Do more than yesterday

I read Paul Graham’s essay on How to Do Great Work, and it felt uncomfortable because I resonated with a lot of the points he talked about. I’ll address why I felt uncomfortable later – but first, who is Paul Graham and why should I care what he thinks about how to do great work?

To be fair, I actually don’t know Paul Graham – but I think the first time I heard of him was sometime around 2024 when he was in the Twitter spotlight after saying people who use the word “Delve” were writing with AI. I remember seeing that spiral into a discussion on AI writing and differing literary standards depending on the country – I’m writing from memory so I may be wrong about the particulars. What I’m saying in essence, is that my first interaction or knowledge of Paul Graham was somewhat negative (stress on somewhat), so I initially approached the essay with skepticism.

Yesterday, I also read a Newsletter from my friend Lade Tawak titled “You’re trying to do too much because you’re afraid” and that also made me uncomfortable because of how close it is to the truth. So this morning, I think I was already feeling generally uncomfortable with my state of being (we need a single word for that) – and reading the essay made me even more so, until I wasn’t. In this essay, Paul talks about practical things anyone can do to do great work in any field – and it is really sound advice. Read the essay, I’ll try not to give spoilers here while I try to catharsize (is that even a word?). I believe I am a doer, and the crux of Paul’s essay is to Do – you don’t always need to know why, but stay curious and Do. Lade’s essay was almost in the opposite direction, but somehow the feeling or message is complementary to Paul’s essay in my opinion. Sometimes we spread ourselves too thin with busywork, which seems like we’re actually doing something (or being productive), but distracts us from The Thing that we know we want to do and should be doing.

It’s almost spring today and I took a rambling walk after reading the essay, and while walking I realized that although I’ve been in this neighborhood for almost two years – I think this was my first time going on an actual aimless walk without a predefined route. It reminded me of an essay I read some months ago from Fons Mans, and I quote “Most designers don’t plateau because their skills stop improving. They plateau because their habits slowly start making decisions for them.” I think my rate of thinking (and quality perhaps) has slowed because I’ve been too optimized and efficient, focusing on outcomes rather than process. I ask myself, when was the last time I did something for the first time? Short answer, it’s been too long.

I believe in God, in the panpsychic universe selecting for experience, for the value of life and the enjoyment of living – I’d say that is one of my core values – and how am I translating that into what I am doing everyday? That’s another blog post in itself, but today I’m left with a desire to do more than I did yesterday – first by actually documenting my thoughts, which is one of the main aims of this blog – second by getting to work on Norra Skogen and letting my emotions help tell the story the universe is sending through me.

Finally, I try to remember to be kind to myself – I maybe am not doing the absolute best I can every day, but I try to do good, and sometimes I do really well – other times I do swimmingly (haha).

Uppsala, Sweden