My Personal Constitution: 2025 Year-In-Review

Introduction

This document began with two simple goals in mind: to analyze my past year of life and to plan out the next one. But immediately, it became clear that in order to answer the question “What did I do well this year?”, one needs to have in mind a clear personal philosophy–a rubric, however imperfect, by which to grade their actions. And so, what was initially intended to be a straightforward exercise in planning morphed into a set of existential reflections.

There are a few key principles intended to guide the analysis and recommendations that follow. As far as is reasonable, we will try to be rational. Meaning, that once we define some necessary, irrational assumptions, conclusions drawn from there on out will be mostly self-consistent. When practical, we will favor data over recollection; memory and gut feeling tend to be fuzzy, unstable things. To a lesser extent, we will also try to take a balanced approach to this self-assessment–giving all domains of life roughly equal weight. Finally, it might be silly and tacky, but damn it, our goals for the new year will be SMART; breaking large efforts into measurable, tractable components just works.

A Personal Philosophy

As previously stated, to build up anything–a proof, a bridge, a philosophy–we have to start somewhere. Before we can lay down some rational bricks, trust must be placed in the fact that they are solid; we need to make some assumptions. These are mine.

(1) Humanity is good and deserves to thrive. This, of course, is a completely irrational statement. I am largely atheistic, and the logical conclusion of a purely scientific view of the world is that there is in fact nothing special about our species–nor is there anything inherently evil about ticks, germs, or phages that conspire to kill us. But rather than start from such a grim, rational starting point, we’ll adopt a humanist perspective.

(2) Able individuals should strive toward organized effort. A completely disordered life is one where, by definition, all actions a person takes are completely random. This is not ideal. Nor is the perfectly orderly life appealing–in which all decisions are pre-conceived and stifled by rigid structure. But we will instead say that organization, the property of an individual, collective, or entity to behave intelligently and purposefully, is generally a good thing. The capacity of humans to impose order enables our progress as a species.

(3) Able individuals are compelled to learn. It is a general theme in the enlightenment philosophies that knowing is good and ignorance is bad. Intellectual development can make us less evil and more effective contributors to a thriving society. We can divide the pursuit of knowledge broadly into specialized and general categories. In an ideal world, we would know much about something and something about everything–balancing our functional utility with a sort of cultural compatibility.

(4) Science is (generally) a good use of time. Science is concerned with the contribution of new human knowledge. This knowledge can occasionally be developed into applications that sometimes harm, sometimes benefit our species. I will make the argument that from the broadest possible perspective, scientific pursuits have constituted a net good for humanity. Many may not share this view and would be wise in their beliefs. Knowledge gathered for its own sake is immediately useless, and knowledge alone is insufficient to guarantee any new positive developments. Structures of culture and authority decide what we do with what we know; a responsible scientist must view their work in this context.

With a foundation of arbitrary beliefs fixed in place, we can start to carve out a few aims. These are high-level, thematic goals and are intended to be quite general.

(1) Do no harm; do some good. This line is adopted from Google’s original motto: “Don’t be evil” [1]. What is harm? Based on our previous assumptions, it is any action or inaction that impedes human thriving, tends toward disorder, or exacerbates ignorance (by distorting, refusing, or destroying knowledge). Moreover, here, complete passivity is immoral; acts of anarchy are immoral; the willing refusal to learn is immoral. *What is good? Actions that support the proliferation of our species, that improve its organization, or increase the knowledge of humanity. Again, we are compelled to incorporate a humanist perspective; killing to improve organization or glean new knowledge is immoral.

*Throughout history, many oppressive systems developed that could only be dislodged via chaotic action (e.g., Haitian revolution). Organization is not strictly good, it is generally preferable to complete randomness. Well-timed acts of entropy are a natural part of the creation and renewal of human structures.

(2) Contribute new knowledge to humanity. We will qualify this statement by saying that scientists bear responsibility to be pro-social. Bespoke, opaque knowledge might qualify as new knowledge, but perhaps not as a contribution. To take a famous example, consider Grigori Perelman’s proof of the Poincaré Conjecture. Dr. Perelman’s enormous mathematical achievement was undercut by a failure of communication. By refusing to collaborate or clarify his work, Grigori created years of additional labor for other scientists in order to verify the veracity of his results. Thus, his anti-social tendencies diminished an otherwise vital contribution into the realm of bespoke new knowledge.

(3) Participate in the cultural thriving. Are we ethically incentivized not to be a schlub? I believe so. When the basic needs of a civilization are met, free peoples begin to flourish, that is, to develop the new, frivolous, intricate, and ephemeral social constructions that comprise a culture. Individuals are compelled to make organized contributions to this collective effort through positive acts of social participation. We can say that what constitutes a positive act in this case are the properties of beneficence and organization. As previously mentioned, there are times in history when harmful, organized actions, or even harmful, disorganized actions are justified. These events, however, are exceptional.

(4) Improve to meet one’s aims. A free person is a machine programmed by principles; self-maintenance and self-improvement are duties which refine their beliefs and moral-efficacy. Taken from this perspective, self-improvement is not intrinsically noble nor even meaningful–it is only a means to a philosophical end.

Domains, Analysis, and Goals

We’ve broken down different domains of life into three categories: (1) intra-personal; relating to ourselves; (2) inter-personal; relating directly to others; and (3) extra-personal; broadly relating our roles in society. Within each category, where applicable, we progress from basic human needs toward higher-level, “felt-needs”**. Here, there will be some accounting of our relative success during 2025 in a particular domain–followed by SMART goals for 2026.

**The German word “Bedürfnis” may better capture this concept of a higher-level need, for example, the “need to read”. I particularly like that in German the distinction between basic and high-level needs is more subtle than simply “needs” versus “wants”. It would be cruel to deprive a child of their access to education, for example. Among other things, satisfaction of our “want-needs” enables richer human lives.

Intra-Personal

Physical & Mental Health

Physical health can be measured (see Braintree-Venmo founder). Mental health can be measured, both from a neurological and psychological perspective. It would be very Silicon Valley of me to report here a detailed set of biomarkers and insights regarding my sleep habits, the varying effects of different mushroom supplements, concentrations of microplastics in my blood, etc. But instead of becoming another quantifiably inane aristocrat, let’s stick to broad strokes.

For now, we’re keeping the details of my physical and mental health private\(^$\). The reasons for this decision are two-fold, first, it’s noneya 🙂, and second, this much-belated blog post needs to be up sometime today. Sharing medical data (even one’s own) and subsequent advice, even implicitly, constitutes a complex ethical issue that I’m yet to think through seriously. For now, we’ll set a few obfuscated goals generally related to keeping me alive, happy, and connected with medical professionals.

S	M	A	R	T
██████████████████████	███████	██	██	███
██████████████████████	███████	██	██	█████
██████████████████████	████████	██	██	██
██████████████████████	████████	██	██	██
██████████████████████	███████	██	██	███
██████████████████████	████████	██	██	███
Exercise 30+ minutes.	x3/week	✅	✅	—
Buy an electric toothbrush.	x1/year	✅	✅	Feb 1

\(^$\)Errata: un-redacted some goals 🫢

Monetary Health

Financial stability is a basic need in the United States. Luckily, my current job provides a salary and benefits, momentarily allowing me to live without peril as a citizen of this country. But at this early stage in life, it is vital that one develop excellent financial literacy and habits. We might also consider, at some point in the future, disclosing some non-compromising details (e.g., budget allocation, saving goals) as a means of accountability.

S	M	A	R	T
Read a great, detailed book on personal finance.	x1/year	Write a report and submit to the blog.	✅	EOY.
Provide a detailed; personal budget analysis.	x1/year	Write a report and submit to the blog.	✅	June 1.

Intellectual Growth

For reasons that remain unclear to me (likely some deep-seated insecurities), intellectual growth has come to dominate my aspirations. Rationally, it is plain that the collection of traits we associate with “intelligence” in the west make up just one part of a person’s character. These include the abilities to:

• 1) Accumulate and retrieve information (inc. in the short-term and long-term)
• 2) Recognize a thing as belonging to an established grouping of things.
• 3) Draw logical conclusions from facts.
• 4) Identify connections between distant concepts.
• 5) Manipulate data and objects to achieve desired outcomes.
• 6) Develop abstractions that explain and predict phenomena.
• 7) Propose new, interesting lines of inquiry.
• 8) Perform (1-7) more quickly or in greater quantity.

Note that we distinguish intelligence from orthogonal merits like courage, selflessness, loyalty, kindness, heck even utility. A person who only has new and neat ideas, and nothing else to offer the world, will likely have a hard time functioning in society.

S	M	A	R	T
Create a Goodreads account.	Add 10+ books; 20+ books EOY	Add Goodreads account link to personal website.	✅	Feb 1; EOY.
Maintain the week-in-review.	x1/week	Add blog posts to personal website.	✅	End of each week; EOY.
Improve Spanish.	Read 1+ books in Spanish.	Post a report (in Spanish) to the blog.	🤔	EOY.

Inter-Personal

Relationships

Humans are a social species. Our lives form a web of connections: cordial, familial, local, national, and global. While some life-objectives are easy to benchmark (e.g., savings goals), trying to “optimize” one’s social life can get tricky. Let’s consider a few quantifiable proxies for the strength of a social life:

• 1) Quantity, diversity, and quality of connections.
• 2) Correlation of connections to desirable outcomes.

In essence, we will adopt the perspective of a social media platform with a few key exceptions. First, we are interested in the relative quality of a social connection, for example, as measured by the average perceived value of a relationship. Second, we define “desirable outcomes” in accordance with the principles and goals of individuals comprising a relationship–not those of an ancillary party.

S	M	A	R	T
Support cordial relationships.	Contact 2+ friends/day; plan 1+ excursion/month.	Post success/failure to blog.	✅	–
Support familial relationships.	Contact 2+ family members/day.	Post success/failure to blog.	✅	–
Support local relationships.	Visit 1+ new place in town/week.	Post success/failure to blog.	✅	–
Support global relationships.	Meet 3+ strangers/month.	Post success/failure to blog.	✅	–

Extra-Personal

Cultural Participation

Thriving societies tend to develop collaborative and evermore complex social constructions. We might broadly call these things culture, and they can take the form of language, dress, dance, and other forms of human expression. It is imperative that those who are able make some organized contribution to culture.

What is unacceptable: willing abstinence, or worse still, deliberate disorganization–undermines the cultural efforts of others. If one wishes to buck the current trends, they should do so in a thoughtful way. Consider a peaceful biker gang, which through its carefully cultivated manners, leather jackets, and late-night rides offers meaningful alternative to the status quo. In this case, “counter-culture” is aptly named–it is rich culture unto itself.

S	M	A	R	T
Deschlubify.	1+ week’s worth of clothes; semi-formal and casual apparel.	Pick out a practical, modern wardrobe. Post items, cost, rationales to blog.	✅	March 1.
Engage with the ATX culture.	Visit 2+ sites (e.g., museums, festivals)	Write a brief review; post to blog.	✅	EOY

Research

I have a deep personal investment in making meaningful scientific contributions, specifically in the fields of Computer Vision and AI4Science. Fortunately, for a determined, and especially a creative individual bent on this goal, there are several ways to have an impact:

• 1) Identifying meaningful, open problems.
• 2) Facilitating collaborations.
• 3) Synthesizing/clarifying knowledge.
• 4) Improving existing methods.
• 5) Introducing novel and useful datasets.
• 6) Introducing novel and useful applications.
• 7) Proposing new methods.

These items are loosely ranked by relative academic prestige (i.e., what do ML researchers respect/care about?) Truthfully, however, the past 15 years has seen individuals and groups do high-impact work in all of these categories. It would be a mistake, therefore, for a young researcher to become overly fixated on the opinions of other researchers; focus instead on what you do best, as this is the surest path to quality contributions.

So to answer the question: How can I become a better researcher?, we need to take an individual and holistic perspective. Because research is brains, and grit, and politics, and blind, blind luck. It is all of these things; a surplus of any one could make your career; a deficiency in another could break it. With all this in mind, I’ve tried to list my current strengths and weaknesses below. Our goal for the coming year is to accentuate our strong points and shore up any shortcomings.

Strengths

• 1) Presentations
• 2) Literature review
• 3) Writing
• 4) Coding/engineering

Weaknesses

• 1) Listening; managing collaborations with colleagues
• 2) Mathematical depth/rigor
• 3) Capacity for prolonged deep work
• 4) Long-term commitments to a specific problem area.

The only point worth briefly touching on here is weakness 1) listening. Experience has taught me that research, like almost everything in life, is a social pursuit. A solitary scientist reliant on talent alone will never beat a well-oiled team. Even in the field of pure mathematics, perhaps the loneliest of the lonely studies, top academics are constantly collaborating to solve hard problems. To further stage my point, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Yoshua Bengio together received the 2018 Turing award. I will offer the observation that, while these individuals are each deserving recipients, it is not a coincidence that they were also close acquaintances for many years.

Or consider a period that is very much analogous to today’s AI boom: the fever pitch of quantum mechanics that began in the 1920s. For several years, it seemed like members of a small group of scientists took turns winning the Nobel: Bohr (1922), Heisenberg (1932), Schrödinger & Dirac (1933), Fermi (1938), Lawrence (1939), Rabi (1944), Pauli (1945), Born (1954), Feynman (1965), Bethe (1967), Alvarez (1968). Yes, these men all did particle physics, but they also all knew, generally liked, and promoted one another. To be a successful scientist you need friends–successful, scientist friends; people need to like you or you’re doomed. In the sea of active researchers today, there are little, densely-connected pockets where all the action happens. Everyone else, the majority of folks, have been banished to sparsely distributed islands. This is the ugly truth: you need to carefully consider your social network and likability in academia as much as anywhere else, if not more so.

I am an idealist, yet it is hard to envy the life of someone like Alan Turing. Brilliant and isolated; his ideas outlasted his colleagues’ but failed to receive due recognition in his lifetime. John von Neumann once fretted that Turing would be relegated to the role of a “lone mathematician”; perhaps Neumann understood the much deeper consequences that came with holding this title. Nonetheless, it is so, so important to make your colleagues feel heard, and to celebrate the collaborative nature of research.

S	M	A	R	T
Review a book on (science) communication.	x1/year	Write a brief summary/book review; post to blog.	✅	EOY.
Improve mathematical reasoning.	x1/week	Submit a short conceptual post to the website; cover a topic in math/AI.	✅	––
Get better at deep work.	x6/week	Begin each day with a deep work session (e.g., reasoning through problems, writing, learning something new); increase session duration throughout year.	✅	––

Religion

I was raised in a religion (just imagine your favorite one here 🙂). Beyond spiritual fulfillment, attending services offers a great way to rest, connect with community members, and participate in a rich historic tradition.

S	M	A	R	T
Attend services.	1x/month	Acknowledge goal adherence on blog.	✅	EOY

Service

Is there anything more out of touch than a “volunteering protocol?” Shamefully, that is the subject of this section. In 2025, we managed to perform 0 hours of service. This year we’re going to set a baby goal of devoting one day a month to the service of others. An organization that I particularly like is austinfree.net. This wonderful group provides classes and free resources to improve digital literacy in our community. We will provide regular updates regarding volunteer work to the week-in-review throughout 2026.

S	M	A	R	T
Volunteer.	1x/month.	Post hours/general description of responsibilities to blog.	✅	EOY

Conclusions

This is intended to be a living document. Like a kind of personal constitution, it will be amended as our principles and priorities evolve. This post should also offer retrospective insights, capturing what I was thinking and how I was progressing at this stage in life. There are bound to be mistakes, oversights, and otherwise cringeworthy aspects of this year-in-review. But I am a strong believer in the virtues of public failures, which are precipitants of public growth and ultimately public success.

References

• [1] Basu, T. (2015, October 4). Google parent company Drops “don’t be evil” motto. Time. https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/

Amendments

• [1] Update title: “A Personal Philosophy” –> “My Personal Constitution”
• [2] Add references section
• [3] Change description: –> “Analysis of 2025; principles and goals for 2026.”
• [4] New goal: “exercise x3/week”
• [5] Remove goal: “publish x4/year”
  • Conflicts with my overall aim of contributing new knowledge to humanity; we will implement better goals that emphasize quality over quantity of work.
• [6] Update goal: “deep work x7/week” –> “x6/week”; update description
• [7] Update goal: “maintain the WIR”; modify goal frequency to “x1/week”
• [8] Mark completed goals
• [9] Errata: “(see Venmo founder)” –> “(see Braintree-Venmo) founder”