Why I blog?

"Should we prioritize getting a new gig or selling a service? Or can we be ourselves? Weird and fun and peculiar?" Robin Rendle

Over the past months a fun trend has appeared - bloggers writing about the reasons why they blog. It is eye opening the plethora of reasons why people write and the subject matters they choose to write about.

Noting that I have not written anything for a long while I wanted to reflect on the past six months of my life whilst giving a small amount of energy to that question - why do you write?

"I’ve always thought of this as a kind of freedom. A licence to be myself. To explore my interests unapologetically and without having to explain myself." Lars Christian

Work

Over the past six months I have focussed my energy on my work. I have had an interesting relationship with work over the past seven years, specifically the challenge that is the search for meaningful, fulfilling work that -whilst not always easy- makes you feel like the effort adds value (however small) to the world. Fortunately I have found that with my work at Unruggable.

I was fortunate enough early in my working career to stumble into a concept that I will call 'niche, passion based skill stacking'. I took me a decade to find clarity on the idea. Essentially you have to niche down - 'frontend software engineer' is not good enough, nor is 'human resources'. It needs to be 'domain name generalist software engineer' or 'veterinary human resources' where the word(s) that prepend the job title is a fairly dialled down niche. Yet, in my opinion, that is not enough - you need to be endlessly passionate about that niche such that when the workload is intense or your boss is grinding your gears you can work through it because underlying it all is a genuine and sincere interest.

Peter Yang makes a similar point in his commentary on Mr Beast:

"just read Mr Beast memo in full and it just confirms you need an insane obsession with whatever you’re doing to be top 1% in your chosen field."

I have worked in the domain name industry for my whole working career, and building within the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) ecosystem was a logical stepping stone. I firmly believe in the adage that your future will be decided by one big decision to go all in and that reticence to make ballsy moves will hinder you.

I respect and appreciate that peoples motivations in life vary dramatically but I am incredibly cognisant of the fact that my approach has always been to push at the edges and to do things well or not at all. I second guessed myself on approach a few years ago and missed out on opportunities. Alas, "experience is something you don't get until just after you need it" (Steven Wright). I came to realise that I have an incredibly good track record with this approach across my career and the activities that I so away from the computer which I loosely define as endurance adventure. Noting this, the past six months have seen me focussing my energy on building out Unruggable Gateways with our incredibly talented team.

For the non-technically inclined these gateways allow for returning data that you can verify the integrity of from other blockchains which are cheaper to interact with. This allows for scaling without compromising security and has the potential to break down the barriers that have prevented blockchain technology from being utilised more extensively in the real world.

It seems somewhat hyperbolic but I realised that what would give me fulfilment in the next steps of my career was not making vast amounts of money or a fancy title, but rather building something with impact. Something that could change the world. This viewpoint is mimicked by Steven Goldfeder, the co-founder of Offchain Labs:

"But keep your eye on the prize. The goal isn’t to maximize the $ you get today. The goal is to (1) get *enough* today to comfortably execute and (2) make sure you have the right tools, partners, and infrastructure to maximize your potential of success and hitting a home run."

I find his latter point to be incredibly important - opportunities avail themselves if you are competent and passionate but we have struggled in some respects to "get *enough* today to comfortably execute" because we are cognisant of the importance of working with the right teams with good ethics and aligned incentives.

The people around me know that I am somewhat 'all in' on ENS in the sense that it seems obvious and clear to me that if executed correctly ENS will be a core primitive of our technological future. I guess one reason I write in public is that it serves as demonstrable conviction in my viewpoints.

The other bonus of working within this ecosystem is that it has allowed me to work with the highest concentration of astonishing individuals that I have ever experienced. I have worked with intelligent people in the past but a lot of my historical course corrections were premised on the fact that I was not really learning anything or challenging myself. In the process I have learned so much about myself, the ways I relate to people, how I communicate, conflict resolution etc. I firmly agree with Feynman's sentiment that "If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.".

One game changing unlock for me was getting real world evidence of how I relate to, and work with other people. I came to realise that passionate, intelligent individuals who respect me, back me, and trust me get the absolute best out of me.

Working with Prem (my cofounder) has not always been easy, but we respect each other's opinions, resolve conflict appropriately, and back one another. As a result we have collectively come up with some incredible ideas, and built some awesome software. We will continue to do so. I headed out to Prem's home in Maine, USA and stayed with Prem and his incredible family.

Similarly he has visited the UK. My perception is that many work as a means to an end (whether that be intentional or not) and are not particularly invested in their colleagues or their work, yet I am fortunate enough to work doing world-changing stuff with great people. Raffy and Mely round off a best in class team of people that just inherently go above and beyond.

I realised that whilst I am an extremely competent engineer and have a unique skillset in being able to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical, I am absolutely not a marketing person nor am I a cut throat business man. I had tried on numerous occasions to build solo businesses and whilst I stand by the fact that some of my ideas were great (others were not), I would build out really great feature complete software products and then procrastinate when it came to the other parts of business building. Unruggable is my last effort at business building with a team of great people whose skillsets make up for my incompetencies and whose skillsets mine complement.

As Morgan Housel notes in Do It Your Way:

"It’s possible to be humble and learn from other people while also recognizing that the best strategy for you is the one closest aligned with your unique personality and skills."

Work Life Balance

"Your own well being has to come first. You can't deliver on the rest of your commitments if you neglect your own needs. Being a martyr does not serve those who depend on you."

It was obvious in hindsight that working with cutting edge technology and passionate/motivated individuals would be the perfect breeding ground for an always-on culture of work. I quickly came to realise on this play-through of.. life that whilst others backing me brings out my best I also have to back myself and do what is right to optimise my output whilst protecting my own mental health. I accept that.. different strokes for different folks but historically working in the evenings or weekends just pushes me towards burnout and reduces my productivity during the week. It is really hard when working with teams around the world, whilst giving consideration to timezones etc. I have found myself having to make liberal use of the 'Do not disturb' feature of my phone whilst working to accept the discomfort. This is an all too familiar experience with engineers more generally, and I particularly enjoyed this comment:

"I found out that if you don't protect your sanity and your own well being, people will take advantage of you and your time and it will never end. Once you break the cycle and get that time back for yourself? You'll make sure you never willingly give it to someone else ever again."

In a previous life era I focussed on the work side of 'work life' to the point that I was completely oblivious to the existence of the life part. Annoyingly that was the era in which my quantitative metric driven indicators of success grew exponentially :| That said I see it as somewhat synonymous to the significance of weight in competitive running - yes, as a rule less weight (to a point) will make you faster, but it's really not good, don't do it ! I can take that comparison one step further though - in 2016 I ran the Berlin Marathon and ran 2:52 which was a huge PB and objectively an impressive time for my experience level. I also had an eating disorder and my mental health was tenuous. It took me 8 years to best that (2:38 in Manchester) and I was close to 20% heavier with a great bill of mental health.

On that note..

Exercise

Over the past 6 months I have not really done a whole lot of running. After doing the Tea Round I did a few other significant runs including a recce of Leg 3 of the Bob Graham Round. Leg 3 is widely accepted to be the hardest leg because it is often completed at night, it is exceedingly hard to navigate, and it involves some seriously questionable terrain once you go up and over Bowfell.

It was an awesome day out in the hills, but by the end my knee (which has been causing me issues for a number of months) was really struggling on the descents. After completing the run I came to two realisations:

1. The Bob Graham Round is manageable for me. With the right training, and the right people I have the physical/mental ability to execute.
2. I wanted to take some serious time off running to allow my knee to heal, and also.. just to do some other stuff.

Since making that decision the only running that i have done has been the occasional parkrun and semi regular trail runs with the trail running division of my local running club. The reasoning is simple - parkrun is fun, the people are great and it is a good excuse to visit cool interesting places. Trail running perversely seems to be better for the knee, is just a generally more life affirming/cathartic past time than running on concrete, and allows me to maintain my self imposed title as 'retired road runner'.

It has been somewhat amusing to see people realise that I'm sticking to my guns on never competitively road running again. My justification is simple - there will always be more races than I can ever complete, there will always be more goals to chase and PBs to beat. Inherent in the pursuit is that you continue going until you 'fail', yet why do that when you can walk away on a high? Now, it is inevitable that when Sydney becomes the seventh major marathon I will likely fly across the world to run it. That is the only exception to the rule. For the most part I believe that completing the six major marathons is tantamount to the holy grail of running, and when I jest that the reason I am stopping is because I have completed it.. I actually kinda mean it.

During a late night run with a friend across Derwent Edge in the blistering wind and rain there was discussion about the weather. My positioning was that I actually prefer running in abysmal conditions. Assuming you are appropriately kitted out and know what you are doing (we were, and do) there is something incredibly cathartic about running in nature and experiencing its power. I often joke when asked about the fact that I do it to feel something. On reflection its never actually been a joke - I believe that day to day life by its nature is quite same-y and that whilst that's not necessarily a bad thing, if you want to experience something unique you have to go and find those feels.

I guess in a similar vein that was always the way that I approached my competitive running - you can of course follow an online training plan, and complete the race or hit a target time but those plans are inherently designed for a median performance. The real unlock is again.. in my opinion.. pushing at those edges to get those unique 95th percentile results. I am incredibly proud of the fact that I completed all of the major marathons in under 3 hours. It's 'niche, passion based skill stacking' applied to running - doing the 6 majors in under 3 hours noting that a tiny proportion of people run a marathon at all. Blogging has given me a targeted medium through which to document my proudest achievements and the not always easy process behind it all. I recently bumped into an old school friend and he stated something along the lines of "I always talk about you and your running. Its inspiring." noting that when he knew me I was very much not a runner, that conversation really meant a lot to me.

In lieu of running I spent a lot of time over the summer swimming, and doing hot yoga. I went on a few bike rides too.

Swimming

Swimming wise.. I don't really like swimming indoors because I hate chlorine, and hate the monotony of swimming lengths. As such I spent the majority of my swimming time outdoors at Sale Water Park, which at times was particularly beautiful:

I went ahead and bought a 50 swim pass at the start of the season so as to save money and also motivate me to go. Unfortunately my work schedule got in the way and left me having to do a lot of swimming towards the end of the season as the water temperatures dropped to single digits. In the end I did a pathetic (joke) 40 swims totally close to 50 hours of water time and close to 150km of distance.

I am a big fan of swimming because I am objectively quite terrible at it. My form is terrible, and as much as I swim I just don't get better. It is my athletic outlet of choice for non-serious endeavour. I don't actually want to get better. I just swim, and I think. I've done it for years. A lot of my big life decisions get made in the water.

Hot Yoga

As for yoga. I've done hot yoga since I moved to Manchester, I just didn't have a consistent practice. Over the past year or so I've been going consistently and again.. I love it. The basic premise is yoga in a 40 degrees celcius room. It is very difficult, almost certainly more difficult than any of the other sporting pursuits I've taken on but its great for fine tuned strength, doing incredibly cool looking arm balances, and quietening restless thoughts. The latter point being simply because it is too hard to be anxious or self reflect on all the mistakes you've ever made when you are doing a three legged downwards facing dog and your arms are about to give way.

I've had moments where I've come out of work meetings wanting to murder someone, gone to a yoga class, jumped back on a meeting afterwards and resolved the issues instantaneously. Similarly when I do morning yoga classes by productivity during the day that follows is massively increased.

I had an inkling that yoga was the appropriate resolution to the overwhelm that has regularly plagued my life over the years. My gradually improving ability to say 'Im going to yoga I'll talk to you later' has changed my world. Better late than never.

Cycling

Every so often I like to jump on the bike and head out for a bike ride. Manchester is close to the Peak District so I'm in the fortunate position of having amazing bike rides on my doorstep.

Earlier in the year I did a parkride with Luke to Anglesey. I mentioned above that I am a big fan of parkrun and we decided to take parkrun related adventuring to a new level by cycling overnight to do one. The premise of parkride is simple - you have to ride to a parkrun and given that parkrun is on Saturday you have to set off on Saturday. In the UK parkrun starts at 9am so given that constraint the fun approach is 'how far can I ride in 9 hours'?

Other notable rides were:

• Snake Pass. Ended in me riding to Sheffield (a city which remarkably I had never previously visited).

• Pym's Crown, which involves cycling up Pym Chair in the Peak District from each of the three accessible routes. This also happens to be the challenge that I did in 2023 that ended in me getting knocked off my bike a week out from the New York Marathon. I got my vengeance alongside the additional bonus of being the only person in the club to have completed it twice.

y tho?

I recall a particularly memorable experience with Uniregistry whereby I was asked to vet CVs of prospective engineers. The vast majority of the applicants were incredibly competent and ticked all the right boxes. It was incredibly difficult to narrow scope for who should progress to the interview stages. It is etched in my memory picking out a CV from the pile and seeing an A4 full facial portrait photo as the cover page for this particular CV. I laughed hysterically and we invited that candidate for an interview.

I think there is a lot of merit in this sentiment from Shahid that "step zero of following your dreams is consciously rejecting the stabilty of the social scripts surrounding you". In a world where everyone presents as the same, you have got to stand out from the crowd and I guess that is one of the reasons that I blog in the manner that I do is because I want to be authentic. I once heard that the reason why lying is so hard is because then you have to remember your lies. Mark Twain said it better in the inverse - "If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything". My perception is that my blog allows me to present my reality - there will be no shocks if you befriend me, work with me, or agree to adventure with me.

When I joined Uniregistry I recall deleting my Facebook profile. My logic was that I was an imposter and that I was not competent enough to do the job. I didn't want my new employer to stumble upon my Facebook page and realise who I really was. At university I was a bit of a reprobate. I drunk quite a lot, I was unfit and unhealthy, and I prioritised the university experience over degree performance. The reality was however that I was good at what I did, and that is why I had been offered the job. When Mely joined the Unruggable team she asked me to review a personal blog post that she had written noting that her publications could potentially impact the company. Whilst I respect and appreciate the pragmatic realism my response was simple:

"In terms of impact on Unruggable etc I fully believe in freedom of expression.. if it’s a post specifically being published ‘as’ Unruggable I’d like to see what is going out but in terms of your own personal content we hired you because we think you are great at what you do and have good character. I am unconcerned about your content and wouldn’t want to censor you in any way."

I feel as though I have to practice what I preach and accept that given that most of the people with whom I socialise/work are very intelligent people they would be able to see through any facade I were to put up anyway. My blog serves as a medium for retrospective clarity - I, like anyone, am a fallible human being and I make mistakes but at least by sharing them I can learn from them.

Personal

"hard history can be like ice in your veins" Dr Julie Gurner

Like many I struggle with my mental health on occasion. I have alluded to the pressures of burnout above, and have previously spoken about some personal battles and the repercussions of my decision making.

A realisation that I have had recently is that outlined by Jason Friend. He says that "every difficult decision he’s ever made would’ve been easier if he’d made it earlier". On many occasions over the past years I have ummed and ahhed about decisions, to on nearly all occasions end up making the original decision but with additional discomfort/pain/cost thrown into the mix on the basis of my tardy decision making.

At this point in my life I feel as though I am battle hardened by experience - I know exactly who I am and am very much aware of my competencies and my weaknesses. I make mistakes all of the time but at this point I've come to learn that given the inevitability of my mistake making, I may as well make them quickly.

I've said it on many occasions but I find it important to keep reiterating the point to myself - perspective. I am aware that brains are super complex organs and people's brains collude with them for successful existence on a vast sliding scale. This is a huge topic in and of itself but I think the core takeaway for me is that it is important to be super cognisant that people experience things differently and that one needs to be able to look at things from the perspective of others. It's also important to be generally self aware (harder than it sounds) and acknowledge the existence of what Adam Mastroianni terms the personal problems growth ray. It flummoxed me for a long time as to why other people couldn't appreciate the battles I fought. Looking back, it's obvious.

Over the past year I've found myself hilariously reflecting as I have found myself in situations I had previously said "I'd never do that.." to. Guess what I was doing..? that. It continues to be the case that I have a few great people around me that keep me on the straight and narrow when I wander off course, for that I will always be endlessly appreciative.

Experiences

"A few pursuits will generate most of your happiness. A few people will meet most of your needs. A few projects will result in most of your success." Mark Manson

I think that the latter two points in the above quote have been addressed, which leaves the first..

Musicals

One benefit of having co-workers that live in places that require you to fly into New York is.. Broadway. I continue on my mission to gradually tick off every worthwhile Broadway show. I was able to tick off 'Six' this time around. Amazing show. Interesting and also somewhat worrying that 80% of the audience was female..

Food

Obviously food is my favourite thing. To all extents and purposes the main reason that I travel is to eat cool and interesting food. That said, Manchester is home to some awesome food options too.

Another swimming ramble..

I was swimming in the Lake District a few weekends ago. I was in the middle of Bassenthwaite Lake and I turned my head to breath. The sun was high in the sky above Skiddaw shining down on the lake and the surrounding scene. I did a double take, stopped in place and just trod water for 5 minutes or so in awe.

I had come to the Lakes to do the 4 swims that make up the Frog Graham Round. I knew that conceptually the running was within my wheelhouse and whilst I had spent the summer swimming extensively I wasn't clear on how tough (or not) the swim portion of the challenge was. A few weeks earlier a plan had fallen through, and at the last minute my safety kayaker had to bail on the replanned trip. I decided to go anyway.

Of all the adventures I have been on this was one was particularly special because it made be reflect on the formative reasons behind my pursuit of experiences - the loss of a great friend in a kayaking accident, 11 years ago, aged 36. I have come to realise over the years that being risk averse cannot protect you from life's plans for you and that a more worthwhile approach is to optimise for enjoyment whilst you can. I appreciate that there are circumstantial constraints to consider but one thing I have also noticed is that the most enjoyable adventures are free or cheap. I interact with many people whose sole pursuit is money yet am patently aware that more money doesn't get you better.. wild camping, or better hill walking.

Each to their own and all that, but I think it is incredibly important to follow the wise words of Paul Graham and "Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short."

Conclusion

"Publishing something forces me to do better" Jonas Hietala

Conceptually I have always wanted to keep a journal such that I can look back and get a more realistic view of my past. Whilst I have managed to do so sporadically during traumatic periods of my life I have never done so consistently. Noting this I am happy to take advantage of a platform/medium that I can muster the motivation to write content through.

Jonas also notes that "If I’m going to put something out there I’m going to re-read and rework my text/code/ideas more than if I had kept it for myself." Whilst I absolutely agree with this sentiment I do find it incredibly interesting re-reading my historical posts noting the above. On a few occasions I have felt 'wow, this is bad' and that realisation makes me curious how I would have presented those thoughts in a less curated manner :| The experience is somewhat akin to looking at old photos - I often wonder how family/friends/partners let me go outside wearing a particular outfit, yet acknowledge and appreciate the learnings. I won't do that again.

A few years ago in a heated conversation with my older brother he alluded to the fact that my blog was somewhat self serving. It is. To continue to steal quotes from Jonas, "I keep this blog for me to write, not necessarily for others to read.", and whilst I do sometimes share my posts I have no data as to if/how many people read these posts. That said, some people have shared that they do read these posts, and that they do enjoy them/get something from them. I guess the overused sentiment that if one person gets something useful out of something I write.. blah blah blah?