a few weeks ago i wrote about how i’m all-in on AI at work but barely using it in my own life… and now i have some progress.

i cycled through many systems and tools, including many variations of AI implementations but they all tend to shape into something that covers the work area 100% but personal area maybe 5% at best. my main problems were inbox zero, follow ups, personal relationships, my personal commitments and curiosities, ideas, accountability on creative and health related goals… and many more. but this time, i blocked a whole sunday to solve this problem and for the last 9 days i’m using what i built that day.

it’s basically an LLM living on a cheap VPS, communicating with me over telegram and has the context of everything basically. it uses git version control to commit the memory, the logs, journal, and many other context files multiple times a day, so that i can spin up a new instance from any point of time in its life. i can even build other tools to map out the progress during its lifetime…

now, the key part was/is how to shape it of course… the shape of its soul. at first i started with some existing tools out there but they were too opinionated which would take too much time to understand and shape to my own needs.

i named it daimon… the stoic concept of your inner guiding spirit, the part of you that knows your pattern. also a nod to eudaimonia, being in good standing with that spirit. felt right.

anyways… i will share more in time, the more i experience it.

side note: i do not like treating my life, a single whole thing, having personal and work, two separate big areas… however, how to put that into words when needed etc. is another topic i’d like to dig into, later…

a few days ago I arrived at something… “curiosity in action.”

and then fahri shares a note about Punchdrunk… the immersive theater company. you walk into a dark building, no one tells you where to go. you choose which room, which character to follow. you make your own story.

kendi açılarımdan seyrettiğim bir tiyatro… seyirci olmak yerine şahit oluyorsun.

the verb state of curiosity is not easy… may become past tense in chaos, or, if you’re lucky, present tense in wonder. still, worth it.

a few years ago I was trying to build my personal website around the concept of “from expectation to exception”… transitioning from a state of expectation to a state that creates exceptions… sometimes beautiful ones, but most often disappointments, to self.

now I see what was missing… the fuel, the energy source. curiosity in action. curiosity as a verb.

David (David Henzel, https://henzel.com/) introduced me to the notion of personal core values, mission, vision etc, 10 years ago… and since then i had many variations of them, and with each iteration/change i got even more excited about the idea of having connected core values written… sometimes they reflected my ideals but sometimes they reflected the current state…

now, after ten years, finally i have something both the ideal and the current… something that i wish i had all the way back in my life, happy to have it today, and excited to be having it in the future: “Curiosity in action”…

wonder, question, curiosity… fueling the action itself… then fueling the curiosity itself…

Clarity may not be the goal but a tool only… Such as the creativity, too. Not sure if both can be used at the same time though. When you have clarity, you lack creativity, and vice versa.

Not sure if it’s clarity versus creativity… Maybe it’s about the ratio..

The formula, the systems we build… I don’t think that this is only for societies, but also valid for individuals. Is it possible that I am imprisoned by the systems I setup and run for myself? Whether it be a productivity system, a routine, a habit, a mindset even?

I do think that systems provide value, for sure, but only if they’re designed and implemented for surprise, not efficiency. When it’s for optimization, you lose something… and you don’t know what you lose until you know.

When the formula and systems you are running stop generating questions and new impulses for discovery, than it turns into ouroboros…

What the author said about bookstores, the same goes for music stores too… It’s been ages since I have been into one… There are some indie stores everywhere, probably, but in Bodrum, I don’t know of any… Actually you know what, I never searched for it. The conformity I fell for replaced the inspiration and joy of discovery…

Now, where did I stumble upon this article? I don’t know and don’t remember… Maybe it was Feedly… But I loved it… and this is how webrings worked ~30 years ago and I used to loved them all… I used to have this webpage where I reviewed metal albums, I was at high-school… I was a member of a webring, don’t remember the name, but I used to have their banner on my website, on each load it was showing other members of the webring, in round-robin fashion, linking to their website… It was amazing. I don’t remember how many new things I learned, discovered, and inspired by that… It was huge… I used to have bookmarks of those many webrings. It was still a controlled experience but not like the current day’s Instagram and X kind of algorithms… It was nice… better actually.

The conformity I fell for replaced the inspiration and joy of discovery… The conformity I fell for removed impulses… Clarity is given, creativity is taken…

Questions of the day…

• How to be comfortable but not too much?
• How to use patterns and algorithms but allow for deviations and exceptions?
• How to seek clarity but allow for a bit of fog at the same time?

The gap is real. I feel it every time I make something. Gap is disturbing… and it’s been years, not just “the first couple of years”… My taste knows where I want to be, my hands aren’t there yet… Maybe I’m not giving my all? don’t know… The big gap, doesn’t seem to be shrinking to me, but still…

This is it, I guess. One of the foundational pillars of me, myself… As a goal, an identity, an idea, a vision…

This came to me when I was sharing my feedback and thoughts to my friend, Fahri. He has this amazing sentence on his new website’s home page (not public yet), which gave me the goose bumps…

I’m grateful that I am surrounded by talented, hard working and smart people. My family, friends, colleagues… all of them.

One of the most important things I can show my children is how valuable this is. Not to take it for granted. To notice it, appreciate it, and learn from it.