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yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

im incredibly average

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

there’s people like @MilesMcCain who have done excellent, silent work at each step im not that. but i really respect it

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

i want to rephrase that “im not that” → “i don’t feel like that” the first is asserting an objective statement that just introduces more weirdness into the world the second is talking about a truth, an undeniable one https://t.co/dnMi81MBvH

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• over 4 years ago

« Truth is what u can independently verify yourself. Reality is what others can collaboratively verify » emotions are true, facts are real

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

it makes it from “u have to agree with me” to “hey, i feel this thing, i wonder what it’s about” it makes it investigatable, an undeniable truth rather than trying to assert yet another false reality onto the world

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

so: “i dont feel like that” what do i mean by that? why did that feel important to say?

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

why does it feel important to say that? because it hurts to continually be respected for things i don’t respect myself for :(

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

that doesn’t mean they’re “wrong” somehow or that ive pulled a fast one on them it mean they respect what they see, and i don’t, and frankly the world is easiest when the things other people respect you for and you respect yourself for are the same

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

part of this is i didn’t know what it meant to follow my sense of what i respect for so long i optimised so hard, i thought it was the game, but it was only the finite game

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

"beyond looking good for school" replace "school" here with jobs, VCs, or anyone i optimised so hard for them i forgot what i like https://t.co/vRqZRojigm

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• over 4 years ago

. . . part of it has to do with living in a world where there felt consequences, not just school, looking good for new pieces of paper; . . . https://t.co/D6rfom2mll

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

it just kept feeling like outsized rewards for the difficulty of work i was putting in, and at some point, i think i began to get really scared of what was happening https://t.co/2G94NjAL93

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

what the fuck, man? why does that sound so impressive? “if only you knew” it’s not a good way to live

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

feels like playing with bigger and bigger conjuring tricks but idfc i don’t want to sound impressive, i want to be able win at “real” things

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

real - businesses, actually making them work - quant trading, actually making the money happen fake - being an employee - academia - consulting - anytime i guess you could “make an excuse” and get away with it - anytime someone could just think “that’s a great idea” and you win

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

real is when you have to solve the problem end-to-end. including all the little problems. does it work?? ok fake is when you can present Big New Ideas and if people like them you win. but did you solve all the little problems? doesn’t matter https://t.co/0iyjAOWJqJ

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

There’s the Big Answers and then there are the little micro-problems you solve along the way and those *really* matter. If you figure out how to solve those then you’ve solved a problem for people, and they really value that.

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

my strategy of highly-outsized rewards for small-work makes me feel precarious like what happens when i actually wanna do a thing how do i actually just do the actually v cool things i wanna

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

“ok yatharth but do you have examples?” - all the AI projects in college felt lame - high school cybersecurity org felt lame - stanford AI group felt lame - tech consulting felt lame - high school research - meditation, self-transformation feel lame - lol everything??

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

what does feel cool - a lot of my twitter, onto good stuff - many essays, academic work; great quality - generally, my ideas feel good

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

part of the feeling of lameness is “you think this is cool, but i don’t think it’s gonna go anywhere, more behind this, because it’s foundations feel weaker than perception”

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

i.e., precisely because of the outsized rewards for little work, it’s like your expectations ran too far ahead—i’d have to run a long way to advance them more it looked like i was at 2mi, but i feel i only ran 0.5mi, and now to advance to 2.5 i have so much further to go

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

but is that true? fuck as soon as i articulate that belief i also see how it is false sure, the research, org, etc. felt fake but gosh, it actually made future advancement SO much easier i didn’t realise this before everything i did did make future things way easier

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

that first 0.5 mi is actually v valuable i don’t think it is, but i think that’s partly because my progress bars are fucked up i just didn’t value a lot of the initiative i put in, and so i didn’t respect it https://t.co/on5iDEc0Lu

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• over 4 years ago

Our progress bars are broken. Sitting there, just mentally prepping to nail that difficult task—that too is work, and it too must happen. Noticing it as work and allowing it to be allows smooth and steady progress bar completion.

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

i can say this i consistently have initiative whether it’s tiny things like making Social Dance groups happen or bringing together the team to build an AI project or creating an org, or leading a research direction

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

im terrified at how shitty my work always feels, i feel i never took them far enough, it’s too shitty, tiny, such small effort i basically gave no thought to the initiative bits; that felt invisible to me

8 1

11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

in some ways, 20k+ tweets is kind of cool? it doesn’t feel cool. the book drafts i started languished. i have few blogposts but it’s fucking awesome every time i want to explain to someone my thoughts on poly and i can just link them https://t.co/Bpos225p4N

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

@frobenis 🤷‍♂️😢 idk, i just feel i haven’t produced a body of work in public that i feel internal respect for (yet)

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

"i haven’t done anything" lol 🥲 https://t.co/SSHrNDVjCK

Mrs C 🍲@captain_mrs• almost 4 years ago

my therapist: "you're so prolific, you're really one of a kind, you know that?" me: launches into 5 minute monologue about more-prolific peers in this twitter scene

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

all this feels related to “nothing is actually worth doing when you think about it. not like how you thought it would be” https://t.co/CcC2Yb7JeR

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

there’s this thing i’ve been coming to increasingly believe that goes: you can do almost anything, but literally none of it is worth it by your current standards

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

college felt like that. research projects. self-work, anything you put in mountains of effort every day and somehow the legible difference ends up seeming very little but it did take all that work to move it up that little notch

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

it’s a v heavy boulder, only moves an inch, but still represents all the work this is how many things are

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11/20/2021

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• almost 4 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

scaling different kinds of payoff curves using fun and friendship https://t.co/nYSeRCTPO8

yatharth ༺༒༻@AskYatharth• about 4 years ago

This is why finding things fun is so OP. You basically unlock shallow-payoff long-term-huge rewards just by following your interests and having lots of fun.

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11/20/2021

Hazard@natural_hazard• over 3 years ago

Replying to @AskYatharth

@AskYatharth woah, this really hits

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3/28/2022