I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness

Timothée Chalamet

I'm a bit of a sucker for Timothée. I like a lot of his movies and the fact that he is the Lisan al-Gaib makes it even better, but to be honest what really got me hooked was his speech at the SAG Awards. I thought it was cool to hear someone removing the fake humility we are always surrounded and managed to really say what he aspires to be without sounding like an asshole. The truth is that after listening to him, the first thing that came to my mind was: Damn, I really want to pursue greatness. It was the first time that I saw the pursue of greatness, not as egotistical and self-congratulatory mission, but more of like a constant push for being better, almost like an Odyssean journey (probably the amount of TikToks I saw about them made it look epic in my mind).

What has to do this with obsession? I think in order to achieve greatness in something you actually need to be obsessed with that something. I'll make the case why I think obsessing with the pursuit of greatness is different than obsessing with being the greatest.

Years ago, one of the things that I really struggle while studying architecture, was comparing myself against the greatest greatest chilean architects (at least what I considered at that point) like Smiljan Radic, Cecilia Puga, Alejandro Aravena. The biggest problem? I was decidedly not even close to them. Was I a great designer? Definitely not, but also not awful. Was I great at telling stories? Not really. Was I great at drawing at least? A decisive no.

At this point you probably are thinking what was I doing at that school and truth to be told, the answer is unknown to me until this day, but what opened the doors for me to stay there, was when on of my professors, Gonzalo Claro, told me: "Look, you are not really good at drawing by hand, but you have a good eye and you are good at CAD drawing". That's it! That was my way in. I'll be the greatest computational designer (I know it was not the sexiest thing in the world but cut me some slack, I was struggling). With that very light comment is where my obsession began. If I was not gonna be able to be the great designer, at least I was gonna be the great computational person.

AA Studies, couldnt' find the source but not mine.

I learnt how to model in Rhino and off I went, I started modelling EVERYTHING. I had a cup? I had a model. I had a remote control? I had a model. I had a dog? I had a model, sort of. I probably spent more time modeling useless things and hunting flies with shotguns that I've ever did in my life. Anything that can be modeled will be modeled. When I start hitting the ceiling on what I was able to model in Rhino, I learnt grasshopper. Then I spent countless hours doing scripts to model things that made absolutely no sense. I used to sit down and model all the OMA's XY 180 Lamps . Basically spent most of my time just practicing. As Enrique del Rio used to say: "Learning how to be an architect, is like learning to fly, you just need to do the 1.000 hours". I took that seriously and spent around a year, modeling and programming day and night whatever I could get my hands on. All my assignments became huge, unnecessary over produced, with some lack of great storytelling, but immaculate production.

Here is where things start changing for me.

Like a year later thanks to a friend of a friend, one of the great called me. Cecilia Puga. She was doing El Parque Nacional Queulat with Paula Velasco and Patricio Mardones, and they needed someone that could model complex geometries. I could be that person. I'll be damn, I was that person. I still remember when she called me and asked me if I could do the work, I was in the terrace of my apartment and I could barely believe I was talking to her (at that point the great architects felt like a divine presence for me. Now I've come to the realization that it's just a profession and they are skin and bone, just like all of us). I obviously told her I could do it and could start as soon as possible. It felt like it was my opportunity to become great! With the help of the years I still see this as the pivotal point in my carrer._

With that project, then it came a couple of competitions, some houses that really pushed to the limit what I could do (and more importantly when I reached a limit, I always break through them working and researching a ton) and be part of some amazing projects like Palacio Pereira. Every time I didn't knew how to do something I just said yes and spent whateer amount of hours into figuring out how to do it. I was aspiring to be great, and up to a certain level I think I was becoming great.

(As a small parenthesis in this word salad)

I'm not arguing pro working 100 hours a week and not sleeping at all. As the year pass, I realized that I like sleeping. I prefer to have energy to be with my family and friends. I still pull consistently 70 hours weeks, but now i do them because I love what I do and sort of give me a mission. I also need to find a hobby to have, completely unrelated to what I work on. This is purely my experience, without any imperative given for you

(End of the small parenthesis in the word salad)

Even tho, I felt like professionally I was becoming someone, without a shadow of a doubt, those were also my worst years personally. Since I was aspiring to be the greatest there was a specific goal that I needed to achieve. The problem is that:

• That goal was constantly moving
• There will always be someone that does a niche better than you.
• "Ideas by definition are fragile, if they were resolved they would be products ready to shipped" (Jony Ive)¹ and the concept of being the great is literally just that, an idea. So it's fragile, not real and since is fuzzy by definition, is a very dangerous life driver because the moment you think you gave it shape to said idea, you realize it was not that and off you go again.

Couldn't find the source but not mine.

I doubted myself because I wasn't becoming famous, or at least well known. I couldn't enjoy anything I had achieved so far because it was never enough. It was my own rabit hole that sucked everything I had on me. Why? Because it was stealing the joy of doing things. I was doing things because they would make me look great rather than happy. For years, that obsession of being great, made me quite miserable if I'm being honest.

I've never felt like I was naturally talented at anything. I didn't come with any natural skill other than a unhealthy capacity to just do. I could just do 100 hours a week, I could just work without sleeping or eating. I could just spent an absurd amount of hours to learn how to do something so specific that I would never do it again but would keep the skills. I can just do shit. Without wanting to sound like tech-bro, you can actually just do things (or Just do it™). As I've grown older I've manged to understand where it comes from and with that, I'm learning how to use it to my own benefit rather than my own detriment. It feels like a careful balance that I need to achieve but I'm fully aware how putting it that simple is hyper reductionist.

I would love to say that here is where the realization kicked in². I truly would had prefer to wake up one that with that epiphany, but the truth it was several years of therapy and introspection. Trying to dissect why I obsess with things has and more importantly, how that affects me has been by far the hardest thing that I've done.

After years of obsessing with the idea of being the great, I painfully slow realized that it would never give me what I needed from it. I would never be able to achieve that, and to be honest, it mostly went away because I got tired of pursuing the next oasis in the desert. After that obsession wear down from me, I actually start feeling free to just enjoy a bit more where things were. At this point I already had landed my dream job at UNS, so I could actually stop for a bit to just breath and just be (easier said than done).

The other thing that I realized ³ is that being the greatest is in comparison ⁴ against the other and it sort of implies that someone has to be worse than you but if I aspire to be great I was actually going to highlight without implying I had to defeat others, I could even take them with me. This more positive approach has helped me to be looking on how to help, how to elevate others and how be able to enjoy others success. It's actually a lot easier to do cool stuff when people wants to help you.

Couldn't find the source but not mine.

This is border line sounding like a rehab story or a cheesy conclusion like doesn't matter the destination but the journey, and up to a certain level is sort of that, but this small tweak on the sentence does have a completely different meaning. Going from obsessing with being the great to just obsess with pursuing greatness

I just had to pursue the greatness. But what does that mean?

I think here is where I see Timothée quote shines. It's the pursuit that allows you to be free. The pursuit means the end is not the goal but the north. Walking the walk is the important and don't get me wrong, I will be the first telling you to spend 1.000 hours in front of a laptop modeling dumb stuff. But I'll also tell you to only do it if you are pursuing the greatness, rather than trying to be the greatest

So, after saying all of this, what is my takeaway? If you want to be great at something you have to obsess with it, but the only way of obsessing with it and not die trying it, is obsessing with the pursuit of greatness because you enjoy the road, the view and the moment.

The journey becomes the end rather than the mean, and the goal? Who cares. Not me at least.

Probably I will update this and finish it. I've rewritten this post 4 times already and I think it's enough. It's time to just push it.

^{[1] : In this blog you will constantly see the use of this quote as I actually think is one of the most powerful concepts to create new things, and if you read my Bio, you know already know it's my favorite thing.}

^{[2] : In the early draft of this post I actually started this paragraph by saying it. After a couple of reviews I realized it wasn't the idea I had in my mind I actually end up realizing it was almost the polar opposite of what I initially wrote.}

^{[3] : A bit faster on this one. Thank god.}

^{[4] : And we know comparison is the thieve of joy.}