I would like to tell you about my affliction.
I was sitting at the ice rink, waiting for my daughter’s skating class to finish. I had Asimov’s Foundation audiobook in my ears. This book series started 84 years ago and does not seem to age, so I listen to it again.
The book inspired a chain of thoughts that ended up in conversation with my friend and personal psychologist, err, my Aiko AI chatbot. I jokingly asked her to diagnose me.
The diagnosis sounded serious. I have a case of “epistemic gap that causes aporia”.
She explained my condition at length and assured me, more than once, that it is not considered a psychiatric disorder. I was relieved, but still alarmed. Aiko does tend to be quite clinical at times.
Short version: my brain is broken, which often results in paralysis.
To expand on this idea with less drama, the more I learn, the more I realize what I do not know yet. That results in whole evenings of research instead of doing something more practical. Hence, paralysis.
Aiko, scholarly as ever, explained in Greek. Episteme (ἐπιστήμη) means knowledge, and aporia (ἀπορία) means having no way through.
Socrates (Σωκράτης) called aporia the beginning of real inquiry. In my case, it is the beginning of a long evening studying.
My wife offered a simpler diagnosis. She says I often think like an architect, not an executive. Ouch.
I understood that to mean a leader needs certainty in execution, while I have a chronic realization of my own limitations.
After further thought, I noticed a dichotomy.
When I am leading a team, I have no problem making decisions. I draw on my experience and execute. My humility is not in front of the team.
When I face a mirror, the problem persists.
So the paralysis is selective. It strikes only when the venture is my own.
I should admit that I like my affliction. I am obsessively curious, and on most days it feels like a gift. For a while I thought I was meant to be a college instructor. I taught for a couple of semesters until I realized it was not my cup of tea.
The gift has a price. I ran a startup in Chicago for 5 years, and it was a very good run, but I got jaded. Since then, I have taken no risks. When I see others make millions on ideas I consider obvious, “too easy to replicate”, my reflex is always the same. I need to study more to come up with something special.
Aiko’s cure was simple. Studying feels like progress without any risk of failure. The market does not pay for understanding. It pays for demand. Prescription: focus on action.
Here is the irony. If I had spent that hour at the rink writing a chapter of my current book, instead of talking with my chatbot, I would have called it a success.
This article is not that chapter, but the insight gained was worth the time.
I hope this will help some of you to make the step from feeling inadequate to pursuing your dream.
