September 6, 2024
"Who are you?"
This independent publication hopes to remain totally anonymous, both for intellectual integrity and for safety purposes. Rest assured that I am speaking my mind.
"What do you write about?"
Short answer: Whatever interests me.
Long answer:
To paraphrase the 2008 paper Driven by Compression Progress, "interestingness" maps to learning curve steepness. Following my interests optimizes my personal gradient descent.
The book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, based on my understanding after reading half, claims the optimal success algorithm to be: searching for novelty by diving into interesting things and welcoming serendipity.
Since re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I've started to believe in following my sense of "quality" — even if I can't define the sense.
In his autobiography Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Feynman describes how he did research which led to his Nobel Prize: he pursued seemingly pointless work just for the sake of having fun.
More importantly, quantity has a habit of producing quality. Ed Sheeran's writing advice: "When you turn the dirty tap on, it's going to flow sh*t water out — for a substantial amount of time — and then clean water's gonna start flowing."
I'll persist to clean water only if writing is an interest-driven joy rather than a chore with an agenda.
