August 2026 Carveouts
What to do when you're ambitious but nothing excites you by Hannah Zhang. I've been struggling with the question of how to spend my time. I don't mind my job, but I don't feel particularly inspired by anything. I yearn for the feeling of pursuitâsomething I love and am happy to spend most of my day doing.
I've yet to really find something (perhaps this, being my first blog post in a year, is a step in the right direction), but this post helped me realize a healthier way of looking at it. Instead of spending many waking momentsâespecially on the weekendsâthinking about how I ought to spend my time, I'm doing what I want to do.
I resonated most strongly with this line:
And if youâre still coming up empty, stop trying to manufacture an interest that isnât there.
I have a history of trying to force myself into things I'm not into in the momentâclassical novels, machine learning, etc. Now I simply spend my free time doing whatever I want to do.
What You'll Wish You'd Known by Paul Graham. I read this for the first time a year ago and recently reread it. Similar to the above, but better written imo. Particularly liked:
Now I know a number of people who do great work, and it's the same with all of them. They have little discipline. They're all terrible procrastinators and find it almost impossible to make themselves do anything they're not interested in ... I'm not saying you can get away with zero self-discipline. You probably need about the amount you need to go running.
Big Red Son by David Foster Wallace. I read this essay as part of the collection Consider the Lobster. Never have I laughed so hard at written text.
How I Learned to Read Way, Way More by John Paul Brammer. A nice piece that showed me the clearest (and perhaps only) path toward loving reading. I've heard "read what you love until you love to read" before, but this made it much more salient. Bonus points because it put me onto DFW.
**The best beta I've found for all V4 benchmarks on the 2016 MoonBoard set.
Fresh mangoes. Bonus: this video comparing the different kinds of mangoes.