Metamagical Themas

Today is my last day of the sabbatical period I started slightly more than a year ago. It may be a good thing to look back at it.

If I had to take only one thing from it, it'd be this: it can be done. I was a bit scared about letting myself too loose, stop doing things I was supposed to be doing. Leaving very good things just to head into a catastrophe. Well, it wasn't. It actually was surprisingly easy in retrospective not to do any regular job. I don't owe my time to anyone else.

Sometimes I've been anxious about “not doing anything”, but remembering that I thought that too while working on my previous job was soothing. In reality, I was just not getting paid, but fortunately I don't need the money.

The sabbatical has not been a success in many ways. Bummer? Just a bit. Tried, failed, as I so often do. That's ok, I had to try.

The arrow fell ridiculously short of the goal, and that doesn't make me feel good. But then, this last year felt as if I lived more. That I like.

I traveled a bit more (including a long one to Thailand and several shorter ones around Spain and France). Did a few new collaborations, slightly helping some friends and working a bit with the university for a cool project. Met new interesting people, got back in touch with good people, lost touch with good people. Tried to get organized but failed systematically. Collaborated with a couple of NGOs. Participated in more demonstrations. Got a decent piano keyboard and learned a bit. Went out quite a few nights as if living in a parallel universe. Participated in a documentary. Improved a bit at playing Go. Did a bit of science communication with articles and a videogame. Started taking dance classes. Finally studied deep learning. Went to a physics conference and got back in touch with old colleagues and subjects.

And many “didn't”s. Didn't read even 5% of what I wanted to. Didn't watch even 10% of what I wanted to. Didn't study almost anything of the subjects I wanted to focus on. Didn't organize the happenings I wanted to. Didn't get to teach, which I'd really enjoy.

Especially, didn't push forward almost any of the projects I wanted to explore. Here are some of them.

I wanted to develop a decision-making system using crypto for anonymous and secure voting, implementing a system of liquid democracy and so on. Something I was working on a few years ago (at a company that closed), not very different from what they use at the pirate party, for example.

Related to that, another project was very related to collaborative annotations, an improved version of what one can find in, for example, https://hypothes.is (which is great, by the way).

Another one has to do with a system that would replace money and represent in a fairer way what is the “value” of people. Others have to do with proving this or that in maths, or building certain algorithms for stuff related to physics and similar.

There were many more. Not even that tip of the iceberg was scratched.

It's hard to summarize a year and take a few lessons. Why do I even try? It just feels fair that I make a few comments on it. Even if important nuances are lost. So, there.

To be honest, the sabbatical was mostly a big failure. With some silver linings, which I do cherish, and no regrets. I still feel clueless about most of my problems. And I still don't know well how to proceed.

Well, one of the things I've taken from this time is to care less about my failures... :)