Author: Unreal Atlas

Trying to make sense of the trivial incidents. Trivial, yet noteworthy & hence the blog. Confusion, fusion, stagnation made it shown & led to it, now I call it my own space The time kept running out while the pictures needed a place to call home. The photographs have to be known at least in due time. The tags were too long, almost a log hence to accompany them, this blog.

Structure

Something that is so elusive to me. It seems the more I am trying to build towards it the more it gets away from me. However, I’m not letting that stop me because if anything Jiu Jitsu has taught me that if nothing you have to keep on keeping on and then one day overnight you find you have made progress.

I don’t think I naturally am the most structured person and I revel in the spontaneity of human thought, random occurrences, and chance and probability. Well, that last one might just be an outcome and not necessarily anything related to structure.

For the latest portion of my professional career, I have fought against my natural instinct of being a non-linear thinker and tried to build more structure in my thought and conversations. I have seen progress towards that goal of getting more structure. The more I have tried to build it, the more I feel there is to learn. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It may mean that I am getting to the most nuanced portions of understanding and applying structure. Yes, some people are already there and I experience that. I very much appreciate learning from them.

I will keep learning and keep going forward. This blog post was an effort in creating a structure to some extent. I also know that I could have done so much better.

About Jordan B Peterson

After having read his book and following him for a few years, I recently saw this movie about Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. I have gone through various feelings towards him through the years but this movie highlighted a few things I felt were important to note.

The documentary is called “The Rise of Jordan Peterson” and is available on Amazon Prime (maybe available on other platforms as well). I think it doesn’t do justice to both sides of the picture that is the life of Jordan Peterson at this stage. There is his life as an individual and a public intellectual while there is the second part that is his role in the minds fo the audience that interpret his message to the world outside. I still grapple with the role of a public intellectual or an influencer. I don’t know to what extent an individual has authority over how their message is interpreted by the public or the mob. However, there is an aspect of that that needs to be explored. While the documentary does explore some parts of that picture it is more heavily weighed towards the story of him as an individual. It does not make the story wrong, just incomplete to an extent.

The second part is that JBP has been a strong influence on me. I think that is important to state at this point. While I agree with a lot of his messages, there are parts of his message that could be incorrectly interpreted if the intent is not taken into consideration. I’m not sure how intent can be measured and it is getting even harder with the increasing noise on most platforms both the internet and traditional media platforms. His personal story does help to interpret the intent but to understand intent completely there is some work that is needed on part of the audience as well. There is some basic understanding of history, culture, art and science required to interpret most things. However the more nuanced a conversation gets the more it behooves us to enter with apriori knowledge. Again, thanks to the almost seemingly inifinite dissemination of information due to new media this is getting harder because of the level of noise.

I hope I can bring some clarity to what I’m trying to communicate. However, there will be some level of familiarity with the topics that will be required as time moves on in my life. I will not always be able to explain the chain of events for how I have framed opinions because most of that knowledge will become “tribal” at some point. What i perhaps need to ask of the reader is to appreciate that the intent is always good. Perhaps another blog post to describe what good means and entails but for now that is all I have to say after watching that documentary.

The days are getting easier

Either the days are getting easier or I’m just losing touch with my challenges in growth. I’ve been fully immersed in the project at work. I feel like I’m doing great but whenever I pause or get distracted by things around insecure thoughts about the future start to creep into my mind.

Every time there’s a project on this team the work feels great. Especially when you seem to be hitting goals and getting noticed for your work. The conditions there are that projects need to be coming, which is something completely out of my control. Secondly, I need to be hitting my goals, which includes overpreparing for everything because I, like many other people, have imposter syndrome, and no matter how much I put in, it never feels like enough. Finally, I need to be appreciated for the work, which means it depends on the other people on the team and their experience of things more than just my work on the project.

Whenever I’m not staring like a zombie chipping away at work, I stare into the abyss of what it is that I am actually doing at work. I think that feeling quickly goes away as I get my paycheck. This is clearly indicative of an underlying problem that I need to be doing more than just remain satisfied by a simple “job”. It isn’t even a question about what because I have explored that and I am fairly confident that I know what I want to do outside of work is something of my own. The ambiguity is around the “something”. As long as I keep this zeal of wanting to do something I think I am in a good spot because I’ll keep looking.

So, yes, the days are getting easier but not because it’s getting easier with any of the tasks within the days but because the vision of the future is getting clearer every day. I’m glad about it but I also know that there is a lot of work left to do with regard to delving into the details.

Jiu Jitsu start makes the day seem less hectic

Today was another hectic day. At work it seems that leadership wants the materials quicker and yet folks are leaving the project rather than staying on. I like this intense part of the project perhaps because everyone is super focused and I can’t afford distractions.

Talking about focus, starting continuously at the screen has been showing it’s affects on my eyes. I’m probably headed to a pair of glasses and weakened eyes. I don’t know if I can or want to do anything to avoid that situation.

The day started with Jiu-Jitsu so it wasn’t going anywhere but down from there. However, when you start the day with learning to choke fools and get choked there isn’t much that’s shaking the Earth under your feet. Unfortunately, it is getting so much harder to take out time for anything besides work. A part of me knows that the more I’m giving to this work the further away I’m getting from it. Not because I don’t like hard work but because I know I’m not getting my due.

This brings me to the ongoing thought about starting my own thing. I know I have the skills but do I have the perseverance? Isn’t this the time when I pursue something that really energizes me? I’m now almost relieved of financial burdens and should pursue something more meaningful without being tied to anything.

Keeping it up in the craziness

Didn’t know that tests that give you positive results could have such a positive impact on my mood. I took two tests as a part of a process. It was a logical reasoning and a personality test. If I was to summarize the test I would say I’m a labrador who loves to build things. My paws don’t support me but I’m curious, inquisitive and friendly while I endeavor to build something.

Today’s work seemed productive but I’m still an employee. I rely on an organization to pay me a salary. When will I figure out the method to the madness that is a business? I think I could do so many things besides just writing a blog. For example, reach out to prospective students and help them understand what career choices to take in life. I could help product teams understand their product market fit. I could generate content for a website that is trying to engage leaders to think more about employees. It seems the subject matter for any of these things is endless. Then why am I not doing more? I don’t know yet.

Tomorrow is another day of work. I’m not exhausted from it but I’m just not feeling extremely motivated and want to do something more tangible. Something the outcome of which is in front of me. Like working with a product company that is trying to understand how and why to launch, the go-to-market basically. Anyway, at least I’m typing out at a nearly daily rate and keeping this thing going. Hopefully tomorrow I can also get a brief class of jiu-jitsu in. It’ll be the first class in two weeks. Again on a Tuesday. It looks like this day works for me.