When I am negotiating on my own behalf, I often feel uncomfortable with the process, as I feel like I am becoming greedy in this process. Yet, when I talk to others about their own process in salary negotiation, it is often less about the salary and more about the feeling of respect and validation that one is doing their job well.

And I think a large part of the personal negotiation process is about gauging your own value and worth. It feels like it is about respect, appreciation, and your own value in the eyes of the other and broader society. It’s an easy metric.

Part of me thinks that I should escape this mindset. I should not think about my own value in these terms — it seems weak and superficial at first glance. My instant reaction is to take a step back and think about whether a number is enough in an absolute sense, rather than a relational one. Because a large part of negotiating is by referencing others in your environment (whether it be company valuations, people, roles, etc), and trying to establish your place within that environment.

But when you become accustomed to this mindset, you start to view your own identity and the identity of others in these relational terms of success. The consequences of such a mindset are obviously quite damaging to your idea of self-worth and happiness.

In any domain, there are the market-makers and the market-followers. Sometimes, the market-makers are innovators and visionaries who transform the world. Other times, they just happen to be the ones with the biggest poker hands.

To be an innovator or visionary, you have to act antagonistically to the market trends many times. You have to overcome the feelings of value and relational respect to pursue something that no one else gives a shit about. And sometimes, the tide will shift in your direction. Other times, it won’t and you will drown. But to the true visionary, does that make a difference?

But many times, while I can follow the discussion surrounding the theories, the mathematical formulas for me are very hard to understand and decipher. I often feel like a student that I am tutoring in math, one that is largely disoriented by the technical language and techniques.

Teaching Language

Currently, I am tutoring two students. One is a high schooler who does not understand math, the other is a “junior higher” who does not speak English. The high schooler is actually quite good at “in-the-head” math — he can multiply and add numbers in his head very well. However, he has a difficult time understanding the language and process of math. Using the example of addition, he tries to add several 4 digit numbers in his head instead of laying it out on paper in the standard vertical structure and adding them.

This is just a structural representation to understand how to accomplish a process. It is the same with complex formulas and breakdowns. They are just symbols to represent precise mathematical operations. It is a language that requires translation.

As I learn a language (such as mathematical expressions) or words/types of language (like the wording and terminology in research papers) I begin to gain a quick heuristic of what this symbol means. There is a representation of this linguistic entity in my head that I no longer have to work to formulate.

I find that I tutor both of these students in a similar manner. This manner is one that employs the use of similes, metaphors, and translations to effectively communicate the content of the language. This allows them to build a structural understanding of the grammar in their head.

The Mindset of a Beginner

Since a beginner does not have the structural representation built in their head, they will have to ask many questions to build it properly if there is no easy metaphor for a foundation. The perspective of a beginner is essential in the learning process for the expert, as they will consider many things that the expert has not considered in many years (if at all).

Some of the hardest questions that I have attempted to answer have come from the youngest pupils. When one asks you what multiplication is and what its purpose is, it forces you to think deeply and exercise muscles that have not been used in a while.

But in order to run at the speed of expertise, you cannot pause to walk through all of these fundamental foundations of knowledge. You have to use the building blocks that you have amassed to build new theories — and new ideas. But when reconsidered from the perspective of the beginner, some of these building blocks may need rebuilding.

The Economy of Knowledge

I think that language is the foundational building blocks of knowledge, as it is the medium in which we tend to build the representation in our head. It is the way we communicate how to build these ideas, learning them and transmitting messages to others.

If there is an economy of knowledge — language is its currency. It is the output that is produced and the data that is consumed. Sometimes we do not share our knowledge, we keep it to ourselves. This can be beneficial in some circumstances, but detrimental in others. Sharing knowledge and communicating establishes trust. Without this trust, you can harm your ability to operate in certain environments.

Sharing language allows us to establish heuristics, frameworks, and building blocks that can be shared amongst one another. From this language, experts can be built and beginners can be taught. It creates a pathway of knowledge that can be followed by another person.

Language can also seem to be overvalued when it lacks internal content. We all have met people who sound really smart and know how to employ the tactics of language — but the content that they are speaking is actually not substantial. Or similarly, they can repeat/regurgitate knowledge of other people through their speech — but the knowledge is not their own. They truly don’t understand it, they are just speaking it.

The Future or Knowledge and Automation

We are now entering an era when knowledge will be consumed and produced by artificial agents. And as we enter this era, we must consider the harms that may befall us when we start to optimize for output, rather than the content of knowledge itself.

For instance, in the domain of marketing we have started to see automated content generators. These AIs can produce blog posts and social media content that can seem knowledgeable — under the guise of another person or organization. This is optimizing for the appearance of knowledge, for the purpose of establishing trust in the broader community. But this sort of trust is superficial — it does not say anything about the person/organization if they do not truly contain that knowledge themselves. In order to exhibit ethical responsibility, we must consider that we are using content automation to speak about ourselves and our own ideas effectively to establish the right sort of trust.

This can also be seen in the rise of academic automation, where we start to optimize for our output as researchers. Relying upon automation to help us synthesize ideas is one method, but riding on AI to write and prove results on our behalf will end up self-destructing our own ingenuity. The work will not be our own, and our own expertise will decay.

Being an Active Contributor to the Economy of Knowledge

When it starts to become so easy to rely upon automated sources of knowledge, we should attempt to dig in our heels and remember to exert ourselves like a beginner. The beginner is the one who seeks to learn, understand, and ask the right questions. Some of the best innovators are the ones that are difficult beginners — they fight against the status quo and ask many questions. They are often labeled as the ones with a learning disability because they think differently or ask too many questions.

And these difficult beginners are incredible experts because they have built the building blocks of knowledge with their own hands. They have questioned every corner, know every piece, and often have invented the theories themselves. And when we attempt to throw together building blocks with AI, without truly knowing what they are, we start to separate ourselves from true expertise.

We can’t learn everything. And it will be incredibly beneficial for us to rely upon AI to speed up our research development in certain ways. But we must not get so lost in the pursuit of progress and output that we lose sight of our own content, one day discovering ourselves to be trapped up on top of our apparatus of science — with no one who knows the way down.

I have started to release myself from being detail-oriented when studying certain concepts. I don’t try to learn individual things, but more general concepts and frameworks. I think part of this comes from an effort to let go of stringent perfectionism, which is the enemy of general knowledge acquisition.

As humans, we cannot keep and store every data point. There is value in forgetting, as I wrote about previously. If an exam requires you to remember notecard knowledge — memorizing data points instead of applying concepts — then that is a terrible exam. And I think I should be ok with not performing well on that. That is a useless type of trivia knowledge — one that a search engine can easily replace.

This is like a sports player on the court trying to memorize and replicate exact movements on the court. There are times or “moves” that are generally good. However, the situation facing you is different every time — nothing is identical. The best sports players are the ones that are fluid in their movement, not trying to rigidly apply what they “memorized” in practice.

I used to be too rigid of a sports player — and I have worked on changing that with my mental fluidity. Now, I don’t try to dive into all the specifics — rigorously structuring and memorizing practice problems. Instead, I must trust myself to perform in the moment, relaxing like a fluid player on the court.

I have started to volunteer as a tutor again recently. I have found that doing this gives me a lot of joy, to help coach and teach others. Additionally, it is a good practice of my empathy, understanding how the brain of another works, while allowing me to practice the “Feynman Learning Technique” on different topics.

For a lot of the people that I have tutored, I think that “not understanding” is a misnomer. For a lot of topics in high school and college, I had a hard time “understanding” them. I remember struggling a lot with polynomials in high school, and the laws of inductions in college’s discrete mathematics.

The way that my brain operates, it tends to ask more questions when it sees answers. This often left me feeling confused about a topic. But I realized that a lot of the people who are “smart” or “good at school” have brains that aren’t oriented toward asking questions. They tend to be good at following processes and repeating them. This is not bad, it’s just a different skill.

I believe that a lot of really “creative” and out-of-the-box thinkers struggle deeply with school. They ask so many questions about things, they are often confused. This confusion can lead them to become unwilling to accept the practices that are taught to them.

Now, this is not to say all people who struggle with school are hidden creative geniuses, and not all people who succeed at school are process-oriented thinkers. I just think that the way our educational system is designed, it tends to award one type of thinker more than another.

And I don’t know how I would design it differently, it is hard — if not impossible — to award creative thinking with external incentives. It is also hard — if not impossible — to measure creativity. But I think that the tragedy lies in the lack of belief that some “lost” creative thinkers have in their own abilities.

Prometheus was a Titan — part of the ancient beings that preceded the Olympian gods. Prometheus’s name has origins in a Greek word that mean “foresight,” or thinking beforehand. This is in stark contrast to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus, whose name has origins in the word “afterthought.”

With this, one can draw the conclusion that Prometheus was a reflective being, one who thought about his actions before carrying them out. He was one who could foresee consequences, one who could assess the risks while weighing the reward.

And in Greek mythology, Prometheus faced the utmost consequences for his actions. Upon taking a liking to the human race, Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gifted it to the humans. This fire represents knowledge, technology, and civilization. It was a flame that ignited innovation and scientific progress. It was a gift that no other animal on earth received.

And for his actions, Prometheus was condemned to eternal torture by Zeus. He was bound to a rock on a mountain, and an eagle would arrive everyday to pick out his liver and eat it. As a Titan, Prometheus was an eternal being, so his liver would regenerate at night only for the eagle to inflict fresh punishment the next morning.

So, one may initially propose that Prometheus is a self-sacrificial hero. A hero that foresaw the consequences of the gift of fire, but still followed through with his actions. A hero that brought civilization and knowledge to humans, and rebelled against the “selfish” intent of Zeus.

But not everyone agrees. Mary Shelley is one of those, as she alludes to in her book The Modern Prometheus — more commonly known by the title Frankenstein. She tells the story of the young Dr. Victor Frankenstein — the obsessive scientist who creates a sapient being out of his ambitious experiments to pursue knowledge.

Victor becomes repulsed by his creation, and the creature itself is left unloved and uncared for. The creature haunts Victor’s life, and Victor is bent on killing it. Victor dies in this pursuit, warning others to seek “happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition.”

The story of Prometheus has also been referenced even more recently in the book American Prometheus, a biography of Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer led the Manhattan project, a scientific collaboration which resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb. This bomb was a mechanized Frankenstein, a monster of innovation with weighty moral implications.

And we can see the common theme in the wariness surrounding Prometheus’s gift. The pursuit of knowledge has dangerous consequences. The gift of fire has kept us warm — but it also has the potential to burn us and turn our civilization into ashes.

It is important to distinguish between the pursuit of knowledge and knowledge itself. The heat of ambition usually lies in this pursuit, but there is a certain coolness to the knowledge itself. The slogan “Move fast and break things” alludes to this pursuit, the brokenness is usually felt in the moment itself.

After a great achievement, there always follows a moment of “Now what?” There is quiet in this moment, it is highly uncertain, it lacks direction. In these ways, these moments are actually quite similar to that of great failure or loss.

I believe that true foresight is having the ability to sit present in these moments — before they happen. It’s not looking toward progress for progress itself, or building up a grand vision to pursue. Instead, it’s about being present here, and then being present there — but not in an idealized “there” but a true “there.” One that still contains the brokenness, uncertainty, and quiet that much of the present contains.

As humans, we have an imperfect memory. We forget people’s names, we forget what we were supposed to be doing, we forget what we learned in school. Our brains are finite machines that have limited memory storage. We are naturally bound to our hardware — and sometimes we wish we were not.

As someone who loves to learn and grow in knowledge, I have often wished that I could overcome my humanness to learn EVERYTHING. But recently, I have become more receptive to the power of forgetting.

Forgetting can be healthy.

Oftentimes, negative experiences make a bigger impression than positive ones. Our biology is wired to make us stay alive — and stay away from the negative experiences that could kill us. Good experiences make a smaller impact, while medium experiences may never be saved in the first place.

And when you continue to save negative memories at a higher rate than positive ones, your library becomes increasingly negative over time. In the path of my own life, I do not want to continue holding on to many of my negative memories. This negativity can impact one’s present outlook on life. I sometimes attempt to re-frame these memories into a more positive light — but this requires work and a lot of practice. So sometimes, it may be healthier to let them dissolve away instead of forcing it into a learning experience.

Forgetting is efficient.

Our brains are computers, and they cannot store everything. If we forget a lesson, chances are that it is not that important to ourselves. We learn through repetition, and if something keeps occurring we will learn from it. This becomes an important lesson to store in our heads. Forgetting reduces the stress workload on our brain.

Many of my high school classmates have remarked that they have forgotten all of calculus. This is probably ok — the use cases are limited and few in their life. It becomes more important for them to remember how to do their taxes, or properly perform in their jobs. I have also forgotten parts of calculus — but the important parts that I still use today are still stored securely in my head.

Forgetting is informative.

If we treat our brain like a neural network, we attach certain weights to knowledge and experiences. Forgetting is a process of decay, the weight attached to the learning experience decreases until it reaches a value of 0 and leaves our brain.

If an experience not made a large impact on life, we naturally do not attach it to a large weight. It may not play a large role in our future decision-making. Forgetting is an informative process that moves out what we identify as unimportant — which then will allow the space for other factors to be weighed more heavily.

Recently, I have stopped trying to place large artificial weights on information through “academic” learning. When I would read books in the past, I used to stress about forcing a large weight on the lessons that the author/researcher learned. But I found this process to be stressing to my brain (which would naturally forget these lessons not learned “personally”), and slightly mis-informative to myself (the lessons of another may not equally apply to my own life).

Instead, now I bookmark these lessons in my head. I establish a node in my head with the lesson learned, with a minimal weight applied. If I am facing a decision in my future that touches on this node in the vast network, then I re-assess. I return to the learning resource, and re-learn the topic, re-assessing the weight on the node through the lens of my current experience.

I learn recognizing that I may forget — and that is ok. If I store this node and do not come across it again, I will let it leave my brain. I do not need to grasp onto this piece of knowledge too tightly.

Forgetting promotes openness and creativity.

I have often heard others say that the power of knowledge is limitless. I disagree with this. I very much believe that knowledge has its limits — and the over-reliance on knowledge can be detrimental to our decision-making.

We flock toward what we know — and tend to exhibit an overconfidence of our own knowledge base. It’s comforting to think we can fully assess or predict future outcomes. The future is the great unknown, and we would like to carry some power over it. If we have been rigorously trained in a methodology, it is comforting and easy to fall into this trained process. We can identify the exact factors that we have been trained on, run their magnitudes through the algorithm of our brain, and come to a decision.

But this decision may not be the best, and some of the most important factors in this situation may not even be included in our knowledge set. I think the much harder part — and discomforting — is recognizing what we don’t know. How do you identify a factor that you didn’t know existed? How do you pinpoint something that has no place in the map of your brain?

I believe that forgetting helps with this difficult process, as we are forced to approach the situation anew. We are forced to be open to all factors, we are forced to come to the best independent conclusion that we can draw. And we are forced to encounter all the unknown that comes with that.

Obviously, this is not saying that forgetting all knowledge is better than retaining it. That is absurd. But knowledge is but an aggregation of the learning experiences that have come before the present moment— either from our personal lives, or shared from others.

And when we let ourselves forget — we cease to become hyper fixated on the factors that we think we know and become open to what we don’t. We can reference our knowledge and expertise, but can approach the situation with the weightlessness of a beginner — and all the openness and creativity that comes with that.

It is often said to “never stifle a generous inclination.” I decided to apply this same principle to my creative inclinations in my first year of college. When these inspirations arose, I decided that I would not stifle it. Instead I would let myself be open to it, writing down the idea and jumping down that thoughtful rabbit hole.

Creativity does not arise when it is the object of your intention. It can never be forced. Instead, I believe that creativity can only arise as a natural byproduct of your actions. And it is fostered by your openness and lack of judgment on the direction that your mind takes.

It’s a funny paradox. When I focus my mind to try and think of new and exhilarating ideas, it tends to feel pretty blank. How do you force yourself to think of new ideas? Do you think about what others may perceive as creative? How are you optimizing and assessing the most creative thoughts?

I tighten up in these moments. That’s because optimization and creativity are antagonistic to one another. They are enveloped in a permanent war and seem to be unable to coexist in the same space. Yet, a story only exists with a beautiful conflict between the protagonist and antagonist. And I have been trying to figure out how to foster this conflict in my mind.

Writing and coding are two such stories in my life where I witness the conflict a lot. In writing, I must start with creativity as the protagonist. I do not write for an optimizing output. With writing, an optimizing output could be how effective you are in conveying a message to the reader. In my own writing, I tend to write for personal expression rather than this output.

When I am starting off with my creative writing, I am letting my mind be as open and wandering as it wants. I am not thinking about communication, and I am not directing it along a specific neural pathway.

As a result, I believe that my writing often has a “fraying” tendency in its first drafts. The subject starts in one place and does not remain focused at all. It dives into different wells of thought. I often never “end” a first draft — I often just write and write and write until I am tired. It is a journey with no output, end, or conclusion. It doesn’t contain a central thesis. The starting point frays out to many different dendritic roots.

At this moment in the writing process, I switch my mind’s protagonist. I look at my mind’s frayed out creativity journey, and I start to think about optimization. What is my central thesis with all of this? How can I most effectively communicate this thesis to the reader? What would the reader think about this? Can I use better words or grammar in this paragraph?

With coding, it is a similar journey in the opposite direction. I often start with optimization as the protagonist. I am trying to figure out how to optimize for a solution. Because of this, I can often use an “optimizing” agent like AI to help establish an outline for this solution.

But as I go about implementing this optimized solution, I often find myself having new ideas about how to approach the problem. Creativity takes the reins, and I find myself experimenting with many different types of solutions or approaches. Or, as has often happened, I get a new idea for writing and I switch tasks entirely.

Of course, this openness to new ideas contributes to its own set of issues and inefficiencies. I believe that this has contributed to my lack of attention span and my mind constantly flicking between thoughts. I feel new ideas arise a lot, and it is impossible to deeply dive down all of these different wells simultaneously.

But part of me is fearful of losing the character of creativity. Optimization can arise through my own will — I can dictate that character change. However, creativity always has to arise naturally. It often shows up when you least expect it. It’s untimely. And if you don’t make it feel welcome, it starts showing up less and less.

And yet, people still run. They run for exercise, they run for exploration, they run as a psychological release. Sometimes, they run in a circle. Other times, they run on a treadmill — not moving an inch.

This may seem absolutely ridiculous to someone living in an age without the automobile. To them, running seems like work. It is something that humans have to do. It is a necessary evil that gets them from one destination to another. To them, running is not a journey to be enjoyed. It is but a functional process. A faster runner just means that you take less time in the journey — and that you can spend more time at the destination.

But today, we run because we want to. Exercise and maintaining our physical health is an important part of our well-being. It makes us happy, it makes us feel good about ourselves. It gives us a challenge for us to tackle, a hill for us to climb. It provides a sense of purpose, direction, or a stable routine to fall back on.

I believe that the psychology of running is very similar to the psychology of work. Running is just physical work. Today, technology has evolved to the point where it can replace and exceed our capacity for physical work. Automobiles, planes, cranes, tractors, machinery — these are just machines that replace a lot of this physical function.

And this technological evolution changed our workforce. Physical laborers that were the foundation of the industrial revolution were quickly automated and replaced. Just like the “runners,” the necessary skills of sewing or craftsmanship were quickly mechanized into cookie-cutter processes to lower cost and scale up output. The people in these industries were made to feel defeated and expendable — sentiments that the Disney short film John Henry touched on.

Today, the evolution of AI will change our workforce again. Yet, this time, the work is not physical. The work is cognitive.

And this is a hard pill for us humans to swallow. Like the previous industrial age, many of us will feel defeated and expendable. But there is a slight difference. Previously, much of our identity has been wrapped up in our superiority of cognitive “muscles.” We were never the fastest or strongest creature on the planet — but we were the smartest. And now, that status has changed.

I’m not talking about the domain of creativity. I do not believe that AI is a creative specimen — nor do I believe that its current state carries the existential risks of turning “evil” and taking over the human race.

But the type of human cognition that is like pure “heavy lifting” — the muscle that is flexed when we memorize flashcards, write summaries, computationally assess, or write code — this muscle is the one that will be replaced in the workforce. This is the same muscle that plays chess, jeopardy, or takes an exam. And this is what many of the jobs in America are currently doing. Many of them are of a “thoughtless thought” type — they require a similar type of mental cognition level that is similar to an academic exam. It is a form that is focused on output — ones with a “right” or “wrong” or a quantifiable “better” or “worse.”

And as this process occurs, we will experience a “collective identity crisis.” We will feel how top Go player Lee Sedol felt when he was defeated by AlphaGo, we will feel like we were beaten by the cold and metallic steam engine in John Henry. We will be ousted.

I’m assuming that the economy will react similarly as it did in past revolutions — the workforce will become restricted, opportunity will become scarce for those replaced, but gradually new industries will evolve and open as new needs are discovered. One such industry that could rise will be the upkeep of these new machines — something that labor economist Yong Suk Lee has argued.

But I think the most long-lasting transition will be the way that we view our own identity. We will see our brain as a muscle — one that needs exercise, one that can be injured (especially in today’s mental health crisis when our brains are pushed so hard), and something that should not be central to our identity.

And like running, the act of thinking will never entirely go away. It is a form of cognitive work. And work is essential for our well-being. We will always need to think. We will think for exercise, for exploration, and as a psychological release. And just like the treadmill, many of these games like Scrabble or chess may become even more popular as “treadmills for our brain.”

But the purpose of thinking may shift. Instead of it being assessed in terms of its output — like we have assessed physical work like running — we must look at the intrinsic value of thinking. Going to school and learning will not be for “getting a job” but more for self-discovery and health. The point of PE is not to train up athletic creatures for physical labor, but it is more for this purpose of self-discovery. Other technical subjects may follow a similar trajectory.

So today, as we exert ourselves in cognitive work, it may be useful to stop viewing it in terms of the destination and output. Like running, there is a journey in there that is of intrinsic value. And as technology replaces much of the functional cognitive value that you provide, this is all that will remain.

I think quite often, those who are most successful in academics and big tech are the ones who went “above and beyond” in school. They did everything to perfection — that is why they got such high marks.

That perfection leads to failing marks in startups. You cannot go above and beyond when you have 10 pots on the stove. When you focus on perfecting one — you let all the others burn or boil over. You need to get comfortable doing the bare minimum — only what is necessary to get across the finish line.

You often hear the saying “Rome was not built in a day” as a founder. But I think there needs to be an important clarification here. I think it should be changed to “Don’t build Rome — you can’t.”

As someone who sets high goals for myself, I am ok with “Rome not being built in a day” — but I still try to build Rome. I take it as a challenge. I am just ok with it taking a ton of time and effort from myself.

I think the realignment should be to build a tent today — perhaps leading to a shed tomorrow. These are minimal things that easily get destroyed when a storm blows through — but that is ok. This is similar to what MapQuest founder Chris Heivly says when to “build a fort.”

Sometimes I wonder if some of the best entrepreneurs are the ones who may be a little bit lazy — or at least think creatively about how to go about doing the least work. As someone who has been told to “never be afraid of hard work” and to “face tough challenges head-on” this was a foreign way of thinking to me. The best route forward is not necessarily the one filled with the most challenges and pain — even for your own personal growth.

Debt and Risk

In a startup, you have to be comfortable with going into debt and exposing yourself to risk without a dependable outcome. Of course, this is most adequately illustrated on the financial side (which I understood going in). But I had to work through this on the technical side.

I was obsessed with having ZERO technical debt. I was implementing testing, scalable schemas, and conscious algorithms. I performed well on my Big Tech interviews because I was good at this. But, you cannot plan a couple years in advance when the next month is uncertain. You just may have to get it out there at first.

There is a little bit of a compromise here. Sometimes, I wonder if ignorance is bliss. Maybe not having foresight into the technical challenges is a blessing in disguise for a founder just getting something off the ground (perhaps why Paul Graham argues to do things that don’t scale). But on the other hand, really good technical founders can then scale the company up after a successful launch.

Openness/Flexibility vs Persistence

There is a paradox here — and founders have to learn how to walk the tightrope.

At what point does pivoting turn into spinning? One one hand, you have to “listen to your customers” and “be coachable,” responding to the market. Yet, on the other hand, the founder carries the vision and has to dictate the direction.

It is hard to figure out when you should keep pushing in this direction, when you should realign to a different path, and when you should quit. There is never a right answer.

Startups are like Ugly Babies

Most will uncomfortably stare at it from a distance (how admirable of you!), some will give you advice, very few will get close enough to help you hold it.

As a founder, you ultimately brought this baby into the world and it’s your responsibility. But sometimes, it can get burdensome to carry that by yourself. Occasionally, you want others to help carry that weight with you. Finding a community of investors/advisors/fellow founders who can help you in your weak human moments is essential.

Distinguishing the Technical, Experiential, and Existential Needs

I like to divide my brain into these categories. The “technical” describes the way I use my brain as a muscle. It is the part that is used when I code, play chess, or solve a tough math problem. When I do these things, I am flexing my brain like my biceps.

The “experiential” describes the way I am present in my surroundings. It includes my emotions (I feel happy or sad), but encapsulates the way I feel and respond to my external environment. When people drift through life, they tend to gravitate toward pleasure and away from pain in this mode of thinking.

The “existential” describes the way I find deep meaning or fulfillment in life. It is not immediately obvious, it requires internal and external analysis. It requires your spirit, it requires philosophy.

When companies have problem-solutions, I think they fall into these categories. A lot of really good tech products exist in this “technical” domain. They help the muscle of our brain solve tough problems — like calculators, excel spreadsheets, and AI. I think our AI revolution will attempt to replace the way we use our brain purely as “a muscle” — like coding, math, medicine, etc — all those noble pursuits described by Whitman. This is an evolution similar to the car replacing our need to run or walk to destinations.

I think that companies in this domain tend to have a very well-defined problem-solution. They can replace the brains of the human workers who would normally do these jobs — like truckers, business analysts, or software engineers. As an engineer, I may use ChatGPT as a product that fills a technical need — helping me write functions and carry the cognitive weight of algorithms and debugging for me.

The experiential defines a way we can streamline or improve an existing experience. It’s like flying first class, buying a nice car, skipping the line. I think about my experience as an engineer, using a product like Vercel with NextJS. The experience of web development is improved, I can deploy at a click of a button. Everything seems entirely streamlined.

Data visualization is another area that improves our experience of knowledge. There is the raw excel spreadsheet, but the way we can quickly experience this process is greatly improved by its aggregation into colorful charts.

Finally, I think that companies that address certain existential needs are perceived as “visionary.” Oftentimes, they do not have very well-defined problem-solutions at first. This is because they do not fit within our existing behavior — instead, they change it. Because of this, I think these products are not understood — or deemed as “crazy” at first. They are completely unproven, they are risky, they are not valid. It is understandable.

To me, I think of products like social media or the iPhone. How do you define a problem-solution for these products in a world where they do not exist? There is a fundamental issue with the problem of induction and the emergence of a black swan. Today, I stare out onto the street, watching people walk with their faces buried in their phones. But no one would believe today’s quantifiable reality of “screen time engagement” as a realistic business proposition 40 years ago. It touches on much deeper existential desires of social connection, meaning, and entertainment that transcend quantifiable business.

I can often find myself chasing the fulfillment of my own ego, stability, or social status of some sort. Of course, I know that these are things that can never be fulfilled in their entirety. These are all the “works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity, a futile grasping and chasing after the wind.” These are all “human” pursuits — they are worldly and vain. Yet, while perhaps an “ideal” is to overcome these pursuits, I have come to feel that these pursuits are necessary human elements in some capacities. Like food, they are essential needs that feed our humanness.

Ego is feeling good about yourself. Stability is about feeling secure in your environment and situation. Social status is wanting others to feel good about you. These are not necessarily bad things and they are entirely human to pursue, but they are all like ladders. You reach one rung, and then you try to step up onto the next rung. But ladders in a vacuum are essentially useless tools. There is nowhere to climb — there is nowhere to go.

Ego, stability, and social status are not endpoints as they do not have a defined beginning or end. When you chase these things, you are like a hamster in its wheel. You run and run and run, but it is a cycle that ultimately goes nowhere. It is but a cycle, where the finish runs into the start and the start has no finish. You tire yourself out on this pursuit, spinning endlessly and meaninglessly.

Awareness of Human Desires

But it is important to recognize that it is natural to desire a good ego, stability, or high social status. These are entirely human elements — they are natural desires that we all encounter. Like I said, they can be equated to food — a necessity that becomes a vice in excess.

At many moments in my life — perhaps heavily influenced by my foray into philosophical ideas — I thought I was supposed to leave all of these human feelings behind. I thought that I was supposed to rise above them. But I am human. And I think the better approach is awareness rather than avoidance of these tendencies.

Having an ego — and being confident in yourself — is an essential prerequisite to achieve something. But you want that ladder to be proportional to your actual skills and abilities as a person. If it is too big, then it is unstable. If it is too small, then you will never reach your full potential. There are times when you will have to climb on your own without any ladders — this pushes you out of your comfort zone and builds your skills and abilities. This should also build your ego in a proportional sense. Great! You now have a good understanding of your limits as a person, and know how far you can reach for.

But if you never push yourself to your limits, you will never grow, and you will not have that understanding of where your limitations are. And when you are on a journey of high stakes, you want that self-awareness to know how you can rely upon yourself, and where you have to rely upon others.

Stability is also an essential prerequisite — one that I was blessed with by growing up with two parents and in a country/state/city with a dependable economy and physical safety. This stability allowed me to focus on excelling in the classroom, or reading on my own, or being involved in sports.

Obviously, too much stability has its downsides. No matter how much stability and security you try to provide, the reality is that life is a chaotic and unpredictable mess. The internal insecurities and flaws that everyone faces are not fixed by a predictable and comfortable external environment. In fact, they can even further some internal insecurities. Oftentimes, it is easier to buy a band-aid fix for those things (like a new car, watch, home, entrance into college) than to address them head on.

Social status is synonymous with social capital. My tendency is to fall into a contagion of disrespect for social capital. I tend to tell myself that “it doesn’t matter what people think” and have gotten in disagreements with my friends who I have felt are too impressionable by their social environment. One of these friends used to always say “it matters what everyone thinks.” I used to roll my eyes. But, in reality, it does matter what many people think. If people think low of you, you will not have the trust or support in place to do something good or cool.

But if you want everyone to think good about you — that is where the trap is. Ultimately, your ladder of social status will only be as secure as the people that make it up. If you care a lot about what a lot of “trendy” or “superficial” people think, then your ladder may be big — but it will be weak. I would much rather have a titanium step-stool than a 30 foot ladder that collapses when a gust of wind blows in its direction. If I have this reliable step stool, then I will always know what 2-foot destinations I can reach. On the other hand, using an unstable 30 foot tall will ultimately hurt a ton if it breaks — and you are much less likely to reach that destination. You must be conscious of who and where your social capital lies.

Additionally, the way that you attain that capital will reflect the type of stability that you receive. If you establish a throne through fear, you will tend to live within that fear. The same is true of dishonesty, as “a fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.”

Human Achievement Can Clothe Our Nakedness

We are quite vulnerable creatures. I think that filling our ego, stability, or social status allows us to feel like we are protected from this vulnerability. “I am a smart and capable person, I can overcome anything” or “I have a secure job and lifestyle, bad things won’t happen to me” or “People respect me, I am a Somebody, I am not a Nobody.”

And clothes serve an important purpose, because they help keep us warm in a world that can be a cold and scary place. It’s a cold fact that we have no idea how we arrived at this thing called life, that we did nothing to earn our first breath, and that we do not know when we will have our last. It’s scary to realize that we do not know most things, what tomorrow will bring forth, or what other people do in their actions.

The Analogy of a Watch

A watch is one piece of clothing. There are a lot of reasons to wear a nice watch, but I used to poke fun at some of my friends with nice watches, saying something like “wow, I feel like a true MAN” when I would try on an expensive watch. The joke was inspired by evolutionary mating signals (learned from my evolutionary game theory professor) where a seemingly meaningless external signal (like a peacock showing its feathers or a male human wearing a nice watch) carries some sort of weighty implications towards one’s evolutionary viability. Whereas big muscles may indicate strength, protection and dominance, a nice watch can showcase strength, protection, and dominance in today’s financially driven society.

But there are other reasons to wear a nice watch besides pure peacocking or posturing — as someone who likes wearing nice watches may point out. There are the pure “peacockers” — the ones that may also pour expensive champagne on their expensive watches to showcase wealth. But there are also components of belonging, remembrance, or craftsmanship that are recognized.

I got into a discussion with one of my best friends about a watch that he wears — one that is crafted in his home state. Only people from his home state would recognize this type of watch. It is almost a community indicator to him, one that he can carry with him on his wrist. It is a sense of home and belonging. I believe heirloom watches also carry similar sentiments — reminding someone of the love or respect for a particular family member, carrying a part of them on their wrist.

There is also a community of people who appreciate great craftsmanship with a watch, understanding the engineering and precision that went into this. There is almost a mutual respect about recognizing this detail and craftsmanship. When one is able to recognize and discuss this “art” it may be similar to the sense of belonging that my friend experiences with his “home state” watch. But instead of feeling like one belongs to a geographic community, it is a community of detail-oriented personas — people that respect precision and a dedication to fine-tuned acumen (something that may have parallels in building a successful business).

But either way, a watch is a piece of clothing. Without one, a routine watch-wearer may feel like their wrist is naked. And I think that it is perfectly ok and human to wear a watch. I also like nice watches in my own human capacity! But at the same time, it must be recognized that wearing a watch comes from a place of vulnerability, a place that is clothing yourself from human nakedness. Whether that clothing is made of evolutionary status, community belonging, or loving respect depends on the wearer.

I only occasionally wear watches on my wrist — but I cover up myself in watches in many other ways. My watches are commonly associated with achievement — with getting good grades at a name university, getting a big job offer, doing research with a cool organization. It is commonly associated with “being smart.” And like wearing a watch, the desire to be perceived as “smart” and “successful” is a natural human tendency.

Some may argue that some of these signals are “earned” and some are “unearned” or “empty.” This is completely valid. Some achievements may be the result of high performance and hard work — others may not. A nice watch may be the result of high performance or hard work — other times it’s an empty signal.

But when we fixate on gaining this external object — whether that be getting a nice watch or some sort of achievement — we ultimately are seeking to put clothes on our naked body. It is only a covering for the deep vulnerability and insecurities underneath — it does not matter how much hard work goes into it.

And it’s not bad to seek out clothes — but the nakedness will always exist underneath no matter how many layers we cover ourselves up with.

Being Stripped and Exposed

My favorite book is “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. I think I found a lot of parallels between the way he thought/approached life and the way I did. Similar to my intersection of philosophy and computer engineering, Paul loved the intersection between literature and medicine. He was also someone that was set on achieving great things, focusing on becoming a research neurosurgeon at Stanford. And right when he was on the precipice of achieving this goal, he gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and has to confront the reality of his imminent mortality in the face of achievement.

Like myself, I think Paul attempted to cover up much of his human nakedness with pursuits of achievement. There are the internally motivated “great” and “creative” intentions for a pursuit (like helping others), but human tendency is to establish yourself as externally “great” to find your footing. I don’t think anyone is completely impermeable to this.

And when Paul learns that he is gonna die soon, his external apparatus is destroyed — and he is completely stripped naked. This is not his choice, he was “unfortunate” — he was “unlucky.” But as Paul points out, the problem was not that he learned he was gonna die. That was a foregone conclusion.

It’s that he learned the proximity for his death was really close, and he did not know exactly how close this proximity was. It forced him to reframe his mind — he no longer had the luxury to worry about long-term goals. He wasn’t “lucky” enough to stress about achieving great things, he wasn’t “fortunate” enough to clothe himself in the things that make life comfortable and reassuring.

He didn’t have anything that he could cover himself up with. He was utterly exposed. And because of that, he was forced to encounter what he loves — what brings him that internal joy. He thinks, if he has a few years, maybe he would practice medicine. If he only had a few months, he would write. And he does not know. So, he continued to practice medicine for a little. But after a little, he decides to write. And he writes “When Breath Becomes Air” as his final curtain call.

But Can We Live Naked?

One thing that Paul was lucky with was that he had the opportunity for internal meaning and joy in his final actions. He was lucky enough to have built up a bank of his own ego (giving him purpose and capacity to write), stability (in finances or insurance), and social status (in familial care) where he could sit and look at life in his final moments.

Clothing provides a purpose. Ego, stability, and social status are needed for us to operate effectively in our lives. But in the face of death, their value quickly diminishes.

I believe a watch is but a symbol for ego, stability, social status, and the conglomeration of these human desires that our lives entail. These things are clothing and are essential in their respective capacities to allow us to live an effective and opportunistic life. And their function fades in the face of death.

At the end of the day, a watch’s function is to tell time. And when we run out of time, the watch ceases to have a function. We leave it behind.

I think the balance is not conflating the function of these “human needs” with our own purpose. We need the clothing of ego, stability and social status to do things in this life. Like the earlier analogy, they are like our ladders to do something. They are the ladders toward some sort of purpose or meaningful destination that we set. But these ladders are but a tool. They are function-less without a purpose, problem, or use case.

We need clothes to operate effectively in our society. People expect you to wear them, they provide all of us a shared sense of security in a sense. In most contexts, people don’t like looking at each others’ nakedness. It’s vulnerable and scary. But we should be wary of when we venture into posturing — instead of aligning ourselves with true purpose.

But at what point do we cross over into this? When do we mix up fleeting achievements with true purpose? This is also a difficult question to answer — one that I am figuring out myself. I think a useful check for this is to recognize the impending reality of death — asking yourself what brings true joy in the face of this. Yet, it’s hard to simultaneously live “everyday like your last” while still planning for the future.

It’s a hard dilemma to balance.