What's your greatest transferable skill?
My greatest skill is Optimization — the ability to optimize just about anything, from simple processes to social systems. However, I don't have yet the technical knowledge to optimize technical systems, machines, and software. But if you're talking about making people more effective, improve their lives, or organize structures, that's something I can easily do even without proper training.
My strength for Optimization comes from my skill for Analysis, with my eyes trying to understand everything without exception. My mind is like an AI that consumes all data from the environment to form its own conclusions and understanding, allowing me to Optimize everything I can Analyze.
It's indeed difficult to believe, one will definitely think "how can this clueless introvert rookie be able to something as grand and difficult as Optimization?"
True indeed, I don't have any professional training yet nor have acquired the necessary technical expertise for it. However, does that not mean I can't do it. A farmer may not have a degree in agriculture but they may still know everything about farming.
Proving to others that I can Optimize, I'll need to do one of the following things: prove it with personality, prove it with concrete portfolio, prove it with connections, and prove it with story.
The easiest one would be to prove it with connections, I would simply need other people to vouch for me, those will be the companies I've already worked in who has seen my skill in person. Unfortunately, this is still in the far away future, it's difficult for it to happen now.
The best way to prove it would be by Personality, we only need to be charismatic, steadfast, and bold enough to make a confident speech about ourselves in front of that person. People are most easily swayed by emotions than facts, so main characters who can make grand and bold assertions often gets the deal. Unfortunately, this is too flashy and we don't have any plot armour to take such risks.
The most mundane way would be to prove it by story, which can be easily done but only leads to low chances of success. Everyone can make a story but not everyone can believe it. Furthermore, as we haven't truly applied such skill in the real world in social groups, they would be less likely to believe.
That leaves us with the only thing: prove it with work, which means showing our portfolio of writings and diagrams. Still, this method requires some degree of confidence to even convince them that those writings are yours. Our eyes must look like the eyes of someone who wants to win, with fierce determination. Otherwise, they'll keep judging us by our appearance and think of us as clueless rookie introvert.
First, they'll judge you by your appearance. Second, they'll judge you by your personality. Third, they'll judge you by your communication style. Fourth, they'll judge you for your work. Fifth, they'll judge you for your connections. Finally, they'll judge you for your motivation and confidence. It is a shining and steadfast confidence that truly persuades someone.
My appearance is too normal. My personality is too timid. My communication style is too introverted. My work is pretty good. I have no connections. I can appear to look a little confident if I tried. In the end, for me, it all boils down to how well and how confident I can show my portfolio and work, plus how calm and determined I can look when they seem to be looking down on me so they can get additional leverage for negotiation.
Whatever the case, I must be able to show through every part of me that I came here to help and there's something important I can offer and if they don't want it, then they should say so I can leave and make effective use of my time.
Honestly speaking, my Optimization skill can make any business three times more profitable and effective. The only problem is I've been conditioned to dislike people who looks down on me and judge others before they judge me, creating a tense atmosphere that will leave me unable to express myself and them feeling defensive.
For some weird sensation, I felt the need to write this weird article for two days, so I wrote it. Indeed, it is through Optimization and Innovation that I can best contribute to society and earn the most money.
Still, there's no need for me to help anyone and neither do I need to earn the most money. While it's true that I'll need at least 50k savings to finally move out so I can meditate all day long without any nagging, I can also use this home environment to train all my resistances and tolerance to inhuman levels.
When I saw a bird finding food, I thought it's finding food to get energy but it seems like it's finding food for sense of pleasure and security. It moves around too much only to get few food. Its act of finding food consume more energy than the amount of food it gets. Most people are like that, they want to work to live, end up living to work. If only the bird meditates instead and rarely hunt food, it would save even more energy.
Those who don't want to be normal will inevitably become weird. There's no choice, no middle-ground at all. Either surrender your soul to the group or pay for your freedom by being exiled in the land of unknown and uncertainty.
Those who choose freedom cannot choose safety, security, and certainty. If a comfortable prison is what they prefer then they have no choice but to abandon their freedom. If a life of truth is what they seek, they have no choice but to abandon all their attachments to certainty and security.
While those who have yet to make their choice will be neither free nor safe, they'll be stuck under the cliff, where there's only solitude and emptiness. Either way, any choices or no choices are fine. What's cool about living within a system is that you can't be fully blamed for your actions, as there's always a part of you that would be influenced by others.
Thus, it's totally normal to choose a comfortable prison or be stuck under a cliff than to choose a life of freedom and uncertainty. It's made that way so people will take responsibility for their own life not for any external rewards or incentives but because of their own determination. It is because illusions are the norm that true freedom can be possible. The universe wants us to take freedom for ourselves because no one else can take it for us.
Outside the cave, the sun shines too brightly that it's blinding. There are too many moving elements that we can't track all of them. There are too many new things happening all at once. It's definitely easier and comfortable staying within this cave. Though there are annoying times where we'll have to go outside to get food and water.
One more annoying thing is when you know all the reasons and techniques to become perfectly free but unable to apply it. Thus, we become like doctors dying from sickness or farmers dying from starvation. This ridiculous situation is a result of the system rewarding and enforcing behaviors that lack commitment and inability to abandon the old ways of living.
It's okay though, if they develop more awareness and remain sincere in their quest for freedom, they'll eventually find a chance to apply their techniques. Nature doesn't hurry but everything is accomplished. People would eventually break apart either from an intense situation, a heavy pressure that lasts for a long time, or simply due to the continuous demands of time and space.
When asked what we truly want, the first things we think are not the things we truly want but these things in the following other:
But then what do we genuinely desire? What is it that we truly long for, one that makes us want to stay alive for eternity? Is it really pleasure? Achievement? Affection? None of those, they are all conditioned responses which doesn't really tell much about what we genuinely want at a deeper level.
Suppose that we think for what we want after excluding all those five things in our head. Now, what is it that we truly want that other people doesn't want, that other people doesn't understand, that ignores all norms, that doesn't crave for pleasure, that doesn't avoid pain?
Without thinking of what they want, what they understand, what is normal, what is fun and pleasurable, what is painful and annoying, what do you truly want?
For me, I want to know the whole truth and complete reality of life. I want to know who I really am, why I was born here in this world, why I was born in this body, at such time and place. That's what I truly want.
"People feel the most fulfilled when doing great things with others, for the people."
"One will never be socially free enough to choose freedom, they must be able choose it despite being neither free nor enough in relation to social standards."
"One will never get the permission to be free."