To be, but not to be
Back in May, I kept falling into the state of feeling utterly worthless. Goals I felt I should have hit at work were stuck at an awkward stage for all sorts of reasons. At the same time, I found myself in a mode of being hypersensitive to everything — both physically and psychologically.
This past half year, I frequently sank into feeling like I had nothing to offer. Work progress was stalled at an uncomfortable plateau. My body kept throwing small problems and allergic reactions at me. Mentally, information overload made it hard to focus — I always felt like there was some important message waiting for me, and I could barely enter flow.
I spent a lot of time exploring and trying to build new routines, searching for the flow state that works best for me, while also practicing redirecting my energy back to myself. I'm not into mysticism, but I believe in the concept of "energy" — the time and mental effort we invest in people and things, good or bad, ultimately shapes who we become.
When I'm focused on writing code — Vibe Coding — I slip into flow easily. That makes me treasure those moments of total absorption, and I keep thinking about how to build a work environment better suited to myself.
(I've had attention issues since I was a kid. In high school I had to switch subjects every hour or two. Before the pandemic, I had a six-month stretch where I woke up at 7 AM to write every morning before starting my other work — but that routine fell apart once lockdown hit.)
I'll never forget that while building this website, I spent an entire week — one day was a nonstop 48-hour stretch — in continuous dialogue with Claude. It's no exaggeration to say I forgot to eat and sleep, going back and forth comparing code logic, focused on nothing but clearing the obstacle in front of me.
Talking with prodigy-level peers constantly makes me question my own ordinariness.
But I also recognize that the line between genius and average is razor-thin. Intelligence can be slowly accumulated through sustained reading and lived experience. The gap between the two is a spectrum — most people are probably somewhere around fifty-fifty — but that seemingly clear-cut line often comes down to the degree of effort invested.
"Some people aren't just smarter than you — they work a hundred times harder too."
Every time I talk to people at different stages of their startup journey, it reminds me again that I'm not working hard enough. Last time I had dinner with Ric, he told me that when Cursor develops a new feature, they lock everyone in one room and ship it in two days and two nights — and this is a company two years old, already through Series C.
Same concept as "you are what you eat." There are only twenty-four hours in a day. If you spend ten of them reading and thinking, you'll grow into someone with depth.
Grow into. Not become.
I'm gradually understanding: "You can never passively become something. You actively choose, right now, in this very moment — in the present where you have agency."
"Just say it out loud and everything will be fine" — easy to say. But only you know how much effort it takes to digest and absorb the emotions, to sort yourself out, before you can actually speak.
This half year has been a process of reconciling with myself. Of practicing agency.