Help Me
I am very uncertain about various aspects of my life, which all have some overlap with one another. I’m interested in talking to a wide range of people, particularly ones who I’m not already close with, who feel like they’ve had similar experiences or might otherwise have a perspective that I’d find useful.
I’m currently a freelance software engineer in London. I mostly work on AI projects, but I also have a particularly fun gig that’s trying to use radars to find UAPs. Before that I had various regular full-time software jobs for ~7 years, before that I was in the gambling industry for ~3 years, and before that I’d dropped out of university due to severe depression.
Specific areas of uncertainty include:
Career. Should I keep freelancing, pursue a startup, or return to regular full-time employment? I am primarily trying to optimise for fulfilment, but freedom is also very important to me. I also want to choose an option that fares well in scenarios where AI coding models continue improving at their current rate. Saliently, I am self-taught, previously worked at AWS which I found extremely stressful, and then failed probation at the EA-flavoured not-for-profit I went to afterwards, which also led me to largely sever my involvement with the EA community. I am potentially interested in founding a mental health startup (for hopefully obvious reasons), and in some ways I think I’m a good fit for a founder, but in other ways not-so-much.
Mental health. Necessarily entwined with the above. I have treatment-resistant depression co-occuring with some kind of OSFED that is sadly pretty psychically load-bearing at this point. I have tried various kinds of medication, talking therapies in different modalities, various lifestyle interventions (meditation, journaling, exercise, talking to friends about my feelings etc). I am now at the stage of considering things like trying to get referred for TMS or participating in research trials for new interventions, but I don’t feel optimistic about either.
Relationships. I’d like to have a serious, long term monogamous relationship with children. I have struggled with various aspects of long-term relationships previously, largely linked to the above - avoidant attachment, very harsh inner critic, difficulty being vulnerable etc. I’d love to figure out how to make progress on these things so that hopefully the next relationship I am in ends up being “the one”.
Location. My default location is London, but there are two huge drawbacks; lack of access to nature and cost. I have a large network here, but I suspect I could reproduce it to some extent in places like Edinburgh, which would do much better on price/mountains/sea. If I chose to found a startup, I’d likely pursue getting an O1 visa and moving to the US.
I’m happy to share more details on any of the above if it would be useful. You can also reach me via the contact page if you’d prefer to get in touch asynchronously.
In return, I’ll donate £10-£100 to a charity of your choosing (counterfactually), depending on how useful I found your advice. If we meet in person, coffee is on me. If you care about such things, there’s probably some chance to earn yourself some counterfactual impact points here too.
Book a time
There are two ways to chat — pick whichever suits you:
- Coffee in London if you’re in or around London and want to meet in person.
- 30 Minute Call if you’re not in London, or would prefer to chat over video.
Coffee in London
For an in-person chat. I’m flexible on location, there are some suggested options but generally I’m happy to travel.
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30 Minute Call
For a video call if you’re further afield or prefer not to meet in person.
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