Three years later and the world is still malleable

For my people of 2020: I am a part of all I've met — and I'm glad I met you.

Recently, a friend brought something interesting to my awareness about my mannerisms when I am not concerned with anyone watching me. There were several occasions where they caught me smiling or grinning at myself for no evident reason. I was not smiling at any particular person - but it seemed to them that it could only be at myself. I thought about my relationship with myself—and realized that I knew that smile all too well. It was a specific type of smile that only my past, present, and future selves would recognize. It was one of the ways I signaled to the different parts of me that things are going in the direction that we want. I don’t recall this particular quality about me existing until only the past few years.

About three years ago, I met people that painted beautiful pictures of what my future could be — and how I was completely capable of materializing them with all that I am now. In understanding each other and the minuscule details that make us real and different to each other, I learned to develop a stronger relationship with my agency. One of the quotes I saw at the time from pmarca has stuck with me since:

I was around 15 or 16 years old at the time, but there is no other quote that I continuously go back to for inciting an agentic spirit. When I’m inspired by what others have done, my default is to see it as something doable that I can learn to replicate in my own way instead of believing that there is a cloud of mysticism behind an individual. Shedding the belief that there is someone behind the curtain has been one of the most helpful internalization in my agency.

Gradually, as I’ve been meeting talented people in my field, I’ve fallen less often into the trap of believing that people that are more talented programmers or researchers are mythical geniuses. It’s almost often that they’ve taken more attention, focus, effort, and time than anyone else. They have a particular devotion to their work; they often don’t see it as work. Work and life are the same. Some of the best people have a healthy ratio of agency and intelligence that make them effective. They believe that the world is malleable to their desires and that nothing but gravity (or the law, in some cases) can stop them.

It won’t be long before I turn 19, about three years since I started seeing the world as a more malleable place. Every time I come to the conclusion that I am in a better place than I pre-planned for or if things are working on in my way, I quietly smile at myself as a reminder of how malleable the world is to my desire — and how it will continue to be if I remember to go at the world with maximum drive and passion.

Brief thanks to Govind for reviewing this :)