7 ms·

Several years ago I dreamt of becoming a university professor. I was young and naive and got a lot of ego-boost from my peers and professors who really praised

Several years ago I dreamt of becoming a university professor. I was young and naive and got a lot of ego-boost from my peers and professors who really praised me for how smart I was. I did some research projects during my undergrad (I studied Ecology & Evolutionary Biology), then went immediately into a PhD following graduation. At that point, my own idealistic expectations of myself (and of academia), combined with conflict with my parents and other personal life chaos, all slammed in my face as I tried to navigate grad school. I got depressed (though I didn't recognize it at the time), got nothing achieved, and eventually dropped out. My life and my dreams all crashed before me, I became very distant from my parents, and I spent the next several years numbed out, trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life now. Fortunately, it was during this next phase of my life, after the fire had burnt through everything, that I went through some incredible personal growth and transformation, alongside with my partner. I learned how to navigate relationships, I learned about differences and about universals. I learned how to love. I learned how to accept and embrace change. I revisited my past traumas and started to heal. Life became less chaotic and I could finally breathe a little and at least live a low-lying life. Then roughly two years ago, due to some pretty big changes in lifestyle (moving, went back to do some school) and all the expectations that came with it, I went into my second depressive episode. This time around, even though the experience itself was darker and more tormenting, I was more aware of what's happening in my mind. I could hear all the voices in my head, I could describe my pain, and so I wrote about them and shared it with my few friends on social media. There wasn't much response, but something inside me started to change. By writing down my most vulnerable thoughts and feelings and trying to communicate them to others, it helped me to make sense of these experiences. The more I wrote, the more clarity I found. I started to really see and feel my traumas and pains, and after some gut-wrenching catharsis, my depression lifted. What was even more incredible though, was how these experiences would then drastically transform my view of the world. As the fog in my mind cleared, I started to pay more attention to the world around me, more so than I ever have. I've always known about social issues, but nothing ever really clicked, and so I never really cared. As I paid more attention, I started to see the problems of our world more clearly. After nearly 30 years of life, I finally looked outside my own little bubble. Everything started to matter now, and I felt so alive. I started thinking seriously about various topics, started asking questions, and started writing privately about all of them. I became genuinely interested in one discipline after another, slowly expanding my realm and my worldview, trying to make sense of the more fundamental questions and ideas that stretched across disciplines. Slowly, as I learned more about the world and looked back on my life, I began to realize that everything that had happened in my life, from my idealistic career fantasies, to the conflicts in my relationships, to the trauma and the depression and all the growth that followed, can be explained and understood in one way or another. But as I looked out at the world, I began to notice, literally everywhere, that people are stuck in problems and debates because of some very fundamental misunderstandings about how things work. I started to realize that, nearly all of us have been binded to and blinded by our cultural assumptions of everything, from careers to relationships, to society, to science itself. And if the problems of our world and in our personal lives can be better understood, they can also be prevented or improved upon, if only we weren't so complacent about it all.

samh748 5y ago
Over the past year or so, as I observed and reflected and tried to map out everything in my head, I've been consciously constructing a chain of inter-connected theses into a series of critical essays. The goal has been to communicate some basic concepts to layman, intellectuals, and policy-makers alike, challenging many of the fundamental ideas that we assume as "truth" or "common-knowledge", and discussing the many complex implications of such assumptions. Ultimately, my vision is to inspire cultural change that is grounded in a firm understanding of some basic principles (outline below). And to be clear, I don't expect these changes to take place within several years; rather, they will likely take decades if not generations to fully realize (if ever). The structure isn't entirely set yet, but the essays with rough descriptions are as follows: 1. Unpacking Complexity (introducing the abstract concepts of complexity and uncertainty, context, implications, the process of inquiry and understanding, critical thinking, nuance and language) 2. Reconstructing Reality (applying complexity to the real world, challenging ideals like truth and objectivity, discussing the implications of "rigid science") 3. Discovering Diversity (introducing the idea that we are all living in our own perceptions of how humans and the world works, that humans are more diverse than we'd ever imagine, introduce various personality theories/frameworks, generational differences, etc.) 4. Explaining Humans (seeing humans through the lens of our needs, reframing human nature as something more dynamic rather than static, seeing the lasting effects of our upbringing and our experiences in general) 5. Confronting Ourselves (illustrating the complicated nature of genuine personal growth, the role of the ego, challenging simplistic ideals such as "empathy" and "authenticity", discussing ways to move towards genuine love) Taken together, these essays will collectively be called The Beginnings of Understanding. The central thesis being that the process of understanding can and should be expanded upon to cover all of the areas above, and that understanding isn't merely an intellectual exercise, but an emotional and almost visceral one. ... This is my vision, one that I've thought very seriously about and worked very hard to improve deliberately for almost two years. I've let enough time pass and my ego subside to minimize the possibility of this being a completely imagined fantasy with no real solid grounding. While I lack the expertise of making fallacy-proof arguments, I'm confident that I understand these topics enough to make a significant contribution towards this vision. At this point, I've accumulated entire notebooks worth of thinking-on-the-page and have gotten most of the ideas fleshed out, but they're scattered in my notes and I'll need to do some real work to weave everything together in a coherent and compelling manner. Also, it's not like I can just write and publish one essay and see how it goes. They are all interconnected so I'll need to have most of it written before I can publish any part of it; I'm basically writing a book. My main problem now is being able to find enough time and attention to really get this thing off the ground. I've got a day job of course [1] and a family to raise and barely have enough time in a day to get enough rest [2]. I wish I was a professor that can go on sabbatical to write a textbook. If only they gave out grants for stuff like this! Anyway, there are probably a host of other things to consider to make this a reality, and that's why I'm asking, very generally, whether I'm being too ambitious. Not because I think I lack ability, but because it feels near-impossible with all the practical constraints I have on my life. With so many things to juggle, it's hard to build and maintain enough momentum to keep this thing going in any meaningful sense. I certainly don't want this to take 10 years to complete. Another consideration is that I'm basically working on this entirely by myself. My partner is very supportive and in fact a very good bouncing-board for my ideas, but she can't write it for me. I've also told some friends about parts of it but most of them just kinda give me a blank-stare, or at best just support me at a distance because they don't really understand what I'm trying to do. Plus, it seems most people are too busy with their own lives to care much for someone else's endeavours. At least that's been the case for me. So anyway, this is an invitation for anyone out there who wants to volunteer to be on my "committee" LOL. Jokes aside, if anyone does want to support me in any way, I'd love to know. Whether it's volunteering to proof-read some drafts, or to discuss and further flesh out certain things, or just giving general advice. And of course, no commitment necessary. It'll be wonderful just knowing that other people want to see this come to fruition. If interested, maybe leave me a comment with some way to contact you (email, twitter, etc). I think that's everything I have to say about all this. Would love to hear what you folks think! Thank you so so so so much for getting through this long post. I hope it was worth it. Much love, Sam :) PS. And if anyone cares, after I publish the above essays / The Beginnings of Understanding, aka "Book One", I will follow up with a "Book Zero" which will consist of several personal essays with stories like the one above. It's cheesy I know but I think it's also kinda cool. :P I'm also planning on presenting the critical essays in video form on youtube, and the website (under construction) will include some notes from my readings, etc. [0] My recent Ask HN post on being interested in many disciplines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105 - I asked this as I had been struggling to find more constructive reasons to do more reading, since these readings don't explicitly tie in to the essays I'll be writing. [1] I wrote about my day job briefly in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30929984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30929984 [2] A recent post where I wondered about possibly having ADHD and my struggles related to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952648

samh748 5y ago

Over the past year or so, as I observed and reflected and tried to map out everything in my head, I've been consciously constructing a chain of inter-connected theses into a series of critical essays. The goal has been to communicate some basic concepts to layman, intellectuals, and policy-makers alike, challenging many of the fundamental ideas that we assume as "truth" or "common-knowledge", and discussing the many complex implications of such assumptions. Ultimately, my vision is to inspire cultural change that is grounded in a firm understanding of some basic principles (outline below). And to be clear, I don't expect these changes to take place within several years; rather, they will likely take decades if not generations to fully realize (if ever). The structure isn't entirely set yet, but the essays with rough descriptions are as follows: 1. Unpacking Complexity (introducing the abstract concepts of complexity and uncertainty, context, implications, the process of inquiry and understanding, critical thinking, nuance and language) 2. Reconstructing Reality (applying complexity to the real world, challenging ideals like truth and objectivity, discussing the implications of "rigid science") 3. Discovering Diversity (introducing the idea that we are all living in our own perceptions of how humans and the world works, that humans are more diverse than we'd ever imagine, introduce various personality theories/frameworks, generational differences, etc.) 4. Explaining Humans (seeing humans through the lens of our needs, reframing human nature as something more dynamic rather than static, seeing the lasting effects of our upbringing and our experiences in general) 5. Confronting Ourselves (illustrating the complicated nature of genuine personal growth, the role of the ego, challenging simplistic ideals such as "empathy" and "authenticity", discussing ways to move towards genuine love) Taken together, these essays will collectively be called The Beginnings of Understanding. The central thesis being that the process of understanding can and should be expanded upon to cover all of the areas above, and that understanding isn't merely an intellectual exercise, but an emotional and almost visceral one. ... This is my vision, one that I've thought very seriously about and worked very hard to improve deliberately for almost two years. I've let enough time pass and my ego subside to minimize the possibility of this being a completely imagined fantasy with no real solid grounding. While I lack the expertise of making fallacy-proof arguments, I'm confident that I understand these topics enough to make a significant contribution towards this vision. At this point, I've accumulated entire notebooks worth of thinking-on-the-page and have gotten most of the ideas fleshed out, but they're scattered in my notes and I'll need to do some real work to weave everything together in a coherent and compelling manner. Also, it's not like I can just write and publish one essay and see how it goes. They are all interconnected so I'll need to have most of it written before I can publish any part of it; I'm basically writing a book. My main problem now is being able to find enough time and attention to really get this thing off the ground. I've got a day job of course [1] and a family to raise and barely have enough time in a day to get enough rest [2]. I wish I was a professor that can go on sabbatical to write a textbook. If only they gave out grants for stuff like this! Anyway, there are probably a host of other things to consider to make this a reality, and that's why I'm asking, very generally, whether I'm being too ambitious. Not because I think I lack ability, but because it feels near-impossible with all the practical constraints I have on my life. With so many things to juggle, it's hard to build and maintain enough momentum to keep this thing going in any meaningful sense. I certainly don't want this to take 10 years to complete. Another consideration is that I'm basically working on this entirely by myself. My partner is very supportive and in fact a very good bouncing-board for my ideas, but she can't write it for me. I've also told some friends about parts of it but most of them just kinda give me a blank-stare, or at best just support me at a distance because they don't really understand what I'm trying to do. Plus, it seems most people are too busy with their own lives to care much for someone else's endeavours. At least that's been the case for me. So anyway, this is an invitation for anyone out there who wants to volunteer to be on my "committee" LOL. Jokes aside, if anyone does want to support me in any way, I'd love to know. Whether it's volunteering to proof-read some drafts, or to discuss and further flesh out certain things, or just giving general advice. And of course, no commitment necessary. It'll be wonderful just knowing that other people want to see this come to fruition. If interested, maybe leave me a comment with some way to contact you (email, twitter, etc). I think that's everything I have to say about all this. Would love to hear what you folks think! Thank you so so so so much for getting through this long post. I hope it was worth it. Much love, Sam :) PS. And if anyone cares, after I publish the above essays / The Beginnings of Understanding, aka "Book One", I will follow up with a "Book Zero" which will consist of several personal essays with stories like the one above. It's cheesy I know but I think it's also kinda cool. :P I'm also planning on presenting the critical essays in video form on youtube, and the website (under construction) will include some notes from my readings, etc. [0] My recent Ask HN post on being interested in many disciplines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928105 - I asked this as I had been struggling to find more constructive reasons to do more reading, since these readings don't explicitly tie in to the essays I'll be writing. [1] I wrote about my day job briefly in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30929984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30929984 [2] A recent post where I wondered about possibly having ADHD and my struggles related to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30952648