1. What am I?

Not quite sure. Cosmically, I am a collection of matter with distinct experiences and memories over a period of time, roughly 21 years. These experiences and the subsequent memories of them have formulated my sense of "self," which is this thing I keep in my mind and body: a record of my identity, interests, and so on. For example, I'm Max. I was raised in Miami, FL. I'm studying philosophy and economics at UChicago. But I have other things I am interested in and things I want to do with my life.

2. What is my purpose?

We create our own purpose. I think the beauty of it is that these things are not simply given to us, in an absurdist and existential sense. It would be too much to ask of the universe to endow everyone with a singular, determined purpose. The world is just a tricky, complex adaptive system for that to be true. Regardless, I define my purpose as someone who wants to live a life of meaningful usefulness to my fellow humans. How do I define this? How can I do things and spend all my time having the greatest positive change on as many people as possible? I have identified technology as a brilliant tool for this. So my purpose, as of now, is to build new and wonderful tools to solve people's visceral, existential problems (climate, chronic disease, social and societal issues, etc.) using the power of technology to make tomorrow better than today.

3. Who am I, really?

I have no idea. The self is an illusion. In a Humean sense, we are just an amalgamation of various perceptions, and the very notion that a "self" can emerge from this is highly debatable in my opinion. There are very few things in life that can concretely define you, and you can kinda choose your own story and narrative to what works best for you. That is further evidence that the self is not something intrinsic.

For instance, it is not a universal law that you have to define yourself with respect to your family. Some people are really proud and define themselves entirely by their family (the Kennedys, for example), or they went to a school and that becomes their entire identity (this happens a lot for people who attend state schools or elite colleges with a strong reputation: the institution becomes you in a sense). And you as a self can embrace those things as part of your identity or reject them. I grew up in Miami, but I am not personally fond of the norms and cultural practices of the city, so even though I spent most of my life there, I refuse to let that place and its culture define me. Instead, I am very into reading books and building things with technology. Since I read and do tech a lot, I am okay with having those things define me. Hence my reasoning that who you are, really, is just another fleeting concept that you can author yourself.

4. Who is writing my life's story?

I am. I have complete autonomy to construct the narrative I want to tell about my life. Most people feel as though they live in accordance with the expectations that other people have imposed upon them, and thus they feel as though their story is being dictated and authored by someone else: say a restrictive or overbearing parent who has a one-dimensional understanding of success and fulfillment for their child, or the innate pressure one feels to do something with their life that deep down conflicts with their intrinsic desires, leading to depression as a result. I reject those notions and believe that you are in control of your story and your narrative as best as you see fit.

5. What are my dreams telling me?

Mostly incoherent nonsense. My sleep dreams are very different from my aspirational dreams, if I am interpreting the question properly. I think dreams are a way for my subconscious to process what is going on in my life, kind of like a David Lynch film. Admittedly, I don't remember much of them.

6. Am I the master of my thoughts (or their slave)?

I am in control of my thoughts. I started doing transcendental meditation and some yoga (initially for injuries) a few years back. This helped me discover a simple yet very true fact: you are the interpreter of reality, for better or for worse.

7. What makes me happy (and what is happiness for that matter)?

I reject the notion of happiness. I think happiness is a fleeting, hedonistic thing. As a matter of fact, the Founding Fathers of the US, when writing the Declaration of Independence, referred to "the pursuit of happiness" in an entirely different way than the 21st-century person would. It meant something much closer to purpose, meaning, and fulfillment than the fleeting emotion you get at a party, a nightclub, or an amusement park. Happiness is endorphins and dopamine: a neurochemical cocktail.

Similar to calories (you can eat 500 calories worth of Big Macs and fries, or fish and fruit), you can choose to derive your energy from cheap sources (clubs, alcohol, bleak and superficial social interactions) or higher-quality sources (meditation, immersion in nature, meaningful social interactions with friends and family, reaching out to someone whose ideas you find inspiring and inviting them for a coffee, spending long stretches of time working on a project that will lead to great satisfaction for yourself and hopefully for others as well).

Happiness is merely a neurochemical cocktail, and you can decide where to get it. It is also irrespective of how easy or difficult your life is. You can be "happy" unemployed, eating donuts and playing video games all day, but not fulfilled. Or you can be deeply stressed because you are running a company or research project that will do tangible good for the world, and not feel "happy" per se, yet still be immeasurably fulfilled even in your darkest moments. Happiness is not relevant because it is fleeting and not enduring. Satisfaction is what one should pursue, and the only way to find it is by dedicating yourself to a deep purpose.

8. How do I find love?

I don't know. I like to say: build your garden and the butterflies will come. And if no butterflies come, at least you will have a nice garden.

I think love is great, and a deeply powerful and intimate thing where the sum can become greater than its parts, assuming one finds the right partner who knows and understands them at a very fundamental level. But it is not necessary for a fulfilling life. The notion of being loved need not be limited to a romantic partner either. You can show love and receive love from a friend, a family member, a teammate, a business partner. Love is just synonymous with belonging and feeling like your purpose is appreciated by another person.

Intimate love is wonderful if you find the right person, but I push back on the notion that it is an indispensable element of a meaningful life. I think one can live a great life without ever finding "the one." You find love ultimately by pursuing what gives you purpose. And if, in this metaphor, you find a butterfly as you're building your garden, then great. If not, you still get the fruits of your labor.

9. How do I find transcendence?

This is loaded and requires a whole essay of its own, and I don't want to do the question an injustice by distilling it into a grossly oversimplified version. In spite of what I just said, I will distill a simplified version of my theory of transcendence.

I am a Girardian. I choose balance. And I believe that transcendence is achieved when you commit yourself to something so much greater and beyond yourself and your daily unpleasantries. You pursue a mission, a vision, a moral intuition so grand and so bold that your mind does not care what so-and-so said at a party last week, or what some celebrity or political figure did on social media. You are so deeply and intentionally bound in your craft that you overcome mimetic and metaphysical desires and instead pursue truth, greater meaning, and purpose in your life's work. This could be a company, a research project, an art, a disciplined practice of some kind. You are so intimately intertwined in what you are doing, and it gives you so much fulfillment, that everything else becomes ancillary. That is my definition of transcendence, for me at least.