c. 2019
General Timeline
NOTE: To avoid redundancy, go here for the work experience.
late-1980s: Born in California’s Inland Empire to a pair of well-intended broken people, wasn’t properly socialized.
1990s: autistic overweight smart kid with glasses, so bullied a ton by other kids, would occasionally snap after weeks or months of it and beat them up.
1995: Developed an interest in reading nonfiction, especially science and history.
late-1990s: Involved in student leadership and academic pentathlon at school.
2001: Joined high school football team as a defensive lineman.
2003: Joined high school wrestling team in the heavyweight division, got a few trophies for it.
2004: Sent off to military school for the first few months of high school senior year.
2005: Worked first job in fast food.
2006: Started community college without a clue, 1-2 classes/semester.
2006: Dislocated foot in a skateboard accident, realized Stoic philosophy was insufficient and planted the seeds for what would later become Christianity.
2006–2009: Bad career configuration meant bouncing around a dozen living situations.
2009: Found a healthy work-for-rent arrangement, decided to start a career in accounting.
2011: Graduated from community college with honors, started tax preparer license.
- Also in 2011: Broke wrist on a skateboard-based commute, had to cancel tax prep license training.
2012: graduated from Western Governors University undergraduate accounting program with honors.
2013: chose to live out of car due to severe budget constraints, trained for a tax preparer license.
2014: Tax preparation failure due to social skills, very unstable living situation, started identifying as “the Philosopher Accountant”.
- Also in 2014: Found a connection with a weird but stunningly beautiful alexithymic girl, drove across the country from New York to California to meet her, survived a major auto accident along the way in Pennsylvania.
2015: Finished first book, though it was never published.
2016: Got married to the 2014 girl, vacationed in Seattle.
- Also in 2016: Finished the proto-version of AdequateLife.
- Also in 2016: Finished the proto-version of TheoLogos.
2017: Along with wife, committed lifestyle to fully trusting God.
- Also in 2017: Moved to a gifted fifth-wheel trailer on an empty plot of land.
- Also in 2017: Wife has eclamptic seizure and emergency C-section, first son born.
2018: Traveled the country as a truck driver, moved family from California to Iowa.
2019: blame-shifting by management over a damage-free black ice trucking event, motivated a new career in tech work.
2020: Second child born at the height of the COVID-19 pandemonium.
- Also in 2020: Finished GainedInSite.
2021: Waived Miranda Rights with police and spent 7 weeks in jail with a punitive no-contact order afterward.
2022: With much effort, acquired a probationary insurance license.
- Also in 2022: created NotaGenius.
2023: rebuilt and edited AdequateLife, GainedInSite, TheoLogos, and NotaGenius to higher editorial standards.
Who I Am
I’m a WYSIWYG human quine: terrible at image management, but have proof of competence. While it’s initially undetectable when you meet me, I’m a high-functioning pattern/language ASD with notes of ADHD, a sprinkling of BPAD, and a side order of PTSD.
My personality is very high-conscientiousness, high-neuroticism, and moderately agreeable, which directs into a chaos laser of crazy ideas constrainted by an obsession with following every rule. My extraversion and openness to experience vacillates with the BPAD, so I sometimes like to be alone about 70% of the time doing the same thing and sometimes like engaging with small groups of people.
I’ve always wanted to understand everything to the point where it’s explainable in plain English.
I haven’t come from a healthy background. Both of my parents were given challenges they never overcame, and my early adulthood forced me to a crossroads between victimization or self-sufficient leadership. The neurodivergence never left, but I’ve now made it useful.
I value wisdom deeply. It may represent itself with simple principles (e.g., “don’t buy everything full price”), but it condenses to broader concepts (e.g., “be cautious on what you spend”). However, an axiom by itself only goes so far (e.g., “it’s a bad idea to not pay your employees”).
Gaining wisdom requires correctly handling ideas. To that end, ideas must be handled with precision and care, much like the rigor and attention we give math or law.
Given our current era, my purpose in life is to fight over-information that dilutes meaning, which I implement by condensing facts into unvarnished summaries. However, wise thoughts and foolish blathering fight on the same playing field, and fashions often judge who was cooler while saying it.
My goal isn’t to make many things or make money off the stuff I make. I care more about maximum quality with the most organic exposure possible.
With that said, I also enjoy doing non-mind-related things. Experience tethers us to reality far more than knowledge.
Of course, the previous two paragraphs mean I’m not billionaire entrepreneurship material; I’m too dogmatic to monetize my ideas.
While I’ll happily sell my labor or rent out my brain, I consider all my ideas to represent three possibilities:
- They’re life-changing, so I’ll harm those who need them but can’t access them.
- They’re replaceable, so capitalizing on my ideas involves the chore of competing with others.
- The ideas are niche enough that they’re time-sensitive (and will become worthless proportional to the depth of the niche) and therefore worth temporary capitalization.
- The ideas are worthless or near-worthless, and I’d be a huckster to advance my agenda with them.