There is a certain comfort that I’ve got to enjoy in the last 40 days - leisurely working on things that interest me. I don’t actually see any economic benefit to most of the things I’m working on, at least not at the moment. It is not that I have a trust fund or a job that is secure under the current circumstances. It’s just that I don’t see any benefit to strictly utilitarian calculations at the moment.
The Marc Andreessen essay that has been widely discussed in the last week would have made me anxious under normal circumstances. If I asked myself “What should I build?” at the beginning of March 2020, I’d have searched desperately for some way to turn myself into an economic utility that scales fast. Now I just revel in my uselessness (This is a luxury since I’m still employed) I kind of feel apologetic about actually having fun working on things.
There is a certain question that VCs, entrepreneurs and people who have gone independent like to ask - “What would you do if you had enough money for the next 6-7 months?” I think whatever I have done for the last 40 days holds the answer to that. There has been no pressure to be economically useful in everything I do. I don’t plan every activity to be around the goal of being a utility. I’m kind of leisurely striding into what comes next, imagining what the world would be like. Of course there is a fear in me that this may be the last time I get to do this for a long time. When the post-crisis world emerges everyone would be rushing to take favorable positions. My selfish hope is that things I work on and build now gains me a tiny time-advantage. There is of course no way to no this - just betting on serendipity and resilience.
Weekly reads
“the breathless haste of America with which they work is already beginning to infect old Europe with its ferocity and is spreading a lack of spirit, Geistlosigkeit. Today one is ashamed of resting, and prolonged reflection almost gives people a bad conscience. One thinks with a watch in one's hand, even as one eats one's lunch while reading the latest news of the stock market; one lives as if one always "might miss out on something." "Rather do anything than nothing": this principle, too, is merely a string to throttle all culture and good taste. Just as all forms are visibly perishing by the haste of the workers, the feeling for form itself, the ear and eye for the melody of movements are also perishing. The proof of this may be found in the universal demand for gross obviousness in all those situations in which human beings wish to be honest with one another for once-in their associations with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders, and princes: One no longer has time or energy for ceremonies, for being obliging in an indirect way, for esprit in conversation, and for any otium (leisure) at all.”
The ideal case is when the two are somewhat balanced, or when the individual is changing slightly faster, but not too fast, relative to the rest of society. The balanced case is the diagonal line, x=y. So for example, you and society are reorienting at the same rate, or revaluing at the same rate.
26/ Below that line, the individual is changing faster. The sweet spot is a cone slightly below the diagonal, which I like to call the builder’s cone. If you are too far ahead of society, too far ahead of the curve, you might be too early, and turn into a frustrated visionary.
27/ Or worse, you might end up going to the dark side and using your ahead-of-the-curve status to exploit others through profiteering, because it’s easier than building. Being too far ahead of that curve creates that tempation.
Get this short newsletter once a week