The Satisfaction of Endings
Published on: Jul 21, 2024Filed under: Media
I finished 2 books, one video game, and one television show this weekend. That's in addition to getting ahead on work both professionally and around the house, and preparing for a work trip.
Those two books bring up to a total of 14 for the year, a number I hoped would be higher by now. The blame there lies with Anathem - thousand-plus page tome that took me over half a year to get through. But I did it. And while I think a solid 400 hundred pages could have been shaved off, I'm still glad that I finished.
Over the last two years and change, I've taken to tracking what I hold dear. Turning my 'Read, Write, Sweat' daily mantra into lists and streaks and trends scattered across spreadsheets, whiteboards, scraps of paper and this site.
An argument could be made that by focusing on numbers,I'm taking the cult of productivity home from work. That I'm mindlessly adding without concern about reading the right things, or writing well.
But I don't see it that way.
I see the creation of habits as building momentum.
When rowing, you start races at a standstill. The first few strokes aren't the fastest, nor are they meant to be. They're not even full strokes - in my club our race starts are a 3/4 pry stroke, followed by a 1/2 stroke, a 3/4, another 3/4, before finally getting that first real, true full stroke.
The point is to quickly overcome static gravity, the curse of Newton, and replace it with momentum. And then, when the boat is moving, the crew can focus on the right strokes and the optimal lanes.
I'm now at the point where I feel like I can finish things. Or more so, I'm at a point where I feel like I can start working on things again. Because I've got a solid couple of years of finishing things to let me know what's ahead of the hard parts.
My current fixation, which a few folks in select rooms have gotten sneak peeks of, is something I'm calling Applied AI. It's an idea that's gotten good feedback and might have legs. Could end up being a book. Almost certainly will end up being a bunch of presentations. I've already started implementing a lot of the ideas at work.