i woke up to this anxiety – but like a tree, i just look at this pot of plant, look at the leaves, and i sit next to it.

it being the anxiety.

i dont like hustle culture not just because it can lead to burnout (studies show chronic stress from productivity obsession creates what researchers call “free-floating anxiety” – a persistent unease disconnected from specific triggers, while the efficiency trap documented by Oliver Burkeman shows how relentless execution paradoxically decreases actual output)

but it was deeper than that.

it was those gut memory of how alone it was, how i let myself unseen when i was a child and teenager.

and i was afraid that i am still in some way carrying that into my work.

psychologist call this gut memory somatic experiencing – the body’s capacity to store emotional and traumatic experiences in our nervous system, creating what Dr. Bessel van der Kolk describes as “the body keeping the score.”

These aren’t just memories; they’re lived experiences embedded in our tissues, surfacing as intuition, as sudden knowing, as that tightness in the chest when we’re about to repeat old patterns.

So, I wanna be aware of these and sit down with them.

Sitting down with the fear

Fear also prompts me to look at the pot.

The root of this anxiety pot is those fears.

And it’s okay to have these pots around.

It’s like having cactus outside of my house – it reminds us of resilience.

What’s a bit clear are 2 things:

1. Allah vows against wal-Asr: hence right timing is on Allah. Allah controls our qalb and hence, He can ‘tell’ us when is the right timing or even make a timing right.
2. I wanna rely on my great and high quality works. I am okay at being excited solving a problem and getting a bit faster at that but I want to not lose myself, that hence would impact my work.

Hence, i will take some more time building this; this is not another weekend hackathon.

DeepSeek was built and even Kimi was built in a year. Manus too.

I wanna feel & experience the difference between building when you’re rooted versus building when you’re rushing.

The anxiety this morning maybe wasn’t about the work itself – the MVP is flowing, the testing is revealing what i hoped it would reveal.

The anxiety maybe was about the space between what I’m building and why I’m building it.

And in these floating wanderment next to my pot of anxiety plant, I remember those lines, just so promptly:

“I want to be your safe space. Pakai I. Tanya I.”

Unlike so many years before, maybe this anxiety pointing to this fella, this gentleman I have next to me, next to that pot of anxiety as well.

A brave fella, maybe a fellow person who knows loneliness as well.

Anxiety asks me to not unsee him too, maybe.

Making sitting next to the anxiety pot much more comfortable.

He’s such a hero.

Listing down old notes

Then I get to another thinking.

“AI Safety research lab versus another FOMO accelerator startup.”

This doesnt just to which path, but which path to ensure I (and more people) can build on asking great big questions sustainably.

Would applying to Dory Foundation works for the next 3 months?

Would it be OpenPhilanthropy grant?

But what’s for sure, it reminds me of the questions I have in the past:

1. Why machines require billions of data while human can intuit with even just 1 data point? -> POV on data
2. What is the line to define machine intelligence in Islam? -> exploration on the whatness of machine itself & nature of creation
   • How machines can have their own nature of thinking?

What happens when intelligence becomes fluid?

What happens when the boundaries between different forms of knowing dissolve?

These questions would lead me to which platform is right. Amin.

Questions that lead to strategy

Because those questions lead me to the strategy question.

Maybe some keywords I already have liked or kind want are around: research lab startup idea + public benefit corporation.

I am open but I will have these notes in mind.

On another note, I was thinking of these 2 keywords as i woke up this morning.

I was thinking about coral and fluid.

Water and the sea.

Coral intrigues me.

I love the whale.

I love silent sea. i used to call my trauma response ‘waves’.

There’s something about coral that speaks to what we’re building.

Coral isn’t just beautiful – it’s symbiotic.

It creates entire ecosystems by hosting other forms of life.

The polyps and the algae –

Creating something larger than either could create alone.

Then those images kind of relates to model-agnostic platforms could do:

they could create & liberate spaces where different intelligences can collaborate rather than compete.

Few keywords for startup name

then, Gemini Pro suggested few words I kinda like:

1. Cetacea (seh-tay-shuh)

Symbolism: The scientific order that includes all whales, dolphins, and porpoises. It’s a sophisticated, elegant name that speaks to a deep, almost sentient form of intelligence.

There’s something profound about intelligence that operates through resonance rather than dominance.

When I think about AI safety, I think about this kind of intelligence – patient, deep, collaborative.

(i put this as my number 1 name)

2. Halocline (hay-lo-kline)

Symbolism: In oceanography, a halocline is a sharp, visible boundary between waters of different salinity, often creating the illusion of a river within the sea. It’s a stunning metaphor for your product creating a clear, visible boundary and interface within the opaque depths of AI.

The halocline is where fresh water meets salt water, creating layers you can actually see underwater.

Divers describe it as ethereal (I love this word too!) – like swimming through liquid glass.

This boundary isn’t a barrier; it’s a space of transition, where different systems learn to coexist.

Maybe this is what we need in AI – not walls between different models, but permeable boundaries that allow for safe interaction.

3. Acropora

Symbolism: A genus of coral known as “table coral” for its intricate, branching, and fast-growing structures. This name evokes agility, rapid growth, and building a complex but elegant framework for AI reasoning.

Acropora coral grows fast, but it also grows smart.

It creates tables and platforms that other marine life can build upon.

It’s architectural intelligence – knowing how to create structure that serves not just itself, but an entire ecosystem.

This is the kind of growth that interests me.

Not unicorn-fast, but ecosystem-sustainable.

I will let these wander in mind – just floating on the sea of my mind.

Closing

Maybe i want to have not just the right strategy, but deep strategy.

Strategy that has deep reliance on Allah and oneself.

To know the line between building from anxiety and building from curiosity.

Either to want to build to prove something – to yourself, to investors, to the market, or,

builds to discover something – about the problem, about the solution, about what becomes possible when you create the right conditions.

So this morning’s anxiety was kinda good direction.

It tells me my values.

This blog post is quite raw but I am keen to be vulnerable about this journey.

These kind of writing may not be as pragmatic but sometimes there’s no reason to read, except to connect our beingness.

To just flow in that privilege of being inside a person.

And hence, like this morning, to sit next to the pot of plant in me: my friend, anxiety.

Day 991 was how many days since I started my AI Safety journey, it was when Remmelt and I have a talk on GoogleMeet and rambled about language reflects ontology, how can AI have the ability to be, or whose AI we wanna make it to be.

Day 1 is another day, exploring new path on this Reasoning visualization.

Raw notes on what to write next:

The power of metaphorical writing for future note to write & explore. The privilege of being inside a problem until you understand it from within. The privilege of being inside a technology until you can feel its potential and its dangers. The privilege of being inside your own questions until they transform into something you can actually build.

This is what I’m learning: the deepest work happens when you’re willing to be with the uncertainty long enough to let it teach you something. Not to eliminate the anxiety, but to let it show you where the real work needs to happen.