Being Serious

This is the start of a blog that I’ll hopefully be serious enough about to continue.

I think it’s generally true that I find many things to be a sort of game — particularly learning, success, and any task with a measurable objective. This has been quite beneficial to me. I can treat learning as a game, not stress, and still end up retaining more knowledge than I would have otherwise because I truly enjoy every aspect of learning (cf. Rancho from 3 Idiots). I can complete assignments and projects well before their deadlines simply out of enjoyment, coasting on my curiosity. Meanwhile, I sometimes observe others as they cram or stress about not being “good enough,” and I wonder why they can’t either:

1. Enjoy the process rather than be motivated by being good or by some far-away abstract idea of “success.”
2. Find something they would truly enjoy doing and excel at it — just because they want to.

Of course, that’s not how the real world works. Tangent aside, this general “success” of my nonchalance has often led to me not seriously pursuing opportunities, either because they seem to offer prestige (and no truly interesting learning) or because they are surrounded by people who — referencing point 1 — seem to pursue the opportunity out of narcissism and other rather uninteresting motivations. Particularly, the latter makes the possible learning from the opportunity feel sluggish and uninviting.

Personally, I have been content with this “missing out.” Not applying to jobs as urgently as I should, I obviously didn’t feel the best when others were able to network — 90% of the time through a family member — into internships. However, despite this, I’ve maintained the mentality that I was still doing the right thing, spending the time I could’ve spent applying to these jobs working on my own personal projects. I participated in hackathons, tackled random fun math problems, hung out with my friends, and accumulated various experiences that should not be replaced by the monotony of keeping up with application dates. In short, I’d like to think that I invested in not an expected future, but rather in the person that I intrinsically am.

This “job application season” is analogous to other things I should take seriously, such as college applications, standardized tests, or other processes that feel rather systemic and nonconstructive instead of fulfilling. Fortunately, my life path has turned out okay by a little luck and my vague intuition to engage in these systemic things when there is nothing better to do (because yes, these systemic things are obviously still important).

That being said, I’ve never wanted to change this casual attitude towards systemic things, aside from a slight “huh, interesting” when systems seem to favor people who spend more time proclaiming expertise than actually learning what they claim to know.

Change

However, recently, I’ve been told that I need to take things more seriously by my boss, Ben Bolte (a full introduction would be too boring, but in short, he is quite an example of Nietzche’s self-transforming individual). And I’m probably going to do it. Not that I should immediately start LinkedIn-posting and delving into the system, but just, in his words, think of being less of a “postmodernist.”

• I don’t need to enjoy everything as much as I normally would. It should be okay to do unlikable things like cramming — even if from an outside perspective, it’s annoying, systemic, and boring.
• I don’t need to resist posting formal tweets or bragging on LinkedIn because it’s not “me.” Does tweeting with better grammar and in more complete sentences really take away from who I am? A few changes and I could reasonably have a better future.
• I don’t need to avoid networking events to work on my own projects just because I don’t feel like “using” people. Having attended a few, they’re actually interesting, and I just enjoyed the conversation.
• I don’t need to dislike finance and selling out if it’s the best thing I can do to, in the end, help others, be intellectually challenged, or have a good job. (Obviously, I wouldn’t stick around long-term.)
• … And there are probably many other things.

I can give a talk and want to look like the archetypal CS guy — one who probably doesn’t shower, has weird tendencies, and stutters — unironically. People think better in archetypes, and being nonchalant doesn’t look good. Calmness does not convince people of dedication when they view things at a distance. And I can still, in some sense, be myself. I am deliberately playing a version of myself which is not something that I would’ve liked before. But what’s the tradeoff? Maybe a little, maybe a lot.

So why am I going to be more serious? I think it’s a bit of a game. A bit of not missing out. A bit of trying things out. A bit of “that’s how it should be” (according to some umpteenth intuition inside of me). And I guess a bit of — at the end of the day, I do have an idea of the person I am, and the person I am is the sort of person to be inspired by one random conversation among many otherwise reasonable suggestions and choose to become “serious.” So even if this reasoning is postmodern, absurdist, and somehow a little backwards, I think it’s at least interesting. Really, it’s a question of why not? I’m still me.