I pressed pause on my Spotify app and sighed. Oh God, this monotony is torture.
I was sitting in an open-plan co-working space in Sydney, staring at my laptop screen. My fingers darted across the trackpad, copy-pasting content and formatting headings on the new website I was building. This was the closest I'd ever come to a stable job and it was putting my mind to sleep.
Don't get me wrong — I valued the work. I'd joined the not-for-profit on a part-time contract while CodeMakers kept running, basically coming on as a general fixer of things — a solver of trivial problems that added an un-trivial amount of value to the organization. It was a strange concept — you know, actually getting paid for my work. I could sit at a computer, clock up some hours, and money would magically appear in my bank account each week. At 27 years old, this was still a novelty for me.
I listened to the rhythmic tapping of my fingers on the keyboard. But is this the best I have to offer the world? I asked myself as I edited the size of an image. So many people would kill for this contract — decent pay, flexible, location-independent, a fun team, a great mission. And it's not like I'm bad at this. I can do it. I always try to do my best. But is this really it? Is this what life is supposed to be for me? Is this what I have to contribute to the world in order to survive?
I flashed back to ten weeks earlier — the day I arrived home from Phuket. Muay Thai had kept my mind in check for several months but my depression had deteriorated. After a strong intuitive hit, I decided to press pause on my nomadic dreams and return to Australia to regroup. Chaos wasn't working for me. I needed some order in my life.
My parents picked me up from Sydney airport. As my mother and I sat in their living room, she asked what my plans were for the future.
"I think I'm going to apply for that job Pandora told me about," I said. "They seem keen to have me. I've never had a job before. I've tried being incredibly free. Now there's something oddly appealing about being constrained. Maybe I'll like it. I'm a little bit curious."
A huge smile broke out across my mother's face. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. My words were music to her ears.
At that moment, my father walked into the room holding two drinks. "Well, that's great if they'll have you," he said in his jolly tone. "You're 27 years old with nothing to show on your resume."
My eyes locked with his. I froze. I could feel my throat constricting, my eyes tearing up.
Nothing to show on my resume? Nothing to show on my resume? Is that what he thought of me? That I was a deadbeat; a failure; a fuckup who had wasted the past ten years of her life? I was 27 years old and had achieved nothing. I was 27 years old and should grovel on the ground for any job I could get because who the fuck would want to hire a worthless, skill-less, stupid little girl like me? Who would want to hire the girl with no degree, who gave up her university scholarship and dropped out to move to New York and chase her dreams when she was 20 years old? Who would want to hire the girl who wasn't a specialist in anything — I wasn't a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant. I couldn't tick boxes. I struggled with authority. I didn't fit neatly into a category or a job title. There was no label for everything I'd learned in my life. I'd received no certificate on completion of the many exams I'd sat: the hard knocks of failure, rejection, and crippling self-doubt. I had no value to offer society because I was 27 years old with nothing to show on my resume. At that moment, he may as well have called me the biggest disappointment of his life.
I gasped for air and immediately ran to my room before the tears could start. I closed the door, turned off the light, dove into bed, and pulled the covers over my head so I didn't have to look at the world around me.
I'd spent my entire adult life being told by The Matrix that I had no skills. My innovations were insanely difficult to get off the ground. Although they were risky ventures, I came away from them feeling like a terrible entrepreneur because I could only get them half-working. Half-working wasn't good enough in this world — to make a creative project survive it either had to work one hundred percent or not at all. I was either a bold warrior or a skill-less failure. There was no participation trophy.
When I moved to the US for 99dresses, I had to get a special O1 visa because I had no university degree — as if a university degree were a proxy for my value and worth to society. For some reason, my parents bought into this paradigm too. When 99dresses failed, they tried so hard to convince me to return to university. According to them, university is the place you 'learn how to learn' — as if I couldn't figure that out without the assistance of a huge institution, some textbooks, and many terrible group assignments that clearly demonstrated why communism is a shit idea: I always got a high distinction for the group while my teammates drank beer and did nothing.
My parents also believed that university provided a safety net. I'm sure the US-based millennials of the world — many of whom are drowning in student debt — would laugh at that concept as they flip burgers for minimum wage, wondering why they spent years of their life and tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to receive a piece of paper. A degree guarantees nothing in this ever-changing world.
I knew, logically, that my father was wrong. I knew he was stuck in an old paradigm. I knew he meant well. I knew he just wanted to see me safe and secure. If I was stronger and more confident in myself then maybe I would've shrugged and said, 'Okay, boomer,' and removed the drink from his hand.
But he was my father, and I'd always craved his approval. I so wanted him to be proud of me like I felt he was proud of my siblings. Alex was a golden child — an orderly high performer who owned her own apartment and car and had a highly successful career as an executive at a fashion e-commerce company. My other brother, Hamish, had a nice, secure, well-paid job as a software developer at a fast-growing multi-billion-dollar startup. And my youngest brother — well, he was just graduating university and beginning the hunt for his first full-time job.
And then there was me: the renegade. The one who wasn't content to live an orderly life. My parents both did their best to embrace my natural talents and support me on my journey through this world. Yet, they also wanted to stop worrying about my ability to survive. It was difficult for them to watch my projects grow and die, then for me to start something new all over again.
I heard a knock on my bedroom door. A strip of light spread across the wooden floor as Dad poked his head into the room. "I — I didn't mean to make you cry," he said awkwardly. My father has many talents — performing high-stakes surgery, fixing things around the house, making everyone laugh with a well-timed inappropriate joke, cooking a mean chili con carne. Dealing with emotions is not one of those talents. "I'm sorry, Nik. I didn't mean it."
"Yes, you did." I pulled my head above the covers. "It's okay. It's not your fault I'm upset. I wouldn't be reacting like this if I didn't subconsciously believe it on some level. You just struck a nerve. They're only words, anyway. I'll get over it."
"Oh... okay." He didn't know what to do. "I've got some chocolate. Do you want some chocolate?"
"No thanks," I giggled as snot ran from my nose.
"Okay." He closed the door.
I heard talking in the hallway. A moment later, my mother entered the room, turned on the light, and sat on my bed. “He didn’t mean it like that, you know.” She rubbed me on the shoulder. “Your father can be a bit insensitive sometimes.”
“He did mean it like that.” I sat up and hugged my legs to my chest like a child. “He meant exactly what he said: I’m 27 years old with nothing to show on my resume. No breakaway success, no university degree, no neat stack of job titles and achievements. Nothing. I’m uneducated and have no specific skill set. I should take any job I can get because I’m basically worthless to society. There’s no need to sugar-coat what he meant just because it upsets me.”
“You’re just a bit different, Nik.” She continued rubbing my back. “You’re a free-spirited creative and your father is a disciplined doctor. He loves you very much and he does what he needs to do for this family. You know he's always standing right behind you, ready to support you. You know he is your number one fan.”
“I know.” A tear ran down my cheek. “And I appreciate that. I just wish I was actually good at something. You both worked so hard to give me the best education and every opportunity in life, and I’m not even good at anything. I have nothing to show for all of Dad’s sacrifice and all the years he woke up at 4 a.m. every morning so he could send four kids to private school. Here I am, standing on the world’s tallest podium of privilege, and I’m still a failure.”
“You’re not a failure-”
“-I just want to be successful at something, Mum. All I ever do is fail, and fail, and fail — all the goddamn time. And the only thing I’ve ever been successful at was becoming the poster child for fucking it up with some semblance of grace when I was twenty-two. Awesome. That’s what I always dreamed of for my career: being that girl who failed really well, then told the world about it.”
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
***
I snapped back to the present moment, sitting in my chair in that Sydney office. I could hear the clickity-clack of keyboards above the mild chatter of my colleagues. I looked around to see entrepreneurs happily talking with each other, drawing optimistic growth charts on whiteboards and discussing marketing campaigns.
See Dad, I thought as I added another image to the website I was building. I have skills. They are self-taught skills, but skills none-the-less.
My mind began to wander again...
***
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," Hamish replied. "Shoot."
I was sitting in my brother's one-bedroom bachelor pad — complete with chessboard, liquor cabinet, a geeky multi-monitor hacker workspace, and a large wall-print of a cartoon monkey smoking an oversized bong. We were drinking beer and talking shit at one of our semi-regular sibling dinners. My sister, Alex, was rummaging for snacks in the kitchen. Callum was late, as per usual.
"How do you not care what Mum thinks of you?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, you've always had this weird ability to not give a shit."
"Yeah," he shrugged. "I listen to Mum's opinions. Then I ignore them and do what I want."
"I know what you're talking about," Alex chimed in as she delivered some dips to the table. "Nikki, there comes a point in your life where you have to kill your heroes. We have amazing parents-"
"I turned out okay, at least," Hamish grinned.
"-but they're not perfect. They're flawed human beings. Take them off the pedestal and stop treating their opinion as gospel. I know Dad refers to Mum as The Source Of All Wisdom And Knowledge, but she's not. I went through this disillusionment process a year ago. Trust me — it's worth it."
"Yeah, I know," I sighed. "I guess it's easier for Hamish. He never does anything controversial."
"Valid," Hamish nodded.
"Like, a few years ago, I booked my ticket to Chiang Mai and got the visa before I told them I was leaving. I knew exactly what they'd say and it was just as I predicted. They spent an hour on the phone telling me what an irresponsible choice I was making. Apparently, I was 'running away' and 'abandoning my business' and 'going on holiday.' Three months later, I called them from Thailand and told them I was moving to Brisbane. And they were like, 'Why are you leaving Thailand? The business is going so well! Stay there!'"
"They're classic baby-boomers," Alex said. "They live in a different paradigm and are a product of their time. They just want to see you safe, that's all. You can't fault them for that. Learning to make your own decisions and take your own risks, regardless of what they think, is part of growing up."
I thought back to a few weeks earlier, sitting at the dinner table as I argued with my mother.
"Do I embarrass you?" I asked, visibly upset.
"What? Of course not," Mum replied.
"Then do you find me inappropriate? What is it? Because I saw you shuddering and shaking your head yesterday when I began talking about my 'weird ideas' to Diane."
"Well, not everyone wants to hear about all this strange stuff you're interested in."
"She asked me what I was working on!" I snapped. "Do you think your friend is stupid? She is a smart and successful businesswoman who sits on the board of all these public companies. What makes you think she wouldn't be interested in what I have to say?"
"I just know what you're like, Nikki. When you get started, you can talk someone's ear off. You're too much sometimes."
"Jesus! How poor do you think my social skills are? Do you think I can't read the room and gauge someone's level of interest? When your friend proactively asks me what I'm working on, am I supposed to lie and sound normal?"
"Just-"
"You're really that ashamed of me, aren't you? I can't help what I'm interested in." A tear trickled down my cheek.
"What? I'm not ashamed. Why are you so upset?"
"Yes, you are. Every time I talk about my interests in public, you act as if I'm embarrassing you. It's like you think I'm a weird, defective child."
"What? Where is this coming from? Why are you being so paranoid?"
"Paranoid?" I cried. "I'm not paranoid."
"Then why do you think I'm out to get you? This is all in your head."
"Stop gaslighting me, Mum."
"Why would you think I think you're defective?"
"Maybe because you visibly shudder when I open my mouth in front of other people. And you say to them, 'Oh, you don't have to listen to this.' I'm so sorry I embarrass you in front of your friends. I'm so sorry that you thought I was going to end up in some prestigious, high-paid career because I was your little academic wunderkind, and now I'm just bumming around the world like a dropkick with no financial security, exploring strange ideas. Raising four children is one of your greatest achievements, and I'm sorry you can't show me off to your friends and talk about how well I'm doing in life."
"What? Where is this coming from?"
"It's coming from the fact that you don't shudder when Alex talks about her eCommerce sales, or when Hamish talks about the programming project he's working on, or when Callum talks about a movie he's passionate about. But when I talk about my interests, you visibly squirm in discomfort. I obviously embarrass you."
"You don't embarrass me. This has got nothing to do with me. I love you, Nikki, and I just want you to be safe. You get very excited and you talk really fast. People look at you weird."
"It's called 'passion,' Mum."
"It's a very judgmental world out there. And when you start talking about how the smartest people in science are wrong, you sound like a — I mean, I just don't want people thinking you're-"
"What? What would they think I am?"
"It's just —"
"Do you think I'm crazy?"
"I never said that! It's just — not everyone wants to spend their lunchtime talking about first principles."
"Diane was asking specific questions and I was giving specific answers. And just because something is counterintuitive, doesn't mean it's factually inaccurate. I can't help it that the experts are wrong. It's their fault for being intellectually lazy, not mine. I don't care if it's Einstein or some other great mind. If they're wrong, they're wrong. I mean, do you think I haven't deeply thought through the logic underpinning my conclusion? Do you think I'm stupid?"
"I don't think you're stupid-"
"Besides, Diane is quite curious about the future of technology. If she wasn't interested, she would've changed the subject."
"She's very polite-"
"What do you want me to do then, Mum? Keep my mouth shut?"
"Just tone it down."
"Why doesn't the rest of the world tone it up?"
***
My focus returned to the Sydney office.
Click, click, click.
Tap, tap, tap.
This work is so monotonous, I thought. I needed a little cognitive stimulation.
I opened Youtube on my phone. A variety of videos filled my feed — videos on philosophy, technology, physics, psychology, spirituality, film analysis.
I tapped a thumbnail of Steve Jobs. It was his 2005 Stanford commencement speech. The video began playing through my headphones as I returned to my work.
Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Steve Jobs faded out as the video stopped playing.
It's easy to stay hungry when you're foolish, I thought as I mindlessly manipulated a vector graphic. Most artists starve.
I recalled a Rumi poem I'd read when I was crying on the floor of my Phuket apartment, lost and confused, just a few months earlier.
Proud scholar
step down from your summit
fall in love and become a fool!
Become humble like dust
walk with everyone
good and bad, young and old
so one day
you may become a king.
Well, that worked out well for me, didn't it? I thought. Congratulations, Nikki. You spent your twenties being foolish, following your rogue intuition on a wild goose chase around the world, thinking it would lead somewhere; having faith that the dots would connect one day. And then you realized that they don't. Because if there were any order to this chaos then maybe you'd actually be successful at something instead of sitting here, back where you started, adjusting the size of a typeface on a website. Failure is the only thing you've ever been good at.
My God, listen to yourself, another part of me rebutted. You're such an entitled millennial brat. Sit down, shut up and do your work. Add some value to the world, for once. Your father is right — you're 27 years old with nothing to show on your resume. It's time to grow up. The universe is not your magical playground. You're not a child anymore.
I sighed and glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 1 p.m. — lunchtime. My favorite time of day. I needed to get out of my chair and go for a long walk around the city to stretch my legs and my mind.
Before I could shut my laptop, a Gmail notification popped up on my screen. I opened an email from Darren.
Subject: Free energy principle
Body: This was the article about the neuroscientist I was talking about. Let me know what you think!
I'd run into Darren earlier that morning on a coffee break. We hadn't seen each other since we were in Shanghai together a few years ago.
Before long, he asked the inevitable question: "So, what have you been up to?"
"I spent the last few months training at a Muay Thai camp in Thailand," I replied.
"How'd you end up there?"
I followed the white rabbit.
"Long story," I sighed.
"Where were you before Thailand?"
"Just working online from Colombia."
"On your kids' coding school?"
A pang of nostalgia washed through my body.
"Yeah," I replied.
Wait for it...
Wait for it...
"Wow. Living the dream," he grinned.
Oh, if only he knew the truth.
So that's how I found myself leaning over my laptop, forgetting about lunch altogether as my mind gorged itself on new ideas. The article was titled The Genius Neuroscientist Who Might Hold the Key to True AI by Shaun Raviv. The byline made a bold claim: "Karl Friston's free energy principle might be the most all-encompassing idea since Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. But to understand it, you need to peer inside the mind of Friston himself."
***
"Zac!" I yelled as I burst through the door a few hours later. "Zac! I've figured it out! This is huge!"
"That's what she said," Zac quipped as he emerged from the study. He'd been crashing with me for the past two months. It was our last summer in Sydney before Bryce and Pandora packed up their lives and moved to New York, marking the end of an era: our care-free twenties. Zac had flown over to spend the summer eating ice cream by the harbor together — just the four of us.
I rolled my eyes. "Ugh. You're such a man-child. Anyway..." My mind was racing at the speed of light. I was trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts at a fraction of that velocity. "You know how I've spent the past few years trying to reverse-engineer the universe by running experiments on my consciousness?"
"Yeah," Zac replied. He glanced up at the wall where my 'memory board' was hanging. It represented one such experiment — an exercise in conditioning my mind to view future events as being in the past. "You're obsessed, in a good way. It's one of your more endearing qualities, when you aren't being a complete dork."
I smiled. "Obsession is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated. Anyway, I think I've figured out the riddle. You ready?"
Zac nodded and I continued. "I've already told you a million times that we live in a non-dual universe. That part takes, like, two minutes of critical thought to figure out. But then a few years ago, I came to suspect that reality was functioning on holographic principles. Yet, I always thought of it as an esoteric concept. Like, the universe is a non-dualistic dream in the mind of a superconsciousness and we're all experiencing ourselves as separate holographic fragments of that entity, etcetera, etcetera."
I was on a roll now. The thoughts were starting to connect in my mind. "But here's the thing: It's not a theistic 'God.' It's not 'spirit.' It's not some mystical 'universal force.' It's an algorithm, Zac! A beautiful, holographic, recursive algorithm! Just pure math."
"Right…" Zac trailed off. I could see he had that I'm-being-a-supportive-friend-but-I'm-not-quite-sure-what-she-is-talking-about look on his face.
"Okay," I continued. "Let me try to summarise this: Physical reality is a superintelligent neural network observing itself in an attempt to understand and experience all the different facets of its own consciousness. Reality runs on a game loop where each Markov blanket in the neural network is fed into a computation at a variable frame rate. The computation at the lower dimension recursively calculates the mutual surprise between all the Markov blankets, both now and n increments in the future. This mutual surprise generates free energy. Then the algorithm calculates the most efficient way to minimize the free energy for every Markov blanket both now and ten, fifty, one hundred, one thousand years in the future — or actually, until the end of linear time when the universe will probably return to a state of being everything and therefore nothing in particular. And we’ll probably get another Big Bang from there because the universe appears to be a recursive loop — like a snake eating its tail... although I'm a bit fuzzy on those cosmological details. Oh, and it can perform this calculation because it knows every possible configuration of the universe, and it's manifesting the most parsimonious route through the information. So you, as an observer, exist on the most parsimonious route to your future self. And from your perspective, the past that manifested in your reality is necessarily the most parsimonious route to your current self — which explains why the universe is so finely tuned. But then you end up with these retrocausal loops which are so trippy, but so cool. Did you know our future is creating our past? And we control the whole thing in the present moment with our free will? That’s how we’re getting a physical experience of our own consciousness. It’s such a brilliant design, isn’t it?"
I drew breath.
Zac looked at me, then looked at his phone.
"Are you listening to me or am I boring you?" I asked. "I know that was a terrible explanation that probably made no sense, but I just had this epiphany. I can see it so clearly in my mind. This is it! This is what I've spent over four years searching for!"
"Oh, I’m paying attention," Zac assured me. “But you’re right — I have no idea what you’re talking about. However, reverse-engineering the universe does sound like a big deal, so I’ve ordered something delicious for us to celebrate. A giant cookie is currently en route to this very room!" He sighed. "Nikki, there has never been a better time to be alive."
I agreed. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, my mind on fire with magic and possibility. There had never been a better time to be alive.
"So do you get why this is a big deal?" I asked.
"Alas, I do not."
"See, it’s like any other game or system — if you understand the rules of the game, you can hack it. You know what to focus on to get results, and that means you progress in quantum leaps instead of blindly bopping around and bumping into things and wondering why the game is such a chaotic struggle. The game isn’t inherently a struggle. You just don’t know how to play it. If the algorithm is minimizing free energy, then all results stem from that one variable. Individually, and as a society, we need to learn how to generate strategic buildups of free energy throughout the system. Then the algorithm will do all the work to minimize the free energy by procedurally generating all the resources, ideas, and ‘luck’ we need to make those quantum leaps and save the world from poverty, war, climate change, and all our other problems. We now have one thing to optimize all our economic, legal, political, education, and business systems for, and everything else becomes secondary to that. That one thing is the signal and everything else is noise. And that’s how we save the world. Boom! Solved it! Fifty points for Gryffindor!"
Zac lay back on the floor and stared at the ceiling. “Ugh. This is too much to process on an empty stomach. Can we have a cookie break now?”
“Zachary Borrowdale!” I jumped up on the couch, my hands stretched wide in grandiosity. “We’re reverse-engineering the universe here! We’re undoing centuries of stagnant thought that has hardened and solidified into dogmatic, unquestioning belief inside the walls of the very academic institutions we never quite belonged to-”
“Speak for yourself. I actually gradua-”
“We are bold intellectual explorers, navigating ‘crazy’ ideas without the shackles of authority chaining us to the status quo! No one to answer to but our own curiosity. No one to please but our own questioning minds. No cesspool of groupthink to marinate in while we collect our paychecks and look down our noses and laugh at all the plebeians who believe in ‘weird things’ like magic and wonder and that there’s something more to this world than the materialism force-fed to us in high school science textbooks.
No papers to write with word counts and formatting requirements. No exams, no essays, no academic jousting. No religious worship at the altar of atheism or gods or research grants or university presidents or profits or popes. We’re allowed to think what we want to think, and challenge assumptions we want to challenge, and be who we want to be without anyone telling us otherwise.
You and I — we have a role to play in this game. Nay — a responsibility! We are a dying breed of Truth seekers in a world gone mad. We look illusion straight in the eye and see right through it to the possibilities that lie beyond the edge of what’s reasonable. We are renegades, my friend.”