some things I liked and thought this year

May 23, 2026

At the end of April of last year, I left my job adding liquidity to the stock market to add liquidity to the AI safety labor market. So far, this seems like one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I'm quite happy about it.

It also looks extremely obvious in hindsight that I should have quit way earlier, but it's to be expected that I'll have regrets, now that I'm much older and wiser1.

vibes

I keep feeling nostalgic for the present. I expect the world to start getting very crazy very soon↗, that AI systems will continue to improve rapidly, and that this may be the last time I'll be able to experience life as it is right now. Honestly, I don't even know how to express this feeling well, but others have said it better than I can {e.g. David Rein↗, Parv Mahajan↗, George Rosenfeld↗}2.

Many of my favorite books are also about the inexorable progress of time — but now I am extremely aware of it, and the change is faster than I can track.

That amazing time in our lives is gone, and will never return. All the beautiful possibilities we had then have been swallowed up in the flow of time.

— Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki

I really enjoy my life as it is right now, and how it was previously, and it's sad to think that everything might change. But in the shorter term, realizing this has been good for me. Every day feels valuable and passively waiting for things feels so much worse, so I frequently take actions to improve my life in a way that I might not have done one year ago. I've largely stopped doing things that I don't want to do.

My non-work hours feel nicer: This might be the year I've most enjoyed listening to music. So many of the people around me are kind and funny and inspiring. When I sat on top of a big mountain in Yosemite last June, it felt like nothing could be wrong.

There's lots of urgency: to think more, to do more work, to become better at my job, but I'm mostly pretty happy feeling that way. In fact, not working on AI safety was probably more stressful—I always felt like I was working on the wrong thing. This might be the last time where actions I take meaningfully change the world, so it seems like I should try to do a good job.

One possible, slightly insane, goal for outpacing AI progress is that each year I should attempt to improve more as a researcher than the models did. (We're now a little over one year from the release of o3!) Crazily enough, I think I came close to winning last year, though mostly just because I started from a low point. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to win this year either.

changes

I did more things I found scary.

For example, I started driving again after multiple years of avoiding it.

Avoiding scary things was easier, but also made those things more frightening and encouraged me to avoid them in the future. Doing scary things made it easier to do those things more, and also spilled over; I became much less anxious and significantly more okay with uncertainty.

—

I met way more people, which was great and frequently useful. But I did have to shift my working hours later, because it was too easy and fun to spend the working day talking.

—

I spent more time staring at walls.

To help with this, I blocked most of the time-wasting apps I had on my phone. Unfortunately, this led to me spending hours every day on substack so I had to block that too and various other things until wall-staring time started going well.

—

I moved 5 times. This was awful, mostly because I own too much stuff.

this year I want to

  • Organize more small social gatherings and go to fewer large events. I feel like I enjoy hanging out in small groups and I miss that being the main mode of social interaction in NYC
  • Read more short stories. I rarely regret reading short stories and collections like Axiomatic have been extremely influential on me
  • Reduce how much my surrounding social milieu's worldview, vibes, and hierarchies influence my goals. This felt much easier before I started working in the bay
  • Do more things which feel risky or cringe
  • Be nicer to the people around me

my recommendations from the year

do

  • Phone calls are so nice. I love calling my friends whenever I'm free, with a existing promise that they do not need to call back or pick up. Someone is usually available and willing to talk for a couple hours. This is also easier on pst, since my friends are off work
  • Chicago remains my favorite american city to visit. It's cold, the food is good, there's a big river and a big lake which are really pretty
  • Ride the N/W from LIC to Astoria and watch the Manhattan skyline slowly dip in and out of view
  • Play Endeavor Deep Sea, Ra, Twilight Imperium 4, Not Alone, blood on the clocktower
  • Install termux (or iphone equivalent) on your phone
  • Install the curius chrome extension (and follow me)

read

listen

  • In Mind - Sweet John
  • 醜奴兒 - No Party for Cao Dong
  • LOVED - Parcels
  • A flower bookmark, Pt. 3 - IU
  • 帶你飛 - Accusefive
  • EP III - Youmi Zouma
  • Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
  • DELTARUNE Soundtrack - Toby Fox
  • Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers - Kendrick Lamar
  • Imperishable Night - Shanghai Alice
  • 大預言家 - Lily Chou-Chou Lied
  • Location - she her her hers

eat

these are not very unique takes

  • chongqing laozao in flushing (3hr wait). xi'an cuisine in chicago. huangcheng noodle house in oakland. wojia hunan cuisine in berkeley. cocoron on delancey. apollo bagels (but not the one in fidi). chicha san chen. jaffa hummus from oren's hummus. so delicious ice cream sandwiches. huel instant cups.

notable moments

may - farewell party to my friends in NYC

june - won a fide-rated classical chess game with the budapest gambit

july - I went on a hike up Mount Tam and the day was really pretty and sunny, and on the way down I rode in a convertible with the top down

august - proved, mathematically and decisively, that pawns should be allowed to move backwards in chess

september - got hit by a car

october - shlevens

november - went to Boston and did nothing but play board games for a week

december - 6-person 2v2v2 civ 6 LAN

january - won three games in a vintage cube with Thassa's oracle doomsday

february - AM and I drove to Tahoe to ski, but his car broke down halfway and we spent the day in a car repair shop

march - went skiing with AG, SF, JC, AM and Morinder

april - made really good vegan jianbing from scratch

Great thanks and much praise to:

AM, SP & AG & SF, KL, MW, ER & VCC, JC, ARS, SJ, AS & AK, Jergens & EX, MT & NS, many other wonderful people

Footnotes

  1. And many people are saying handsome-r as well ↩

  2. Not necessarily endorsing any of these views fully ↩