Unicycle #21 - Back in the Saddle
Hello dear friends :-)
It’s been a while, hasn’t it. Almost three months now. Here’s what happened: I was burnt out from writing weekly. I must have felt it coming when I took December off, then couldn’t bring myself to get back into it in January. I knew I wanted to keep doing the Unicycle, but wasn’t sure how.
The break from writing gave me a chance to chill and reflect. Why was there so much conflict in me? My answer today is that I had the wrong idea of what it means to write, and who I was writing for. I focused to much on the internal critic who told me my work was not good enough for you, the reader. And while I consciously knew that this is *very common*, I still let myself fall into the trap.
Ira Glass says that everyone goes through this when they first start. He calls it the Taste Gap. When you first start, your skills don’t measure up to your standards and you’re frustrated. The way through it is to keep going until your skills catch up.
The most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work … because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are going to catch up and close that gap.
So I’m back.
Unicycle Reboot
My plan from now on is to pretend you, dear readers, don’t exist. This video that I shared in December has been on my mind, and it explains the why. If no one is reading and I’m still enjoying the writing, that’s the sweet spot.
This brings me back to the original vision of the Unicycle that I wrote about eight months ago — a kinda silly device that you ride for your own amusement. Imagine feeling pressure to to show something insightful and respectable while rolling around on one wheel and flailing your arms. It’s hilariously absurd.
I’ll apologize in advance. It might be lame for a while. You may be disappointed. Sometimes I’ll even write bad stuff on purpose. I do hope you stick around, but if not, no worries. The fact that you can unsubscribe at any time gives me confidence that you’re inflicting this on yourself by choice 😉
That said, I do enjoy reading your responses. If you’re moved to reply, I’d love to hear from you.
Donation
Since no one claimed the $200 bounty last year (though a few of you came close), I said I’d donate it. In the interest of holding myself accountable, here’s what I did.
Half went to New Incentives, a charity that uses direct cash transfers to incentivize people to vaccinate their kids in rural Nigeria. GiveWell ranks them as one of the most efficient and effective charities in the world. Plus they align with my interest in designing incentive structures.
I donated the other half to Sci-Hub, a free repository of scientific research publications. It’s not what a typical charity looks like, but it is doing a great public service to the world. Virtually all professional scientists use it, and so do curious amateurs like me who don’t have expensive journal subscriptions. Papers on Sci-Hub get twice as many citations as those that aren’t — more proof of how popular it is. If Sci-Hub disappeared today, scientific progress would take a huge hit.
The irony is, while Nature named Sci-Hub's creator as one of the top 10 people who matter in science, her project is regularly under attack by major publishers for ignoring copyright laws. While most research in the US is funded by public money through the NSF and NIH, the results are locked away in journals that charge absurd prices for access. Sci-Hub seeks to free them. I strongly believe in open access and open source, so I felt it could use the support.