In May, I moved to San Francisco. This was my second time moving to this city.
The first time I lived here had an edge to it. I was working a job that, well, I thought was beneath me. I had few friends. I hated the area of the city I lived in (I witnessed a fatal stabbing shortly before I moved out). I innocuously got coffee with a girl I had previously dated; a bird had pooped on her jacket, so she asked if she could wash it at my place, and we spent the next few months getting hurt. I eventually failed to perform at my job and decided to quit before I got disciplined—I couldn’t bear to be reminded that I couldn’t do anything right.
Part of the reason I failed at my job was that I spent all my time studying esoteric topics in artificial intelligence instead of working. I firmly believed that the only way to escape the pit I had found myself in was through the absolute power granted by a universal, ultimate intelligence. Now I look back on that time and I see the reach for purity and redemption in the midst of suffering, and the limitless curiosity that powered it all, and I feel a little warm and fuzzy. He tried his best.
And… I still spend a lot of time working on the project. I still want to win. I still want to know.
After moving here in May I was surprised both by the amount of social energy that suddenly appeared—over the first three weeks I had an average of more than one social activity per day—and by how quickly my solitary tendencies resurfaced in spite of the newfound social abundance. I love being alone, but you know that.
I used to have a lot to say on the dysfunctions that inhere in the various social scenes in this city. I have a simpler point of view now—that those environments and their sordid dynamics are not things that I wish to engage with. Push away the bad and pull in the good. That’s the trick.
Another cause of my reduced desire to socialize is the heightened sensitivity that meditation has given me. Did I mention that I’ve been meditating a lot? One of the core loops of meditation is noticing and releasing tension. Eventually even the tension in others is written above their heads like furigana over kanji. It leaks out through the emphases in speech, in body positions, and in the subtle, involuntary contractions of the muscles in the cheeks and forehead (sorry, weird, I know). Learning to see all of this disillusioned me in a way that seems permanent. I can’t idealize anyone anymore… but maybe that’s good. There are still a few people I like.
I stopped using Twitter. It has lost its fizz. I won’t say that I will never go back—who knows—but at the moment I have no interest in the urgency that it generates. I’ve written about this before, but Twitter has (people have) a profound desire to enforce the sameness of all people. This has always worked against me, but has been even more grating recently. I’m not pretending, or faking it, or an impostor. I am the real thing.
Last month I went on a week-long meditation retreat. I have around forty pages of notes that I wrote frantically in my spider-infested tent, but the summary is that I finally figured out how to levitate.
Just kidding. Glossing over the details, what actually happened is that I now feel subtly supported—like I used to be swimming in the open ocean and now I’m paddling in the shallows.
And one more memory from retreat: I woke up one morning and upon looking up at the sky… was it always that blue?
Immediately after the retreat I switched jobs to a full-time mostly-in-person role writing software for a new startup. I don’t have much to say; it’s fine. I don’t remember why I used to be so concerned about wasting my time. Everything is life.
In the thick of summer now. Writing a lot of code. climbing, writing, reading, talking. My closest friend is leaving for Australia soon. Tomorrow I will visit the botanical garden and stand under the dawn redwood again.
Hope to see you around.
"Everything is life."
Will mull on that, as someone currently worried about wasting their time.
Not sure why but this reminded me of one of my favourite ever Tweets I have bookmarked:
"working through your triggers is realizing that your lovers were just lovers, your job is just a job, your personality is just a personality, your parents were just parents. the world is simply the world. none of it was ever a big deal. none of it was ever a problem"
https://x.com/grantbels/status/1765033739510288769