I just read this post (https://space.ong.ac/escaping-flatland) by Euan Ong, instead of studying for my exams in <2 weeks. I say studying, not revising, as I'm seeing a lot of the material for the first time. It's not the first time this has happened - in fact, it's happened every single semester so far throughout my time at uni. The same phenomenon occurs, no matter what I tell myself at the start of the semester - I begin the term somewhat focused, attending most (likely not all) of the things on my timetable, but as days and weeks pass, my engagement tapers to zero, and I find myself with just a handful of days before my exams, staring blankly at some slides.

I'm tempted to blame my lack of engagement on the poor experience my university provides (and believe me, it is poor), and for a while I did, but I think I've finally realised that it's because I'm just not that interested in what my course has to offer. When people ask me, 'Why did you choose computer science?', my answer has always been 'Out of all the possible choices, I disliked it the least.' And it was always meant to be somewhat of a joke, a tongue-in-cheek poke at my apathy towards my university education (too cool for school, if you will). But I now realise, two and a half years in, that no, I don't actually like my degree all that much. I like the *idea* of being one of those guys who ranks first in the cohort without even trying, who writes and optimises compilers in his spare time, whose dissertation gets published and paraded around academic circles like a holy text, but that's not me, and I don't think it ever will be.

This brings me back to Mr. Ong's post. One of the first things I did after reading it was find out who he was, and I discovered that he had almost every modern computer science-related accolade one could hope for. He was first in his Cambridge cohort every year, he did an internship at Jane Street, he's working at one of the largest AI labs in the world, and he's going to do a PhD at MIT. My first thought was "I want to be this guy." My second thought was "I'll never be this guy." And my third, "I don't want to be this guy." Not because I think there's anything wrong with him, but he's clearly an academic at heart, turning down hundreds of thousands of pounds to pursue what he's truly interested in instead. And I personally would not turn down hundreds of thousands of pounds to research neural networks instead.

These thoughts bring me back to who I want to be, what I want to do. What drives me? In Euan's post, he describes 'planes of legibility,' or in simpler terms, stereotypical career paths. I know the path I now find myself on. I have a cushy big tech internship in my belt, which has led to a cushy big tech full-time job offer. But I know, deep down, that this is not the path for me. I don't want to blink and find out that ten years has passed, and I'm in the same office, with the same people, doing the same things. They're nice people, and it's a nice office, but I know that deep down it would be wrong for me.

So what then? So far I've spoken in negations, in nots, can'ts, won'ts. I've found what's wrong for me, but I don't yet know what's right. I know that I enjoy solving problems, and that when something truly interests me, I'll pursue it to no end, but that *something* has not occurred to me yet. I want to find a problem that I care about so much that it keeps me up at night, that leaving it unsolved causes me distress. I want a purpose, a north star, a guiding light that shines so brightly that no matter what, I can't escape its glare. How does one even find such a thing? I don't know. Perhaps it lies dormant in some undisturbed recess of my mind, waiting for a stray thought to stumble upon it, or perhaps it's out there, searching for me, while I cower in the comfort of inaction. One day, when we meet, I'll know it, but for now, I have to pass my exams. 𐑟