So many awesome things to do

There are so many things in this highly complex world, that humans can devote their time to, so many new things and skills to be learned, so much to discover, to do, to invent... It is insane.

And when I come to think of all these options I get hit with FOMO attacks every single time. Not enough time, is all I can manage to think. And then I get sad about a world where we have all the possibilities and freedoms. A world where we can pursue so many things that are worthwhile and fun to do - a fundamentally beautiful world. And yet here I am, sad and anxious about missing out on it all.

To me, this is the most fundamental dilemma of being alive. That there is too much awesomeness, but not enough time to explore it all. And this problem only gets worse when you are extremely curious. Because the more you learn, the more you find out how much more there is to everything.

The Curse of Information

The internet gives access to so much information. People all over the world work to develop new things all the time. And information is increasing so fast that I, nor anybody else, can keep up with it. And it will increase even more in the future because of advancements in AI. Something that will have many more implications for our lives in the future.

There is simply not enough time to learn everything I would like to learn. Simply because the information out there is growing so much faster than I could ever consume it. There is not enough time.

And then there are things outside of knowledge, outside of learning. There are skills to master, and things to pursue. And all the time everybody tells you to focus on only one thing to be successful. Only one thing? Are you mad?

But they are right, you can only master one or at most a few things. If you don't focus and commit to things, you can never get anywhere with them. So it is not only the multitude of things out there that makes me sick but the depth of every single one of them. You can spend many, many lifetimes, perfecting only this one "little" thing. And still... you wouldn't master it fully. There is no end to how good you can play chess. At least no limit that is attainable.

But in the face of this, I somehow don't despair. This thought, in a weird way, gives me hope.

Open Ended

Skills are never capped. There is always more to learn... always something to perfect, just the tiniest bit better. There is always something new to learn and discover. And thus this journey of learning, of becoming better, is an endless one. Because there is no such thing as a finished state, a state where one can sit down and rest and be complete. And this is wonderful, it means we live in a world, where we will never run out of interesting things to do. The world is full of marvelous complexity that is begging us to explore further and farther.

There are hundreds of things worth pursuing because they are *all fun and all of them will take much more than a single lifetime to perfect - then how the hell should I decide which one to pursue?

How can I justify missing out on all else there is in order to pursue one thing? How can I justify focusing on only one thing, to gain depth and understanding within this narrow scope only?

The answer to me is simple, I don't have to. I can practice the joy of missing out, knowing that whatever I choose, I can have tremendous fun learning the details of that particular topic. And even better, what I choose, makes up who I am in a way. Whatever unique combination of interests I have, that is a core part of who I am.

Which brings me to:

My Long List of Things to Do

Knowing that death is very imminent and there is only little time, I often ask myself what to do in the time left to me. When doing so, there is a list of things that come to my mind over and over again. Things where I want to gain some degree of mastery, because I fundamentally love them.

• Coding
• Writing
• Traveling
• Photography
• Parkour
• Music
• Languages

These are what make me me. They are the things I discovered I enjoy. And hence they are the things that I want to fill every waking minute of my life with. Interestingly, computer games are not part of this list, even though I enjoy them tremendously, because they are addictive and this reduces my capacity to do the other things on this list. Even for something as enjoyable as video games, this tradeoff is not worth it to me.

The rest of this post is an ode to the things I love doing in my time, why I love them, and what is important to me. It is a reflection of who I am and who I want to be.

Coding

Programming is probably one of my biggest hobbies and it also became my job eventually. It is one of the easiest ways for me to reach flow states and I am deeply sad that it is changing because of AI. And it has almost infinite complexity. People are constantly building new libraries, and technology keeps evolving, which means that coding is an infinite pursuit, in and off itself. You will, by definition, never be done learning, because other people will have built new things to learn, by the time that you are "done". If you also want to learn how to code, I have a section on my developer journey in my needlestack, which might be useful.

Music:

Whenever I see some of my friends who know how to sing and play instruments I can't help but envy them. Seeing people play music and create something–the enjoyment they get out of the process–makes me want to experience the same feeling. Music has has completely passed me by so far. I never learned to play an instrument and have tremendous insecurities around singing and dancing. Yet listening to music and watching other people create it, is one of the things I enjoy most in life.

I can feel the happiness musicians get out of creating music. The feeling a musician must have when performing a piece - when sounds flow from their hands... it must feel amazing. When their faces seem lost in concentration but also at peace, they must feel the same way a coder or painter feels: alive yet lost in the craft. And this creates a passion that drives them to sink hours and hours of work into this process of creation. I can relate to this passion to practice: to get a tiny bit better at a creating a certain melody, to get the sound just right. I want to be like this, too.

Getting there will be a tough challenge, but in the end it will be worth it. Because like so many other activities music expands the way I perceive the world. When music is listened to actively, by someone who also knows how to make it, the music changes. Things that were previously unnoticed come to light, revealing the mastery in a single song. The complexity that goes into a Jacob Collier song is infathomable, and learning more about music becomes a lens through which to see and appreciate this complexity.

Traveling

I have written about why I like to travel on this blog before. Suffice it to say, there are many different places to go to and explore, cultures to be experienced, foods to be tasted, people to meet. The world is an interesting place and I want to see and feel how interesting it is. That's why I travel. I also like to write about my traveling experiences so that I can look back at them later and share them with others. There are grand adventures to be had, and that's what I want to spend a chunk of my time doing.

Languages:

Languages are one of the most important things in this world. When speaking a foreign language our brain structure changes. This makes us able to communicate with other people. People that we otherwise could not have communicated with. There are so many languages and people that we could gain knowledge from if we only spoke their language. It is crazy and insane how many friends and people and connections we miss out on, every day. Only because we can't speak their language. There are a few languages that I thus want to learn over my lifetime. Languages that allow me to speak with a large percentage of the people who live in this world, to see their perspectives and be able to learn from them. They are - Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Russian and French. Knowing all of them, would make me able to talk with almost anybody on this planet.

Why these? With them, you can travel anywhere and be able to communicate in a language that somebody else speaks. Especially when you add English to this mix you are more than good to go wherever. All have their unique cultures attached to them as well. Cultures that you can only understand when you speak their language. And thus learning languages ties into my vision of seeing this world. The idea of discovering places and foreign cultures. The idea of traveling, of learning about what this world has to offer and is like. And the adventure of meeting new people, and making friends from around the globe. And connecting to other humans through communication. To learn. To share, get inspired and be touched by other people's life. And that's something I value.

Photography

When taking photographs my brain enters a different dimension. I forget the world around me, trying to perfect the frame and composition of a picture. There is a lot of implicit knowledge in taking good pictures, colors, contrasts, rule of thirds, how shutter speed, ISO and aperture work together, how to achieve certain effects etc.

Knowing many of these things makes me appreciate the world in a different way. I often go like hmmm this would make for a nice photo when I see things. And then I smile. It makes me happy to notice the world in this way.

Parkour

Sports has always been an integral part of my life. I love playing basketball and volleyball, but the fascination that I have with parkour is different. The others are games, fun in their own right, parkour is more of an exploration, almost a mindset or philosophy. Becoming strong to explore what the body is capable of. How I can move, the things that are possible, exploring my boundaries, carefully, cautiously, with a focus on not safety, yet trying to push myself to become better. There are many things that I would like to still learn, that I am afraid of right now like flips... But that's the nature of this sport. Many roadblocks in it are mental rather than physical. And overcoming them, often takes time, it's like confronting fears through a sport.

Just like photography, parkour has influenced the way I look at the world around me. I often go "Wow! This is an awesome spot to do parkour" when I walk through a city. I start to see playgrounds and endless possibilities of fun and play, unfolding from a set of stairs and a couple of concrete walls. And, much like with seeing a nice composition for photography, seeing nice parkour spots makes me happy. It tickles a part of my brain that loves to see patterns.

Summary

There are too many things to do to, to choose from and expand one's knowledge in. And everything if looked at closely, can be zoomed in infinitely... to a point where one would need multiple life times in order to become truly good at anything.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

But in the end this doesn't matter. Because we can do things because they are fundamentally enjoyable, the process of striving towards mastery, of getting better at anything, is pleasurable in itself. It's about the delta, the improvement, not the absolute measurement of how good we are. As long as we are getting better at something, we can be quite happy. There are fundamental problems in the way of this style of life, but I think that growing older and becoming more knowledgeable about, entails solving these problems too. And therefore I am hopeful that I can spend more and more time in flow states, learning and becoming better–just a little better–every day.