The desire to be a unique and special snowflake is…good?
The desire to be a unique and special snowflake is…good? Here’s what I mean: people wanna find their tribe. However, what I want more than anything are interesting discussions and debates. I’ve found that this is what I want. I don’t care that you’re building a crypto company. I care more about seeing the pro-crypto guy debating with the best anti-crypto person.
My desire to see opinions fight it out stems from my own lack of confidence. I’m deathly afraid of getting some important detail wrong. And so, I’m getting used to publishing as much of my ideas as possible. For an independent thinker, one of the worst things you can do is ask them to artificially increase their confidence. If you’re already at the destination, why keep looking?
I’ve seen people either try or actually succeed in becoming confident. What ends up actually happening is that they take their own ideas seriously, start to believe in them, and if the idea is bad enough they drive themselves off a cliff. I don’t wanna be like that. The people I look up to are guys like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Their most striking feature isn’t their charisma, but their apparent lack of self confidence.
Sometimes what’s even more important than having the right answer is having the right question. So is my life unsatisfying because I just need hype myself up? No. Hype is short-lived. Hype is a beautiful woman, a catchy song, or a charismatic speech.
When I find out someone else is interested in what I’m interested in, part of me just wants to quit what I’m doing. I don’t wanna be doing what others are doing. And yet, I’m also too afraid to stand out. Instead of fighting this contradiction, embrace it.
When I started hanging out with slate star codex people, I became less interested in his writing. It’s not because I’m bad or a “faker”. It’s because once you find people who like similar things, you’re able to move on and explore genuinely unique interests.