Considering Life Spring 2023

Reflections on Life 20220401

• Reflecting on the following, in three lines:
  • I felt a bit resistant to returning to the daily routine of university after the freedom of spring break.
  • But maybe it was just a case of the grass looking greener on the other side.
  • That being said, it is important to periodically reflect on life in a macro sense like this.

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• Thoughts I have

  • Currently, I am living a life where I am busy with university assignments and using my free time to pursue experiences and projects that I want.
  • However, recently I have been feeling uncertain and questioning whether this is the right way to live.

• Why did I start feeling this way?

  • It’s not that I’m not enjoying myself.
    • The classes are generally interesting, and I have been able to do various things in my free time.
  • However, I do face difficulties and stress, and I feel like I see hope for resolving them in “alternative life paths.”
    • This might just be a case of the grass looking greener on the other side and conveniently supplementing invisible parts.
  • Has my previous satisfaction with my way of life been crumbling due to external factors?
    • Until now, I have to some extent built up my own satisfaction with choosing my current life over “alternative life paths.”
      • Answers to questions like Why go to a university in the United States, why I chose to go to college, etc.
    • However, while observing GPT-4 and similar things, the underlying assumptions of that satisfaction are starting to break.
  • It seems that other ways of living have become more visible in concrete terms as well.
    • In the context of Decision-Making Ignoring Frameworks.
  • Is my dissatisfaction with the limited free time at university a factor?
    • This might be the case.
    • I will discuss this further below.

• What should I consider?

  • What am I currently struggling with in my current way of life?
  • Other ways of living
    • Their merits, Antifragility, etc.

• Current way of life

  • It is quite questionable whether traditional university education is the optimal use of time in life.
    • Of course, there are various secondary benefits such as meeting people, living in NY, and being able to conduct research.
    • Computer Science itself feels very meaningful and enjoyable, but I start to wonder why I am taking SWE Prep-like classes.
      • Assuming that SWE might not exist or will change significantly in 10 years.
  • The problem of finding interesting people is difficult here.
    • Well, I feel like this is a matter of me needing to work harder even at Columbia/NYC.
      • As I mentioned in Looking Back on 2022 and Living in 2023.
      • It’s a matter of my own digging power.
    • • Since I live in a world with the Internet, I can easily get to know people from Japan without any problems.
        • The distance between Gunma-Tokyo and NYC-Tokyo is probably not that different.
        • I should be more proactive about this as well.
  • Simply put, I miss Japan.
    • Well, that’s inevitable.
  • Is this the first time I have had such a consistently limited amount of free time in my life?
    • That’s not true.
    • In high school, I basically had school from 8am to 6pm.

• Other ways of living

  • Taking a leave of absence theory
    • /villagepump/2023/03/20#64178d1d79e11300005eaba7

      • It is quite questionable whether devoting time to traditional university education is the optimal use of time at this stage.

      • In that case, it might be better to take a leave of absence during 2023-24 and have the freedom to swing in any direction in life.

    • I feel like the restriction of a maximum of one year is strict.
  • Company?
    • How to Proceed with ParallelTalk 202301
  • Job?
    • Hmm,
  • Research?
    • Maybe if I worked really hard for a year in some lab, like a long-term internship, I might find a position.
    • Decision-Making Ignoring Frameworks