planted july 2026 · tended weekly · the graveyard at the bottom is the proof i mean it
aim
what matters most right now? that's the whole question. everything else is scheduling.
a fast life pointed the wrong way is just an efficient mistake.
how you live your days is how you live your life. what you do every day is your philosophy - the rest is commentary. (annie dillard said the first half better)
"the cost of a thing is the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." - thoreau, walden
"how would the person i want to become spend their time?" - nir eyal. i ask it most mornings.
systems
willpower is a design failure. anything i have to remember to do is already broken.
build the system, not the outcome. outcomes are what systems do when you're not watching.
if you solve the same problem twice, you've chosen it as a hobby.
legibility is a trap. the most valuable things in my life would look like waste on a spreadsheet.
the smarter you are, the better the story you can tell yourself for skipping the boring thing that works. never outsmart yourself. (sahil bloom's intelligence paradox)
my best ideas show up bored. so boredom goes on the calendar.
i keep a written list of the ways i'd ruin my life. i read it on sundays.
skin
an opinion without skin in the game is entertainment.
the market is the most expensive place to learn who you are. still cheaper than not learning it.
the more news i consume, the less i know. most of what updates daily doesn't matter, and most of what matters doesn't update daily.
never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
live like a barbell: boring on 95%, feral on the rest. the fatal mistake is being mildly risky everywhere.
"wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire." - taleb, antifragile. be the fire. want the wind.
the body
the body is the last honest feedback loop. everything else can be gamed.
it is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing what his body is capable of. (socrates thought so first - i just agreed with my whole chest)
nothing about a clean rep is casual. effortless is what volume looks like from the outside.
desire
most of what you want, you caught from someone else. audit your desires for patient zero.
competition is proof you couldn't find your own game.
status games are zero-sum, wealth games are positive-sum, and most dinner parties are the wrong game played well.
envy is the only deadly sin with no upside whatsoever. don't feel it, don't feed it.
the past is spent. anger, jealousy, and cynicism are ways of spending more on it. aim the energy forward.
the dangerous life
comfort is a ceiling that looks like a floor.
a life where nothing almost kills you is just a long wait.
"live dangerously! build your cities on the slopes of vesuvius!" - nietzsche, the gay science
i judge decisions by the story they'll make. cowardice has never once produced a good one.
the occasional bender is load-bearing. structure only holds if the pressure has a door.
be dangerous on purpose and gentle by choice. the order matters.
obstacles are gifts with terrible wrapping. they arrive exactly when you need defining.
the unlived life is the only debt that compounds.
against the grain
asking for permission is paying a tax you don't owe.
credentials are receipts for obedience. keep them in a drawer, not on a wall. (mine says summa cum laude. who cares.)
i've never regretted going against the grain. i've regretted every time i sanded myself down.
"the first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." - feynman, cargo cult science
"you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time - most people don't even try." - sam altman, how to be successful. ask for what you want. the rejection is the cover charge.
"make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal." - hunter s. thompson, age 20, in a letter
machines
everyone just got staff. most people are about to discover they never learned to delegate.
when the cost of information goes to zero, liability and trust become the product. ai commodifies the work - it does not commodify the blame. (i wrote 2,000 words on this)
agi will reveal which jobs were always absorption businesses wearing information-business costumes.
everyone's building copilots. the money is in building priests.
the killer app of personal ai isn't productivity. it's continuity and alignment - a self that doesn't reset every morning.
"writing is thinking… there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing." - paul graham, writes and write-nots. ai made everything else free, which makes writing the last paid skill.
when anyone can generate anything, a verifiable life becomes the only signature. these notes are mine.
what i carry
proudly taiwanese. the island teaches you early that existing on your own terms is itself a stand.
generosity is the only networking that compounds.
"you are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept." - taleb, the bed of procrustes
and one i carry rather than argue: "no weapon formed against me shall prosper." - isaiah 54:17
borrowed
frames i run on that i didn't have to earn. the link is the point.
sahil bloom's twenty paradoxes - the obvious move is usually the wrong one; the people who win learned to invert. the four i actually live: sprint like a lion, say no to almost everything, slow is how you speed up, and know your death to use your days.
things i've changed my mind about
struck through, dated, left visible - being wrong in public is the tuition
be a visionary → i'm an integrator. the visionaries need me more than i need their title.
hustle is a virtue → hustle is a tax you pay for the systems you haven't built yet.
"luck engineer"(my actual old website's headline) → luck is a system property. build the surface area, stop trying to engineer the collisions. (steven johnson got there from the other direction: "chance favors the connected mind")