It's been two months in the Bay Area.
One observation among many is that people are on a mission to optimize every fiber of their existence. The premise of artificial intelligence was that we'd win back time and gain our freedom, but now we're busier than ever. We can't afford to lose a minute. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that societies are built to live that way. If anything, I know for a fact that the human brain can only focus for about four hours a day according to some science podcast I was listening to on my train ride, because I felt guilty simply doing nothing. Now that I'm out in the real world, I've been paying more and more attention to it. Thumbs constantly scrolling, eyes moving rapidly to catch a glimpse of one thing before another arrives. Hands -- with no mobility left in them, I imagine -- typing away, postures that look painful to hold. I have yet to see a friend group or a family talk to each other straight for even thirty minutes without stealing a glance at their latest iPhone with its ridiculously large camera lens. It's an undeniable reality.
And at this point, it's practically a requirement. If you're not automating your existence by building agentic loops and graphs while maximizing your Claude session, then what are you doing? If you're between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two and are not yet a founder who has raised a five-million-dollar seed round, or haven't just joined a frontier lab, seriously, what are you really doing? It surely is exhausting to be present in the Bay Area in an era like this. But I've realized that focus and discipline are the single greatest things you can learn. How to withstand the persuasion imposed by the greater, outer world and still see clearly what you're here for and what you really want. To know whether that dream is really yours. The ability to listen to your gut and prioritize. Because everyone will have an opinion on how to live your life for you. Believe me when I say this: everyone. Even the neighbor you didn't know existed, two blocks down the street. There's nothing wrong with listening to the more experienced, but taking it to heart is another story.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am very much for having aspirations and goals. It's one of the reasons I'm here. But who defines how that is measured? To some, making the most of it might mean winning a Nobel; for another, it's simply building a family. But again, how do you truly know when a goal is your very own? We all find meaning and purpose in different ways, but one thing is certain: the current trend of making it a requirement to optimize for the best of the best seems to be taking our focus away from the things that would genuinely make us happy. The constant need to optimize every moment steals the real happiness you'd feel in ordinary ones. Perhaps we're in the "good old days" at this very moment. Maybe it's the human condition. To strive to optimize, to always want to achieve more and more. But who's to say?
Lately, I've been giving myself space to simply do nothing. To be bored. To find joy in the most mundane parts of life. Most of my Caltrain rides to San Francisco are spent in silence, looking out the window, observing the busy lives of every city that starts with San and the nature that comes in between, observing my thoughts as they dance around. In my mind, you can't compare the spark of happiness you get from spotting a group of cows, who sometimes seem to be spotting humans right back, staying behind without breaking eye contact, to anything else. It's a particular kind.
