Hi Sebastian,
My name is ... I contacted you a couple days ago after being completely taken by your about page. I'll keep my introduction brief.
I am 19 years old, and I am a freshman studying --- at --- University. I spend my time preparing school work, writing code, playing and writing music, trying to to take care of myself, and always looking for the next big step. Regardless of the present activity, I tend to lose myself if I am not, at least at some level, processing my thoughts and external stimuli toward a general direction of realizing ever changing day-dreams. I feel incredibly grateful to have experienced (what I consider to be) success and fulfillment in this regard thus far. So much to do, so much to learn, so much to improve, so much to live. Always.
What struck me about what I've read of your content so far is that our philosophies have many intersections—an utter refusal to settle for the status quo when it can be improved, the desire to optimize the overlooked and the under-appreciated, an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and the need to produce and contribute creatively, to name several. However, your approach seems wonderfully more refined. I've explored your writings only briefly, and already I have learned much. I very much look forward to diving deeper.
It's a pleasure to talk with you Sebastian. The fact that you make yourself available as you do is greatly appreciated and deeply humbling.
Sincerely,
R
Wow, that's like, one of the nicest emails I've gotten in a long time. Thanks.
I wrote up some quick thoughts in reply -
I like what you believe in - it's good stuff. I think the key thing that ties it all together is produce and ship things while you have a current interest. I have a friend who made rap music about 5 years ago. Now he's a buttoned-down business guy, he doesn't even really listen to rap any more, so that phase of his life is dead. But it's sad, some of his tracks were pretty cool. He made like 5-6 of them with his own beats, but he never shipped them.. now it's something he'll never do, y'know? It'd be much cooler if he'd put out an EP. If nothing happened, no problem, it'd still be something he did. Or maybe it would've blown up a little bit and had some success? Either way it'd have been cool.
So yeah, even on fleeting interests, try to ship something or produce somehow. That's what I'm thinking these days.
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I started exploring this in, "What Separates a Generalist and a Dabbler?"
More and more, I'm thinking produce and ship stuff. Even tiny tiny things. If you get into a new kind of music, write up your thoughts and first impressions on it - either on a blog, or even just Amazon reviews. The mindset shift from being a consumer to being a producer is huge, even if what you produce doesn't see all that much use at first.
Your interests flit around to different stuff? Yeah, me too. But more and more, I'm looking to build/produce/ship things when I have a passing interest. Obviously you can't do that for everything, sometimes you can just be a consumer and be happy with that. But if you have a sincere interest, then why not try to write an analysis or critique or use guide or quick start manual or observations or... something? Producing, shipping... it's cool. I think it's basically the way for people whose interests jump around to achieve lots of good stuff in the world.