i’ve always enjoyed thinking about things more than actually doing them. take writing as an example. this last year i wanted to write more. some things i did instead:

• spent many hours obsessively configuring a new markdown editor for undistracted writing
• watched many youtube tutorials on said editor
• watched many youtube videos on writing, notes, productivity, etc.
• set daily writing goals
• built a custom jekyll site from scratch with many, many hours spent on the design language, font choice, color scheme, etc.
• curated playlists to listen to while writing
• bought a two (2) new journals

the list goes on. so, let’s tally up the writing i actually did now!

• one (1) semi-finished post on low-rank adaptors
• around ~20 hand-written journal entries
• 3 unfinished short stories
• one (1) bad essay trying to draw an analogy between backtracking in dfs and retrospect/greener grass thinking

oop.

to my credit, this was mostly compressed into the first half of the year. my june-october 2024 yc epoch was a markedly single-tracked existence. i’ve been a little bit better about making time for system 2 + creative thinking, but as of yet have not made any grounds on improving my writing output.

i’m hoping in a few months i can point to this piece as the inflection point at which my writing took off. time will tell!

and although my writing sucked, some cool stuff did happen!

1. pre-yc, i was on track for a 50+ book year. it’s looking like a ~30 book year instead, but still not bad. some of these really shook me up to be honest. but that’s what i was looking for (insert kafka quote about reading)
2. i got really into cognition and understanding how human intelligence works. almost moved to new york for it (long story). initial notions have had time to percolate and are beginning to formalize. will hopefully have some essays out on this in the coming months.
3. i learned to be honest with myself about doing the thing. after my initial disappointment over my lack of progress this year, i was really tempted to fall back into my old patterns (set a new year’s resolution, write this same essay on jan 1st, end up not publishing it for weeks, etc.) but no! nov 23rd at 10pm is the inflection point i choose.

and if you’re reading this, and you saw something of yourself in my list of things that are not the thing, i’d like to remind you that today can be your jan 1st too.