People That Inspire Me

Day 19 of Inkhaven: 30 Days of Posts

Chris Olah

I think about Chris Olah's work at least a handful of times a week, not necessarily for the content but for the form. Olah treats his work like a true craftsman, and perhaps the most enduring quality of his work is the emphasis that he places on other people being able to quickly absorb the ideas from whatever he has produced. There is a deep sense that if the work was worth doing at all, then it is deeply worth communicating the ideas with as little friction as possible. Additionally, somehow reading his date-me doc (which is sadly no longer public) gave me a deep sense of his character in that it reveals someone with an internal quiet confidence in his actions, and someone who is able to truly believe in their own reasoning that is extremely rare, or unjustified in most people, paired with a powerful drive to direct that confidence toward good and moral ends.

Neel Nanda

Neel's analytical approach to life is impressive in a way I keep coming back to. During Inkhaven I've been writing and posting every day for a month, partly inspired by Neel having done the same thing at one point. What's staggering looking back at his posts is how he produced remarkable insights into his own internal algorithms back-to-back for weeks on end. Attempting something similar, I've realised how challenging it is to come up with that kind of insight every day. Above all, the care that he feels in wanting to help others with his posts comes through very clearly.

Tim Ferriss

I find Tim's attitude to breaking down problems in life into approachable, solvable chunks has created a fundamental mechanism in my mind that alters how I approach everything. Understanding that my own attitudes to things are malleable, and that almost everything can be overcome by finding ways around the problem in ways that most people just haven't thought of is a mental move that has served me extremely well. Tim's approach is to go around the problem rather than through it, but he still takes the work seriously, truly solving the problems he takes on, and then trying to put those solutions into as many hands as he can.

Anna Salamon

Anna's approach to thinking about people and how they work and her appreciation for holding nuance in complexity even when it is unpleasant are really remarkable to me. Seeing her incredible humbleness and willingness to help and provide value to others without a second thought is so inspiring to me. Watching her take out the trash when it's getting too full, when she runs the company that owns the building we are in, reminds me that the world is full of opportunities to be of service.

Masaaki Yuasa

The work of Masaaki Yuasa consistently hits a very particular place in me. The message is truly captured far better by the work itself, but there is something about striving to live in a way that is the most complete, the most full and wild representation of one's true core. It's living completely authentically by one's own principles and ideas, and is embodied in the relentless drive to contribute to others that is present in characters across his work. You can see this in Ping Pong the animation, with Peco and Smile playing for each other's sake in different ways. You can feel it in Mind Game in the sequence of all the different ordinary and extraordinary lives that the characters go on to live.

Eric Reinholdt

You can see Eric's approach to work from watching a minute or two of his videos. The extraordinarily low tolerance for rough edges, and the incredible degree of refinement in everything he does, really produces a sense that the work he does matters in some sense. You understand that everything he does is selected for a reason and that it brings him real joy. He doesn't do it to make more money, but purely because the quality is important for its own sake. Even if it's the position of the UPS underneath the desk, it's placed perfectly because that's just how he has built his mind to work.

Closing Thoughts

One unifying concept across these people is the Japanese concept of shokunin, most clearly characterised by the woodworker Tasio Odate: "not only technical skills, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness... a social obligation to work his/her best for the general welfare of the people." Importantly this drive is internally motivated, it comes from a natural upwelling from within the person. It also involves not seeking recognition for that quality, but draws its meaning from the craft itself.

This is the unified quality that I admire most across these people, and which I aspire to cultivate in myself. In keeping these people front and centre I remind myself of its importance and trace the grooves of this idea within my own mind.