No Absolutely Definite Way of Expressing Yourself (or Turning 30)

Originally posted on my substack newsletter.

“What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself.” - Destruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father, Louise Bourgeois, 1988

“Creating a startup is an art.” - Alex Karp, CEO Palantir

“What do we replace religion with? What do we replace the lack of the state with? In some cases it’s medication… pornography… any of new forms of religion, of self-help.” - Christy Wampole on Degenerative Realism on the podcast Entitled Opinions

Transition into the world

As I turned 30, I noticed that many of the people around me have “found their own.” They have become comfortable in their own skin. They’ve found success in some shape or form as if they discovered their niche in society. People have begun to publish for famous places, gotten jobs in extremely competitive companies, risen to leadership roles. The very people that struggled in their 20s to express themselves have started to blossom, myself included.

Naturally, social media has amplified this impression, giving everyone the illusion that you’ve found success in some shape or form. But I wonder if our 20s and college are just a game to see who can hack their productivity faster than others in their immediate circle.

Let me elaborate. Once I started to produce, to create, and didn’t immediately destroy the object I created, my life started to transform. It has been a pretty painful and long process. Accepting myself has, and always will be, very challenging.

Post-modern realization

While in college, my thinking was confined to certain structures and forms: the institution, the “right path”. If you didn’t follow the path set forward for your particular career choice, you’re messing your whole life up and might as well try something easier. For example, the path to becoming a doctor is rigid and specific. Take physics, general chemistry, and biology all during freshman year. Organic chemistry by junior year. Maybe biomedical chemistry after (it may help you on the MCAT). Do an internship or shadow at a hospital to get some practical experience the summer after your sophomore year. Or research at the Mayo Clinic. You may major in a humanities subject to look more “well-rounded”. Take the MCAT junior year. If your scores aren’t good enough, take it again next year. Use the year break to be a medical scribe. If you don’t follow this recipe, you’re screwed.

However, post-modernism has taught us that form doesn’t matter anymore. The institution that I hold dear (my alma mater, St. Olaf College) is artificially created and, in fact, was established not so long ago (1874) but feels as if it has been there forever. The reality is that this institution only represents a brief, albeit important, part of my life. Whether or not I followed their rules to find my best life path did not predetermine my reality as it exists today.

I didn’t understand what really meant until I started to work in a startup. Suddenly, a will to power started to make sense. In a startup, you really do determine the shape and trajectory of the space you’re working in. A day, an hour can make a huge difference. And, interestingly, traditional forms are usually bullshit. “Best practices”, or the operational frontier, exists but only to be overtaken by an updated and more well-thought-through version. Recipes from the past, even the past few years, are recycled through and discarded quickly. You could create the world in the way you wanted. Not only could you create everything you wanted, but most things that are created are made up. As Riva Tez famously stated, “Everything is a scam.”

Reaching the limits of lack of form

But is everything really a scam? Can we actually force our vision of the world to become reality? Do forms and categories from previous paradigms have nothing to do with reality? Does reality even exist?

I noticed a trend recently that people have a desire to return to nature.

The rise of machine learning and advancements in computer science have given it power. People are able to quickly test hypotheses and see actual results returned to them. This is the power of programming. People can assume certain framings of the world and get information on whether that framing is real. This is one of the most powerful assumptions of machine learning.

However, in order for us to even try this kind of experimentation and testing, we need to assume that a reality exists out there. (Or that we are all part of a large simulation. Something Elon likes to believe.) But it’s hard to deny the efficacy of technology.

Learnings

Perhaps, there are certain trends in nature. Plato said that science was “cutting nature at its joints.” Perhaps, assuming that there is a nature to begin with is something we can do.

But we can hardly deny the postmodern reality that classes are created. You can really be a self-made man. We saw that in the development of the US, you can create yourself, your own worth. An extreme version brings to mind the origins of the real Don Draper from Mad Men where a man could start completely from scratch, a total washing of hands of family, history, and identity.

The USA was, in fact, founded on an idea (rather than a history of cultures) that all men were created equal, have unalienable rights, etc.

In startups, you can create your own domains. But those departments must adhere to reality in some way, whether it be your specific strategy (Palantir) or your understanding of the changing domains (from sales to customer success). Thiel in Zero to One mentions that the founding employees of a company are critical because those are the gaps you’ll fill in later. What he didn’t say was that those employees determine the ontology of understanding the world that a startup must posit in order to succeed. Most categories of people, when seen as themselves and in their full glory, aren’t replaceable. Sometimes it’s worth waiting for talent or working around someone’s strange skill set because, to be honest, everyone has a strange skill set.

Conclusion

Finding your own place in the world is challenging. You may have to completely reinvent yourself. You may want to stay within the comfort of a system. But, eventually, you’ll become disenchanted. Seeking out your unique expression of value in the world is risky, but perhaps one of the greatest achievements you can make in this short existence.