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Working with me used to be difficult, I am a high performer. I tend to do things with care, down to the small details, and I expect a basic level of thoughtfulness from the people I work with. not to overcomplicate life, and not to control others, but to make sure things are done properly.
I remember my friend Awab sharing a thoughtful reading recommendation from the LessWrong community titled You will be OK . it is both a clarification and a gentle reminder of different ways to think and act under the existential threat of AI, written as a response to concerns raised by a young community member in Turning 20 in the probable pre-apocalypse .
I do not remember exactly whereIfirst learned the sentence “worry about it later”. but over time, it revealed itself as something deeper than advice. it describes a mental mechanism that works almost automatically in my mind. a form of being selectively ignorant about certain things, not because they do not matter, but because they do not matter now.
The only real distinction between me and many of my friends is that I seek truth as a need, not as a pastime. I have spent most of my life trying to understand the world we live in, its physical reality, its existential questions, and its moral structure. what widens this distinction is that I do not treat understanding as an instrument for enjoyment or intellectual vanity. I seek it because I need it. I need it to make better decisions, and to quiet the confusion that once crowded my mind.
Either at work or in daily life, car horns for no reason. someone dragging their feet without lifting them. cutting a public service queue. leaving clothes in the gym changing room instead of the locker. a bank agent typing five words per minute. an uber driver talking on the phone. someone playing a video on the metro without headphones.
Change is not only about will power. you can fight your inner conflicts . you can decide to improve . you can push yourself daily. but there is another factor that matters just as much: timing. some forms of change does not happen just because you want it to. it happens when life gives it space to grow. it happens when conditions are in favorable.
Hardships of life are less hard to endure than living in my head.
Than having an internal conflict.
The most important of these skills, and power’s crucial foundation, is the ability to master your emotions. An emotional response to a situation is the single greatest barrier to power,
I remember that particular day. I was heading to the University Of Khartoum. I took the city train. I was standing. there were no seats left. my head was facing the floor, and the train was moving. I was just there.