About

Notes:

1. The need to produce (somewhat) polished work has slowed my work on this blog.  To solve this, I’ve created two categories, “polished” and “unpolished” to describe the type of post.  If you just want to read the important and concise stuff, focus on the polished category.  If you find what I have to say interesting and want to read more, check out the “unpolished” category.

Hello, I’m Shane, and I am on a quest.  I want to create the best life I can for myself, and I want to change the world.

For myself, my quest is to live a life that will bring me as much wellbeing (a term I use to try as best as I can to encapsulate feelings fullfilment, joy, contentment, happiness and much more) as possible for as long as possible (I hope to live a VERY long time).  To do this, I plan to (continue to) examine my life and learn as much about what is Good for me as possible.  I plan to put myself in new situations to meet new people that will challenge me and reveal new things about myself that I didn’t know before.

Part of my wellbeing depends greatly on my external circumstances and for this reason, I want to change the world.  I want to live to be a million years old, explore the universe (and maybe other universes as well, if quantum mechanics has anything to say about it), spend time in solitude in Earth’s many beautiful natural environments and I want to learn what only a forest seems to be able to teach about life.  I want to develop new forms of art and expression, I want to be free to move about and do and experience and love as I please.

Part of my wellbeing also depends on a great quest of mine: to decrease the suffering and increase the wellbeing of people around the world.  To accomplish this, I will have to change the world. I want to bring basic necessities, hope, and opportunity to pursue one’s dreams to the billions of people around the world who have less of these things than I do.

To do this, I want to be a great entrepreneur and venture capitalist.  I want to start businesses that earn great profits while doing only good for humanity.  Bill Gates and his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are the closest thing I can think of to what I want to do, but I want to do even more good by far than Bill Gates, I want to do it without unfairly quashing my competitors.  This is overtly how I want to accomplish this goal.

More subtly, I want to do it by being honest.  I want to be honest about who I am and what I’m working for and not fear others thinking me arrogant or hubristic.  Yes, I want to change the world; I want to do the greatest possible things that I can imagine.  Shouldn’t every person want this?  Shouldn’t we want and strive for the greatest we can imagine out of ourselves.  I’m not saying I’m certain I will succeed (FAR from it), but I am not afraid to try my best for it.

I also will try my best to be honest with myself about the many limitations I have and the many difficulties I will face.  I will try not to let arrogant overestimation of my abilities stand in the way of accomplishing my goals.  I will try to see how I cannot possibly achieve even an iota of my goals without the help of many MANY other people.  I will try to see all the ways that other people can do more than I can and learn from them as best I can, and let them act instead of me when that’s the most prudent.

Other people–this is the primary purpose of my blog.  I want to subject my ideas to critical analysis by any who would give me their time.  I want people to know who I am and what I want to achieve, and I want them to join with me in trying to achieve it if they are interested, or to know they have an ally in me if they are already working to change the world.