It’s like we are approaching something with the entirety of mankind but at the same time we are not. For example technological advances have a point nature. We can see humanity getting better over time, first there was fire, then the wheel…. computers and so on. However we still have the eternal problems of finding purpose, finding spouses, how to live a good life in general, morality, we have all these problems that keep cycling ever since the first humans.

Looking at it from an even broader point of view ( a point of view that I is hard for me to express). The underlying patterns in our building blocks keep showing up as we progress in higher levels. I’ll demonstrate one in the hard sciences and one in the soft sciences. Take chemistry for example, in my intro to chem class, we talked about lattice structure and how it affects what the molecule can do. For example carbon with its 4 covalent bonds at first glance might seem trivial, they have 4 valence electrons but the repercussions of that manifest as the hardest substance in the world, namely diamond. We can also predict how atoms will behave in a complex environment if we truly understand the small basic building blocks that define them. For example understanding, rigid body dynamics → car.

The soft example, is the whole generalist vs specialist argument. Folks that tend to specialize later in their career tend earning more, using earning power as a rough indicator of value. The same thing comes up with sports, for example Roger feddrer, he played 12 different sports before commiting to tenis. Leondardo DaVinci is a great painter, but he was also a mathematican, engineer, and biologist. The list goes on and on (Benjamin Franklin, Rene Decarte… )

There are many reasons for this, and I’m sure they are all right, however I believe that an unknown reason is actually in our biological code it self, not even in our biological code, but in the code of nature. Species that have crossbred have the most resilient offspring. We can see it in flowers as well as animals.

To conclude, We cannot escape the building blocks that define us.



Sorry fellas I’ve been sick this week

PS: Charlie Munger’s been talking about this since day 1, I think I was thinking roughly the same thing, but he put it in words better, anyway so in his book he talks about someone that can put all the sciences together to form one narrative, that would help human civilization with the interconnectedness. Munger laid out one for psychology which was awesome. I’ve been flirting with sitting down and writing it out for sciences. This would be reasonably hard, I was thinking I’d start off at the lowest level of physics/math that I could understand probably atoms, learning quantum mechanics might be a huge undertaking for me right now. Anyway so I’d probably start with math and physics, even within physics I’ll probably have to ignore a bunch of it, and focus on newtonian, and then make my way to chemistry, molecules, and organic chem for sure, material properties, and then somehow get to biology, and then after that get to humans, and do a brief history of all of mankind. I clearly don’t know enough to write this book. Anyway I think it’s a cool idea, maybe the game plan is to get my smart friends to write the parts they know best about, however with that being said I wonder how cohesive the whole thing would be.

This is my answer to him, pulling from a Carl Jung quote

First year of university can be a challenging time, especially in engineering, where having the right friends can get you through it.

In the beginning it seems that you are alone. In reality, you have so many students with you. Everyone is feeling the uncertainty as well as the fear of first year, but everyone is trying to make friends. Some will stick around forever and some will be just for a semester, however it is important that you treasure these relationships because you can only make so many friends, and meet so many people. Consider the people you regularly see as a blessing, i.e the gift of knowing them and cherish it for as long as you can, because one day it will come to an end. If you treat people in this way you’ll never have to worry about having no friends.

On a practical note, making friends is an exponential gain. Every friend can introduce you to their friends and so on. Realistically you probably only need 5 real friends and if you need more friends, you can talk to their friends. An example is if your friend is talking to someone go in the middle and introduce yourself.

Huge life hack to get to people fast is joining a community, any clubs will suffice, this can be a headstart to your friends flywheel.

That’s when I first realized that Jeff had an edge.

Jeff was in love with cars and so was my Dad. When we were 10-12, my brother would shift gears, and even take the wheel from the side, while my dad drinked water, both privileges I never had. I sucked at driving and I wanted to care but I just couldn’t. Jeff only needed to be shown something once about a car and he could do it. I thought it was because he was just “better” , but Jeff had probably watched my Dad shift a 1000 times. I didn’t even know there was a shifter until my Dad pointed it out

When we were 13, 14 my Dad taught us how to drive manual and my brother picked it up immediately. I started learning how to drive at 13, but my brother started the second he got into a car.

Jeff worked at a car dealership, no one would describe him as a salesman. He was shy growing up but still personable, but Jeff would never leave an impression that he was a talker. He is reserved to himself, a natural introvert.

However, Jeff is crazy at selling cars, better than me for sure, and the best at his dealership.Jeff took some time before he sold his first car, but after that he was off to the races.

I always wondered why Jeff was better at selling cars. I was the more outgoing one growing up. People could easily see me as a salesman.

The reason Jeff was better than everyone at selling cars is because Jeff loves cars, more than any one. The reason he couldn’t sell initially is because he was getting out of his shell.

When a customer asks me a question about a car, I have it memorized, and I don’t know much if its not a Nissan or Ford. If you ask Jeff he’ll break it down from first principles, since he knows at a very deep level what he is talking about.

During our computer time I would watch Naruto and Jeff would watch car fixing video. I would play fighting games and Jeff would play racing games. I saw Jeff playing a parallel parking game, who plays games like that? Someone that loves cars.

Would you rather buy from me or Jeff? I’d trust Jeff wayyy more, cuz he actually knows what he is talking about. Confidence comes from competence and as much as I wanted to seem like a car enthusiast/expert I am not. I just don’t care.

This is not advice to follow your dreams to the very end, and sometimes you do need to hunker down and get it done, but I do believe in resonance. Jeff still had to learn sales and how to talk to people, but the unfair advantage he had is that the work was fulfilling because it involved cars, that being said I believe that anyone can do anything with time + effort, but the real question is, “Is that your unfair advantage?”.

Is there time to do things that aren’t important to you, Is there time to watch Rick & Morty to just consume? The argument I am making is not to live for the sake of work, but live truly in the full sense of the word. Not just waste time falling prey to attention span destroying and mindlessly consuming content.

I could have done everything I needed to do, wait NO that is an ever-expanding list. The thirst for new experience and novelty cannot be quenched. I can always make more money, read more books and travel to new places, but shouldn’t be just towards an end but in a means.

I’m getting too deep here, the question is do I travel for 6 months in January? My focus is that the startup. What am I hoping to get out of travel, well it’s going to be super fun. Do I have to travel for 6 months straight for it to be fun/learn culture? Probably not, in fact even if I go for 1 1/2 month like last time it will still be great. Things don’t always have to be extreme. I feel like deep down, you are still trying to impress people, as you get older everything I do feels less impressive, these are a horde of kids that are focused and have gotten to cooler things, but when has playing the social game served you. Here and there it is not bad to do things that make people give you credibility, but if that’s the way you live life, you’ll never know what/who you are living for. It won’t be yourself or God, just the fickle opinions of those that are around you at that time. All emotions are really just a gradient, there is no good or bad emotion. I feel bad that I can’t travel as much as some friends, but there are people that look at me, as well-travelled.

Peak life, discussing Linear Algebra with the homies. ( Josh lookin kinda BIG tho)

1. Someone through curiosity had to come up with it and second
2. There needed to be a buyer for the innovation.

If the problem could be solved in any other way, even though it might’ve been a breakthrough, but it would not catch on, unless you had endless subsidizing but at one point it would actually need to be useful.

Nothing starts without a real need, maybe curiosity is what starts it but necessity is the fuel for it.

I failed him as a older brother in creating an environment where he has to be perfect. It got me thinking about how I can better guide him to be what he wants. I’m not sure what the answer to that is, but perhaps I could tell a story about me, making a similar mistake. What can I do so that him becomes the best version of himself. I tried asking him what he wants to do. He said an engineer, but I think he may be biased because I’m in school for engineering and he doesn’t really know anything else. One thing that might help is an exposure to different things, but it has to be fun. I brought him to my robot club, and he didn’t have a great time, he likes music, he takes piano lessons and sings in the choir. He doesn’t really like sports the same way I do. Doesn’t like karate, doesn’t want to do swimming. He wrote a script about a rap battle, but he didn’t go through with it. He edited videos for no reason, he has a bunch of videos on youtube, (primarily hockey edits). He plays fantasy hockey and knows about all the hockey players and trades and whatnot, his older brother (not me) is super into hockey.

I asked him to edit one of my videos, but he didn’t do it. I suspect it was because it wasn’t really fun for him. He likes making montages and I was pulling him away from that. Reading this back now, I think my brother is doing great. I think the reason I feel like I need to make him perfect is because I’m so nitty gritty about everything now. I didn’t understand that he’s just a kid, that does what’s fun for him at the moment. That’s pretty much what I did too, magic tricks, origami, soccer, rubiks cube and when I was 12-13ish I started coding. A big one was watching clash royale, slither.io, diep.io, bloon TD battles, bloon TD5, tanki online on Youtube.

You can try different simple assumptions to see if it works. Now the question of how to track if something is working or not is a hard task.

Let me boil it back to Judo: Ultimate aim (complex goal) : Throw

1. off-balance

2. Push/pull/ or use your legs to throw. The reason this is a seperate step is that you can’t directly push someone down easily you have to off-balance them by creating angles, feinting .

We focus on the off-balance movement with no resistance essentially simple system. The outcome is clearly visible, you can see/fell that they are off balance . Now we practice the throw with no resistance, simple system known inputs & outputs. Now when we fight we are making a list of simple systems.

In a complex fight when I try and off-balance someone, they will resist, so I have to try another method. The important thing to realize is that now you have to adapt to the complex system, but you use the simple system as a first step.

That’s what I need to do for my startup, and an important note is when you start you don’t know how to do deal with the complex system so take the simple systems as gospel. Mastering the rules before you can add your own style.

Do as the sensei says, you can’t contradict them because you have never thrown/ done a startup. In this case my sensei is going to be “The lean startup” and strategies, This will be my sensei and I will master those methods. I’ll talk to mentors about it and then we’ll figure out what to do.

This flurry of good emotions can only come if you truly think you are getting better. This feeling of getting better is the fuel behind passion, Once you hit a plateau it gets harder to keep going. When you can’t see the external success, or indicators tell you did a great job. For example, me throwing someone is the ultimate goal in Judo, but this can stop you paradoxically from being the ultimate Judoka. If I’m always just motivated by throwing people and I stop training for months when I can’t throw people I’ll never be a great Judoka, because if there are so many parts of the game you have to work on and the only way you’ll do that is by being okay in those uncomfortable situations where you could get thrown. Point is its really easy to keep going when you are realizing your ultimate goal. Natural talent you won’t get you to be the greatest Judoka. At one point you will have met your match and now either you give up as loose fight while getting readies for the most important fight LIFE

After weekend class I’m throwing people, left and right, even 3 brown belts. They have significantly better technique than me but I threw them because of fundamentals. This caused a chain reaction where since now I was good at Judo, or at least I got better fast. It got super fun In Judo the best outcome is you throw them. I was getting the best outcome against better Judoka, A great feeling and I wasn’t getting injured. Two great things were happening ! I trained even harder and got better results. Now today’s session I kept getting thrown, Now the passion for Judo is not as much because now that I’ve been humbled by getting thrown by a white belt, and orange belt. I feel like my Judo has a long way to go. My Judo has improved but it’s still really far from perfect and I’ll always be striving. Often times passion can be the flurry of emotions that come with being good at something.

Shoutout Jack for the photo!

x is defined for all real, meaning x exists for 1.01, 1.0000101, any number that you can think of it exists, another way of looking at it is that it has infinite divisions. Going from 1 to 2, you can go from 1 to 2 by jumping by 0.5 (1.0 → 1.5 → 2.0) or you can jump with 0.1 (1.1 → 1.2 → 1.3 … → 2.0) or you can jump infinitely smaller and take an infinite amount of jumps to get there, that’s what it means by continuous. Numbers so when

That’s how math works but the real world application is Discrete . Let’s say we do population growth for humans given by

Here,

because it has to be a whole positive numbers since we can’t have half people.

because population can’t be half or quarter humans it has to be a full human.

Now talking this further. We see the world as a discrete machine, even though it seems like your phone is always there, it might not be there in between the little jumps that your eye is taking. The eye is around 60 frames per second. Each second your eye is taking 60 pictures, that string together to seem continuous. My argument is that you can’t know what’s happening in between each frame, what if something is happening 600 frames per second, like someone shooting a gun, things might be happening so fast that we can’t see it.

There are two assumptions that you can take:

1. The world is continuous.

2. The world isn’t continuous. - I’m not doing this analysis right now

The world is continuous

If the world is continuous and we are a discrete system, there’s no 100% way of knowing what the continuous reality of the world is because we are at a set frame rate of sensory input.

Then we have to check Nyquist’s theory of aliasing. Nyquist says that if our sampling rate is two times the rate at which the universe is existing, then our sensory input is accurate. In this case our analyzing frequency would a number let’s say 60 Hz, and the universe is infinity.

So through Nyquist we’ve proven that we can’t accurately see a continuous world.

I’m assuming that we live in continuous world, just because we can’t see something it doesn’t stop existing. The phone you are reading on exists even when you blink or look away. My statement is that “the continuous existence of materials is an assumption”. The reason comes back to continuous vs discrete. Although we assume to live in a continuous world we are discrete animals. We can only sample the world as our nerves let us. A better analogy would be the way we see. Your eyes can only perceive an non-infinite numbers of frames. We have no idea if the world exists in between those frames. let’s say you were watching a 10 second video but you could only see one frame per second it would be clunky and you would fill in the gaps in your head. Now imagine you got 2 fps, 3 fps, all the way to max fps you would know what happened. Think about a magician that could choose your fps, the awkward cuts, would be the perfect time to put a bunny in his hat or put the coin in your pocket. So we can’t know what’s happening in between our limited perception. Maybe this is what the Hindus meant by Maya.

Now we can come to the same conclusion that Rene Descartes came to, with more mathematical rigour which is Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am. Honestly I like his way of getting to the I think therefore I am argument, his way is by saying we might be living in a dream, because have you ever had a dream and you wake up, and it’s like damn I really thought I was flying for second there.

Beginning to answer this question is hard, but I’ve found a great starting point. “Never do anything in secret or anything that you would wish to hide.” Jawaharlal Nehru (The first prime minister of India said this in a letter to his daughter Indira Gandhi, the first woman prime minister of India. This is the same understanding I received from “Crime and Punishment”, but Nehru said it succinctly.

You can’t honestly say, “Hey, yeah, I stole that,” or “Hey, I lied to you.” If you can’t honestly say it with your chest out and be proud of what you did, then there is an issue there, and the logic, the part where it breaks, is when you think it’s okay. What if you think stealing is okay, and then you’re proud of doing it as well? I think that’s when you really have to go deeper, and some of that is answered by looking at Plato’s Republic. Plato/Socrates points out is that education is a very important part of justice. He talks about censorship of anything bad, anything evil, shouldn’t even be mentioned in youth. There shouldn’t be an alternative way of thinking to Plato’s prescribed justice. ( There are issues with that aswell)

So if I had to go back and tell myself how to act as a good person, I would definitely think a great starting point would be: how do I feel about it? When I do certain things, how do I feel about it? Can I say that with my chest? When I’m confused about when something is good or bad, is that something I’m okay saying with my chest? Honestly, it’s comparable to Kant’s categorical imperative or the golden rule is saying, “Treat others the way you want to be treated,” but there’s such an easy loophole in that. You can say, “Hey, I wouldn’t mind if someone stole from me if they had nothing and really needed the money.” There are ways around it, but adding this to your morality tool kit can defnitley fill some of thos gaps.

By this standard there are many things I’ve done in the past that I’d like to stay hidden. I’m not too worried if those come to light. My fear stems from the actions that I continue to do, that I’m ashamed to do. This is a seperate affair from making mistakes, that’s natural and I can forgive myself. However what about the mistakes that I know I am making. I keep stumbling on the same rock over and over again. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough, or maybe I’m doing too much. I guess this is what keeps life interesting. I’m not giving up on being as good of a person as possible.

Side NOTE : OMG I’ve caught myself giving unsolicited advice so much, and I need to stop doing that. I hate it when people do it to me, and unsolicited advice, isn’t really good even if it’s good advice. The person hearing is just trying to get out of the conversation. Me lecturing them on anything isn’t going to do anything, just like how when my parents told me not to lie, about things I never listened. Yeah just on the look out for that, I’ve done it twice, and I really don’t want to be that guy.

I love summer so much.

1. Maximum Efficiency : The best of use physical AND mental effort to get the best results

2. Mutual Welfare and Benefit : Honestly we don’t talk about this enough, and this is definitely something I need to work on.

3. Perfection of Self : Judo is more than just the the physical, it also strengthens your character and disciplines your mind.

Besides the philosophy, fighting for me, whether it’s wrestling, judo or bjj is when I am truly happy. It’s not even about winning or loosing, its more about being in that moment when you forget everything else, it’s just you and that person you are fighting. Time slows down, you are just focused on getting your grip, feeling their weight, looking for opportunities, seeing a weak spot, going for a throw, and then kablam, you get throwed because you didn’t go in fast enough. That’s a great feeling, that feeling is amplified when you can talk to your partner and ask them what went wrong. For example I saw one of my senseis put his leg up twice, and I was ready to sweep him all the way the third time, and bam he swept me with his other foot. The curiosity of how every fight breaks down is so beautiful to me. There are infinite number of permutations/sequences of throws your opponent can do, and some of it can be drilled, and some of it is just noticting the small little breathing, when they feint or noticing the slight shift of weight before a throw. Noticing this things require skill that is learnt outside of the Dojo, it is how you go about your everyday life. I believe it truly matters, to be a good judoka, is to be an aware person. Noticing the small little things, like closing a door the whole way, things like sitting with proper posture. Respecting people when they are talking to you. Being on time when you get invited to places. All these things affect your Judo because there is only one practice and one way. Miyamoto Musashi said the way is in everything, and this is the way.

Shoutout Sunil for reminding me of the way

I watched a TED talk a couple years ago that talked about how generalists that specialize later in their career tend to make more money than those that specialize early on. The reason I find this believable is because the generalists would have a wider array of experience to draw on verses the specialists. One thing I do struggle to articulate is the scope of generalists and specialist, in essence are we measuring specificity by number of hours worked on something? At what point is the generalists becoming a specialists and when is it a good idea to specialize.

Charlie Munger provides a great explanation of this in Poor Charlie’s Almanack. He proposes that one should know the main ideas in all the sciences specifically the ones you are not trained in, and ones not directly taught in school. The reason Adam smith’s division of labour is fantastic is because it’s labour, its doing the same thing over and over and over again. It doesn’t change, and the more times you do it, the better you get at it. For example driving, I’m sure everyone had a sensory overload when driving for the first time, but now people are texting, scrolling, and keeping a conversation while driving. The reason division of labour doesn’t apply so well with knowledge work is because it is not a complex environment, it’s like you’re going from a bicycle, to a car, to a semi-truck, to a airplane. The main purpose is still to move from A to B, but the controls are much different. This is where you have to think about how everything fits together. If you’ve ever made anything for people, you know that you can’t rely on the masses thinking rationally. It’s like telling all your friends to work out, something that’s clearly rational but their interests may lie in something else. I definitely botched the example but what I’m trying to say is that when you are in the real world doing something the formulas don’t work, you need to think about all the different things, and specifically all the different incentives involved. It’s hard to think about all these different things if you have only one specific mode of operating. As Charlie would say, you would have a man with a hammer tendency, to a man with only a hammer, everyone problem looks like a nail. Trying to live in this complex world like that, would be to be a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest.

What I’m trying to say is division of labour works better when it is a complex task in a simple environment, an environment that doesn’t change, and the output and input are predictable. This is not the case with knowledge work, specifically the type of work that will change the world, dividing each segment amongst people is not going to solve any complex task in a chaotic environment without each discipline knowing the others on a general level.

What I’m not saying is to be a generalist forever, but to not ignore the principles that affect your discipline. Charlie Munger advocates for constantly learning things outside your domain, using any organizational ethos that works.

Another thing I realized too was that my writing was dry because my brain wasn’t really getting any new interesting information. Now that I’m reading the Republic it’s like the thing between my ears is working again.

Take all of this with a grain of salt obviously.

Shoutout Gurmehar for this photo. I’ve been staying put in Edmonton

I’m kinda crazy about living life in the right way, which I don’t even think exists as a universal but it definitely exists for myself, and perhaps there are some general principles that we can adopt universally.

I’m super gun-ho about doing the “right things” even if it causes me discomfort, and I hate it when I catch myself doing that was working for me so well, and having to change because I don’t think it’s right.

For example, getting into an event that I really wanted to attend during AI conference ( one of the biggest in Canada). I didn’t buy tickets and the people at the door were not checking lanyards. I could’ve easily gotten a friend to slide me his lanyard, and then proceed to network like crazy, but I didn’t because it wasn’t right. I talked to the reception to finesse my way in, and she said there’s no way. I waited another 10 minutes, revised some jokes, came up with some objection handling, and went back in, this time she got mad, and I have to leave. Honestly, I don’t blame her, she’s just doing her job.

Anyway, the point of this isn’t to illustrate that I am a saint, for that you’d have to meet me in person( just kidding). The real, self-serving reason I choose to always follow the rules is so that I don’t start slipping ethically. Today it’s just parking and getting into an event, but I don’t want that to snowball into me cheating on my wife or anything.

I used to be the most devious man I knew. I did not have a moral compass if it didn’t mean killing. I remember the first time I stole something in grade 6, and I got caught so I stopped stealing entirely. If I didn’t get caught I’d probably steal a lot more. I cheated on the chemistry test in grade 12, I had the answer key in my calculator, and I wrote a song about it. Recently, I don’t think I’ve been the best friend to people, and I wish I had treated people better, something that I wasn’t really thinking about it.

I don’t really believe in hell, but the version of hell I do believe in is me hurting the people that I love the most.

Now the reason I WAS SO EXCITED to share this is because in Plato’s republic he says

Which is essentially what I believe too, but I couldn’t have said so concisely. I don’t want to breakdown the entire argument, if you want it that bad you can ask me. However, the part I enjoyed the most about it was the disharmony in the soul. If you commit injustice against your fellow man, it is disharmony in your soul that you have to live with.

The natural question is what if you don’t feel that disharmony, GREAT QUESTION! This is why Plato/Socrates says education is super important, because only education can show what an ideal situation would look like, and yes the ideal situation probably doesn’t exist, but if you feel guilty about not doing the ideal things, especially in the big things in life, we will have a better world, a more ideal world. Even though people say that the world is evil, and everyone is out to get you, it’s still a lot better than before, women have rights now. I’m not a slave in India, I do feel like we are making steady progress to a better and better world, a more ideal world, but it starts with education of the ideal.

NOTE: If you are really interested about if you commit a crime and don’t feel the guilt, a great book to read is Crime and Punishment, that book changed my life, and I really started to think about truth in a different way, but Dostoevsky’s so good at writing that you might take something else away from that book.

Connection to Calculus

This makes a little rectangle. Let’s say with these little rectangles you can make any shape(dog)

|          _ _
   |         |   |_ _
  _|         |       |
 | |_______|         |
 |         |    _    |
 |   _ _   |   | |   |
 |  |   |  |   | |   |
_|__|___|__|___|_|___|____

Now let’s imagine these little rectangles shrink so small into parts called infinitesimal units.

Now since we have really really small pieces we can make a better dog

|         
   |          _..__
   |        .'     `-.
   |       /  (o) (o) \
  ((_     |            |
   \  `'-.|      __    |
    )      `-._______.-'
   /                  \
  /   _.._      _.._   \
 |   /    \    /    \   |
_|__(_\____)__(_\____)__|___

Now, thank you for reading this far my point is our life is made up of these infinitesimal parts. Parts that seem like they don’t matter but they do. Over time as .

All we can really control are the tiny little moments, even as small as the thought you are having at this every instance.

The reason I wanted to write this is because the dx better illustrates why you should care about all the small moments in life, specifically our thoughts, because thoughts →actions→habits→life. I would always tell myself ‘‘just this once”, or “I’ll start tomorrow”, or a “small little bit can’t hurt”. These statements are true, it doesn’t really matter if I start now, and that little piece of fast food isn’t going to cause cancer, but its much deeper than just a moment. Infact, that might be the last time you thought about it, because pretty soon the next time someone brings up fast food you are probably going to eat it without thinking about it. I can admit this has happened to me so many times, where I’ll say I’m going to listen to podcasts and take my laptop to bed, and just watch videos all night long, ruining the next day.

Taylor Swift has released over 280 songs. I’m sure she’s tried to make really good music from day 1, but now she’s getting really good at it.

I don’t listen to a ton of Taylor Swift but I think her music has a good overall message.

Shoutout Rahul for giving me this photo.

Travel Bug

I really want to travel, it seems like everyone on instagram is backpacking through Eurasia right now. I’m honestly kinda jealous but, I’m gonna try and make time for it.

However, the plan is go on mini side plots to quench my thirst for new experience. That’s all I can really do right now, so I’m gonna try new side quests. I’ve been trying to learn Hindi for a minute now so I’m gonna get back on that, and I’ve been tryna do the backflip since last week.

Here’s my best attempt so far

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

I was talking to Alan, who previously interned at Tesla and he challenged my thought process, made it difficult for me to maneuver around his calculated barrage of questions. He said I couldn’t give a coherent answer, he said I didn’t know why, I tried to break his logic by taking his approach to higher levels of abstraction, knowing deep inside he was right. I wanted to walk away with my pride, but that was my first mistake. Alan was right on the money, I bet he sniffed it out within the first minute. He figured out I had no idea what I was doing, moreover my attempt at figuring it out was lack luster. I love Alan and I learnt so much from him.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

I give up meat on Friday, (except fish) and I forgot to tell my mom. When I checked my lunch it was paneer instead of chicken and I felt so loved in that moment. It may seem small but it put a smile on my face

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Inspired by Alans thinking, I researched the way how Space X and Tesla were ran. Everything is questioned down to first principles. If they can do it within the laws of physics they will find a way to do it.

If I could learn this much from Tesla and spaceX How about Apple, Amazon, Google, What can I learn about the people that shaped those companies. Even though some are dead, and I can’t talk to others I can read books, and understand their thinking.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Every single week at least someone tells me I can do it. They believe in me, even though I am having fun and learning. I do feel immense pressure on me, questions like is construction the one? Can I break this wall down by myself? Do I have enough experience? Am I working hard enough? The community around me gives me the strength to go on.

Having the right people by your side is invaluable

Thank you for reading : )

I went to a normal high school, played sports and did all the things an average highschooler would do. All my friends did the same.

Never thought about what I was doing whether it was ethical or not. No one really cared and it was fun. Now I’m in University and my friends that I see everyday are all Muslim, and they practice restraint by eating Halal, praying 5 times a day and so on. This forced me to take a look at myself unconsciously and now I pray a lot more and I’m more invested in my spiritual side as well as being a better person. Not by increasing money or faith but through practice of virtues like truth, honesty, temperance and courage.

I didn’t plan to be more truthful or constantly be nicer to people, but arguably this is the most important thing in my life. You could say that I would have gotten to this stage without any friends through introspection and you are right. Man is a social creature. I would have had to fight to my some of friends on not listening to bad music and following virtue whereas my current friends that’s the default state.

Now my epiphany is that you should always try to find the best people to be around. I used the word “best” so the reader can define the best for themselves. I do want to point out that this can lead to silos in your thinking. In order to be opened minded. I should read more especially authors that I don’t agree with and spend still amount of time with everyone although the core group of people is crucial.

Not everyone needs to have a front row seat in your life - Joyce (my friend’s mom)

Though it’s been 3 years since she said I’m only beginning to understand it now.

Not only the the core group of people, but also the authors that you read. I idolize Benjamin Franklin, and even though I can’t spend time with him. I can read his biography, thereby knowing him as a close friend.

What actions going forward

• Be conscious of people you are around, you don’t have to cut anyone off but give everyone what everyone is due. Friendships like wine only sweeten with age, so I want to keep as many long term friends as possible.

• Try to find people that you want to be like and be around them more. This should be effortful like planning workouts with people that have common goals. ( Reach out to me if you are interested in entrepreneurship)

This week I’m going to Edmonton Unlimited to learn more about the startup community.

Someone I admire

Adven Villa, this guy might be the most committed guy on the planet, in all my friends, including myself. He’s been making videos for 2 years now and his podcast is at 182 episodes. Take that in 182 episodes, he’s found so many people to interview. This guy has 1.3k videos which is a testament to his conviction, like he just keeps going. I sent him a text the other day about this and he says “I do it for the love of the game”. Love it, he’s gonna be successful no matter what and yeah .

Let’s goo Adven.

Something that I think about is whose better off, the man who wants everything and gets most of it, or the man that doesn’t want anything, and probably gets something. Epictetus the slaves headstone capture’s this perfectly.

Here lies Epictetus, a slave maimed in body, the ultimate in poverty, and favored by the gods.

I’m not sure what the future holds, but sometimes I worry that I’m engrossed in business. Maybe, once I get there, I’ll realize it’s not worth it, but if I stop now, and take the moral high ground of being poor for the sake of virtue. That would be a cop out in my books.

Anyway, a long way to say why I don’t have a 5 year plan, but Cody convinced me that I should think about what it looks like, and told me it’s a good exercise to see where you are headed and where you want to go.

My vision:

I wake up super early, probably around 4-5 AM, and then I work on something I care about. For the time being it’s probably going to be the business but in the future, I want to just learn, understand math, music, literature physics, biology, and economics. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb found Coulomb’s Law which explains how force and electric charge is related, he did this when he was still in the military, after he retired and focused on science . That would be so cool, if I can write or figure out some relationship to contribute to humanities knowledge. Paradoxically, I don’t think I’ll contribute if I make that my goal, but if I can earnestly be curious, it might work out, but even if it doesn’t it’ll be an honour to understand the works of the great people before me.

Honestly that’s it, I’d like to get a workout in later in the day, and I imagine in 10 years or so I’d have kids so probably spend time with family. I’d be a happy camper as long as I get my 4-5 hours in the morning of uninterrupted work.

What’s cool is that I’m kind of living the dream life right now, although I don’t have the financial freedom to spend it solely on my interests I have to find a creative way to find interesting things that still make money (essentially a startup). Which is also cool, since I’m forced to think outside the box to discover something where the venn diagram of my interest and what the world needs.

Side note : It’s not everyday that you are forced to learn something that you would have never learnt through your own curiosity, so that’s been cool too. I’ve never wondered about how houses are made, but I’m learning more and more about it everyday.

THANK FOR READING THIS IS MY 150TH POST!!!!

I really appreciate all my dear subscribers. There’s people on this list that I’ve known since Elementary school all the way to present day. I’ve been sharing my life in this blog since my gap year in 2023, from selling cars, stand up comedy to engineering. I’ve covered a lot of ground delved into everything I found interesting and have had some great conversations from this. This whole thing was inspired by having good conversations with people, and my hope is that we’ll get to talk about something interesting soon.