I remain only slightly less clueless than as on my birth day. No clue then. After about a trillion seconds of learning, I’ve still not much to go on. Some things have worked— but I’m not sure exactly why. Some things haven’t worked— also not sure why. The only clues I have are very abstract, fortune-cookie sized, clues like: “Work hard. Stay Humble.” (And a few I’ve cribbed from Lao Tsu and Marcus Aurelius come to think of it.)

The following recipe assumes you’re very ambitious.

The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.

~ Paul Graham from, http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

I’ve often wished there’d been a How to Be Human manual. I’m not sure how one would learn the contents very early on. (How does one learn the first chapters pre-language?) Each year, as one levels up, the next chapter of the manual would become available. Arguably, the entire book reduces to: “Relax. Breath.” But, somewhere around chapter 7 I’d very much liked to have found what Graham wrote. (Even though I’d probably have ignored it until about level 22.)

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