A journey to the eye of the storm

[Sash]

I go to writing as a way for me to understand myself, something that I desparately need to do, sometimes at all times of the day. Without me listening to my own words, my own desires, my own wishes, I'm very liable to follow the whims of others. This is a weakness of mine. This is what happens when you take a person who values harmony and they compromise their own desires so they don't rock the boat.

As I continue on my journey, I notice that at times, I feel a very strong and clear voice that tells me exactly who I want to be and what I want to do. For the majority of the time, however, I'm in an almost sleeplike state where that voice is no longer audible, and I'm left thinking, "What now?".

Still, in some ways, I feel like my life is beginning to converge around my clearest vision, and that largely, it is not me that is doing the converging. This is exciting. I know I'm finally taking those initial small steps towards something that matters. In doing so I'm putting myself in a position where new resources and areas of research directly relevant to my purpose are starting to present themselves.

In what is going to be my last psychedelic trip for some time, I once again opened up the well of dormant emotions that resided inside, and I saw that ultimately, I want to create a society that truly shows concern for people's well-being, in a way that is intuitive and responsive and makes use of the technological leaps of our times. I saw that this purpose wasn't something I had to think about-- it very much was a part of my being, installed like a stubborn bit of code. Out came the shuddering sobbing from having realized how deeply I had been hurt from having felt abandoned, and how much it would mean to me if human beings could create something that would reflect the kind of concern that God shows for us everyday.

Let me explain what I mean.

Last summer, I begrudgingly enrolled in a programming class. It was required. The university said so. Now I don't particularly enjoy programming, but being the type of person who doesn't want to rock the boat by jeapordizing my chances of graduating on time, I yielded. I put in the work anyway, and by the end of the summer I was left with a basic knowledge of Python syntax and an inkling of curiosity in exploring the applications of NLP. Of course, new ideas came to mind about how I could create all kinds of data scraping tools and how that might be useful later on, but I wasn't motivated enough to experiment on my own. Somehow, I didn't feel that programming was going to be my medium. Not thinking much of it, I set it aside.

Last week, I find out about a pitch competition happening at my school. The topic was on combatting the infodemic; tackling the issue of misinformation surrounding infectious diseases-- how they spread, how they are treated, the various misconceptions, etc. Because I value justice, and because defending people from harmful information is a form of justice, I decided to give it a try. One kid seemed to be without a group, so I decided to partner with him. He was a comp. sci. student, and we were able to come up with an idea. Oddly enough, we decided on a project that involved NLP. Now if I hadn't taken that class in the summer, I would have been of very little value in that conversation. Now I'm in the process of researching in order to prepare the pitch, and I feel quite confident because presentation is a pretty big source of joy for me. It's one of those things that lights me up when I do it. Along the way, I'm learning how to research topics related to health tech, the niche I plan to occupy. Somehow, things seem to be converging, and I find myself going where I want/need; doing what I want/need, and for someone who has found that very difficult to do in the past, that in itself is a miracle.

Wish me luck,

Sash