I Am Alone Pt. 2

A post about ambition, obsession, and feeling out of place in a world that doesn’t think the same.

I Am Alone Pt. 2 – The Curse of Passion

A Divergence in Wiring

I knew I was wired differently as early as fifth grade. While most kids were into whatever was trending on the radio, I was pulling up to class parties wearing Minecraft shirts and queuing up parody remixes from YouTube. The girls I thought were cute looked at me like I was from another planet.

By seventh grade, I caved. Swapped the Minecraft shirts for Diamond Supply Co. and Nike Elites. Tried to blend in. But no matter how I dressed, I couldn’t fake being into shit I didn’t care about. My parents didn’t try to help me find my people—they forced me to become someone else. Soccer, tennis, mandatory social events. I played along, but I hated every second of it. I’d show up to basketball games wearing Jordans, pretending to know the teams. But my head wasn’t in the game—it was counting down the minutes till I could go home and build something.

Minecraft as Incubator

Minecraft wasn’t just a game for me—it was a startup simulator. I wasn’t there to stack blocks. I was managing staff, balancing virtual economies, and optimizing performance. By fifth grade, I was the head admin of Skyblock.in, the biggest Skyblock server at the time. I was resolving disputes between mods, scaling the player base, running operations. It was leadership training—real leadership, not the crap they sell in school brochures.

That mindset only got louder as I got older. At 16, I took the CHSPE and left high school after my junior year. My parents begged me to stay. They told me I’d regret missing out on prom, football games, the whole "experience." I didn’t give a shit. All I wanted was to build. Looking back, the only regret I have is not doing it even sooner. Every second I spent in a classroom felt like time stolen from the life I actually wanted to live.

The Will Hunting Moment

I rewatched Good Will Hunting recently. That one scene—Skylar teasing Will for knowing organic chemistry for fun—hit different. He shrugs and says it just makes sense to him, like Beethoven looking at a piano. That’s how I feel about business. I didn’t choose this life because it’s trendy. I was born for it. It’s instinct. I don’t need motivation. I just go.

And that moment hit again, in real life, at the Breakthrough Prize event. My friend Conner, an entertainment journalist, brought me as his +1. He was hyped about celebrities—Lizzo, Sia, Mr. Beast. I recognized almost no one. But then it flipped.

I saw Jeff Bezos. Sam Altman. Walter Isaacson. Chamath. David Friedberg. Sundar Pichai. Mark Zuckerberg. Shou Zi Chew. Bill Gates. Alexandr Wang. And Alex Pall—from The Chainsmokers. But not because of his music. I recognized him from LinkedIn. He runs a venture fund. That’s how deep in this I am.

Conner looked at me like I was insane. “You know more people here than I do.”

That was my Good Will Hunting moment. I wasn’t trying. I just knew. These weren’t celebrities. These were my people—the architects, the builders. The ones who make the world run.

Everything I Love is Business

It’s not just who I look up to. It’s what I consume. My favorite movies? The Founder, Air, Tetris, The Banker. My favorite shows? Suits, Super Pumped, Silicon Valley, Landman. My favorite books? Good to Great, What It Takes, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Even my favorite games were all about resource management, competition, scaling. I wasn’t playing—I was learning.

Even when I try to relax, I end up on LinkedIn. Or watching startup interviews. Or reading earnings reports for fun. This isn’t some GaryVee grindset bullshit. This is just who I am. There is no off-switch.

Relationships Are Hard as Hell

But here’s the thing—it makes connection hard. It’s lonely. People think I’m arrogant or cold, but I just don’t know how to pretend to care about the stuff they care about. I don’t do small talk. I want to talk about systems. Power. Legacy. Scalable impact. Not TikToks or TV shows I’ll never watch.

I remember being 17, walking through Riley Rose with a girl I liked, and comparing girls to blue-chip stocks. Yeah, I said that. It wasn’t a line—it was just how my brain works. She didn’t get it. Most people don’t.

Now, at 24, I know exactly what I want in a relationship. I don’t care what your passion is. Music? Be the next Taylor Swift. Medicine? Build the next Eli Lilly. Space? Take us past Mars. Just give a fuck. Obsess over it. Be delusional about it. Want to change the world. That’s it. That’s the bar.

Efficiency Over Escapism

Sometimes I wish I could be normal. Go to a party, get hammered, wake up laughing about it. I’ve tried. My body literally rejects alcohol. I go to a club, and while everyone’s vibing, I’m in the corner wondering how the hell the promoters filled the place and what their margins look like.

While others chase dopamine, I chase efficiency.

That’s the curse. When your passion is your oxygen, everything else feels like filler.

And the most brutal part? You can’t turn it off.

Final Thought

I don’t know if this makes me gifted or broken. Probably both.

But I know one thing for sure:

I was built to build.

And until I find someone who gets that...

I am alone.