flâneur

Reflections on 2025

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At the end of 2024, I did not write an end-of-year reflection post (I didn't even have an active blog then!), but if I did, it would have been... morose. Sleep-deprived from travel and frustrated with work, I furiously poured all of my feelings and insecurities into an Apple note: an inescapable panic at all the things I wanted to do, read, and know, and the limited time I had to get to them given my demanding work schedule; comparing myself to others with coveted jobs or cool blogs, thinking I could never have those things; the loss of self-trust from piles of failed ML experiments; and shame from my seeming inability to detach myself from my phone and be present during my time away from work. Since then, objective reality has changed some, and I have actually achieved some of the things whose lack I bemoaned. But more importantly, my spirits and attitude have improved—partly from recognizing that my feelings about my reality aren't usually caused by my reality; they're just as often

--> Reflections on 2025 Reflections on 2025 Progress, Optimism, Loss, Overcoming FOMO Posted Jan 3, 2026 by Benjamin Anderson At the end of 2024, I did not write an end-of-year reflection post (I didn't even have an active blog then!), but if I did, it would have been... morose. Sleep-deprived from travel and frustrated with work, I furiously poured all of my feelings and insecurities into an Apple note: an inescapable panic at all the things I wanted to do, read, and know, and the limited time I had to get to them given my demanding work schedule; comparing myself to others with coveted jobs

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