Purpose

Purpose; It’s that little flame; That lights a fire under your ass.

-John Tartaglia, Avenue Q

Growing up, I felt stupid. In elementary school, I was 2nd in the nation for chess players my age and the best in California. Things came fast to me. Despite being one of the youngest in my grade, I was near the top of my class in academics and athletics. Yet, I’ve always been deeply insecure about my intelligence. Compared to my family, I was slow.

In the Shadow of Greatness

I was in a car with my family, and I said something I thought was clever. I was told my observation was obvious. “Everyone would think of that.” I was used to getting shot down by my brothers, but this one stung different. 

I was the annoying youngest sibling. I remember not being ok with silence and feeling compelled to make conversation. It’s an obnoxious thing to do, especially as the youngest. After a few times of being told my thoughts weren’t unique, I started keeping them to myself.

I went to a public high school rated one the top in the country for test scores. I remember putting in extra effort to set the curve on a science test. The teacher saw it was me and went “Of course, you’re a Lonsdale.” She was right. If I was as smart as my brothers, it wouldn’t have been hard.

I got no validation for my effort. I was on a treadmill where I’d have to senselessly grind to simply live up to my family name. For what? It was expected that I set the curve. After I went through puberty, I rebelled and went from straight-A student to not caring.

That was my angsty teenage rebellion. I couldn’t be the smartest. I’d never be the smartest. I’d never be the most athletic either. I’d be near the top in almost everything, but I wasn’t the best. What could I be the best at?

Later, I learned to be quickly competent at almost anything. I learned to be good enough. However, the George Plimpton life of the professional amateur wasn’t my north star. I needed to find my calling.

I was 20 when I realized my calling. I’d been meditating for two years and had started reading rationality blogs. I wanted to pursue the truth, no matter what I found. I’ve previously said my passion is to understand the human condition. Why do we humans do what we do? I pursued it, but the abstraction above that, and what I’ve truly optimized for is clarity of thought. 

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

-Voltaire

Aspy Truth

I started the process by finding the truth sans emotions. It was an aspy way to go about it. I took out the feelings and analyzed what has net positive consequences vs net negative consequences. Second and third-plus order consequences had to be understood.

I studied incentives, whether they be money, pride, or status. I learned concepts like switching costs from existing systems, inertia, and infrastructure lock-in, i.e., maybe the best, safest car is two car lengths wide but street lane widths are set so there’s a constraint.

These frameworks were helpful, but I realized that I was missing part of the equation. The world doesn’t conform to what makes sense.

There are entire businesses that make no rational economic sense. Hell, entire industries (MLMs, sports, art, film, and most hedge funds) don’t make sense.

Emotional Truth

Later, I became more in touch with my emotions. Emotions have their own rationale and truth. I went from treating them as pesky, unnecessary things that get in the way to a piece of the larger puzzle.

Emotions colored in the lines and blurred others. They painted the areas I ignored. They made the truth beautiful and purposeful.

Feelings are a primitive of human action. People start to make sense when you add in feelings. If you can alter feelings, you can change humanity.

Even the more woo parts of spirituality began to make sense, e.g., assessing whether someone has positive or negative energy. They’re abstractions of unconscious and conscious factors (body language, cadence, tone, facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) that contribute to energy. Having positive energy is a systems problem. It’s not one thing. 

Rationalizing

It’s often difficult for people to explain why they do what they do:

Few professional sports players study the physics of why what they do works. Basketball players may make miraculous plays in the moment, and when asked what they were thinking, respond “I put the ball in the hoop!” That’s what we’re all doing throughout our day. Our subconscious dribbles and enables our jukes, while we put the ball in the hoop.

I broke everything down to its base components to understand why something is what it is. I didn’t know and was curious.

I’m sure one can go about clarity of thought the opposite way, but it’d be painful to remove emotions associated with strongly held beliefs. Most have emotions as their dominant frame in how they view and understand the world.

I began to understand why others thought what they thought. When looking through the frame of emotions, actions I thought were wrong, made emotional sense. And some actions I even began to agree with, e.g., I used to think it was my duty to tell someone the brutal truth when they ask for feedback. I still believe honesty is important, but oftentimes, people aren’t in the right emotional state to be receptive to feedback.

Evolving Views

One of our principles at Ender is to be right, a lot. I was wrong. A lot. I’m still wrong. I’ve gotten good at being right. But I’ve admitted being wrong more times than almost anyone. I’ve improved my clarity of thought by exploring possibilities. 

I’ve been convinced of things for years before changing my mind, e.g., I thought AI safety was a huge deal for a decade, and it wasn’t being paid enough attention to. Now, I think if we don’t develop AI, we’re screwed and safety is a massively overblown issue.

Similarly, I thought free will existed, then I was convinced free will didn’t exist. Then, that we should think free will exists even though it doesn’t. Now, I believe free will exists.

Clarity of Thought

I’m obsessed with the truth. Probably too much, but there doesn’t seem much point or fun in the world if we don’t know the truth. There are conflicting truths and nuances everywhere.

We can’t control our lives, but we can shape them. Clarity of thought is a precursor to being able to shape our lives. Those without it are slaves to circumstance; Non-playing characters reacting to the outside world.

Having purpose requires a sense of self strong enough to ignore what others say. Beyond being responsible, my purpose is to pursue clarity of thought. Clarity of thought makes life real.