I was initially thinking of pursuing a masters and then maybe a phd. And now after reading this article I'm having second thoughts \b[T_T].

Fuck you (\i[with all due respect]).

I hope this goes well.


I hope this goes well

If you <don't be a pussy>[are a pussy and work a soul crushing job], this is one way to lie to yourself that your life is still worth living: do one cool thing every day.

Find a time in which your mind hasn't yet been destroyed by useless work, usually in the morning before work, and do one thing you actually like in life.

Work a little less well for you boss, and a little better for yourself. <Ross Ulbricht>:
> I hated working for someone else and trading my time for money with no investment in myself
Selling <drugs> online is not advisable however.

Even better, try to reach an official agreement with your employer to work 20% less than the standard work week. For example, you could work one day less every week, and do whatever you want on that day. It is not possible to push your passion to weekends, because your brain is too tired. "You keep all non-company-related IP you develop on that time" is a key clause obviously.

On a related note, good employers must allow employees to do whichever the <fuck> "crazy projects", "needed refactorings or other efficiency gains" and "learn things deeply" at least 20% of their time if employees want that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20%25_Project[]. Employees must choose if they want to do it one day a week or two hours per day. One day per month initiatives are <bullshit>. Another related name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius_hour[genius hour].

Highly relevant on this topic: <video What Predicts Academic Ability? by Jordan B Peterson (2017)>.

\Video[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQlAfI91cZ8]
{title=I did it for me, Skyler}
{description=Pursuing a dream part time can make you feel afraid and tired. But at least, you will feel alive.}

Maybe you will be fired, but long term, having tried, or even succeeded your dream, or a <the side effects of ambitious goals are often the most valuable thing achieved>[one of its side effects], will be infinitely more satisfying.

The same goes for <school>, and maybe even more so because your parents can still support you there. Some <Gods> who actually followed this advice and <I'd rather starve>[didn't end up living under a bridge]:
* <George M. Church> "\[We\] hope that whatever problems... contributed to your lack of success... at Duke will not keep you from a successful pursuit of a productive career." Lol, as of 2019 the dude is the most famous biotechnologist in the world, those "problems" certainly didn't keep him back.
* <Freeman Dyson> proved the equivalence of the three existing versions of <quantum electrodynamics> theories that were around at his time, and he has always been proud of not having a <PhD>!

  \Video[http://youtube.com/watch?v=DzC1IRYN_Ps]
  {title=<Freeman Dyson> - Why I don't like the <PhD> system (95/157) by <Web of Stories> (2016)}
* <Ramanujan>, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Srinivasa_Ramanujan&oldid=1256886210#Early_life[Wikipedia]:
  > He received a scholarship to study at Government Arts College, Kumbakonam, but was so intent on mathematics that he could not focus on any other subjects and failed most of them, losing his scholarship in the process.
* Person that Ciro met personally and shall remain anonymous for now for his privacy: once Ciro was at a bar with work colleagues casually, it was cramped, and an older dude sat next to his group.

  The dude then started a conversation with Ciro, and soon he explained that he was a mathematician and software engineer.

  As a Mathematician, he had contributed to the <classification of finite simple groups>, and had a short Wiki page because of that.

  He never did a <PhD>, and said that <academia> was a waste of time, and that you can get as much done by working part time a decent job and doing your research part time, since you skip all the <bullshit> of academia like this.

  Yet, he was still invited by collaborating professors to give classes on his research subject in one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Students would call him Doctor X., and he would correct them: Mister X.

  As a software engineer, he had done a lot of hardcore assembly level optimizations for <x86> for some mathematical libraries related to his mathematics interests. He started talking microarchitecture with Ciro's colleagues.

  And he currently worked on an awesome open source project backed by a <company>.

  At last but not least, he said he also fathered 17 children by donating his sperm to <lesbian> mothers found on a local <gay> magazine, and that he had met most/all of those children after they were born.

  A God. Possibly the most remarkable person Ciro ever met, and his jaw was truly dropped.

<Gandhi> TODO source:
> You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind


 Discussion on "Do one cool thing every day" by Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli, 35)