Yesterday I turned 23.

That’s a pretty distasteful number to see. 22 still feels I’m basking in the full essence of youth. But 23 carries the burden of expectation of being an adult entering their mid-20’s. Unfortunate.

A lot of things have changed since I turned 22. Superficially: I graduated college, got into PhDs, battled a myriad of health issues, moved to NYC, wrote a lot of code, and did a lot of research. I also ditched school my final semester to start an AI red-teaming and reliability company, Haize Labs. It’s been going ~reasonably~ well thus far (btw, we are hiring – reach out if you want to do your life’s work).

I also lost a lot of weight (unintentionally) and lost a lot of sleep (unintentionally). I also lost a lot of deep relationships (unintentionally). Not due to any ill will, but simply because of priorities and lack of time. Unfortunate.

The past year really freaking flew by. Not just flew by in the sense of time-dilating-as-you-get-older flew by, but in the sense that every day was 1) filled to the brim with things to do, and 2) the things I was doing were constantly shuffling and shifting domains. In many senses, I feel like I have condensed several years’ of ordinary, non-Haize living into the past year of Haize.

Call that getting Haized.

More seriously, the past year has resulted in a version of myself that’s much more stoic. I look back on the (in retrospect) tiny nuisances that plagued my internal peace and wonder how I even indexed those. By virtue of failing and suffering and being lost constantly but also earning real wins and momentum, I feel like I’m now largely desensitized to immediate external signals and in/validation. I’m just in this game of life enjoying the game. To be honest that’s the way it should’ve always been. Sadly, this does also dull the shine of life. I’d kill to experience the nerves of my first live performance again….

The decisions I’ve faced in the past year also forced me to confront myself and crystalize my values. Who was I, and what did I actually want out of life? Here are a couple of things I realized that may be partially unique to my worldview:

  • I can’t turn it off.
    • When I find something’s interesting, I really start thinking about it, and eventually obsess over it. This partially traces back to a host of OCD behaviors I exhibited as a kid. This is of coures also to the direct detriment of almost everything else in my life (see initial reflection above). E.g. I legimately don’t think I’ve been able to bring myself away from working on Haize for more than half a day before becoming viscerally uneasy. This makes it difficult to say make time for friends, or go see the doctor, or eat regularly scheduled meals, etc.
  • I am never satisfied.
    • Unfortunately, I am never satisfied. Not with myself, not with my work, not with others’ work, not with Haize, not with the state of AI, not with the world, etc. I also realized that I despise gloating (from anyone) and rarely will pat myself on the back. There’s always better work to be done, and we can always close the gap between the status quo and perfection. It seems that most people are not like this, however, which is frustrating to deal with. It seems that most people are okay with detente at the expense of mediocrity.
  • I want to do something, not be somebody (loosely cf. John Boyd).
    • Correlated with the above, I care a lot less about seeming impressive vs. actually doing impressive things. Recognition and vanity are inconsequential. Being on the frontier of knowledge and creation, and nursing kernels of ideas and delivering them out into the world – that’s what I want to center my life around.
  • I hate to lose.
    • Self-explanatory.
  • I am incredibly priviliged and need to pay it forward.
    • I feel extremely priviliged to be able to do what I do and live the life I live. The perceived struggles I face are trivial in relation to probably more than at least half of the global population. Forget the rest of the world, I’m priviliged even within my own genealogy: my parents and ancestors didn’t have hot water or quality nutrition for a near-majority of their lives. They then laid everything on the line for the life I have, and it seems incredible disrespectful for me to not pay it forward and not leverage the circumstances they’ve gifted to me to contribute something beyond another yuppie existence.

I think I’ve always felt this way, but it’s certainly been amplified in the past year. I’m curious to see what I learn in the next year, and if I’ll look back when I turn 24 and think that I was naive and cringe, or, just perhaps, mature beyond my years.