It's surprisingly hard to write something about yourself. It kinda feels like putting yourself in a box with a label on it. I'll try not to do that here. Stephen Fry has an elegant way of framing this feeling: >"Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it. That is your punishment. But if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an actor, a writer. I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun." This resonates with me as [[Learning to love computers|my path hasn't exactly been linear so far]]. In the last fifteen years I went from studying Modern Literature to software engineering at a startup, through studying International Business Law at La Sorbonne while working full-time as a cashier to pay for my tuition, learning Russian, volunteering to teach people how to fix their bikes at [Vélorution](https://velorution.org/), a Parisian bike repair cooperative, writing a cinema critic column for a student newspaper long dead now, getting through Saint-Cyr, the French army’s officer school, freelancing as a translator from Ankara, Turkeye, teaching French to children in Russia, designing logos, and shooting weddings in Moscow. Linearities aren't my trade so far. As promised, I'll focus on the things I do rather than the things I sometimes think I am. For the last five years, I've been writing software and managing a technical team to build a Computerized Maintenance Management System. Other activities I'm often involved with involve trail running, photography, reading (about psychology, philosophy, chaos theory, physics, management, software engineering, finance and design in no particular order), buying more books than I have time to read, writing, practicing yoga, bouldering, volunteering (teaching kids embedded programming & helping autistic children find their path to school and a normal life) in Paris, where I live at the moment, advising early-stage startups to help them solve the technical challenges they run into when I can be of help (often an outside perspective it all it takes to get unstuck), mentoring students and more recently, coaching. Those days I'm in the process of figuring out my next step. Not too long ago, I stepped down from my position as a CTO. Maybe I'll write about that in the future, too. In any case, to paraphrase Stephen Fry, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. I wouldn't know where to begin to convey how uncomfortable it is to write so when everybody seems to be holding to their vision like an oxygen mask during a plane crash. Once again, I guess, I failed to pave the road for my future self... Maybe some day I'll learn, or maybe I like the rush of not knowing what comes next, of having to reinvent myself. This must be similar to jumping from a bridge with an elastic, that moment when you're suspended in the air before the elastic catches you. I never tried it, but I imagine the feeling of your heart skipping a beat must be the same. I think there is an opportunity for growth in saying no to fear. As such, I've been thinking a lot about ideas lately. Having met many other aspiring founders, one thing that catches my attention again and again is that tendency we have to tie our ideas with our identities. Wanting to have an idea is dangerous, in my perspective. It wakes up the ego. It makes you blind as you switch into confirmation bias mode. In any case, I think it's unlikely you'll get a good idea when you need or want one. There's a thin line between genuine curiosity and seeing what you want to see. To avoid that pitfall, I want to use the time I'm blessed to have on my hands to figure out what the situation requires and what my contribution can be next. To do so I plan on following the interests I've been sweeping under the rug in the name of doing the work. Again, I feel it's easier to stumble onto a good idea and recognize it for such than it is to "have one". To be a curator rather than a creator. Interestingly enough, it is the very thought that freed me in photography. Wanting to *make* a photograph, to *be* a photographer, to *realize* a vision doesn't work for me. Making lots of photographs then picking the ones I can't resist does. So instead of ideas, I'm looking for a spark — something to solve — along with a feedback loop so my solutions can get better. Purpose and progress. What I want to do from now on is share some of the journey and the things I learn, right here, and to grow this pool of ideas over time so it might benefit others in the process. Many of us, I think, have this somewhat romantic notion of a finite, ideal understanding of a concept or topic, when in my own — although limited — experience, understanding starts with the realization of how little you know a subject, embracing your irremediable incompleteness[^1] , yet setting out for the journey of learning by doing, making silly mistakes, and failing your way forward. To contact me, [[README|visit this page]]. [^1]: Lucian Blaga, a Romanian philosopher and poet, develops the idea of a transcendental censorship: The world actively escapes our gaze, hides itself from us, and, ultimately, is not knowable. I find it beautiful.