I’d like to run it back… If you’ve followed my writing, you’d have noticed I committed to something purely based on the fleeting feeling that is motivation, a plan lacking sustenance, starved of detail and front-loaded with grandeur.
Years ago, I wished to swing and day trade stocks. Naive to the world and seeking a way to make money, I studied gurus and proven people for years. As you can assume, I never actually traded on that go-around. I burned out from fear after the perfect plan had no way to proof. Years after that, I decided it was time to trade. I had done research years ago, so I should be able to apply it now with no refresher. So I traded with a sizable account and a tendency to favor the short position. What happened was not that I lost money, but that I had no plan at that point and traded off of feeling and a news feed that was minutes behind the professionals. Each day, after breaking even, I had nothing to look back on. I had no plan. I only had action with no ability to look at the data.
I either analyze the perfect system and don’t use it, or I find heightened motivation and have no sword to sharpen.
The origin of proof centers around the idea of a test. The word comes from the Latin probare, “to test.” When I speak of proof, it is not the meaning most may see at face value, meaning evidence or information to prove. Proof\s are a system in which one is tested and certified, and the test is what produces the data that leads you to and from an answer. The \s makes it plural: proofs. Without proofs, you lack understanding. When I am in class, I can break down a problem regarding derivatives, but if you asked me why or how it applies, I would be stumped. The same goes for all the theory my mind has created in a pursuit of solving the universe.
Last week I took a hard look at my own world: years of my own writing and conversations, my grades, the promises I kept and the ones I dropped. The goal was simple. Find out why my plans keep collapsing, what actually works for me, how to learn and read at a higher level, and which path is actually mine.
I have done the analysis on my own world, but just as an implemented system without data taken leads to lost energy, the analysis of my own world with no test leads to deep theorization void of any application, nothing but speculation. How are you meant to fix the crack when you didn’t scan the wall?
I must start to deliver something closer to writeups than theory-based posts. Not because I am forced to do so… but because I no longer gain anything from analyzing my own patterns. Until I decide otherwise, my posts will reflect the change as I gain the ability for more technical writing.
In the game Counter-Strike, you cannot move and shoot accurately at the same time. It will make an unreliable pattern come from your gun. The way around this, so you don’t get killed from being a statue, is to stick and move. The movement in between the attack is the only thing that enables you to assess the situation as you go. This can be applied to things such as programming. You move, gaining a plan. You stick, applying that plan. And you move to analyze the output.
The main thing found from the research is the power of the mind. In situations you cannot change, your only option is to change your perspective of the situation. The force an outcome carries depends on your perspective. If you see a failure as a loss, you gain nothing. If you see a failure as gathered data, you have built onto the bridge.
The difference between where I am now and where I was is the understanding of action. For the longest time, I have lacked skin in the game. I slowly put my word out there, but there was no cost.
My mind does not process a lack of a blog until the day it’s due. So I have applied old data to make change: stripping my phone of distraction, creating a calendar system that pulls directly from my homework page, and signing a charter with a personal promise I don’t take lightly. I have taken steps to direct my pursuit, knowing a major flaw of my own is a lack of realization, in the moment, of the best thing to get done. Without it, my mind goes on tangents based on how the day unfolds, instead of using that for progression. A few lines from that charter:
- Until January 1, I can only remove or tune. Nothing new.
- No games, feeds, or videos before my first study block.
- AI never goes first.
- A log every night: my game and feed time, what I read, and what it said.
With that said, I will, for one last time, purposefully write an analysis rather than a writeup. The contract holds me to a pathway until 2027. It is centered around the domains I wish to pursue, but the main goal is as simple as becoming an elite reader. Reading is what feeds the writeups, since a writeup is just research put on the page. I am not to add in most areas of my life, but to take away when needed. Surrounded by a world that consumes, I get consumed, so if I am unable to break that pattern, my first step will be a flip phone.
I notice my tendencies, and up until recently, I had no sense of use for the data they gave me. I wrote my last post and quickly realized its flaws. I have tried my best to patch the holes, and I shall see where this attempt leads me. An output of only claims is equal to a boy crying wolf. Soon the habit becomes routine, and your words become weightless. Only with proof\s can your claims be given weight, success or not. Luckily, there is no wolf, and my claims have not endangered a village, but the point still stands.
What last week’s research taught me, as advice to myself:
- If you see a plan failing, stick and move.
- Do not be consumed by the sunk cost fallacy. You lose more keeping on a path you know to be flawed than starting anew on a path that could be great.
- Do not assume great minds, or those selling your solution, took the steps they claim.
I will not be posting videos more often than I have content for. From here on, a post is a writeup: anything that isn’t a theoretical analysis of my personal choices. My next post will contain the overview of my turret project for school, which I am behind on.