I don’t think I’m very good at making things
I.
maybe I’m being too harsh on myself. But I do truly mean it, and it hurts my heart to say it. I’m reminded of this article on AstralCodexTen where Scott wrote about his desire and incapability of being a mathematician. That no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn’t get himself to like math.
Well, I like computers. I think I’m pretty OK at my job. At the things I have experience with (namely databases, vector search, web stuff and ML) I’m actually pretty good. But then again, it’s not that getting here was a drag per se, it’s just that I’ve been noticing that I’m naturally good at other things, and that I’m not so naturally good at the things related to my job.
II.
To start off, I’ve always been more enamoured by the idea of doing science rather than by doing science itself. That’s evidenced by the copious ammounts of edutainment I watched throughout my adolescence, as well as by how much I liked reading Isaac Asimov.
I got an 800/800 score on the Math section of the SAT, but that was after three tries and numerous simulations at home. My first score was around 550. Getting an 800 on the SAT was a real grind. It was cool because I saw that I was getting better, and I thought that maybe that’s what I would need to finally advance in the long journey towards understanding Maxwell’s equations, Mechanics, Biology and all these other wonderful intricate things about the universe.
But computers are too much fun. They compute graphics, colors, and give me instant feedback on stuff. I like to feel like Ed from Cowboy Bebop. In fact, I like to feel like everyone from Cowboy Bebop, which makes sense because that’s my favorite show ever.
Turns out, doing science is boring as shit (at least most of the time). What’s more: there are infinitely many wonderful things to discover in the world. More, even: you don’t need scientific knowledge to enjoy the fruit of so many things. You don’t need to know the chemical composition of the atmosphere to enjoy a beautiful sunset, and you don’t need to understand the psychology of learned helplesness to know that your friend is not doing well.
Therefore, scientific knowledge is not at all required for the enjoyment of the wonderful fruits of life, and its presence in the act of enjoyment might even be discouraged, fearing it might taint the experience. Still, you can’t accomplish anything without knowing science. You may not even be able to plant the tree from which to take your fruit. “But Igor, the indigienous pe—” Shut up! They had science too! Just not your bastardized, huff-post induced Science™. Of course, they weren’t doing neutreno detection on a hydron collider, but they had a method for experimenting with the world and updating their models of how it worked. Their methods fit their life. That’s pretty neat.
The implications of this idea are severe. It means that I must study science, even if it’s boring, simply because otherwise it’s hard to build anything that will allow me to plant trees ergo enjoy their fruit. Another implication is that I don’t need to study all the science. I can study it in chunks, depending on the things I want to accomplish.
The caveat here is this last sentence. It assumes I want to accomplish things. As I have already established, the only thing I want to accomplish is to be a Space Cowboy. I don’t see inherent meaning in building a table, or a keyboard, or a connection-machine. Even if I concede these things are all cool pieces of technology.
III.
I’d like to be a Space Cowboy because the world is a wonderful, infinitely intricate place. I’d like to see all the planets and biomes and different people that live around here. There needn’t be Science Fiction, for there are still places wherein a McDonald’s hasn’t been constructed. Though most of the world has been dominated by Capital™, places are still places and there are many wonderful things to be discovered.
We simply don’t know that because we are glued to our senses all the time. Worse: we’re glued to our desires all the time. Still, this is a topic for another moment. For now, suffice to say that we keep moving forwards with what we have.
Ah, man, I wish the internet were a more civil place. It seems like we fucked up somewhere along the line. They got us in the cyberspace, even. Again, I’m getting carried away.
…
I dont think I’m very good at making things. But now that I think of it, maybe no one really is. I’ve worked at top500 companies, top VC-backed startups, I’ve been to one of the best CS department in the world, and I’ve been coming to the realization that very few people are actually “cracked”. Very, very few. To the point where maybe in a total of one hundred early employees at og-YC companies, maybe a handful are actually that good at everything.
There is a kind of person with a stare that makes any problem find itself naked on the stage. It’s that simple: they look at the problem in such a way, they strip it down so fundamentally, that the problem is now naked under the spotlight. And it spits out the answer out of embaressment, just to get out of that situation.
Even then, that’s not enough because you haven’t looked at why poeple became good at the things they do. Especially in tech and engineering, it’s usually not a good outlook. What you’re basically trying to gauge is whether that person became good at tech/eng because they wanted to do philosophy and couldn’t find money in it, or because they hate themselves so much that they see no other option other than to keep collecting corporate or academic gold medals. There are a lot of such cases.
I much more respect the vagabond film majors, with their pretentious new-agey outfits and third-spaces and art exhibitions. At least they are honest about having gone into film to get women.
To be truly amazing, one must have gone full circle: to have seen the value of science, to have seen how much people hate themselves, to have swung to the other side of the pendulum, and then finally to keep on developing their craft. I think I’m lost somewhere in the middle of all of this.
IIII.
When I say I’m not very good at making things, I simply mean that I’m not good at taking things to completion. I have had jobs before, and I rarely excelled at them. I know I said I was pretty good at my job just a few lines ago, and I am. What I mean to say here is that I was always late, and I procrastinated to oblivion, and I would do careless mistakes which I knew how to prevent. I don’t know what to do, so I fuck up. Maybe I’m not so good at my job, in retrospect. I’d just like to do something that actually helps people and is cool, and maybe hopefully be a Space Cowboy eventually.
Again, where are we going with this? Is any of this useful, at all?
Conclusion: I’ll keep programming computers because I think they’re cool. I have no commitment to it. If they ever stop being cool (to me), I’ll stop programming them. For now, I hope I get to make a living, and hopefully study cool things throughout.
My thanks to Neel and Gui for proofreading this essay. Feel free to take anything with you, just say hi if you do :)