Quit Your Job

But you cannot pursue interesting novelty—things that no one else is doing or which you have never seen before, or the little threads of nagging curiosity or doubt—by chasing along known direct value gradients. But that’s where the treasure is. That’s how you will find the place where you need to build. To get the biggest and most interesting payoffs, you have to start by chasing merely interesting novelty in an open-ended way.

This describes my learning style. Follow curiosities with no clear end in mind, just fascination.

This efficient pursuit of predictable value is the quiet dignity of the mass of working people. But if we are to solve the bigger structural, spiritual, and intellectual problems which aren’t addressed by existing institutions, someone needs to be exploring off of the established road, where there is a high probability of failing to accomplish anything at all, and a significant probability of discovering and exploiting the next big breakthroughs.

Conference talks of trailblazers, pioneers, and settlers come to mind.

But this isn’t really about your job. It’s about your relationship to resources and value.

A helpful frame. A job is not an identity. It’s a proxy broker of resources and value.