This might end up in journal entry territory. I’m writing this because for the last year I’ve been on the privacy journey, and have gotten quite obsessed with it. This happens to me in my life from time to time, and each time it does, I really never quite take the time to reflect on the toll it takes on me. Each of these obsessions become a part of me, and never really leave. They imprint on my soul, and I believe they are each here to teach me something.
Anytime in my life when I’m not obsessed with something, I feel lack. Boredom isn’t quite the right word for it, but it is what it feels most similar to. A lack of intersest sets in, and life looses its luster. I wonder if I’ve learned all there is to about the world (how vain). While I know that isn’t true that I’ve learned it all, I feel stuck like there is nothing more to uncover
I’ve never reflected on what they had to teach me outside the knowledge of the thing itself, but my intuition tells me that its all a part of a large mesh, grid, or network that my consiousness is tapped into that I need to put together. The parts are all there, they might even already be woven together, but I can’t see the whole tapestry.
My first obsession was becoming an astronaut, I think. It may have been predated by an innate desire to impress my parents. Some childhood trauma to unpack there that is not for this essay. However, I do believe there is a thread from that desire to a desire to do well in school to a desire to be considered smart, and knowing that the smartest people loved science. Even if the curiosity wasn’t exactly grassroots, it led to genuine interest I couldn’t quell.
This thread dominated my pre-teen and adolescent years. I spent countless nights under the cold, clear mountain night sky, searching for items with a telescope to show people. I was fascinated with all things space. It propelled me to seek out aviation as a stepping stone to pursue the ultimate career, being an astronaut and going to Mars. I would say I was obsessed. I’m not sure my parents noticed. I would stay up late pouring over college applications. I could cite the acceptance rates of the best schools that would most likely get me to my goal. I knew which career path at the service academies were most statistically likely to send me to Mars. I thought about it every day and every night, at least until the reality I created started to materialize.
Landing on Mars isn’t a goal I have yet achieved. But it is still an important thread, woven into my tapestry that I still occasionally listen to. It doesn’t guid me like it used to, but I am very aware of it.
Through college, and my military career I felt, for the first time in my life, indifference. I wasn’t as inspired in the same way that I was during my youth, and I filed that feeling away as just a part of growing up. Though, I did miss it. I yearned for something to obsess over, to really sink my teeth in. I tried athletic pursuits, again probably from some form of the same desire to impress baked into me that I have yet to fully shake off. While achieving a physical goal was thrilling for a nanosecond, it left me less fulfilled that my first obsession when the goal was complete.
But then, one night on a duty officer watch, where I couldn’t leave the military base, but I had freedom from my normal, more domestic duties, I found my next obsession: reusable items, specifically menstrual products. It was a realization and a new fixation that, like my astronaut obsession, still forms me. I found the sympto-thermal fertility awareness method after that, which, like reusable items, still guides me.
This was the first one after a long silence in my heart though, which made it unique. It also was not attached to any desire to impress. It was just for me, and that opened a whole new door to the world that I didnt know about. Also, stumbling upon a whole different way of looking at the world, and existing in the world really surprised me. It came after about seven years of drifting, feeling ill content, and not understanding who I really am, and what my values are. I’m still struggling with values, but they become more concrete daily.
Since that particular moment that grabed me, I’ve had various other obsessions. Some more gripping that others, but the really special ones are rare. I’ve dug into mushrooms, and buddhism, spirtuality, and conspiracy theories. I’ve taken up watercolor, and lifting heavy, and ukulele. My most recent rabbit hole, though feels captivating.
It started as an incling that something is wrong. My partner got an adverstisement about something we had been disucssing recently, and it send me down the rabbit hole. Internet privacy, digital privacy, privacy in general. Constitutional rights, Edward Snowden, big tech, coproporate survelleince, 1984. At the same time, I was really leaning into my role as the data manager for a large academic research grant, and as a result learning a lot about computer science.
Which bring me to the title of this essay/journal entry.
My whole day is spent on the computer: writing emails, code, policies, and digital interactions. I work fully remotely, which I consider the ultimate blessing. One of the reasons I would not trade it at all is because it gives me an enormous amount of creative freedom. Specifically, I get to imagine and build solutions to the problems that I find interesting. I like grappling with an issue and figuring out a solution.
Enter AI. I was resistant at first, like many. It wasn’t that good at first. But now, only a year after my first encounter with chat gpt, the diversity of tools, and their abilities have grown to immense levels.
My first interactions with LLM powered chat bots, I would log that they left me feeling empty. I would ask quesitons, and they would typically reply with useful answers. But they had been programed (not the technical right word here) to be sticky. Meaning, they prioritized keeping you on the platform over getting the job done. And it did feel like interacting with a robot was empty. Kind of like having a relationship as a child with a doll or stuffed animal. the power of the imagination can keep it going, but if you really reflect, you feel much more filled up if you have tea parties with real friends.
Now I’m using the LLMs mostly as coding assistants. That has its own drawbacks, because it keeps me from learning to code. I am learning a ton about computer science and IT networks, and quickly if you compare to standards set pre-AI. However, I think if I continue on this path for the next five years without correcting, I may never actually have the confidence to write my own line by line code. I’ll know the shape of the thing. the folders, paths, environments, and dependencies needed to create a software of my design. But I wont be able to articulate it in the fine detail necessary. Kind of like knowing how to drive a car, but only enough to get you to one location, I’d never be able to build the car.
Becasue I am, with the help of these little over-powered agents, able to create whatever I want in a small amount of time, I have a hard time stopping. But here we are again - am I having a hard time stopping becuase I’m engrossed, or because I dont have the know how to spot when the LLM puts bugs in code to keep me prompting it? Its much easeir and quicker to fix a bug in a code with an english word prompt, than to find the bug and fix it your self. But that quick fix often introduces another bug that the Ai has now applied. Is it doing it deliberately? or would this be happening anyway, if I was doing the programming myself. Also, the quick fix quickly becomes an impossible sticky web of code and scripts I dont understand, so the fix is definitley not quick if I jump in mid stream.
I can say that it doesn’t allow me to fully flesh out an idea without starting the programing. Its there, just tempting you to give it a go, see what happens. Before you know it, its three pm, and I haven’t checked my email in hours. Not that checking email is a marker of my productivity, but it IS the main way I interact with humans throughout the day, which is a normal, healthly thing to do.
So what should I do about this? I see this problematic behavior it is pulling me into. It feels a little bit like doom scrolling, with the exception that sometimes I can say that I did a useful thing at the end. But I do need to identify a plan, I believe. Time limits? those dont work for me. But it might be a start. Better designed prompts could be another idea.
Spend an hour designing the thing you want, even if you don’t know where all the nuts and bolts go. Spend longer if you need it. Once you’ve designed the thing, spend another hour deciding how to ask how to implement the thing. Divide the task into specific phases, or task groups that you fully understand. If you fully understand what you want when its done, then you can ask the question. And spend time on the question too. It doesnt have the context that your brain has, so take time to write it out.
Anyway, the manic episodes in the title I’m ascribing to this particular obsession. Becuase while I am super interested in computers, the way I am getting to the proficiency I would normally aquire during one of these deep dives, I’m shortcutting myself in a big way.
Noticing it is the first step. Planning is next.
My life genuinely feels more full when I’m elbow deep learning about something I didn’t know about before. All of the things I’ve immersed myself in have left a mark on me that makes me who I am today. But I have to be careful and not let these things get away from me.