Time line for context:

• 2000 - Born.
• More things to come

• About me:

  I’m ambitiously focused on creating - What? I'm not exactly sure yet...

  More than anything, I want to make lots of stuff. I want to make articles, books, websites, music, companies, systems, apps, and especially new ideas.

  This shapes most of my life decisions. Saying no to almost everything, so I can have lots of time for making.

  My life philosophy

  I don’t work for money

  Yes I do... But hopefully not forever. Hence this place on the internet where I can write.

  I love to work alone 12+ hours a day

  This is straight from Derek Sivers blog. I resonate with so much of this persons thinking. Which may be a bad thing - ya know. confirmation bias and whatnot

  Besides my “work”, I write in my journal up to three hours a day. Reflecting, daydreaming, planning. Asking myself questions, and trying different answers. It feels like all my learning happens here.

  I’m a minimalist - From Sive.rs

  I hate waste. I don’t like the feeling of having more than I need. It feels like clutter.

  Yes this means I only own one pair of pants, have only two plates in my little apartment, and my computer is a 7-year-old clunky laptop that works fine.

  But it also applies to tech: removing every line of website code that isn’t necessary, and hand-writing a site with no framework or libraries.

  And it applies to my writing: spending 12 hours writing an article, saying everything on my mind, then editing it down to the few words that are really needed.

  I’m tech-independent

  I got online in 1994, so I watched many companies — companies that people were completely dependent on — go out of business, and watched everyone’s uploaded stuff just disappear.

  So I don’t trust companies, I avoid the cloud, and run everything myself on my own server.

  I don’t depend on tech that’s not truly open source and non-profit, because otherwise I don’t trust that their long-term incentives are aligned with mine.

  My main tools are the Vim text editor, OpenBSD operating system, PostgreSQL database, Ruby language, and Firefox browser.

  I don’t use any apps on my phone, for this same reason. I don’t want to depend on apps for productivity. Actually I tend to avoid my phone, in general. I just use it for calling friends, or for GPS. No email. No social media. It sits in airplane mode much of the time, then I completely power it off an hour before bed, and turn it back on after I’m done writing in the morning.

  All of my current creative and learning goals can be achieved with these existing tools, so I avoid that time-sinking habit of looking for new ones.

  Friends and family

  I don’t subscribe to that “blood is thicker than water” metaphor. I feel pretty equally connected to everyone. (We’re all cousins, anyway.) I don’t feel more bound or obligated to my immediate family than I do to strangers. In fact, because of my ambitious exploring nature, I’d rather focus on the unknown, and push further out into the world.

  I make friends easily. They come and go based on life circumstances. Proximity and interests spark friendships, but proximity and interests change. Best friends become old distant friends. New friends become best friends. Some people get married and stop calling. Some people get divorced and re-appear. I still love them all, whether we talk or not.

  I’m very attached to my kid, but I don’t expect him to be attached to me. I don’t want him to feel more tied to some people than others. I hope he ventures out into the world, makes new bonds, and feels no obligation to me. He doesn’t owe me anything. His life is his own. He didn’t ask to be born, and has no debts.

  More about me:

  • I single-task. I’m into only one thing at a time, focusing on it to completion, whether that takes hours, months, or even years. I’ve always been like this, even as a little kid.
  • I think very long-term and future-focused. Even as a teenager, when friends would tease me for not having tattoos or piercings, I never got them because my first thought is, “Will I want that when I’m 80?” If not, then why do it? My present life is in service of my future self. I tend to do things for my future, not my present.
  • I like women. Almost all of my best friends are women. Gender stereotypes bristle me.
  • I’m wary of anything that feels like addiction. Whether drinking, phone/internet use, playing games, or whatever — if people tend to get an unhealthy addiction to it, I avoid it.
  • I care deeply about very little. I’m committed to just a few people and a few interests. Everything else, I keep away. (See “hell yeah or no”.) It’s a simple and sincere life.
  • I walk away — to a fault. I’m not a fighter. When something’s not to my liking — or if something gets too confrontational or antagonistic — I just leave. Since I’m happy being alone, the bar is set really high to make me engage with a person or situation that I’m not enjoying.
  • I’m deliberate. I don’t believe in the “I can’t help the way I am” approach to life. Only dead fish go with the flow. I change who I am to get what I want, instead of the other way around.
  • I hate noise. I’m always seeking silence. I don’t like crowds, cities, bars, parties, streets, etc. I damaged my hearing at a concert when I was 13, with a loud ringing ever since, so I don’t know if it’s due to that or not, but in a crowd I can’t pick out one voice from another. So meeting people in noisy places is pointless, since I can’t understand what anyone is saying. It’s another reason I prefer quiet one-on-one conversations. And I prefer to go to the gym late at night, after they close, so I can work out in silence.
  • I hate to waste a single hour. I feel the precious value of time, most of the time. I imagine my time as worth $1000 an hour, and ask myself what’s worth $1000. Watching a TV show? Absolutely not. (“Game of Thrones” was 70 hours, so would have cost $70,000 to watch.) Social media? Absolutely not. Focused learning or creating? Yep!

  Questions? Thoughts?

  No comments here. That would be too weird. This is too personal. Just email me.