I’ve been struggling to figure out how to make money lately. I used to be a software engineer, you see, but that line of work isn’t holding my interest these days the way it used to. In my younger years, people joked about me being a robot. I’d always been somewhat fixated on logical rigor, and while that cognitive habit sometimes held me back in matters of friendship, it made programming easy and fun. ...

On the first night of SlutCon, brimming with energy, I wrote up some vignettes from the first day. As is so often the case with events like these, the rest of the weekend was a lovely blur. I’ve taken some time to process and reflect, and I want to share some of what I experienced and learned. More Vignettes Saturday I wrestle with a friend of mine as onlookers play music on a Bluetooth speaker: first Duel of the Fates, then Careless Whisper. It’s a hard-fought match, and we both get sweaty and scraped up. At one point, I have him in a headlock, but inexperienced as I am, I worry about hurting him and let up. After the bout, he calls me out on this, saying that he likely would have tapped out and given me the win if I had followed through. I reflect on the parallel to flirting; it’s hard to go for what I want if I’m not sure I can trust my partner to enforce their own boundaries. ...

I’ve been intrigued by the world of quantitative trading for many years, so when ex-Jane Street trader Ricki Heicklen ran a trading bootcamp at Manifest recently, I jumped at the opportunity! The bootcamp was a two-day intensive program designed to teach the fundamentals of quantitative trading and provide a glimpse into the experience of being a professional trader. Using a play currency, we went through various hands-on exercises to solidify concepts taught in energetically-delivered lectures. I learned a lot and made friends, and had so much fun that I’m considering a career pivot to quant trading. So, this post has two purposes: to give interested readers some background in trading concepts and a sense of my bootcamp experience, and to serve as a proof of work showing potential employers what I learned. ...

Jotting down some random thoughts.

Some advice I’d give to my 25-year-old self.

I grieved recently. The process was intense and unpleasant, and it helped me a lot. In this essay, I’ll talk about my experience and my theory of why it was good for me. Some background context: my friend broke up with me around a year ago. I had expectations for the future, a vision for our life together. I’m sad about losing those. I didn’t want to be sad. I clung to her for palliatives to keep the sadness at bay: sex, time together, reassurances. The pressure hurt her. I started trying to push the sadness down so I would stop hurting my friend. ...

Some stories from my first day of SlutCon. All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the people involved, except for Nick, who is one of the organizers of the event. I go to a talk on men’s fashion. The presenter points to me as a positive example, someone she would see and be intrigued by. This makes sense; I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on my cloak and matching dyed face hair. ...

Take a moment to think of something beautiful to you. Not something morally correct or widely appreciated, but something you delight in. For me, this could be a friend’s smile at a party, or a steaming bowl of delicious stew, but I can’t say what brings you joy. Got it? Good. Make the world have more of that. You are good, your tastes and values are good, and the world should be shaped in your image. You are good, because you are the source of your values. Recognizing yourself as good is the basis for making the world better. Notice how you want the world to be, and fix things that are out of place. You don’t have to fix everything; indeed, you aren’t obligated to fix anything. It’s just that the more you improve the world, the better the world will be. And I reiterate, “better” means more in line with your own vision of a good world, not what anyone else says you ought to work towards. ...

Bleh, I really don’t feel like writing, but I didn’t write yesterday, and the commitment for Halfhaven is a post every other day. This one’s gonna be 500 words of low-effort stream of consciousness, just to clear that bar. I’m not obligated to write, of course. I don’t really believe in the concept of obligation. I hope to do a high-effort post on this at some point. For now, I recommend Nate Soares’s writing on the matter, which heavily influenced my own view. No, I don’t have to write, so why am I doing so even though I don’t feel like it? Well, I want to follow through on Halfhaven. I’m looking forward to the feeling of pride about my 30 blog posts at the end of two months. I’m against self-coercion, but sometimes hard or unpleasant things are good to do. The trick is to remind oneself of why one is doing it. For a while, I just didn’t do hard things, and it turned out that only doing easy things wasn’t a recipe for happy thriving. Ever closer to my dao! ...