Stability
That thing I never wanted turns out to be quite nice.
After my second Thanksgiving in Greenville, last December I found myself desiring a home. What an odd and novel experience for me! In January I packed up my car and relocated from San Fran to GVL SC USA EARTH.
Things have worked out swell so far! Some recent pleasant memories around town:
I recently heard an interesting turn of phrase. Probably on Joe Rogan with Chamath or Andreessen—it went something like “America lives free of history.” If you google this, the new AI summary is pretty fascinating:
America is fundamentally bound by its history, yet it possesses a unique ideological framework where freedom relies on the continuous reinvention of the future rather than the strict inheritance of the past. This concept, often referred to as American Exceptionalism, features distinct historical mechanics… Rejection of Feudalism… The Foundation of Perpetual Renewal…
As someone who has left his past behind many times over—starting fresh with new family, new cities, new jobs—I resonate strongly with the “free of history” concept.
For example, I’ve disdained birthdays since around age 12 or 13. This is probably because a couple painful years living with an uncaring aunt and uncle caused my little brain to rationalize away the tradition. It’s an arbitrary social convention. Shouldn’t we celebrate every day we are alive, born anew with the rising sun?
Sure, this makes sense. But it’s one thing to express the principle and it’s wholly another to squirm at the thought of someone throwing a party. Why should that be uncomfortable? Don’t ask me! The damage is done, and I cannot help how I feel about my birthday (and all other holidays too, really).
Thankfully, one beneficial side effect of the traumatic and existential self-questioning outweighs any harms arising from my birthday aversions. Namely: first-principles thinking.
Getting excited to learn each day helps you pick up new skills and arbitrary thought nuggets. Relentless curiosity preserves the child within, maintaining a sense of awe and wonder about the world as well as all the endlessly fascinating people in it. As a core professional competency, first-principles thinking is increasingly lauded, not only in general but also as the best path to extraordinary wealth.
I’d go a step further and say it’s even part of human nature. The mind cannot help but reinvent itself. Despite the prevailing literature and mainstream consensus, I don’t believe neuroplasticity ever really fades, at least not as long as chemicals and electrons are moving around up there to form thoughts! It’s increasingly clear that thinking is micro-mechanical and probably Turing Complete in some legitimate sense.
Alas, there is a danger inherent in constant reinvention. For one, it’s completely infeasible. Extreme idealism is the opposite of practical. One simply cannot think from scratch every time one does something. And moreover, discarding all traditions can be problematic when there are some very worth keeping around!
Each of us has to find our own balance of trusting faith versus discovery on our own terms. I happen to lean hard in the self-reliance direction, compulsively.
It’s only recently that I’ve internalized how “normal people” end up quite happy following conventional playbooks. Dr. Meg Jay makes a great case for traditional life milestones in The Defining Decade. I’m very glad I read that book right after college 8 years ago, thanks to my cousin Sarah, as a neat counterbalance to my wacky quirks.
Elon’s rule of thumb: simplification should proceed until you are forced to add 10% back in, by necessity. Otherwise, one hasn’t explored deeply enough, one hasn’t cut enough things out. This is a fine theory until you do irreparable years of damage to your life (or, even worse, critical social institutions1).
In my case, I’ve dug myself a fun little financial hole. To say nothing of the millions in upside I’ve left on the table at various points, I’ve created pure downside for myself wasting over $100k on a beautiful but actively landsliding terreno in Ecuador, giving away more than that in grants to poor founders, etc. In total, I am left with a lot of interesting life stories but a net worth in the low six-figures when it could easily be >3x higher given all the prematurely liquidated Google & Nvidia stock!
Having lived as an adult in Spain, South America, and Singapore—not to mention at least 9.5 American cities, depending how one counts—I’ve learned all kinds of tradeoffs in life the hard way, such as the romanticism of global adventure versus the quiet joy of rooting in a pleasant town.
I don’t think it applies to many other people, but the thing that The Defining Decade gets wrong, for me at least, is how every aspect of life is a choice that can be changed on relatively short notice. This is an omnipresent theme in self-help such as The 4-Hour Workweek and more generally a question of how much high-agency one embodies. These are intrinsically anti-mimetic traits.
Most people live with too many sunk costs. They are not willing to disrupt their life momentum, to exhibit psychoflexibility. Often, myself included! But I’m very fortunate to have had the resources and opportunity to practice the skill of flipping fundamental life switches that most people would hesitate to touch. Case-in-point: my burn trajectory of multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past few years, careening perilously close to a relative zero, for relatively little apparent upside.
But now, here in Greenville since my 30th birthday in January, I’ve flipped the stability switch. This new place, and more broadly the next decade of life to me represents a significant reprioritization and reorganization of my identity. I’ve finally managed to flip this stability switch for the first time ever, and it’s somewhat disorienting. It’s taken me until June to see things clearly…
I cannot see where else I’d want to live on the planet, aside from here.
I cannot see what else I’d like to do, aside from what I’m doing now.
I’d like to shout out a huge thankful bundle of gratitude to the Kasle family as a whole. Each of them embodies the notion of stability to an extent far greater than anyone in my own family, and thus they have taught it to me over the course of the last 20 years by virtue of their lived exemplar. This comes in conjunction with other smaller-scale lessons—such as how consistent practice is necessary in blogging or exercise—but when it comes to a life well-lived overall, I look to the Kasles for my in-practice model of what The Defining Decade purportedly studies.
It is not really possible to learn life’s deepest lessons from other folks’ words. And the Kasles are humble; they would hesitate to prescribe a specific lifestyle to anyone including their own kids, which is precisely why I hold them in such high regard. They merely enact their values, as Seth Godin might emphasize. And without their presence in my life, it’s likely I never would have made it to Greenville, ever.
Having an amazing relationship with my girlfriend is another big part of what anchors me here. Move over Lucas, because Alexandra is my best friend, and she has become my most deeply loved lover in a shockingly short amount of time. I am so excited for how our lives might unfold together in the long now we have remaining.
I discuss my career trajectory and professional focus in more detail on my main blog. That companion essay walks through what’s top of mind for me right now—getting a job—and what that looks like today, in my head and in my words.
As I jogged on the swamp rabbit this morning and came up with these twin blog posts, I realized stability is—in a word—the real impetus harmonizing and integrating my new life-work philosophy. I recently wrote about my ikigai, but this “stability thing” is really my middle path, my center.
The hero’s journey never ends, but the first cycle returns the protagonist home as a changed person. May we all find our own peace of mind and peace of heart in these turbulent times. Stability is a blessing to those who can afford to live in it.
I’m glad.
although i think on the whole DOGE will go down in history as an exceedingly positive shift.