Group Rationality Diary, June 1-15

I just made this decision about 5 minutes ago, so I'm posting it here as some form of commitment to stick to it.

A while ago, I decided to make a Minecraft adventure map. An embarrassing amount of time was invested into making it, but sizable progress was made in that time. That's what kept me going. The feeling of making progress on a big personal project.

But taking an outside view on it...

How much time will it take to complete? A whole hell of a lot more.

What could I do in that time instead? Make more friends, learn a programming language or two, plenty of stuff.

What will probably happen if it is completed? I will probably get a few dozen downloads of the map and that's it.

What benefits will accrue by completing it? Not enough to justify the time spent on it.

Somebody is calling this project an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. How would I respond? Hang my head in shame.

Is it fun? Somewhat, but much more fun things could probably be done with the time instead.

So I give up. It's a really huge sunk cost by this point, and it feels terrible that I used so much time on something I just abandoned halfway through, but every time I imagine what someone smarter than me would say, it is some variant of "Finally you realize it now." Time to walk away from Minecraft, permanently.

I am transitioning from grad school, where life was very intense and focused on projects that were part of the large and wonderful enterprise of scientific advancement, to the professional world where I am paid more, work fewer hours and have much more stability.

This leaves me in a pretty good position, but I don't have that big blazing "THIS IS MY LIFE MISSION" thing going on any more.

I have realized that now is the perfect time to focus on more general improvement - focusing on exercise, relationships, hobbies - rather than trying to find another BIG LIFE MISSION to make my new life more similar to the old one. That can come, but it can come later.

Had a realization while on a campout; A major motivator behind my actions is a feeling that I'm constantly behind in my understanding of things. Without an understanding of the situation, I have no control. I feel like I can't even formulate a calm and steady reaction when I don't know what I'm dealing with.

This became clear when I got all out of sorts because no one would follow my clever ideas for campout activities. I foresaw a lack of a predictable structure bothering me, I set out to enforce a structure, and still wound up in the middle of confusing random noise. And then with neither laptop nor quiet, comfortable place to think I had no way to process any of that confusion.

I'm going to forgo my typical "Good habits/Bad habits" structure this time for something a little more prose. My mind these past few weeks has been focused on one issue so that's all I have to write on at the moment.

I have been struggling with a decision over how to approach my first job out of graduate school. I wrote several diaries ago that I had a choice between taking a job in my rural, isolated home town with a very very low pay scale but high stability vs. moving to a larger, more diverse city where jobs in my field paid much much better but were not easy to get.

After a lot of debate, I took the job in my hometown. I am now a library director. And I am very excited.

The pay is low but, if properly managed, should still allow me to move out of my family's home and to invest up to 200 a month. These are two very important issues for me. Living with my family makes it impossible to work on personal projects because my family is loud, abrasive, and overbearing. Being able to have a place of my own will give me the space I had while in school when I was able to work daily rather than monthly on projects. This isn't just something I want to do for a potential monetary pay off. I write creatively, and it relaxes me and gives me a sense of personal pride, which is important to me. So, having this space will also increase my quality of life if properly utilized.

The investment is less than I had hoped. I had wanted to invest at least 500 a month but the pay scale is smaller than I was led to believe, which took away some of the extra cash I would have after bills. I'm looking at chopping expenditures where I can, but the fact that I will at least have 200 a month to invest is still better than nothing. Investment is important because I do not want to wait to improve my finances. Retirement is only one of the important moments in my life I'm saving for. Buying a home, having security, signing up for cryonics, these are all important and all require stable finances which I do not yet have. But with this job I can at least get my portfolio off the ground.

I begin my new job next month. I am already planning to meet with certain community organizations and leaders to make my presence known and to establish some rapport with them. This is a stable job but I do not want it to be easy. I have several ideas for projects and hope to begin trying them as soon as summer ends and my learning time is over. When I have space to begin writing regularly again, I have projects I want to work on. For the next few years, I am stable. I want to make the most of it.

I've started spending a significant amount of time per day studying various CS topics: HTML, CSS, JS, discrete math, Java, etc.. and building a portfolio of "to do" projects when I have the basic skills. I am choosing to do this over the much more fun and interesting playing and recording music.