Whatever it is, that I'm chasing..

I want to become something.

I've been choosing it, from the set of people I come across everyday, who make my jaws drop, and I think: Can I be the next him?

I was thinking of what to optimize for, when we want to beam an ambition.

Flow

This means to be in a state where you are numb and don't feel the stuff around you, because you are deeply into an action. It happens when you paint a large picture in your head, about anything, that you can't afford to shake it up. A great composition that a musician is working on, or a large system that's just getting designed by a wide-awake programmer. This is the single most important factor of happiness. When you do it, there's no risk of being dis-satisfied. Time just flies.

For example, A politician or a project manager's day job is not mentally intense. If you magnify a random second of his life, he'd be busy - yes, not intense. (Once, I seriously considered joining a political party, Lok Paritran and decided against it.)

Bottleneck

Large life-span processes put in arbit dependencies. A mechanical system designer, must wait for the physical system to be manufactured, in order to iron out the final set of fixes and sign off. These limit the rate at which things can happen. Shorter the life-span of a task, more the likelihood that every worker is on it's critical path. If the rate-limiting step in production somehow fell on the creator, it would mean, he can exert more and more time everyday, creating value.

The best way to work at the peak of your potential is to be the "bottleneck". Something magical happens, when you can work at those limits. Internet is an example of such a landscape moving at warp speeds.

Flow can't be experienced if you are seeking it. We need an external excuse to indulge into intensity, otherwise we procrastinate. Being the bottleneck is the single biggest excuse I can think of to commit flow.

Skill Correlation

If our odds of doing good at the job, were somehow correlated to skill (or) other factors we can learn or control, it'd make a great moral difference. Unfortunately, it's not that straight forward. They have large random factors. In some sense, that's great too. Unpredictability is fun. So, you might want to pick the equilibrium point with personal tastes.

Taking it one step further, the biggest turn off with things having low skill-correlations is this: The skill that you acquire to get past step 1 is extremely un-aligned with what's needed in the next. I wanted to be a director. At a point, I was even insistent that my dad decided to take me to film shootings. Getting a chance to be a director takes a skill orthogonal to great film making.

Self Sustaining

I agree we should do things, which we'd do even if we din't get paid at all for it. But the holy grail is hit, if there's a non-zero chance that by doing it, you can actually reach a point where you no longer have to do it. It means you don't have to stick with it all your life - and that's very comforting.

I used to make quite some money taking part in online programming contests, and I can probably eat on it. That's an example of a hobby which is not self-sustaining.

In other words, the first game must support the second round so that you can play a variety of them, on and on. Paul Graham says:

So no, there's nothing particularly grand about making money. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. What's important about startups is the speed. By compressing the dull but necessary task of making a living into the smallest possible time, you show respect for life, and there is something grand about that.

Purpose

Men get very strong, when they sight something they can die for. Dying is simpler than, under-going prolonged periods of pain, to set something right. Steve Jobs so, hated the IBM. Google so, hated Microsoft. Gandhi so, wanted India to attain independence in peaceful terms. My dad so wanted to become a writer. He gave his biggest hit, when he failed college.

My dad was a self-made man. He slept 4 hours a day. Used to tell me that, the point with a short sleep is not that, you save a couple of hours, but that -- it keeps you lit inside. He never had an alarm, and even while sleeping, if you call his name, he'd wake up. Self-practiced remembering things and never noted down a phone number. I got disconnected with all this as I found some pre-mature fame. I'm hoping to relive it in the next decade. He's all that I'm striving to be.

I'm very excited about Singularity. I haven't yet figured out a grand purpose or something, but try to do my little work, to get some purpose in place. I got the best guy I know and a great friend, to work with me. That'll make sure I wake up and push everyday.