Akula

2/2 field notes from —

the confidence that the odds are forever in the long-run favor of ethics, action, and conviction

1/2 field notes from —

on agency, financially validated passion, tying our nets together, be the baker of your wildest desserts, and starting with small steps, oriented by clear ideals, humor, and
1/2

my dad said in just a couple days I already look way healthier, and I probably agree

it takes a lot to resist the urge to dive immediately when the surge of inspiration and ex*****on hits, but I suspect that they’re pretty right that more rest will go a lot further

to more Gatorade, singing, movies, and conditionally adding side quests each day

terrifyingly vast and unknown— the sky, the people we love at the many intersections of life whose paths unfold perpendicular soon after,

the cutting depth of pain and pleasure absolutely avoided through a mix of fear and intuition —

the sudden awareness of the cliff’s edge of those concepts and feelings —

like the sudden claustrophobia of knowing you’ve irrevocably signed away the next 10+ hours to fly in a finite tin can,

but it’s okay that you’re by the window because the glimpses of clouds and cityscape pointilism are enough between shows and sleep and apple juice to keep you til landing

Lapaata ladies (FINALLY) finished on this flight, a Korean movie called pretty crazy whose depth I 10000% did not expect AT all,

(too dehydrated to cry, awake enough to take stills and write in my notes app on 0% brightness)

rediscovering the world of , laughing so hard at that I could barely say chai, thank you to the flight attendant, and checking off long hair tattoos and pretzels to my chandigarh neighbor

ONCE AGAIN who gafs (I do) I thought I played quite softly and safely but the phone still picked it up — I’d love to belt but through the next few times I’d relearn (and just: learn, period) some more chords, progressions, and asymmetric coordination between R&L and my voice — so that cowboy cossack ride (from the blue piano book?) and Mickey Mouse are not the only complete(ish) songs I can play by heart

I was warned about 8+ months ago that a particular path could come with a lot of … speedrunning through character development in the life falling apart (many times over), confrontations of so many kinds, and existential and practical uncertainty.

Bravely and semi-naively (like most good stories), I’ve stayed on this path anyway, and WOW has the character development delivered on its promise.

Even as a serial agathist, some of the weeks of overlapping crises, expectations, failures, and pressure ducked the reach of my optimism for far longer than usual.

I’ve also experienced dreams, bucket list lines I’d almost forgotten, and feelings I forgot I wanted to experience coming true in ways I sometimes planned and sometimes by surprise.

There’s so many patterns that ended angry, loud, and audibly, and so many whose absence I haven’t noticed yet — but I’m excited to be Being & reaaaally want to cut through a few particular ones in these weeks.

I’ll be letting you know how that goes.

To more phoenix and forge 🐦‍🔥

to forever playing would you rather by my own rules — and assuming we all can + (should? why stick to just A or just B vs both or C), intergenerational and generational friendships, and posting even when it’s prob not the best version we can do — but it’s of the first and the fun takes

there’s something brilliant in rnb, acapella, and delivering your thoughts “acapella” sans the context and layered tracks of inspiration and meaning that they’re imbued with —

acapella thoughts can give other people the space to process your ideas through their own context, it can confuse them like in media res poetry or abstract art,

however like most summaries of the great rule breakers across art, business, and social rules — there’s power and new tools to be earned through knowing precisely how to communicate and translate the internal symphony — and then choosing which pieces to hold and which pieces to layer in to the audible rendition of your thoughts

funny (to me), this ties back so well to a thread of the “information transfer” problem I’ve thought through so many times since freshman year — how two people can have so much of the same context, framing, and shared experience and STILL not

(1) directly communicate their intended information and (2) experience several layers of miscommunication that can run so nuanced that these transfer gaps are both difficult to detect and yet fundamentally alter their perception of the information

Which also ties back to the core lesson of the Pricing Policy class … and probably Strategic Reasoning with Prof. Selman too — * this * is why the simplest signals of incentive and intention and slivers of additional if/then plans can out-power complex layers of multivariable esoteric strategy

this started as a near midnight singing session so is still rightfully tagged 😉