User Manual

Everyone’s personality is different. This is the best way to work specifically with me.

Last updated 2024-08-02

My style

  • I believe predicting the future never works well beyond a few months, and that the past has a limited scope to gauge precedence. But, I also want to make the best decision in the longest-term possible. Therefore, I firmly believe healthy decision-making comes through obsessively well-tuned intuition.
  • I am energized when I can vividly feel a large-scale grand scheme, and will obsessively distill it into a tangible set of tasks I can visualize. When I don’t have that, I’m a depressive mess.
  • I’m not the most observant, but if I do observe something, I tend to subconsciously distill my experiences into abstractions, which I then use across almost everything.
  • Most of my insights come from teaching others, which I love to do when people want to learn.
  • I do my best to learn from the consequences, and become anxious if I feel I could have done better. If I’ve done my utmost, I tend to disassociate from all my past tasks.
  • I insist others around me become their best possible self, and am immensely annoyed when people settle for less than they’re capable of. I used to ruin relationships over it, but now I’ll alienate myself from them.
  • I’ve worked intimately with technology since I was 7 years old, and have scaled my skills with it. When I’m using a computer, I tend to forget everything and everyone else.
  • My habits are in a state of continuous improvement, and I’m always either maximizing my environment for efficiency or finding ways to automate tasks.

What I value

  • I value openness, a positive attitude, principled moral integrity, and focus.
  • I want people to stand by their convictions to the degree they believe them.
  • I expect associates to value open and healthy communication as much as me, but respect their right to bad social decisions. I wish them to stay focused on the end and always stay reasonably open to “third alternatives”.
  • I insist everyone stay humble enough to accept utter failure, myself included. I expect people to hold me directly accountable before talking with others about me.
  • I believe secrets are detrimental to group cohesion, and want everyone (including myself) to admit their failures and move on. I also have no patience for people who condemn those who fail but still showed up.
  • I believe each thing is widely connected to many other things, but immediate connections must take precedence over secondary ones. Therefore, any success comes through balancing work, rest, recreation, energy, and spirituality.

What I have no patience for

  • I find oversimplified thinking dangerous. It leads to false presumptions and deviates over time from truth. Some people are more correct than others, but each person fails to capture the whole picture.
  • I believe elaborate explanations, especially when filled with jargon, cloud the truth, and can be dangerous in the wrong time and place. Jargon is often a sign of inexperience, so I usually have trouble respecting “professionals” who use more jargon to explain their jargon.
  • I tend to treat vagueness, running from ideas, ignoring painful things, and unexplained distrust as a type of misplaced fear. While fear can help detect risks, it’s useless for rational decision-making, and I treat those who see otherwise as an inherent risk.
  • I am intolerant toward anyone disrespecting people for who they are. Everyone was given a lot in life, and they made decisions with it, and they’ll suffer plenty of consequences without your shame or attitude adding to their burdens.
  • I despise entitlement. Whatever others owe you, you owe others more. God made you, your guardian(s) raised you, your teachers invested in you. Stand exclusively on your earned authority and learn your place.
  • My personal spirituality is toward Jesus Christ, but I reserve that discussion for its time and place, and have severe ideological issues with mainstream Christian culture. While I’m happy to talk about it, prepare for me to disagree with you.

How to best communicate with me

  • Trust me more than I look. 99.9% of the time I have noble intentions, obscured by a bristly personality and some high-functioning autism. That means that I’m usually oblivious to high-context aspects of social behavior, but have been trained to feel when someone is withholding or manufacturing information.
  • I’m very low-context, and don’t follow implications. This means I’m rarely offended, but am more likely to offend. Give me straightforward information, preferably simply.
  • Come to me with more than a problem. I love the brainstorming. Give me your theories on why that issue exists, where it may originate, resources that could help, and anything you feel may be relevant related information. Discovering a problem is often a solo experience, but solving it rarely is.
  • While I live in the world of ideas, I constantly reference practical examples. Have examples ready to explain your high-concept thing.

How to help me

  • I deeply analyze everything, so materially irrelevant details sometimes discourage me. Break my cycle by reminding me of the big picture.
  • Other times, I get so consumed in the big picture that I forget the day-to-day. Break my other cycle by reminding me of what’s in front of me.
  • Inform me when I’m blunt or rude. I’m usually unaware and will promptly change it.

What people misunderstand about me

  • One of my favorite axioms is “slow is smooth, smooth is steady, steady is fast.” I will effectively do nothing for a time, then get decent at something, then fearlessly do something that may appear to be reckless to some. It’s not reckless: I’m just a fast learner.
  • For some reason, I have always had an incessant awareness of the impending death that awaits us all. I’m no longer anxious about it, but it still permeates throughout my work and presence. The natural results of that perspective is that I’ll see everyone’s feelings and problems as petty (myself included).
  • I’m an introvert who looks like an extrovert. Give me at least a few minutes to realign, and I’ll respond with full attention.
  • I tend to have an optimistic and encouraging mindset, but I frame it in the worst possible way. My attitude is usually framed as “it could be much worse” and my affirmations tend to frame as “you’re not as bad as other things”.
  • I speak with conviction, but am usually not as set in my thinking as I appear to be, and don’t have much emotional attachment to what I know. If you give me facts that prove me wrong, I’ll promptly change my views and speak with a new contrasting conviction.
  • I tend to look like I’m constantly anxious, but that’s my baseline. My mind and body usually run on different wavelengths, and I have 2-5 other thoughts competing with the world around me.
  • I’m a great crisis manager and a terrible counselor. I’m also great at fixing problem, but only like hanging out with people to learn something new or discuss philosophical concepts.