New! This week I did a voice recording of the newsletter; reply to let me know on a scale of 0.9 to 12.4 how much you like it.
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I have two modes, maybe three.
Machine. This is when I’m obsessed with something. It’s always something new — new project, new relationship. My entire life bends around this thing. I am excited, energized, manic.
Human. When I’m getting in touch with myself again. I’m thoughtful. Reading new books. Focused on the long-term. Investing in relationships not obsessively but steadily. Taking in new inputs. I am calm, satisfied, renewed.
The Suck. When I’m in-between these. Burned out. Nothing feels good. I am lost, frustrated, depressed.
If I had to estimate, over the course of my life I probably fall into:
30% machine
20% human
50% suck
This year I’ve been stuck in The Suck.
I’ve always ping-ponged from Suck to Machine to Suck to Human to Suck. I even read a book about how this is surprisingly normal for entrepreneurs (The Hypomanic Edge).
I should know to expect this by now.
The Suck always comes.
Is The Suck cycle longer this year? I’m not sure, but in this moment, it feels like it. And it’s not just me; others around me are questioning their careers or taking a break from it. They’re experiencing The Suck, too.
It’s not actually bad — it’s a feeling, not fact.
I slip into Human, especially when I’m surrounded by nature.
I’ve experienced Machine this year in slivers, mostly during the NFT boom earlier this year (like when I learned graphQL on a night binge and built an API to feed it into Google Sheets). Or when I got these marbles to do magic. But this is faint, and only a whimper of what I’m capable of.
When am I most happy?
In full machine mode, or full human mode.
Excited or calm.
Manic or satiated.
The in-between suuuuuuuccckkks.
The Suck has gotten better as I age — I’ve become more unattached to outcomes and more self-compassionate (less mean post-its on my bathroom mirror about myself). Adventures can pull me out for a time… but at my core I want big progress, lasting impact, and see “Numbers Go Up.”
But what’s required to feel happy with success gets harder and harder.
It’s a high I keep chasing over and over but never quite catch.
I achieve bigger things, yet the next hit doesn’t feel as good as the last.
Perhaps it’s impossible. Like a dollar bill taped up behind the restaurant register… the owner is so proud of that. If they open a second or third restaurant, what are the chances they’ll feel as good?
Zero.
Nothing feels as good as that first dollar.
Brainjolt, a company I started a decade ago, will hit $50m in revenue this year; topping that with something else is challenging. And even if/when I do that, how long will I be satisfied? A few hours until I crave a new, even more impossible goal?
And so I try different directions. Maybe it’s a puzzle company. Maybe it’s an investment fund. Maybe it’s this newsletter.
But do I actually want to live a completely balanced life?
No.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned through therapy and executive coaching it’s this: I sign up for this rollercoaster every day, and even on the days I complain about it, it’s a lot more fun than not riding a rollercoaster at all.
I grew up in Florida and as a kid my mom would take me to Busch Gardens. My favorite ride was The Montu — an upside down rollercoaster where your legs dangle. It was a rush.
On rare days there would be no line, and when the ride was over, my head buzzing, I’d run through the exit and through the gift shop and run back to the entrance and huff and puff through all the little mazes that are usually full of people but were empty and I’d jump right back on the rollercoaster.
Ends up, I’m still doing that today.
// Josh
Weekly Wanderings
🤯 The Perils of Audience Capture. This was, by far, the best article I read this week. It still floats around my head days after… the story of Nikocado Avocado haunts me. Gurwinder is a fantastic writer (and I’m unsurprised to see a pic of Neil Postman on his substack homepage). A highlight:
“When influencers are analyzing audience feedback, they often find that their more outlandish behavior receives the most attention and approval, which leads them to recalibrate their personalities according to far more extreme social cues than those they'd receive in real life. In doing this they exaggerate the more idiosyncratic facets of their personalities, becoming crude caricatures of themselves.”
🎵 Business economics in a nursery rhyme. “She sells seashells by the seashore, but the value of these shells will fall due to the laws of supply and demand…” This song by Ren is surprisingly catchy and, at least for the first few bars, pretty solid advice. brb gonna sell water to a fish, sell the time to a clock.
📧 Donald Knuth doesn’t check email and only checks his snail mail every 6 months. I do find some kind of delicious irony that his first point is “let’s drop the hypen” in “email” but then uses 3 dashes to denote an emdash (which is often referred to with a dash or space, but I have simplified, in honor of Dr Knuth). Choice quotes:
“I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address.” … “My goal is to do this communication efficiently, in batch mode --- like, one day every six months.” … “I DO NOT ANSWER UNSOLICITED EMAILS, nor do I respond to emails that were sent to my colleagues with a bothersome request for them to communicate with me.” … “In return, I promise not to send unwelcome email requests to you.”
📺 Mother (2009) is a 2009 South Korean thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho that I watched this week. I’ve been on a South Korean movie and book kick lately (I’m reading Pachinko while watching Joon-ho movies). It’s nice how reading/watching similar things around a theme weaves together. This is a story about a mother who will do anything to prove her son innocent… it’s quite gripping.
🇨🇳 Xi Jinping’s bookshelf. Some scour the President of China’s bookshelf from video addresses to see what books he keeps handy. I was surprised to see how many heavy AI texts were included… though perhaps I shouldn’t be, considering how essential AI is to enforcing compliance at scale. “He is reading texts on understanding AI, AR, algorithms, and machine learning, including The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos and Augmented by Brett King.”
Laughing at the past
I took this screenshot in 2016. I no longer eat Honey Bunches of Oats (I used to eat a bowl of it almost every day for lunch — it was terribly convenient at the office)… so I’ve improved my diet. But Siri, even 7 years later, still makes mistakes like this. I guess it’s nice to have a friend that is consistent. Future Siri, please forgive me for all the mean things I said when you were not yet conscious.
PS: I’ve been checking Japan travel advisories every week, because I’m hoping to go back this year. This graph of Japan tourist arrivals is devastating: (via Lyn Alden)
PPS:
PPPS:
Donald Knuth has a page on his website dedicated to people who might be expecting a check from him. He also has a page dedicated to the pipe organ in his home, random photos of diamond signs, and known errors in his books. Someday I hope to be as cool as him.
PPPPS: Why would Knuth have a list of people he might owe checks to? Because he used to pay “a finder's fee of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because ‘256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar.’” At one point they were "among computerdom's most prized trophies." There is an entire wikipedia page dedicated to Knuth reward checks.