Making Sense: October 2021
Bi-monthly publication / Re: Life
Welcome to Re: Life - a newsletter that open-sources my personal development into 60-day chunks. I'm Aaryan - I'm a 15-year-old that's self-learning molecular biology and currently developing a medical device to make cancer surgeries more effective.
Outside of biology, I explore other interests, including electronics, chemistry, software, and the general pursuit of greater understanding. You're currently reading one of the first editions of my work on Substack, which I've restructured to revolve less around me and more around you. Enjoy your read.
Life, Condensed:
Since my last public announcement, fate took me on a few detours. In early September, after almost two months of diligent "interning", I clocked out for the last time at my summer position (and first ever job) at a startup.
Shortly tailing the end of my internship came the SAT (a sort of "entrance exam" for universities) which also happens to be the world's easiest way to convince yourself that you have an IQ of -14. After about three months of preparation, I travelled to Toronto to bubble my math and reading skills onto a very thick booklet.
Now, I'm back home in Sudbury, Ontario, catching up on one too many sleepless nights. Between then and writing and this newsletter, though, I was offered a position in the Catalyst program over at OnDeck - an incubator for business/research-minded people executing on technology projects.
In the meantime, I was able to translate my learnings in molecular biology into short explainer videos, as well as an immunomics project to find undiscovered gene targets for cancer therapy. Feel free to browse through some of my work.
The Value of Reflection:
These days, whenever I think about anything related to productivity, I find myself reflecting on a recent experience I had preparing for the SAT. The first time I looked at my score for an SAT practice test, I actually had to turn my computer off and on again, just to make sure its screen didn’t get confused. If I remember correctly, I was in the bottom 15th percentile of all test takers.
What finally did it for me was that this wasn’t my first practice test. It was my fifth.
For the first time in a long time, it felt like the amount of effort I put into something had no absolutely correlation with the results. It’s hard to describe how much frustrated me, knowing that I worked harder than those around me and yet doing worse than almost everyone.
Till then, I thought that we could attribute every single achievement to the old mantra: "Fail fast, fail hard, fail forward." Repeat any learnable task for long enough, and you'll inevitably improve.
Now, I have a suspicion that a mantra like that oversimplifies learning.
It's entirely possible to bang your head against a wall with no progress to show for it. In fact, that's the definition of ignorance.
In retrospect, it became clear that the issue behind my dismal marks wasn't the test - it was my inability to adapt to it. Failure on its own was worthless to me until I found a way to stop repeating it.
Luckily, I was able to get myself back on track before that test came along. As it turns out, all that work I put in wasn't completely useless (all the important strategies were already in my head), but let me assure you that it wasn't a fun three weeks. Don't do what I did.
Remember: in the big picture, the only metric that really matters is improvement.
Understanding Meta-Values:
In cellular biology, a random walk 1 is a mathematical model that describes the motion of molecules in an uncontrolled environment. It assumes that molecules travels in many steps, and are equally likely to travel in any direction each time.
With every step that gets a molecule further from its starting point, it generally makes another one that undoes its progress. Before long, covering any significant distance becomes almost impossible. As a result, molecules don't travel in straight, intentional lines, but zigzag in chaotic squiggles.
And yet, if you somehow found a way to introduce a bias into a molecule's motion - even the slightest preference for one direction over another - it would get exponentially further than if it walked randomly.
We encounter thousands of decisions every day and billions over a lifetime. Most of them conflict with each other and get us nowhere. As easy as it us to make a decision that gets us closer to something, it's often even easier to make ten more that take us in exactly the opposite direction.
Our decisions are shaped by our thoughts, which are in turn shaped by what we care about - our values. Ambiguous values give us an illusion of choice - they spare us the discomfort of setting aside what's irrelevant to our vision. Clear values give us direction. They’re painful, but they’re a painful necessity:
You can do anything, but not everything.
- David Allen, Comedian
Asking ourselves where we're headed (or at least having a general area of where we’re going) forces us to align our everyday decisions with what we want. And while it does narrow our options, it lets us choose the right one, every time.
On Turning Sprints Into Marathons:
Back in 2018, I started (and miserably failed) at my first serious exercise routine.
For some naïve reason or another, I thought I'd get a feel for the whole workout business slowly, by immediately running and biking like a madman for three hours a day. If I "really hustled", I must've thought to myself, it wouldn't be too bad.
All in all, I lasted for about 8 days, which actually quite surprised me as I was writing this. On day 8, after an especially long day of reading and work, I convinced myself I'd get a great workout in tomorrow. Tomorrow never came, and just like that, any benefit I got from that week vanished.
These days, I wonder if I could've kept that original workout streak going if I had the slightest idea about pacing. I think I could have:
Fitness is a long-term game. The entire point of fitness is to maintain physical well-being. The only way you can “lose” at fitness is by quitting 2 (which is what I did). Other tasks are short-term games, in which case treating them like they’ll go on forever is no different:
The mechanism behind linear growth is speed. The mechanism behind compounded growth is consistency.
Nowadays, I try to stop exercising well before I reach my limit and want to stop. If it means saving enough willpower to keep the habit sustainable, it's a worthwhile investment. Now, I'm sure my strategy isn't perfect, but it hasn't failed me since.
To most people, it's clear that you shouldn't sprint in the first 100 metres of a marathon. Situations like these aren't any different. Either way, so much about how we approach our goals comes down to that simple question: “when?”
Under the Influence of:
Every idea I have has been shaped in some way by the thoughts I’m fortunate enough to pick up from books, along with a few experiences that teach me things the hard way. Hopefully, by rummaging through the same material I have, you’ll find lessons of your very own:
When Breath Becomes Air / by Paul Kalanithi: Read Here
(The incomplete biography of a neurosurgeon who died of lung cancer, along with the evolution of his thoughts on meaning)
Steve Jobs / by Walter Isaacson: Read Here
(A true-to-life look into the bold personality of Steve Jobs and the people that helped him “make a dent in the universe”)
The Alchemist / by Paulo Coelho: Read Here
(See for yourself…)
Extrapolating:
Now that I'm back in Sudbury and recovering from mild sleep deprivation, I wanted to share what’s been on my mind for the future.
For starters, I want to capitalize on the next few months to spur some academic-style research on LightIR 3 (my goal is to get back to you with some tangible results by the time the next edition of Re:Life surfaces). I’m also looking into ways I can develop a clinical understanding of oncology by directly working with patients.
At the same time, I want to spend my time working on some my shortcomings: to build deeper relationships, to prioritize results over perfection, and to take consistent, focused action towards my vision.
A Message to You:
Since my last post on substack, Re: Life has doubled in size. I'll take that as a sign this newsletter is headed in the right direction, and as an opportunity to thank you for being here to watch it all unfold.
Essentially everyone reading this is here because they’re an interesting person with unconventional thoughts. The same goes for you.
Let’s take it further. If we have the right mix of people, why not get them talking?
Why not, indeed. If this edition of the newsletter gets more than 10 comments, I'll be giving out a $25 Doordash gift card to the most upvoted one in the thread. If the promise of free food gets people talking, we could make this a running tradition. Just one caveat - the card only works for anyone living in the US.
I want this newsletter to be the most interactive experience of your month. If there's anything you think that I could help you with, I'm always a DM away. If you’re allergic to Substack, you can reach me by phone at +1-249-979-2405 or by email at aary.harshith@gmail.com. Let’s make great things happen together.
Your turn,
- Aaryan Harshith
Footnotes
Random Walk Simulator: cu.ac.jp/yoshino/download/rw/
Long and Short-Term Games: https://nav.al/long-term
LightIR: https://aaryanh.medium.com/lightir-cancer-surgeries-32addd8f2e9c
Remember, if you comment, you could get a $25 gift card to Doordash!
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