You can just do things

This one’s so simple yet I have to keep reminding myself of it all the time.

You can just do things.

Let’s make it an acronym: YCJDT

You see right now I’m trying to do something very specific, very niche but I’m having a lot of fun doing it.

My brother and I build a nutrition tracking app called Nutrify.

And we use the Gemini API (Google’s big AI model) to identify different foods in an image.

The workflow is: someone takes a photo of food, we send it to the Gemini API and then Gemini sends back food details we display on the screen.

But I’d like to replace Gemini with our own purpose built AI model running right on the phone.

So far, we’re probably about 60-70% of the way there. We’ve got something working but it’s not as good as Gemini yet.

For it to be deployed, we’d like it to be 95% as good or even better.

And so we’ll keep working towards that.

There’s a bunch of reasons I could use as to why it’d be beneficial if we pull it off.

Hell, there’s pros and cons either way.

But the main reason is: because.

Because we’d like to.

That’s it!

Back to the motto… YCJDT.

It’s one of my mottos for the year, and into the future (of course).

In the modern world, it can be tempting to want to research and find out all the steps you need to take to do something before you do it.

You could even… dare I say it? Get AI to do it for you…! (but like a high schooler writing an essay to be read by two people: their mother and the teacher, as we all know the value is often in the doing rather than the final product)

Goodness me, what a time we live in where you can type into a box and have the world’s knowledge not only shown to you but it’s now interactive.

And so yes naturally with all this extra knowledge comes plenty of extra power.

But the problem with too much knowledge is it can become a curse. Like anything, it’s dosage dependent.

Too much knowledge lists all the reasons something can’t happen, a slight lack of knowledge asks what if?

Waiting for a little more knowledge can hold you back. You might think, well, if I just research a little bit longer I might find the answer.

Sometimes that might be true.

But more often, the right answer hasn’t appeared yet because you don’t even have the right questions yet.

And the right questions hide themselves right up until you begin the trek into the unknown.

You try something, you tinker a little here, you mix a little there, you think of something whilst brushing your teeth. You make the recipe from the book and find out it doesn’t quite work as well as you expected or perhaps there wasn’t enough salt for your palette. Perhaps the author forgot to mention to salt it 10 minutes later otherwise it’ll blend in to everything else and it’ll be there but you won’t taste it and your dinner party guests might find themselves on the verge of sodium overdose because they salted their own meal even after you’d already added quite a bit during cooking time.

C’mon let’s bring it together…

The chief lesson here is: You can just do things.

But know that this doesn’t mean that you’ll know what to do every time. And you’ll think yourself into knots far too often unless you remember it’s fine to not have everything laid out in front of you.

Dance a little, move with the forever improvised symphony of the cosmos.

After all, how boring would it be if you knew all the outcomes ahead of time?

Do things, give it a shot, trust yourself to figure it out along the way.

Those are the best stories to hear, the ones where the hero doesn’t know what’s going to happen but they persist anyway.

They’re even better stories to live out.

So please, remember, you can just do things.

Go and make your own butter.

Learn origami so you can make your niece a little bird out of scrap paper next time you see her.

Find that 12 year old YouTube video (again) that teaches you how to make leather knots so you can repair your wife’s necklace.

Cook a banana bread at the same time as a lamb roast, because well, the oven is big enough and heat is heat, right?

Apply for the job you think you won’t get and tell them you’re even better than what you sound like on paper and then get the job and be even better than you said you were in person.

Tell the person walking towards you on the sidewalk that their colour matching outfit they’ve clearly put detailed effort into isn’t going unnoticed. I see the tones of orange in your bag and how they match your socks and the little patterns on your dress.

Thank the waitstaff ran off their feet during a busy service for welcoming you with a smile despite it being the fifteenth time that hour.

Call your old friend and say hi, how’s it going?

My gosh learn Rust and buy that big textbook and get into electronics if you feel like it.

The world is beautiful when you do things.

If you’re stuck let movement be your cure.

Make something write something code something dance to something love something sing a little made up song cook something start that furniture restoration project you’ve been meaning to start walk somewhere you’ve never been run up a hill 10 times go on a huuuuuuge bike ride play tennis with your friend at the local court pick up the piece of trash dirtying the garden (thank you) and then pick a flower.

For the world.

For yourself.

YCJDT.