{"id":10137,"date":"2016-05-28T18:16:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T18:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/?p=10137"},"modified":"2018-11-25T11:57:53","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T11:57:53","slug":"0573-what-would-your-younger-self-think-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/0573-what-would-your-younger-self-think-of-you\/","title":{"rendered":"0573 \u2013 what would your younger self think of you?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I\u2019m thinking about who I used to be and who I am now, and what\u2019s changed. I was reading Nassim Taleb\u2019s commencement speech, in which he said that his definition for success was looking in the morror and wondering if you dissapoint the person you were at 18, \u201cright before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not reputation, wealth, standing, decorations.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It\u2019s an interesting question. While I often feel like I\u2019m still mentally and executively 18 (I know this isn\u2019t true, but I still feel this way and I\u2019m still trying to shake off that skin I\u2019ve outgrown), I haven\u2019t stopped to consider how 18 year old me would feel about 25 year old me. I turn 26 in about a week, so now would be as good a time as any.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Let\u2019s see, who was I at 18? I was a Junior College student, and a very unhappy one. I don\u2019t need to guess\u2013 I can go back and look at my blog archives. Let\u2019s see\u2026 I turned 18. I tried to quit smoking. I said \u201cI totally intend to go backpacking halfway around the world after NS\u201d, which is something I never did. That\u2019s disappointing. I was passionate about live music, local music. I liked \u201cmy mental capacity to reason and understand things\u201d and \u201cmy ability to still have faith in the world\u201d, and I disliked \u201cmy lack of discipline\u201d and \u201cskinny legs\u201d. I was afraid of \u201cnot knowing or realizing when I\u2019m wrong\u201d. \u00a0I wished I would read and write more. \u00a0I wrote that I loved to shop and dress up. I disliked herd mentality, wet socks and people who\u2019re quick to judge others.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I wanted to be involved in education somehow, teaching others. I wanted to write, in any form\u2013 \u201cinformative, social commentary that will make a positive impact on society\u201d. I also wanted to have businesses, get involved with the media (\u201cpreferably a print production like a magazine\u201d), and do more for the music scene. I\u2019m not super fixated on any of those things\u2013 I see them as indicators of the spheres that I care about, but I\u2019m pretty agnostic about how exactly I get involved.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So\u2026 how does Visa-18 feel about Visa-25? I think he\u2019d be delighted that I never had to write a resume\u2013 that I got hired on the basis of my blog, to work in a tech startup full of smart people who get shit done without worrying about minor details like what time you get into work, or how exactly you do what you do as long as you get results. I think he\u2019d be amazed that I got married at 22, but he would be very impressed that I have my own house. He\u2019d be impressed that I\u2019ve gained 20kg and have a squat rack at home, and that I\u2019m making progress on no longer being the skinny guy with the skinny legs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But those aren\u2019t the things I want to focus on. I want to focus on the things that I wouldn\u2019t be so proud of.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Visa-18 would be bummed that I\u2019m not a better musician than I am right now. Music was a big part of my life then, and I\u2019d have assumed that I\u2019d just keep getting better steadily throughout my life. I did play some music during NS, but I basically stopped that shit entirely when I started working. It took me some time to find my footing as a working adult, but I think I\u2019m in control of my life enough now that I can afford to schedule some time to practice and get better at music\u2013 knowing that it\u2019ll be something that I appreciate.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Visa-18 would be bummed that I\u2019m less opinionated than I used to be. A part of this is a good thing\u2013 a lot of my opinions were opinions that I didn\u2019t necessarily have the right to have. I would get outraged or angered or annoyed at upset at all sorts of things without understanding them much at all. I think I\u2019ve swung to the opposite end since\u2013 I\u2019ve tried so hard to avoid passing judgements on things, to be patient and discerning and all that thoughtful-slow stuff that I\u2019ve stopped writing any sort of social commentary. A part of this is because I wanted to be more introspective, so that\u2019s understandable. But Visa-18 would\u2019ve liked me to have been engaged with the goings-on of the world around me in some way. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve completely betrayed that\u2013 I think I\u2019m choosing to focus on developing myself, on becoming better at executing, getting things done, making sense of what\u2019s going on. I have fewer theories being thrown around, but my fundamental sense of how the world works is getting better.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But still, there\u2019s a reason why I\u2019m writing this, why all of this is bubbling to the surface. I feel like I\u2019ve reached the end of one pendulum swing, and like I\u2019m starting to swing back. I feel like I have been playing it a little too safe, and as a result I\u2019ve been\u2026 missing out? That\u2019s not the right phrase to use. I have been\u2026 accumulating something inside me that hasn\u2019t been properly\u2026 discharged (ugh, phrasing). There\u2019s a bunch of tension, a bunch of unarticulated thoughts or anti-thoughts, SOMETHING, I don\u2019t know what yet but it\u2019s there. Stuff I\u201dve chosen to actively avoid until now because of reasons. But now those reasons don\u2019t seem so relevant anymore. I feel like it\u2019s time to switch modes and start\u2026 \u201cbeing opinionated\u201d again. That doesn\u2019t sound right either. I\u2019ve always been opinionated. I guess I\u2019m just trying to start engaging with the world around me again a little more.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Well, this wasn\u2019t nearly as insightful as I was hoping it might\u2019ve been. Ultimately when I think about it I think 18-yo me would\u2019ve defered to 25-yo me on a lot of things, knowing that I would have more context and knowledge and so on. I do still appreciate our fundamental interests in music, art, passion, travel, conversations, fun, all of those things\u2013 just that it\u2019s a little harder now that I need to be self-sufficient. On that note, I\u2019m going to bed.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m thinking about who I used to be and who I am now, and what\u2019s changed. I was reading Nassim Taleb\u2019s commencement speech, in which he said that his definition for success was looking in the morror and wondering if you dissapoint the person you were at 18, \u201cright before&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,350],"class_list":["post-10137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit","tag-questions","tag-self-respect"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>0573 \u2013 what would your younger self think of you? - 1,000,000 words by @visakanv<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/0573-what-would-your-younger-self-think-of-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"0573 \u2013 what would your younger self think of you? - 1,000,000 words by @visakanv\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m thinking about who I used to be and who I am now, and what\u2019s changed. 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