What God has in store for me is greater than what I planned for myself, and that is why He has destroyed my plans and turned the future into a mystery.
great moment in every optimizer’s life when he finally runs the EV calc on running EV calcs on everything, realizes the whole thing has been catastrophically negative EV, deletes the spreadsheet and goes outside
It is very easy to get stuck into an energetic posture of "trying to surrender" without actually surrendering, stagnating and blocking your energy flow.
Deep breaths, relax, surrender. Don't hold on.
"With all its eyes the natural world looks out into the Open.
Only our eyes are turned backward, and surround plant, animal, child
like traps, as they emerge into their freedom.
We know what is really out there only from the animal’s gaze; for we take the very young child and force it around,
so that it sees objects — not the Open, which is so deep in animals’ faces. Free from death.
We, only, can see death; the free animal has its decline in back of it, forever, and God in front, and when it moves, it moves already in eternity, like a fountain."
- Rilke, Duino Elegies.
@JackOfFaces When natural virtue faded, morality was introduced.
When morality failed, ritual and ceremony were imposed.
When ritual failed, laws and punishments were instituted.
When laws failed...
Once you stop idealizing it and simply take Action to Become It, it will finally be yours and the meaning it carries will totally lack the charge you hoped it would.
But you'll be there.
The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen.
Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation).
Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there.
Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI.
As a result,
1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb.
Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more.
2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future).
Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire"
3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed.
Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies.
4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either.
No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money."
I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here.
Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success".
Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.
Your actions (habits) are a confirmation of what you truly want in life.
It’s like the difference between thinking about reading a book, and actually starting to read it.
Manifesting is about DOING!
The beach is not going to come to your couch no matter how much you affirm. 😂