Book Impact and New Possibilities

I left the hood to rearrange how we approach the game

D Smoke, Honey Jack

This week I thought about, before I even have it fully written, what I want the impact of this book to be. I thought about how I felt after putting Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters down for the first time. I thought about how valuable it was for me to read what he wrote about startups and wealth creation, and how it let me disabuse myself of the dystopian media narrative. I thought about how powerful I felt afterwards, as if I was seeing the world clearly for the first time. It's this joy that I want to deliver to someone else.

I thought about why I decided to write the book in the first place. After three consecutive semesters of school at home, starting from that day in March which every college student can recall, I began to dislike my life at school. I was frustrated at the lack of control I held over my own time. I wanted to understand how I could organize my life around what I really cared about.

Georgia Tech asks us to choose our majors before we enter school, and I can't remember the number of people I've heard try to square their major against the narrative arc of their lives. I wanted to disengage from this linear narrative of college followed by a nine-to-five job until retirement. I realized I could, to steal a phrase from Hugo Amsellem, maximize my weirdness online; the person writing this post is a person few people see, but it's when I feel most like myself.

I believe the creator economy is the greatest opportunity for us to reclaim our time. For people my age, this truth is particularly self-evident. We grew up online; Generation Z understands this natural law better than anyone else. I want to expose these truths I've discovered, and I want to reshape how people organize their lives. I don't know if I'll accomplish this vision, but if I do then maybe there will be another kid staring up at his ceiling at night wondering what his new reality could be.