27 things I am at 27

• being cringe isn't a blocker, it's basically mandatory
• ideas get sharper once they exist outside my head
• building teaches fast, so i'm doing it anyway
• making something nobody asked for can create opportunities nobody could've offered you

like i built Shelf because i wanted a very specific thing to exist, no real plan. posting shots of a project made purely out of joy brought me my first 10k. the ideas that make you look a little dumb often teach you the most.

• tools get better every day; judgment doesn't get outsourced along with them
• generating options is basically free now, deciding which one is right still isn't
• iterating is a real, undervalued skill
• as AI makes good enough trivial to produce, good enough stops being the goal

AI agents can generate an enormous amount of stuff for me. most of my duties is still deciding what's good, what's off, and what needs to disappear.

• go to the event
• take the flight
• meet people in person
• intimidating rooms become normal once you've been in a few

“fuck it, i'll go” has given me more than staying home. most flights and events don't pay off, but the ones that do make up for the rest. showing up moves things faster than messaging ever does.

• i want work i care about and a lot of money
• i want freedom without pretending i don't also want belonging
• i want love without making it my entire personality
• i don't find making my desires smaller particularly sophisticated

i want cool work, money in abundance, love, travel, beautiful places, great people, my own projects, and enough freedom to follow a random obsession when it appears.

• the internet is not separate from my real life anymore
• posting is part of making
• a tiny project can do more for me than a perfectly constructed résumé
• people need to know what i do before they can think of me for something.

my website and posts have done more for me than any résumé. they give people enough context to start a conversation, sometimes before either of us knows where it might lead.

• my brain can make something feel crazy by 2am and irrelevant by my first sip of coffee
• not every emotion deserves a strategy
• sometimes “i've decided this isn't important” actually works
• i'm learning to stop collecting evidence for stories i don't even want

the Stoics had this part right: what happens and what you make it mean are two separate things. i've wasted enough time suffering mostly from the second one.

• curiosity has been a better career strategy than planning
• real excitement gives me disproportionate energy
• forced interest fades quickly
• intense focus suits me

design became code, code became AI, AI became crypto, and whatever comes next. i used to think a career should look coherent from the outside; mine follows a trail of obsessions. going all in on crypto design brought real leads and deals, not just followers.

• i enjoy looking put together and hot
• i know exactly what i will and won't bend myself into for anyone
• i want to like the way i behave as much as the way i look
• being desired is nice, self-respect is nicer

i like being all dolled up, walking into a room feeling hot, and knowing it.

• i normalize good things way too quickly
• today's ordinary life contains things a past version of me would've obsessed over
• getting what i want and immediately inventing a new problem is a terrible gratitude practice
• ambition doesn't require permanent dissatisfaction

i've gotten things i spent months wanting and normalized them within approximately three business days. there are things in my current normal life that would've sounded obnoxiously ambitious to an earlier version of me.

• i've had almost no money and still stayed calm, knowing i could make more
• having $50 today has never meant i won't have $50k next week
• i've never once fixed a money problem by refreshing the app
• work, ideas, and people create money; fear mostly creates more fear

i've had months where money was almost nonexistent, then signed work worth more than some people make in a year. that permanently changed how seriously i take a bad week. my finances changed because i made something, posted, met someone, asked, or became useful.

• assumptions shape behavior
• certainty changes your choices
• lack gets louder when you stare at it
• the route can stay unclear for a while

the brain is a prediction machine. what i expect changes what i notice, what i attempt, and how i move before the outcome even exists.

• real relationships beat contact collecting
• real interest works better than trying to impress
• a few people you'd build anything with are worth more than hundreds of connections
• the best opportunities usually come through actual trust

the people who've mattered most in my life usually started as a conversation, not a strategy.

• ideas should become real fast
• code made design more fun for me
• prototypes are persuasive
• the word “designer” keeps expanding in my head

shapes.tools was basically “this would be cool” followed by a URL a few hours later, and then by other people getting inspired to build their own versions of it. i used to limit myself to Figma alone. that's not how i work now.

• wanting someone doesn't put the rest of life on pause
• missing someone isn't a call to action
• chemistry is chemistry, decisions are decisions
• love gets a place in my life, not control over it

i can want someone deeply and still move exactly like myself.

• things i desperately wanted have stopped impressing me
• changing my mind doesn't invalidate how badly i wanted something before
• i refuse to maintain an identity just for narrative consistency
• sometimes growth looks like contradiction

i've wanted people, cities, and versions of myself with total conviction, then let them go. that's fine. one company used to feel like my dream job. now it doesn't. the company didn't change. i did.

• a new city can rearrange my brain faster than another week of thinking
• traveling alone made me trust myself more
• airports somehow feel normal to me now
• sometimes i need to change the physical scene

dubai permanently raised my reference point for how much money can exist around you without anyone acting particularly impressed by it. i've solved enough internal problems by relocating my body that i know environment matters a lot to me.

• great work can stay invisible
• communication matters
• showing the work is now as much the job as making it
• visibility is part of the game

the internet cured me of the idea that making something great is enough. i've had strangers know my work before knowing me. that still does something to my brain.

• i can have more ideas than i have time or energy to act on
• too much input can make everything feel more urgent than it is
• protecting it now costs less than fixing it later
• people don't automatically get unlimited access to me
• sometimes i need to step away before i can think clearly

my brain works better when i give it fewer things to hold at once. the less available i make myself, the more people seem to actually want my attention.

• a post
• a DM
• a project made for no reason
• agreeing to meet someone
• booking the flight

the decisions that changed my life rarely announced themselves as important while i was making them.

• have a website
• put the work online
• say what you're into
• make it obvious what you're about

one tiny link has probably brought me more real connections than any résumé ever did. my work can open side doors before there's a role to apply for.

• ordinary days matter
• who you work with matters
• independence matters
• success should feel good in practice

i don't need the cleanest career story. i want work i care about inside a life i actually enjoy waking up to. i've learned that a prestigious opportunity can still make for a bad Tuesday.

• i like getting to a working version fast
• once something matters to me, i slow down and pay attention
• i trust making and revising more than endless planning
• speed helps me start; care determines where i stop

waiting to feel ready got me nowhere; starting did. i love the momentum of making something in a night, then disappearing into the details until it feels right, even when nobody else would've noticed.

• sometimes i'm everywhere
• sometimes i want quiet, my laptop, and almost nobody
• i don't need every month to prove the same version of me exists
• intense periods need recovery, not guilt

the quiet weeks are usually when i can actually hear myself think. i keep trying to build a perfectly balanced version of myself, then remembering that i don't actually live like that.

• being too polished is boring
• oddly specific obsessions are usually more useful than broad interests
• i don't want a career that could've belonged to another designer
• some ideas deserve to exist simply because i find them funny, beautiful, or irresistible

the Lindy effect says things which survive tend to keep surviving. i think about that with myself: the interests and instincts that keep coming back are probably worth taking seriously. nobody else has my exact mix, and that mix is the whole point.

• “that world” is usually just people you haven't met yet
• intimidating rooms become normal fast
• participation shrinks distance
• a lot of things get less mystical once you get near them

enough things have gone from “imagine if” to normal parts of my life that perceived distance impresses me less now.

• rest is useful, but avoidance can dress up as rest
• being creatively blocked and being creatively full can feel similar
• making clears mental space
• sometimes the reset is output

i recently thought i needed to stop designing for a second, right in the middle of building a project i'm about to launch. turns out that project was the thing that finally made me feel normal again.

• 27 is still ridiculously early
• i know myself enough to trust myself, with plenty left to change
• confidence doesn't mean becoming fixed
• there are people i haven't met, places i haven't lived, things i haven't built, and versions of me i can't picture yet

i used to think growing up meant arriving at a finished version of yourself. 27 feels like having enough self-trust to keep changing and still know who i am. i trust my ability to recover more than my ability to prevent everything going wrong.