It took me a long time to truly understand this concept, perhaps it is more evident in today’s world than any other point of time in history. With the rise of APIs and cloud infrastructure, when every call has an attached cost, and the internet has gone global, an entirty’s reach has become global, the only way to publicly launch a product is through sunscription (because of cloud hosting costs and that is another deal we all happily made with the devil).

I find myself increasingly drawn towards releasing tools and software that anyone can use and modify without the high overhead cost of me mainatining it or them paying for it. It is just fun. Hey, I found this useful and maybe you will too! But the knowledge barrier to run basic software without pretty visuals is still high, with every visual, comes 10 validation scenarios to account for.

Sometimes I don’t think we need things to be easier per se, a frictionless existence has no value, brings no value, adds no meaning.
People are literally getting more stupid the easier things get.

I don’t remember the easy stuff. I just do it all over again but it goes quicker each iteration because of pattern recognition, I make difference choices due to experiences and lessons learnt - the ones that take the longest involve people, how they work, how to communicate, how to collaborate, how to lead, how to follow, how to motivate, how to inspire, how to build trust and how they work together. I have seen small disjunct teams, large efficient teams that change with time, motivated teams and unmotivated ones. I have my theories on what works and what does not.

I remember the hard stuff, the stuff I spent months struggling with, the high when I conquered it. I remember what it felt like to be under the spell of a compelling problem, so much so that my mind would be able to visualize it whilst I slept (I do not have a spatial mind and have difficulty imagining anything spatially but when properly motivated, apparently I can!) and have it solved by the time I wake up.

All the stuff people think it is hard, is not really hard. It is because they have never really faced difficult before so it is hard relatively.

But what about open source… everything? Take for example, Kenji Lopez. I cannot describe how much I love reading his work. Almost every single awesome thing he serves at Wursthall, is a recipe freely published on SeriousEats. I just watched Netflix’s Chef’s Table episode on Evan Funke, the pasta guy who owns the restuarant Funke in Los Angeles. The way he openly talks about his recipes, credits his mentors, honors them by listing them in his menus. It is a very human way to live, I believe this is what brings out the best in humanity and makes us the happiest.

Everything we are, everything we learnt, everything we have, we are all standing on the shoulders of giants. It is a mental health issue to deeply desire all the glory, all the credit, all the money, attention and fame. There is so much dread in the world today because of our inability to hold more than the concept of me, myself and I. There is so much more to life than me, myself and I. It goes infinitely deeper.

Things have gotten to a point of absurdity - folks are selling sourdough starters from home. I suppose that it all started when we started selling bottled water that companies do not pay water rights for sufficiently. People, we are trending the WRONG way. We are behaving like a regressed species.

I have lived for long periods of time in Singapore (leans authoritarian but mostly democratic), United States (captialistic democracy), Australia (social democracy) and now in Europe (social democracy with strong socialist leanings). The messaging (government controlled media) worked really well in Singapore to get the entire population on the same page (no negotiation on costs to get a message out quickly in lieu of pandemic policies and such). The US is a free for all, you get what you negotiate for, it is the Gladiator ring of survival of the fittest, mental and physical health are common sacrifices at the altar of progress. Australia is a nice balance of both, with strong social safety nets and a good amount of freedom to pursue one’s dreams but it has recently sold out to capitalism. Europe is leaning more and more towards socialism, with strong social safety nets, free healthcare and education but high taxes and lots of regulations and rules obeying. Its leaders do seem to care for the wellbeing of their countries and populace despite sheninigans at the EU level. The country that thrives is one with a leader who sincerely does care for the country and its people with the ability to navigate the global geopolitical landscape.

We don’t need infinite choices to express our individuality but we do need infinite ways of expressing our individuality with no harm done as guardrails. We need to value education, growth, kindness and resilience through embracing discomfort to grow. We need to progress towards a common goal. We really need to be less selfish and cultivate our ability to love more.