For twelve days in a row, I went to the same library, not really for my upcoming SAT, but because I currently don’t even have a desk, a chair nor wifi. The library has it all and also for the population there. It’s located near a university campus, so the area is full of students. First, I love seeing ambitious young people. And the library’s architecture is… acceptable. (Most places don’t make the cut.)
One day at the library, the guy next to me was watching an economics lecture. I saw him struggling, I explained the topics he didn’t understand.
The next day, I was there again, and this time the man on my left was coding. During his break I asked what he was working on.
He said he’d been at the same SF-based company for 13 years. They were a team of 12. I asked which company and why they hadn’t expanded. He said the founder was comfortable with where they were and didn’t want to grow.
I was surprised because that’s very counter-culture for a San Francisco company. He gave me some advice.
I’m 17, and while my peers are studying there, I’m working. They’re grinding for their exams, and I’m grinding for my work and for the life I want to build. Being like me has its upsides and downsides, but what I’m getting at is this: I love being around ambitious people.
Maybe that’s why everyone builds in SF — to be surrounded by like-minded minds.
When students can’t solve a question, they ask tutors or friends. When I need an opinion on a business situation, I go to my mentors or business peers.
The difference is: theirs sit across the same desk. Mine sit across the world.
They are the majority in the place they belong; I am the minority. But again, you never know who’s sitting next to you. Sometimes it’s an SF engineer.
Talk to people. Be curious. Observe. At best, you learn or you teach.
They’re grinding to be part of the system; I’m grinding to build a system.
Two words I’m liking right now: using “safe” in German, and hearing system builders say “Normies.” Isn’t that such a cute word? Normies.
In the existing system, you don’t question. You don’t dare, you don’t rebel. That’s what you’re taught. That’s the curriculum. Sorry gang, I go by my own.
Recently, someone very close to me said she had been sitting with people who know me. She told them I dropped out to graduate early and wanted to do X and Y. They thought I was crazy. A problematic kid for dropping out. They wondered what I was even doing (you know because I did not choose to be like them).
She told me she responded:
“Umut is going to do some crazy big things. I can’t even imagine what she’ll do and if I can’t imagine it, you can’t even comprehend.”
Sometimes that’s what you need to hear, not people who only believe in you, but people who know you.
There is nothing wrong with being a normie. It’s just not for me.