I. Past
I found an old notebook stack in my closet. On top was a Brown University-imprinted spiral that I’d bought at the university bookstore on a summer trip.
I made the notebook the hub for efforts to improve myself. I made tables tracking weight loss progress, catalogues of books to read and movies to see, a list of college transfer targets with all of their admissions statistics, you name it.
Here’s the first page of that notebook:
At the time, I was a community college student and was struggling with depression and obesity. I did not apply myself in high school. I played video games and skimmed the biographies of World War II generals on Wikipedia instead of doing my homework. I watched a lot of Cubs baseball, too. I don’t much regret that, though.
Post-graduation I knew that more was possible for me. I missed out on opportunities in the past because of my weight and academic apathy. I was determined to miss out on them no longer.
This was from December 2018. Today, I’ve never been further from my goals.
I never achieved my goal of getting on campus and to have the college experience. I did not get into Brown nor most other schools that I’d applied to. I was grateful to be accepted to George Washington University, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to go for financial reasons. The first weight entry in the log is 411 lbs. Today, I weigh over 450.
The worst part is not that I failed. The worst part is how I’ve been dishonest about it.
I’m great at talking a good game. I think about things that I could do, or ought to do, or might get to once I finish that thing right after the other thing. I will make a list of 1,000 movies to watch and delete the list just to make it again. Maybe I’ll start with Jack Nicholson flicks this time. You know what, let’s do the French movies first. Wait, you forgot to add all of Ridley Scott’s core filmography 250 movies in. Scrap it. Rinse. Repeat.
The truth is that I just don’t do anything. I don’t feel like doing much, either. I’m enrolled in an economics program with the University of Utah, but I’m honestly just doing enough to make grades. I’ve hardly been invested in my studies which are done remotely from my bedroom. Though my grades are good, I outwardly portray myself as excelling and studious and busy when that’s simply not true at all.
I have dropped classes at Utah mid-semester not once, but twice. When I first enrolled in the program I was bitter about not being able to go to GW. I wanted to be in a great city studying things I was passionate about with passionate people. It’s a First World problem, I get it. Still, it crushed me. It made me feel like a failure, seeing all of my peers figuring it out while I couldn’t. So, as one could imagine, I was totally checked out of my first two terms and ended up dropping my classes in consecutive semesters.
I couldn’t bear to face my family. I love them endlessly. I’ve put them through a lot, and this might be a bridge too far. I pretended that I was still enrolled. Of course, when the charade ended, the crash was brutal.
I’ve been dishonest with my weight loss efforts. On this site, I tried starting a project like this one in July, and several times before. Like most times, I fell off the wagon early. This time, I had told my friends about what I was trying to do and didn’t want to be a disappointment, as I often feel that I am. I sent them fake weigh-ins and treadmill stats that I had left running while I ate more food upstairs.
What finally got me were those weigh-ins. The images of me making ever so slight adjustments with my left foot on the edge of the scale to get just the right value, the believable value. Over and over in my head. Everything I had ever done like this over and over again. Walking away from the treadmill thinking about what snack I’ll grab upstairs. No, I didn’t eat that. Sorry, I was hungry. Sent a text about finishing up an economics paper that never existed. Just clocked in two miles while watching Game 1 of the 1965 World Series. Double stats! Yeah, I’m thinking about going to law school maybe. I’ve always wanted to see that, lemme check it out. I really need to do the reading on this. What are you doing? Yeah, I’m doing stuff. I wonder what I’m going to eat when I wake up. Yep, I’m on the third belt notch and my old rain jacket fits me. The seats at Soldier Field are much easier. Maybe next time I’ll film myself walking with my running shoes on. Can’t wash the dishes, I’m doing stuff.
Is this all I am?
II. Now
It feels different now. It feels different now after thumbing through those pages again tonight and reading the things I wrote and how I felt writing them. Thinking about the little boy that I once was, who was fascinated by the world and its history and its people. Thinking about what he would say or think about what we became. The questions he would ask me. What cool stuff are we working on? Did we get into Harvard? What’s our girlfriend’s name?
I’ve wondered for a long time why it’s been so hard for me to change. Why I let the best years of my life slip from my grasp like sand. I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care. It doesn’t fuckin’ matter why you haven’t done it, man. Just start doing it. Start doing it.
So that’s basically what this site will be about. Me, doing stuff.
This is not and will not be a “self-improvement project.” Plenty of folks are out there writing about the Pomodoro technique and the ten best productivity reads of 2024. That’s not what I want to write about. I want to write about doing stuff.
III. Project Tabula Rasa: A Vision for Stuff
Inaction breeds atrophy. After spending six years in it, I’ve fallen off the paths that used to sustain me. I’ve stopped reading new stuff. Watching new movies. Learning about new topics. Learning in general. What I do learn about the world around me is captured from half-read Google News headlines and unvetted claims made by faceless accounts across the dystopian landscapes of X and Instagram Reels.
It has distorted my worldview greatly. I’ve found that I really don’t know what I think about anything anymore. My attention span has crumbled. It’s hard for me, and ostensibly most people, to do the the kind of deep critical analysis and study required to understand the world and make informed decisions. Everyone is being influenced on topics they know little about in ways we cannot begin to understand. I could be talked out of any position that I hold in under a minute by any talking head with a dash of charisma. I do not have the prerequisite base of knowledge that would enable me to be an effective citizen, an effective member of my community, an effective person. As I’ve demonstrated through my inactions and failures, I just don’t have the mental toolbox to get the job done.
Now, we fix all of that:
As soon as this post goes live, I’m treating my mind like a blank slate. My old worldview, the old explanations for why I haven’t lost weight or changed, the old negative thinking patterns that I use to relentlessly batter myself, over and over and over again. I’m throwing all of it out. Tabula rasa.
There’s this Tolstoy quote that I love:
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.“
I am going to build myself from the ground up, brick by brick. Everything I’ve ever read, watched, listened to, will be treated as a fresh experience. I will form new opinions and understandings. I will read widely, from the familiar to the esoteric. I will shape my body and my mind. I am getting out of my bedroom and into the world. There is so much more out there for me. I am never going back.
I am going to document this whole process. Not because I think that I’m special or interesting, but because I think doing this could have a lot of value. Especially for other people like me that I know are going through similar things.
Again though, I don’t want this to be a self-help or productivity site. Now, some of the stuff I write about, especially at the beginning, might seem like that. After all, I’ve got to sharpen the ax before its cutting time. However, I’m not going to impose strict rules on it like I’ve tried to do in the past.
For instance, I want to first focus on the “mental toolbox” which I mentioned above. Improving my ability to critically read and analyze texts, get better at writing and speaking about ideas, etc. However, if I come across something that I think is cool, I’m just going to write about it. Everything counts. Everything is a sharpening stone. I’m building the man that I want to become, the man that I will be for the rest of my life. Everything counts now. It seems to me the most important things in life are accretions and I’ve neglected that, but no more. It’s time to start building myself up, not tearing myself down. It’s time to do stuff.
To wrap up, here’s an overview of what I hope to accomplish with this project:
- Sharpen the mental ax
- I will improve my reading, writing, speaking, and thinking
- I shape my mindset and thoughts to support myself
- I will defeat depression and negative thinking
- Develop a worldview
- I will study widely: history, economics, politics, mathematics, science, etc.
- I will develop a base of knowledge that will guide my interpretation of the world
- I will explore the world’s art and culture: films, novels, paintings, the theater, etc.
- Become physically fit
- I will defeat obesity
- I will save my own life; if I do not change my ways, I will die an early death
- Experience the world
- I am leaving my bedroom
- I will get out in the world and enjoy what it has to offer
- Eventually, I can help shape it and improve it for the benefit of all
Thanks for reading. More structure and clarity will be coming in the next few days.
As I wrote six years ago: Finally. Let’s get to work.