Hello there
Welcome to my rough notebook
This is where I collect the information that I consume in the form of raw data and inferences from my experiments, and convert it into an understandable signal to put out there into the world.
An Introduction
To set the context.
I've maintained journals many times in the past to document my thoughts on a variety of interests, including but not limited to technology, product design, entrepreneurial ambitions, fitness, music, organizational structures, politics, literature & teachings, tactics to traverse various social situations, and sustainable ways to be satisfied with myself. I had also instituted measures to track my personal and professional lives in a healthy way using various online tools. Measures like following only the people I've spoken to in real life on my Instagram account, maintaining an updated close friends list, and tracking my career progress on my LinkedIn profile.
There was no conscious reason for this at the time. Nevertheless, these practices have created an information flow from a lake of raw data. I do this because all data and information have the potential to reveal something new, and no thought, inference, or creative idea should be left to waste. It was this belief that was the real reason behind these compulsions. Painters paint, songwriters compose, and I want to contribute more signal to my peers and the outside world at large.
I used to think that this constant stream of ideas with no avenue to discuss them with other people can take a toll on a person's mental well being, that a person is shaped in a more wholesome and sociable way in an environment where they believe society is watching them, and that it is statistically unlikely that you will ever find another person or group of people whose identity is composed of the same combination of ideas as yourself. However, after some deliberation, it seems that you can refine data into information and gain more signal than you started with, without any external individual in the loop. That previous understanding was a conflation of an unrelated social need and the pursuit of knowledge. The two rarely intertwine, and it's not practical to build such relationships.
This website is a log of that journey of converting data into a signal. As for the need to make it public, I think that is best summarized by this excerpt from Jordan Peterson's '12 Rules for Life' -
'If they don't have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves.
The input of community is required for the integrity of the individual psyche. Much of what we consider healthy mental function is the result of our ability to use the reactions of others to keep our complex selves functional.
We outsource the problem of our sanity.'
