About Me

A place where I write about my perspective on myself.

Still a major WIP!

(There are some links to currently-dead references through the page. They are to currently-unpublished digital-garden nodes. I shall be filling them up soon!)

Basic information

• Name's Priyanshu. I go by multiple aliases, including "priy".

• Grew up in Odisha, India

• Currently reside in Bengaluru for professional aspirations

• I am a part-time freelancer and consultant, around topics of ML Engineering, full-stack, and general tech.

• I stand for include freedom , non-oppression , inclusivity , equitable-prosperity ; among other values

• I am a fan of innovation, outward-impact, and driving progress

  • And those are things I aspire to be involved in while being responsible and ethical

• I have an ever-diversifying range of interests.

  • And I love taking on new challenges whenever I can!

• I am someone to question the status-quo, and I don't blindly concede to the conventionally preferred, popular, or familiar.

• I value creative expression and imagination - as much as objectivity, rational thinking, and openness to perspectives.

Education

I am an Autodidact. I dropped out of high school in pursuance of self-education, back in 2020. Since then, I have quit all associations with formal education, and do not really intend to go back.

My journey of self-education hasn't yet been the most ideal. It's been unstructured, chaotic, neglectful. And mostly driven by flow of curiosities, rather than rigorous planning and disciplined execution.

Professional Life

While I am not established professionally yet, I have been doing freelance ML engineering and full stack dev for a few months now.¹

I have entrepreneurial aspirations that I have forever been putting off from full realization. There are ethical and performance standards I intend to meet, and shall expand upon with time. But in brief, I want to set examples of breakthrough innovation and progress, while keeping factors more important than profitability at higher precedence.

Some of the areas I look to work on in the coming months include AI for software dev, AI accelerators, freeing the internet up from centralized entities, etc. (TODO: write about these!)

I aspire to challenge the perceptions of boundaries around possible levels of transparency, inclusivity, value-prioritization, large-scale collaboration, etc.

Some of my Areas of Interest

Exhaustive by no means!

• All of The Sciences! And the Scientific Method
• Philosophy (although not with a rigorous, historical approach!)
  • Epistemology and Ontology (again, primarily not in the academically "correct" way)
• Thinking and analysis
• Muddling with random concepts, ideas, and thoughts - both self-introspectively and conversationally
• Altruism, outward-impact, value-creation
• Music (Open to everything, please don't hesitate to send recommendations!)
• Sports such as cricket and chess
• Breaking through shackles, exploring new horizons, etc
• Regularly trying new things out!
• Tinkering, building, creation
• Taking initiative, making things happen
• Reading, listening to podcasts, and consuming information in general in diverse forms and contexts
• Frontier tech, from AI to BCIs, digital fabrication to biotech - the list really has no end²

You could find some narrow mentions of my present involvements in the "now" page

I love to connect to people with mutual interests. But I am also open to have conversations on any topic at all. If that is piques your interest, please do not hesitate to hit me up!

Misc

I am a Generalist

I have been someone with a variety of interests since as early as mid-teens. Exploring a diverse variety of fields and subject-matters gives me a kick!

My hesitancy to specialize has been one of my motivations to keep away from mainstream education. It's far easier to be a generalist on one's own, than when one has a rigid curriculum to follow!

I also consider myself a multipotentiate, given I usually pick things up quickly, no matter my experience level. The novelty of a new field can even be a bonus to my novelty-seeking brain!

Considering specialization as an absolute necessity at the current age is one of those insensible stigmas I look to debunk. And by living through it, not just making claims for what I strongly believe in.

I have explored, and continue to explore fields as listed in interests, and beyond!

I am Neurodivergent

I identify with tonnes of traits that are characteristic of AuDHD . Hyperfocus, executive dysfunctions, social awkwardness, RSD - are some things i am way too familiar with.

Despite the troubles and peculiarities, I consider myself fortunate to have a unique lens to viewing the world.

And I aspire to design my lifestyle and environments in a way that caters to my unique needs and natural inclinations. Not just to make my experience smoother, but also optimize my ability to create positive impact, and self-actualize.

I adore learning

I don't need to stress on how much I love learning! I consider myself a lifelong student, and I really would never run out of things to learn!

Textual Mediums are my forte

I communicate the most fluently on a textual medium. It's where I find myself able to express the fullest and freest.

While I have been improving a lot at non-textual conversations as well, having a textual medium makes the process super smooth for me. And it is also what I seek whenever I want to understand another person in true depth.

Not having to stress about extra social-cues (facial reactions, vocal tones, body language, and everything else involved in face-to-face or vocal communications) makes it easier for me to articulate what's to be communicated. Same goes for the extra mental-reserves I find for understanding the other parties better.

I aspire to be intellectually-honest

Whenever I can, I try to point out what my biases and assumptions are. While I can be super intuitive, I try to acknowledge the uncertainties involved in whatever claims I make, or reasonings I do. There still is a lot of scope of improvement, but this is something I hope to keep evolving in indefinitely.

I admire people who employ similar strategies of intellectual transparency and humility. The more one does it, the clearer their thinking processes are.

I pick and drop interests and hobbies very frequently

I am very spontaneous, and I take up new things to explore very frequently. Having a scanner personality is both a blessing and a curse. It might make me seem to have a wide-breadth of knowledge, but not sticking to things doesn't allow the level of depth I'd like.

I like to say that my interest-space is append-only, and it is indeed so, in approximation. Although there really isn't any certainty about if (and when) I may ever go back, with the same level of enthusiasm, to something I at some point of time have been hyped-up about.

I enjoy challenging limiting-beliefs and stigmas

Setting arbitrary limits make no sense to me. In some cases, there is good evidence to have certain limiting-beliefs. But it's super easy, as humans, to generalize heuristics out of the context of where they were formed.

On a similar note, I hate complacency. A lack of questioning, rebelling against shitty current things and aspiring to improve - transforms into a lack of positive change.

I have a firm bias towards how things could be improved, regardless of how impossible change may feel.

I am an advocate of autonomy and freedom

Being a human, autonomy is one of the most crucial factors in living fully and realizing one's creative and impact potential. Alas, in the present world, there are way too many ways it is oppressed. Individual autonomy is largely bound by where in the (forced, largely arbitrary) social hierarchies one falls in.

I respect movements and philosophies that look to maximize individual freedom.

I am a FOSS enthusiast. And I am very biased towards FOSS ecosystems. I also find the principles of the free and open source relevant beyond the software world. There's a lot that fields like hardware, research, governance, education, healthcare, etc - could learn, from the free and open source body of work.

I also find concepts of anarchism super appealing. There also have been historical examples of anarchist-societies showing real promise, that are not very commonly known. The concepts of mutual-aid and absence of hierarchy are super strong and universal, and I'd like to see more experiments with the same happening at every level.

I am an Optimist

I like to think of the brighter possibilities. My thinking and decision-making criteria, are both heavily biased by it. I am up for taking on lofty ambitious objectives, especially if they have wide-reaching impact potential.

Yes, it is a bias. And yes, I am okay, more often than not, to err on the side of optimism.

Footnotes