily drivers.

I want to understand the world, and I want to help people, and I want to win.

What is it that I want in life? What is the long game?

I don’t want fame—I just want to be able to have generative conversations with interesting people.
I don’t want riches—I just want enough money to sustain my comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle, and maybe one day own a home (or two :D ).

What I really want is to express myself fully; to love, and be loved: I want the freedom to be truly, unabashedly myself, and I want appreciation and admiration from dozens of people who I appreciate and admire in turn.

I want to live a full life.

And I want enough of a network to be able to talk to hundreds of interesting people, and I want enough money to sustain my upper-middle-class lifestyle.

And I want to help people.

So macro long game:

I want to express myself, love, and be loved
I want to help people
I want to align my life energy towards making the future tangibly better.

Micro day-to-day:

I want to play games with winning conditions and win them
I want to explore my curiosity and learn about how the world works
I want to learn where the future is going

Constraints:

I want to have a family and grow old to see my kids grow up
I want to make enough money to sustain my comfy lifestyle
I want to have a deep enough network of smart interesting people so I can have generative conversations multiple times per week.

Having written all that down, it feels like I am so fucking close to living the life I want.

So close. But in the tiny gap between heaven and purgatory is an eternity of anguish. Of clenching, clamming up. Although I know I’m close, I’ve been sitting in this anguish for so long. I’ve not quite been being the person I should be. The person I need to be.

Career callings

Software Engineer. Product Manager. Investor. Founder. Inside which of these career categories lies my calling? Can a calling ever exist within a career category?

Ironically, I’ve been contemplating a career transition, but “growth” probably is a good career for me.

“Growth” is a systems problem. The best growth practitioners are generalists by definition: they have to understand the whole system because the levers of growth can come from anywhere.

I’m sure Zuck didn’t think he would be bringing internet to billions more people when he founded Facebook—but once you’ve blasted through all other constraints, it turns out the best way for Meta to get more DAUs is to create more internet users and convert a fraction of them into Facebook users. Maybe one day Meta will encourage pronatalism in order to grow DAUs. The system is constantly changing, so the levers of growth change too. It’s a profession of continuous learning.

Whether “growth” is the right career for me, a profession involving systems thinking, continuous learning, and helping teams of people win certainly is.

So what does a week in the life of the person I am destined to be look like? Maybe it’s something like this:

Host fun, intense, memorable events for friends, doing activities I enjoy, like skiing, touch rugby, and having long conversations about ideas
Be an amazing partner and eventually father so I can earn an amazing partner and eventually family
Write online and truly let it rip, so I can fully express myself and attract like minded people
Keep playing sports like touch rugby and skiing and pushing myself at them
Find or found a company that is definitely making the future better in specific ways, and requires lots of data and analysis, and grow it

This doesn’t seem far from where I am today. But I sense in order to fully surrender to this life, I have to give up all the other shiny potential lives it seems I could lead. Lives that are actually for someone else.

Having written all this out, it does feel cringe. But it feels true, too. I wish I could see further down the path I’m taking. But you can only see clearly backwards; you have to blindly stumble forward.

It seems I now know something about my motivations, and the kinds of work I like to do. Now I need to know where to direct them.

What are the specific ways I care about the future the most? In what ways am I Definitely Optimistic? There are a few:

“Decentralisation tech”—Giving individuals more power in relationships with large institutions like big companies and governments
- exit: making it easier for people to start businesses, homeschool kids, grow own food, move countries, start countries, and generally avoid coercion
- voice: making it easier for information to flow bottom-up within communities, organizations, and networks
“Abundance tech”—Increasing the world’s supply of cheap energy, creating cheap, scalable ways to decarbonise and reverse climate change, and automating rote work to unlock human creativity to do more interesting things
Promoting the ideals of freedom of speech, of transaction, of information, and the principles of charity, kindness, and love for one’s fellow man.

Easy enough to write down, but harder to actually enact. As Sam Altman once famously posted: “The great end in life is not knowledge, but action”.

I haven’t quite been living my own life. Time to get started with it now.

Thanks for reading. I don’t know where this newsletter is going, but I have a feeling I’m going to be publishing it more often. You are welcome to unsubscribe at any time.

But—if you’re as curious as I am about where I’m going, I hope you’ll stay. I think it’s going to be fun.

about things I care about.

at least, this is what people tell me.

Between the cracks

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