A friend asked me recently for ideas for a career talk they were giving at a university (or for university students). I wrote the following (more or less). I'm sure you'll not be able to use any of them because I am uniquely unsuited for our world but what the hell: I can't resist the challenge. <h>Be valuable</h> If you're lucky, then you'll only spend 1/2 of your waking life during your prime years on your career. That's a lot of time. That time passes more quickly when you do something fulfilling. Figure out what you think is valuable, what you think society needs. Try to provide something of real value (or at least feel like you're doing so). Beware of careers that generate profit or personal gain but no value. Those are soul-killers. You wll become everything you despise. And you probably won't even notice. <h>Learn and grow</h> If you have the choice, choose something where you can learn and grow. If you're not learning and growing, can you fix it so that you are? Learn how to learn, so you don't need pushing from outside. The autodidact is never bored. Do the work.<fn> Try to see the purpose behind getting practice in, even if the immediate task feels boring or useless. It's probably not. There's probably deeper purpose.<fn> <h>Stick with it</h> Don't always think about jumping ship or plan your next move. Part of learning and growing is being the change that you want to see (as a quite young friend of mine likes to write). Think about the campsite rule and try to leave every place you've been better than when you got there. <h>Control what you can</h> Revisit and reevaluate pros and cons of what you're doing, in your job and your life. Be in control of what you can control. Be wary of algorithms. Be wary of scams. Be wary of "too good to be true." Be wary of making money for the sake of money. <img attachment="become_ungovernable.webp" align="right">Be wary of wanting more than you need. Be really informed. Be uncomfortable sometimes. Know what you need (not what you're been told you need). Want what you want (not what you've been told you want). Know what you really want: in a job, in knowledge, in life. Become ungovernable. Be an <a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you">anarchist</a>. <h>Look behind the curtain</h> Learn how things work. Be the kind of person who wants to know how things work. It makes you much more resistant to ephemeral fads, trends, propaganda, and algorithms. Be a problem solver. People love problem solvers. For God's sake, learn how to problem-solve by asking questions. What is the use case? Who is this for? What does it need to do? Learn to resist the urge to get started without thinking. Be generous with your wisdom. Show people how you do what you do. Be open-source. Be confident in your ability to share your process and still succeed. Your success will be measured in having made everyone around you better and happier. <h>Choose tools wisely</h> Choose your tools, learn them, use them, and evaluate new ones. Learn which tool is most appropriate to a task. Don't just be a tool-using monkey---be a <i>tool-building</i> monkey. Excel is a tool. AI is a tool. Coding is a tool. Rhetoric is a tool. Writing is a tool. Diplomacy is a tool. Learn how to get a feel for the right tool for the job. The world is not just nails waiting for your hammer. <h>Culture is free</h> If you make yourself the kind of person who loves poetry and jazz, then you will be happy (almost) no matter what. If you learn to cherish things that they can't take away from you, then no-one can take your happiness. So, yeah, poetry and jazz are free. Be a philosopher. <h>Be lucky</h> Life isn't fair. Talent without opportunity is frustrating but not uncommon. Charisma is a gift and often feels like a cheat code. So you'll need to be lucky, too. The best you can do is to remember your goals, steer your course toward them as best you can, and seize opportunities when they appear. The worst you can do is to not only lose your principles, but to not even notice that you did. <hr> <ft><i>Doing the work</i> is <i>how you learn</i>. There is no way to get around putting stuff into your head. It's the only way that you can expect anything useful to ever come out. "Dude, how do you write so much?" "Dude, how could I <i>not</i>?" I read and assimilate so much information that <i>my f&@king cup runneth</i> over the time that I'm not sleeping. And half of my mornings, I get up and stumble to a screen so that I can write down what I woke up thinking. How do you make conversation when all the components of your conversation are a search or a prompt away?</ft> <ft>I spent a couple of summers working in a library <i>shelf-reading</i> and <i>dusting books</i>. I read a lot of spines. I discovered a lot of books and authors. One summer, I shelf-read the entire Science Library. Nowadays it's a good story I can tell. You don't have any of your own stories if you <i>never do anything.</i> And nobody's gonna be interested in stuff that doesn't take <i>effort</i> and <i>time</i>, least of all you.</ft>