But if you’re familiar with the cry for help that was my 2024 reflection, I can promise a remarkably different outtake on a similarly chaotic year. 2024 was the beginning of my quarter-life crisis. I started the year in loneliness, lived the year in an unsettling liminal space, and ended the year in a health crisis with no signs of relief ahead.

Where 2024 felt like cruelty, 2025 felt like a curriculum.

figment

This was the year we “started a company.” Well, we did start a company. Figment Interactive Inc. incorporated in the state of Delaware - paperwork and lawyers and all. The only thing shielding me from feeling like 20 green amphibians stacked into a trench coat running the Figment show is the truly insane amount of effort being poured into this company in nearly every waking moment by both Eliot and me.

Figment had a proper gestation period this year. Nine months of quietly chaotic development, iterative mitosis and meiosis, with all the delicious nausea that a pregnancy entails. We went through a16z’s speedrun accelerator, experimented and pivoted, built a new kind of campy video editor, and started growing a lovely internet community. I’ve authored quite a bit on the topic of Figment on the interwebs, so I’ll keep it short here.

In short, I’m so grateful for this time in my life where I can throw everything I am into something I care deeply about.

If I could pool all my wishes into one big wish, the only thing I’d want for Christmas, for my birthday, for the new year, would be for Figment, once a fragment of a giblet of a seed of a figment of our imaginations, to properly take root in the world and flourish in the fertile soil of modern internet culture.

While the most well-publicized storyline of 2025 was undoubtedly Figment, Figment, Figment, there were many secret, mysterious, undisclosed subplots afoot.

moving

I moved from place to place a full 30 times this year before signing the lease for my apartment in the beautiful city of San Francisco. With each move came the shedding of past, ill-fitting identities, layered endlessly like a coat beneath a coat beneath a coat.

Constant movement gave me the opportunity to recognize and unseat the harmful assumptions that had been quietly governing my life. Years of accepting what my life was by default, without intentional and decisive shaping, had gathered a thick layer of dust on my windshield, distorting my view. Constant movement brought forth a gust of warm air that dispelled the gray haze.

It was a journey of unraveling and unlearning. By the end of the full 30 moves, I experienced a weightlessness I hadn’t known in years - like those mystical Indian nomads of yore who traveled the world in a simple loincloth, trading wisdom for alms. Except I donned an overstuffed Cotopaxi backpack plus a carry-on suitcase and traded cat sitting services for housing.

I spent most of my time hopping around different neighborhoods within the city of San Francisco, a practice I likened to “dating the city.” After ten months of getting to know new facets of a city I’ve lived my whole life beside (and briefly inside), I found myself deeply in love with SF.

While constantly moving served its purpose in unwinding an outdated identity, it was also preventing me from building on new learnings and solidifying into whatever shape could hold me next.

In one of the worst renter markets this city has ever seen, my new apartment came to me in November through a series of happenings that felt nothing short of magic.

With this new space as my anchor, I’m rebuilding my life with an intentional strategy of localized experimentation: trying out different formats for setting up my home and habits before settling into autopilot and ensuring there’s always a little room left for tweaks.

For the first time in many years, I’m starting to feel at home.

money

My relationship with money has always been a funny one. It’s derivative of the immigrant mentality inherited from my parents - frugality, optimizing for cost performance and value per dollar, and an inherent distrust of flashy, extractive restaurants that employ instagram aesthetics to overcharge you for bland food. Being “smart” about money has always been something I prided myself on.

My parents laugh about how I hoarded cash as a child until they discovered I was sitting on some $250 like a five-year-old kingpin. I remember fishing 44 quarters out of our family’s change bank to repay the school librarian with a clattering heap of silver after misplacing a hardcover copy of Geronimo Stilton.

To the miser who thought twice about spending a few extra dollars on shiitake mushrooms over baby bella, rent always felt like the most painfully wasteful expense - a quick and effortless way to burn thousands of dollars a year. I was so afraid of spending that felt unnecessary, extravagant, or dopamine-seeking (mentally equating rent with sports cars and designer clothes) that every expense came with a heaping side of guilt.

This year, working closely with someone who thinks very differently about money reshaped my attitude for the better. Instead of viewing every purchase as burning resources, I began to think of it as an investment that frees up my time and energy to put toward things that ultimately grow my resource pool.

Rent isn’t money that simply goes poof every month - it’s an investment in safety, security, and an anchor that deepens one’s sense of self. Money is a tool to help me design a life that fits me like a glove.

Best money investments of the year

• Opal app blocker - actually kicked my social media for cheap-dopamine habits

• CapCut subscription

• Cursor subscription

• ChatGPT subscription

• My apartment

• Uber-ing around and not having a car in SF

• Hiring a TaskRabbit when I need house help

• Buying high-quality secondhand goods off Facebook Marketplace + using Lugg and Uber Concierge for delivery
  

Ongoing experiments

• CorePower Yoga subscription

• Testing various meal prep services
  

Best time + energy investments of the year

• Installing a keypad lock on my front door

• Learning to make content

• Curating my social media feeds for learning + inspiration over entertainment
  

adhd

I’ve struggled with on-and-off cycles of burnout and depression since the sixth grade. In late 2024, I lived through one harrowing month of not being able to sleep more than one to three hours a night. In early 2025, I lived through another heavy month where I could barely get myself out of bed. This led to that, and eventually I landed in front of a psychiatrist who pieced together my life story well enough to sniff out ADHD, 26 years into life.

I’m actually incredibly lucky to be diagnosed this early. My story is textbook - women are often misdiagnosed with mood disorders like depression over and over until much later in life, when it’s discovered that it was cycles of ADHD burnout all along.

ADHD in women is a chronically misunderstood, elusive beast. ADHD studies were primarily conducted with men, where it tends to manifest as the hyperactive subtype (the stereotypical boy who can’t sit still). Women tend to present as the inattentive subtype (daydreamy, spacey, forgetful), which is far less visible, studied, or understood.

I made it through school with compensatory strategies, but the solutions of yesterday became the problems of tomorrow. I could only operate well under high-stress, last-minute, chaotic situations, relying on toxic perfectionism to mask my shortcomings. What worked in a competitive school system nearly killed me in the repetitiveness of corporate life.

ADHD is a missing puzzle piece that has silently governed EVERYTHING since day one. Getting this diagnosis has allowed me to revisit my past with clarity and navigate my life with a well-researched map, rather than relying on vibes and societal “shoulds” that don’t match my shape.

For example, my intuition knew corporate life smelled vaguely like death and that entrepreneurship was a better match. Now I know why.

I haven’t tried medication yet, but I’ve been learning a ton about ADHD strategies that are already making life much better. Having ADHD is like living with an EU plug in a world built for US plugs. Strategies are the adapter that lets me plug into modern society more functionally. Though ADHD is labeled a “disorder,” I don’t see it as a negative at all - it shapes where I struggle and also where I shine.

ADHD is simultaneously the most overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed disorder (I was skeptical of my own diagnosis for a while), so if you’re curious to learn more, I’ve been bingeing Dr. K’s YouTube channel and can’t recommend it enough.

outro

More than anything, this year instilled in me a renewed sense of agency and a deeper commitment to honesty in my life.

I now have a sharply reduced tolerance for environments where I’m told - explicitly or implicitly - to be someone I am not. I’ve lived there before, and no promise of external validation could ever entice me back.

This was the year I chose to intentionally DIY my environment from scratch, shaping it around my specific contours. It’s been a slow practice, one that began with solitude and required rebuilding nearly everything, guided by an unshakeable alliance with my intuition.

My plan for 2026 is to prioritize process over outcomes. I’ve tried yearly goals before - vision boards, target metrics, all of it - but binary success/failure states can be just as discouraging as they are motivating.

So this coming year, I’m taking a slightly different approach to remind myself what I’m working towards, and why. Here’s the framework I’m using.

You set your sun, moon, and stars.

The sun is your big, overarching goal for this season of life. For me, that’s building a sustainable living working for myself in a creative capacity. There’s nothing I want more right now.

The moon is something achievable within the next six to twelve months - a meaningful step toward your sun. My moon is finding a way to sustainably cover both my and my cofounder’s salaries through Figment within the year. Doing so would allow us to keep building without raising out of desperation from sources that might skew our incentives. Also, I don’t want to succeed into a life I hate. I want to love and enjoy my work as I’m building it.

The stars are more concretely scoped practices that move me toward my moon and sun. They aren’t goals to “complete,” but habits to return to: daily movement, settling into my home, improving our product, sharing more content, building community, and continuing to learn about ADHD.

I want to show up as a rawer version of myself with each successive day. I want to stay true to my inner world and allow it to be seen.

In 2026, I want to fall in love with the process of becoming.

Everything in my life is on hold.

I just need to get out of this slump.

It’s been nearly a year since we incorporated Figment Interactive Inc. on December 11, 2024, and recently I’ve been wrestling with a simultaneous dip in our momentum, my creative energy, and my sense of identity.

I’ve also spent the last four months doing the most boring, thankless work ever: refactoring our entire product. It was so boring that, over time, I became boring.

I feel like the textbook case for your actions become your habits become your identity. Four months of not taking care of my body and not doing the things I love has done its damage on my self esteem.

I need to find my spark again.

Momentum, Creativity, Identity

Momentum, creativity, and personal identity are all waves in this entrepreneurial journey that influence and interfere with each other.

Startups are all about momentum. After emerging from a flashy accelerator, the “coming out of stealth” mystery box grand reveal moment, changing your mind a few times, and having your guts ripped out a few more times, how do you return to the arena ready to throw a punch with wisdom, and not weariness?

And for a company whose momentum so deeply entangled with Eliot’s and my creative identities, how do we find stability in our work when the tsunami-sized waves of stress, learning, growth, and change keep reinventing who we think we are?

The Creative Cadence

Let’s understand how the pendulum swings.

My friend Athena came up with a concept I love: creativity is like breathing.
Breathing in is taking in ideas. Letting them marinate, entangle, collide into the shape of something new. Breathing out is creation.

I’ve learned to lean into this inhaling–exhaling cadence. Since creativity is so entangled with my sense of identity, this on-off rhythm has allowed me to step away, take myself apart, reassess who I’ve become, and rebuild myself in a way that feels authentic to each new version of me.

July 2024: Breathe in. I worked in my parent’s garage, talked to interesting people on the internet, read articles, tried out some games, and caught up on AI.

October 2024: Breathe out. We made our first game prototypes with Figment. I put my first video of myself on the internet - a terrifying, awkward uphill climb.

December 2024: Breathe in. I visited New York and caught a glimpse of the 20-something life in NYC through the eyes of an old friend.

January 2025: Breathe out. Developing and shipping experiments that intersect storytelling and play. In June 2025, I started putting videos out again, this time with a renewed confidence. The way I presented myself felt increasingly true to my inner world. As I put things out there, people hopped into my corner of the internet and I felt seen.

“I could just do this forever!” she thought.

She could not.

As the novelty of the new company tapered over time, a series of unfortunate and fortunate events - a cofounder breakup, 10 months of moving constantly, finally finding a home, and revisiting my life story through the revealing lens of undiagnosed ADHD-I - have molded me into a distinctly new shape I don’t recognize yet.

I am definitely not the Shubha I was in June. I could create like she would (people like her, right?) but it would just leave me feeling exhausted. I could no longer be seen through her work. I was someone else.

And so, I’ve taken a step away to reassess who I’ve become.

There’s actually a lot of fun in assuming and shedding identities throughout a lifetime. Deep within, they’re all cinched together by a core Shubiness that has always been, and will always be, consistent.

You can’t see her directly - you can only glimpse her through how she chooses to express herself in response to an ever-changing world

Get Me Out of Here!

Now that I’ve been through this creative ebb and flow process a few times during this company’s existence (and an exhausting number times during my own personal existence), I’ve figured out the rough shape of a path out of the slump that I’m currently in the process of enacting, if you haven’t already noticed:

Step 1: Sit in limbo. Be incredibly uncomfortable. ✅ Having been in a slump before, it’s a sucky place to be but do not be in a slump about being in a slump. That secondary emotion can cause a lot of damage. Trust that this too shall pass.

Step 2: Try on some new skins. ✅ Impulsively cut your own bangs. Incessantly deploy online rebrands of yourself. Let yourself respond to the new skin - do you like it? Do you completely hate it and need to bobby pin it away every day for the next year as it slowly grows past the awkward phase? All useful information.

Step 3: Write from the heart and toss it into the internet ocean. ✅ By nature of the medium, writing is a “safe space.” I assume anyone who has made the deliberate choice to go out of their way and read this long-ass-essay (hello there) has at least some level of baseline receptiveness, stability, and curiosity. By nature of the medium, Reels and Tweets do not require those things. I cloak myself in the steady, welcoming waters of essays before venturing back into the choppy and unpredictable seas of an Instagram or X.

Step 4: Gather any resulting momentum and feed it back into creating - a feedback loop! Anchor on how creating and sharing your work makes you feel seen. How it turns your experience from something you are alone in, into something that connects you with others. Start with low stakes, low judgement creative play and snowball up from there. Just keep putting things out there.

The only steady force that has strengthened momentum, creativity, and identity simultaneously for Figment and for myself has been exactly this: respecting the creative cadence and rediscovering myself in each new era through creative play.

And since we are an SF-native startup, I want to clarify my stance - no amount of guilt, self-flagellation, imposed 9-9-6, or forced discipline can outlast someone whose energy to create is rooted in joy. Creative play is the soul of our company and every output from Figment is an expression of that belief.

Creating is simultaneously a gentle question, “Who am I?” and a joyous discovery, “Oh, this is who I am!”

It’s the path I trust in now to lead me back to myself.

I had just spent the past few years wondering why I felt like a half-alive shadow of what I had once known to be myself.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying. I devoured self-help books (a late-blooming gene I’ve most certainly inherited from my erudite father) and gathered everything I had left of myself to show face on weekdays and weekends.

But the weekdays were not fulfilling. And the weekends were not restful.

In school, I might have grit my teeth and pushed through with the comforting promise of a summer reset around the corner. School is a series of finite games, where one plays to win the level and progress forward.

"What’s the point of all this?" is a strikingly different kind of game. This was the infinite game of life, where the entire point of playing is to continue the play.

And a mere three years out of school, I was rapidly losing steam.

I’d heard of this alluring and elusive concept of a life from an old Deepak Chopra cassette tape (thank you, dad), where your life is set up in such a way that actions taken generate more life energy than they expend. A magical state of flow that bubbles up to boundless energy and aliveness over the course of a lifetime.

For those three years of corporate life, any action I took consumed more energy (lost hours, frustration, boredom) than it created (fulfillment, learning). I knew in my gut that I was on a downward spiral that would ultimately lead to a death of some kind — physical, or in spirit.

I needed to get myself to baseline. But why not aim higher? I needed to get into the positive.

Unfolding

The word “unfolding” has been a constant mantra in my mind throughout this past year.

The concept is simple—consistently take iterative, intuition-led steps forward and your life gently builds around you, fitting your unique shape. There are no pre-defined destinations with unfolding. Just a rough feeling of aliveness that intuition slowly inches you towards.

The two core needs for an unfolding process to occur are:

1. Space to iterate

2. Intuition-led iteration

I resonated with the concept of unfolding so much that I’ve set up unfolding processes in nearly all of the key areas of my life. A few examples —

1. Finding Home: I decided to forgo signing a lease on an apartment in San Francisco (unlocking space to iterate) and opted instead for flitting around the Bay Area (intuition-led iteration) with my life bundled into a carry-on suitcase and backpack. I’ve stayed in 18 unique places in 2025 and have learned a monstrous amount about how and where I want to live.

2. Career: I decided to leave my corporate job (unlocking space to iterate) to work on a startup where we’ve been testing numerous ideas (intuition-led iteration) to understand both what my ideal working style and field of work are.

By nature, founding a startup is an unfolding process, likely due to the built-in freedom and iteration. In any well-defined corporate job there’s some implicit archetype to adhere to (the lone wolf engineer hunched behind a computer in a company hoodie; the extroverted, thought-leader VC who spams LinkedIn).

But with startups, you’re fully stewing in your own sauce at all times. There’s no archetype, just you. A company is really the founder's DNA embodied in a business.

Entrepreneurs are weird. It’s a beautiful weirdness of someone who has been rewarded for double, triple, quadrupling down on who they uniquely are.

0.99 vs. 1.01

At this point, my co-founder, Eliot, makes up at least one entire lobe of my brain. Here’s yet another piece of his genius: 0.99 vs. 1.01.

An example: Pixar was close, close, close to perfect as a job, but a 1% sized sliver of the pie was missing: the ability to use my creativity. I was forever stuck at 99%.

Working at Pixar, over time, mapped to

99% * 99% * 99%... = 0.99 * 0.99 * 0.99...

Each 0.99 or 1.01 is a multiplier on your happiness in a given moment. No matter how close we get to 1 (0.99999999999...), that tiny gap will always lead to exponential decay towards your unhappiest self over time. Conversely, if a decision rides even minutely above one (1.00000...1), it will always exponentially grow over time towards your happiest self.

I find this theory particularly compelling because it abstracts so elegantly to life's various dimensions. Every moment of every element in your life (career, relationships, lifestyle) functions as a multiplier on your overall happiness.

It’s particularly poignant when thinking about relationships. For one person, a relationship might be a 1.01, while for their partner, it might be a 0.99. This misalignment creates an inherent tragedy where one person grows happier while the other decays into unhappiness.

The key insight isn't finding perfection, but rather ensuring you're making "greater than 1" choices. There might be people or careers or decisions with larger multipliers, but anything >1 will lead to a steady improvement in your life, bringing you closer to your truest, happiest self. There is no singular "correct" choice.

Capping Downsides vs. Chasing Upsides

Capping downsides is playing to not lose. Chasing upsides is playing to win.

As a student, I poured everything into capping downsides. I was, as I call it, "brute forcing life" with the goal of making as few mistakes as possible.

And it worked, to a point. It brought me to good places, as no one could hold any big failures against me.

However, this strategy has a hard ceiling, bounded by the time and energy I have allotted to me as a human being. In order to break past that ceiling, I needed to start dropping some balls to move the most important ones further forward. I had to be bad at some things so I could be great at others. It meant shifting from minimizing losses to maximizing upside on the bets that mattered most.

Most of the challenges in this past year of building a company were, counterintuitively, not at all about company-building logistics. They were about people.

So then, why work with others at all? If they slow you down, disagree, or complicate things?

It’s because the upside is immense: someone who challenges your thinking, sparks inspiration, and pushes forward when you're tired is well worth the disagreements and delays. As the saying goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

This year of chasing upsides led me to:

• Start posting online despite fears of cringe or cancellation

• Build the exact type of creative tech company I’ve always dreamed about, despite brutal success odds

• Work with cofounders who’ve brought me further than I could have ever gone alone

One Year Later

One year of finding my way through this unmapped forest with intuition, iteration, a steeply reduced tolerance for 0.99s, and chasing upsides has allowed me to unfold into what I have dubbed the “Shubiest Shubha to date."

Failure no longer feels like an absolute end. I’ve been on this path long enough to know that even if this ends in flames, I would still have taken the leap back in July 2024 to become the version of myself that exists today.

A year ago, I was so worried about getting cancelled on the internet, failing publicly, if I could convince people to work with me, if I’d ever get out of my parent’s garage, if I’d have to go tail-between-my-legs back to a corporate job, and if entrepreneurship was actually something I wanted or something I was convinced into wanting. I could hardly sleep at night because I had no idea what I was doing.

One year later, I am pretty darn comfortable with being on the internet, failing publicly would make for a good story and an even better comeback, I have cofounders, I’m out of my parent’s garage in a weird but comfortable way (I catsit for housing), and I’d wholeheartedly move back in with my parents and start from square zero as many times as needed. I sleep a bit better at night because I’ve learned that nobody actually knows what they’re doing — we’re all just figuring it out as we go.

The only world I want to continue existing in (as of now) is one where I can build something of my own. No other mode of living as an adult has made me feel so alive.

One of my deepest existential struggles has been reconciling the dual identities of artist and engineer. For 26 years — and counting — I've been searching for the roughly Shubha-shaped hole where I might best fit into this world.

Intuition tells me there’s something I was meant to do with both art and engineering, but logic struggles to piece apart exactly how.

Did I choose engineering because I was born to Silicon Valley engineers and it was the only path to financial independence I understood at 17? Do I secretly long for the canvas? The stage? The pen?

Or maybe I was meant to keep my hobbies and work strictly partitioned — shield the things that make me feel most alive from the mind-numbing whip of monetizable creativity and the relentless pressure to produce more, more, more.

Maybe if I keep art very close but just outside the purview of the corporate eye, I’ll strike a perfect balance through building technical plumbing for artists and pursuing artistic hobbies on the side.

Or maybe I was meant to be a new media artist and have my work shown to elegant onlookers in cold museum halls.

Even when I tried to bring art and engineering as close as I possibly could, it was never enough. They never truly intersected. I struggled to see software as an art form in the way music, painting, or fashion are direct channels for expression.

After all, I can't really think of another artistic medium that is defined by such narrow metrics of “success.”

Software is usually considered “good” if it is efficient, elegant, and functional. That’s like saying, “Classical music is the most musical music to ever exist.”

When someone dares to pin Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 as the pinnacle of music, the deathcore band Infant Annihilator drops a track titled Childchewer, racks up millions of streams, and redefines what music can even be.

That’s why art is so beautiful.

There’s a near-infinite multiverse of expression that can come from any medium, precisely because there is no single right answer to what “good” even means. Any attempt to define a “correct” perspective directly births a counterculture. And so, our beautiful, complex, infinite multiverse of expression continues to expand.

I imagine there was a moment in history when “clothing” first became “fashion” — where it first served a role beyond utility and became a canvas for culture, identity, and self-expression. This shift from utility to expression was likely marked by technological developments that lowered production costs and increased accessibility. And that’s exactly what’s happening now with software and AI

There are many early innovators in the software-as-art realm. Games and new media have long foreseen the potential for software to transcend utilitarian design. For example, while traditional software optimizes for the fastest route from A to B, a game designer might deliberately introduce friction to carve out the most fun or meaningful path from A to B.

But outside of games and new media art, this ethos is still surprisingly rare in the software world. Can you imagine if fashion only existed on runways?

With the rise of AI-assisted coding and the dramatic reduction of time, energy, and (blood, sweat, and tears) needed to build software, I find my art brain churning as I spend my days re-learning how to build software in a way that is delightful, mischievous, and weird.

We’re entering a distinctly new era: code is the paint, AI is the paintbrush, and software is an art form.

Evolution of Artistic Mediums

Music is perhaps the most evolved artistic medium. Expression through sound was embedded in the human body — our voices, the first instrument.

The accessibility of music and the vast amount of time humans have had to further develop the medium has allowed music to develop a staggeringly broad spectrum of expression and deeply specific level of emotional nuance. This is why Spotify’s AI can create a “pink pilates princess grwm friday morning” daylist for me.

New mediums build on the ones that came before and expand on how we connect with ideas.

A song might vaguely gesture towards a mood or idea, but your own life experience — where you first heard it, who showed it to you, what memory it evokes — can reshape its meaning entirely.

Film, on the other hand, aggregates several crystallized sensory signals (colors, writing, soundtracks, foley, acting, set design, costume design, camerawork, editing, etc.) to create a window into external realities — a far more prescriptive experience than a song. This makes film an incredibly powerful empathy machine, allowing us to step into and inhabit lives far removed from our own.

The difference between a looser, suggestive storytelling form (like music) and a more prescriptive one like film is the number of storytelling dimensions allowed by the medium. This is the center of my interest in technology: how new tech unlocks new dimensions of freedom in art and expression.

Animation adds the dimension of imagined reality to traditional film. Games layer in interactivity — allowing you to live and evolve within a statically defined world. VR pushes the bounds of immersion on film and gaming, allowing us to choose our visual perspective.

Now, with AI, we stand at the threshold of another evolutionary and artistic leap. Software worlds that adapt and evolve alongside you.

The Experience Machine and Beyond (A Small Side Tangent)

This progression raises an interesting question: if we follow the pattern of adding new dimensions to existing mediums, where does this progression lead us?

Robert Nozick’s “Experience Machine” asks whether we’d choose to plug into a system that gives us any experience we desire — pure happiness, love, success — while we float in a tank, unaware it’s all a simulation.

Future immersive media might include direct neural stimulation — machines that replicate exact emotional states, memories, or sensations with biochemical precision (as imagined in Cyberpunk 2077).

As we unlock new storytelling dimensions, stories asymptotically become life itself — or whatever simulation we’re in.

Art, Entertainment, Distraction, & Addiction

For now, let’s back up a bit. The year is 2025, and the barrier to entry for authoring software has dramatically lowered.

With this shift, the floodgates are open and software is finally breaking free from the narrow metrics of “success” that have largely defined the last few decades of the medium.

It’s emerging as a fully expressive medium — like music or poetry. The everyday person’s love letters, grief, poetry, jokes, fears, and rebellion are authored through websites, mobile apps, and video games.

Additionally, AI enables software to evolve alongside the user. Stories become infinite, hyper-personalized, living worlds (what we’re exploring with Figment). Westworld is one robotics revolution away.

As with any powerful, emerging medium, both the good and the bad potential are amplified. Software, like music, like film, like games, can be used for art, entertainment, distraction — or addiction.

The video game industry has rightly been critiqued for engineering addiction into mind-numbing content. But on the other hand, video games like Journey make you realize just how achingly beautiful it is to be alive.

As with any medium, the most sincere, artistic visions often come from indie creators with something to say — not corporations with something to sell.

Video games have barely scratched the surface of their full artistic potential (Raph Koster touches upon this in A Theory of Fun for Game Design), but AI-powered tools are accelerating the process by empowering creators who are indie at heart to be epic in vision.

Artist and Engineer

So: am I an artist who happened to code, or an engineer who yearned to create?

My path is, and has probably always been, the one where those two identities are fully fused. Thanks to AI-assisted development, I can now fluidly inhabit both roles and I no longer feel split between two worlds.

Software is no longer purely an efficiency-first means to an end. It’s a medium in and of itself. And with the developments in AI, it is a living medium — one that evolves, responds, and collaborates.

I'm uncovering new little nuggets of Shubha as I rediscover software as an artistic medium. The motifs I tend to circle around in my work are delightful, mischievous, subtle, and clever, with a dash of the weird (think, frogs).

For example, I love creating software that appears ordinary at first but unravels into something more unexpectedly organic. Delight is in that moment when something familiar reveals itself to be uniquely strange and you find yourself surprised by joy.

As the medium of software evolves, so does my artistic voice.

When we see software as art, designing the brush is painting the picture, and there are really no rules other than to express something interesting.

This is where the artist and engineer in me finally converge.

P.S. Kid Pix was early on in the software-as-art game and is a huge inspiration! Hear from Mr. Kid Pix himself.

I.

Children have the freshest of brains. They are encoded with almost nothing except whatever was hardwired into us through millennia of evolution. I recently convinced my 3 year old niece that Narnia shows up in my closet from time to time.

“By the way, the back wall of my closet occasionally opens into a snowy forest with a beautiful witch who feeds me pink, rose-flavored Turkish delight. Does your closet do that?”

She hung onto every word as I spun some serious yarn.

The beauty of a fresh noggin is it allows for one to take in the world absent of the filters of judgment and preconception that we accumulate into adulthood.

As a child, we might struggle to navigate the world without the hard-earned knowledge of adulthood, but we see the Mona Lisa as she is — every brushstroke, every detail, every nuance, every subtle variation in color and texture — unfiltered by biases and judgments. We express freely, with little internal or external judgement impeding our path.

In the journey towards adulthood, our perception becomes increasingly pixelated, where each pixel represents an internalized “truth” about the world. This pixelization is a necessary happening: strong pattern-matching abilities help us navigate life with increased efficiency and reduced clunkiness. The pixels help us develop competence, navigate an infinitely complex reality, and find our place in society.

However, this maturation comes at a cost. As we cement and rely on pre-formed mental patterns, we begin to see the world in broad strokes — blocky, simplified, and reduced to its most basic elements.

We form strong biases and become increasingly judgemental. We categorize and label. We trade nuance for efficiency. We diminish our capacity to see things as they truly are.

As a child, my head was perpetually in the clouds. I was imaginative, curious, and perhaps a bit scattered. Somewhere out there exists a preschool video where I abruptly stop singing in a class performance as my expression goes deadpan I retreat into the void for about 3 seconds before I return to reality like nothing happened.

Through a series of competitive environments where failure is swift and judgement is harsh, my INTP Myers-Briggs melted into an INTJ. I learned to judge more than I perceived, and I became a well-oiled, highly functional machine.

There are two ways to progress from here.

A second coming of age may occur where one realizes — while increased pixelation might be a more efficient method of data storage, with too much of it, you really do lose sight of the bigger picture.

The “have tos” and “should bes” spouted by the archetypical adult wagging a stern finger has a definite point of diminishing returns. After we have developed enough patterns to survive in society, any added simplification of reality pushes us further away from our authentic selves until these patterns become so ingrained that we forget they're not actually part of us.

As we become increasingly rigid in our perception, we grow increasingly distant from our true nature.

I propose a second coming of age. This is for embracing nuance and how hilariously little we know about this reality we exist in.

This second coming of age is for reconnecting with our inner child.

II.

Now, I want to make an important distinction between being child-like and being child-ish. The former, when found in an elderly person or religious figure, is typically a source of immense delight with an underlying tone of deep wisdom — a “goofy master” of sorts (creds to Eliot). The latter reeks of stunted character development.

Being childish implies immaturity, ignorance, and a lack of awareness — essentially, the negative aspects of youth without the wisdom of experience. The goal here is to maintain the positive aspects of adulthood — responsibility, wisdom, competence — while reclaiming the wonder, openness, and authenticity of childhood.

This reconnection is a very intentional process of challenging our biases and judgments, both external and internal.This process isn't about regression or abandoning responsibilities; it’s about giving ourselves permission to be curious, playful, and open to new experiences. It also involves forgiveness. Namely, forgiving those who may have pushed us too hard to "grow up."

It's a state that combines the openness of childhood with the wisdom of adulthood. As Hannah Montana once wisely stated, you get the best of both worlds.

III.

When we successfully reconnect with our inner child, our perception begins to change. The heavily pixelated image starts to gain resolution. We see with more nuance, more detail, more clarity. We don't return completely to the unfiltered perception of childhood (nor would we want to, as adult wisdom serves important purposes). Instead, we find a middle ground.

We can use our adult understanding to beautifully frame what we see, while allowing room for our childlike openness to ensure we don't miss the details. We gain a richer, more textured experience of the world and ourselves.

This isn't a state we achieve once — it's a practice. It’s a deliberate choice to see the world and ourselves with more nuance, to challenge our biases, to remain open.

In this practice, we begin to "depixelate" our perception, and relearn how to paint like a child. We make our inner child's dreams come true with our adult capabilities, creating a life that honors both who we were and who we've become.

Well, well, well.

It's been two years since I've managed to string together anything coherently resembling a life reflection. ツ

My excuse here is that last December (2023), some of my most important arcs were left hanging untethered and unresolved. Fast forward a year, most of those arcs have landed and I find myself starting up on some new and exciting ones! More to come on that front soon (but not quite yet).

This is a 2024 piece so here’s what you get — If 2023 were an album, the song titles would read as follows:

1. John Muir Era

2. Solo in Japan

3. The Breakup

4. Roommate from Hell (Stress Dents in My Nails)

5. The Indefinite Hiatus

6. AI, AI Everywhere

7. Dating App

8. Sunrise Alarm Clock

9. My Phone is at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean

10. Air Mattress Season

11. Adult Friendships

12. India

13. More Than Friends?

Now, onto 2024.

As I reread my old recaps, 2024 was a weirdly parallel year to 2021.

But 2022 was an amazing year so if this cycle continues, I’m ready for 2025.

Oh, 2024. Never again.

In 2024, I saw myself turning a little more into my parents every day, decided the day-after-drinking tiredness is never worth it, started to prefer art that is lowkey ugly but different over anything that is obviously pretty but same same, drank more coffee than ever before, lost more sleep than ever before, almost never woke up early, picked up meditation, forgot how to relax, saw my first few friends get engaged and married, cocooned in my hometown, finally started wearing my glasses, and took up an interest in audiobooks.

Alongside these minor software updates, there were two major ones.

I.

As the prophecy hath foretold, my frontal lobe evolved. With this newly enlightened formation, it sunk in that this one life is the one I have, specifically with relation to my career.

Why am I burning unhappy hours building someone else’s dream?

For many years, I’ve had a miniature and mighty tiger mom sitting at the helm of my consciousness preaching salvation after just a little more delayed gratification.

The years of pushing upstream have propelled me to the fortunate shores of financial stability, optionality, and a job I’ve always dreamed of, but at age 25, this tiger mom’s singular focus on delayed gratification is beginning to lead me astray.

This year, I’ve reached an inflection point where downstream, flowing with my natural instincts while reconnecting with my inner child, is where I want to go.

Growing up is the solidifying of both intelligent and unintelligent patterns into our being. In many ways, I knew more at age 7, driven by instinct, than I do at age 25, driven by logic. While structure offers the comfort of certainty, rigid frameworks can only exist with serious holes in a reality that’s infinitely complex.

I’ve come to believe that the most truthful and helpful frameworks stem from trusting your gut, maintaining simplicity, and allowing a healthy room for uncertainty rooted in the humility that we are only human—there’s no way to really truly know.

In action, this looks like taking a deep breath, and giving back some control to 7-year old me. She knew what she was doing.

(Side note: At some point in 2023, Eliot surfaced the earth-shatteringly brilliant term “goofy master.” It has served as an amazing classifier for the kind of person I aspire to grow into by striking a joyful alliance with my inner child — namely, Uncle Iroh.)

To tackle this constant uncertainty I feel about my career path forward, I’m relying on the mantra, “What you do will lead to more of the same.” While the next step might not be perfect, small steps in a direction that feels right should do the trick.

II.

Apart from a career/life pivot, 2024 handed me another gift: proper solitude. Not the gentle kind that comes with friends down the street, but the echoing kind that comes with far away friends and living alone.

When September rolled around and I moved out of my apartment, trading one quiet space for another in my hometown, I had logged enough solo hours to notice something curious: isolation helped me carve new internet habits and new paths in my brain.

(Disclaimer: While this isolation was helpful in some ways, I was definitely not living as God had intended and January will mark my re-emergence into society.)

Through solitude and some careful curation, the internet transformed from a desolate wasteland of cheap dopamine and envy into my vibrant and inspiring window to the world of people.

Born into a gray world of B2B SaaS workplace productivity software, I dug myself into corners of the internet where soft and creative engineers built playful technology that’s meant to help you feel more human and alive in a digital-first world.

My internet feeds quickly became dotted with delightful creators broadcasting who they are and what they stand for. By planting their flags in the digital soil, they served as curators for little pockets of the internet where like-minded communities gathered.

I grew a deep, deep, deep appreciation for how the internet, when wielded intentionally and carefully, can be a powerful way to find or build a community specific to who you are.

Understanding this positive use case for the internet re-sparked a dormant desire that I’ve held for many years: to share more of my work online. As anyone who has held an inkling of this notion knows, the immediate follow up thoughts are overwhelming and terrifying. “What would people think if I put myself up for judgement on the internet?”

This is where the prolonged solitude comes in.

Through the slow weaning off of relying on other human beings for any needs (which is by no means an optimal way to live, do not recommend), the anxiety began to lose its footing as, “What would people think?” became “What people?”

I’ve become far more comfortable with what feels like totally embarrassing myself on the internet, as long as it’s good and honest. I know what feels a shout into the void could actually be a message in a bottle sent out algorithmically to people who might resonate and find their way back to me. My hope is that together, we can build out a pocket of reality that feels more like home.

This year has left me a little weary but wiser. I’m stepping into 2025 with a ton of optimism and excitement for what’s ahead. As a friend recently pointed out, I tend to swing between life extremes — a useful way to gather data but an absolutely terrible way to exist as a human being. So for 2025, no grand plans — just a simple intention to find balance, reconnect with my inner child, put myself out there a bunch, and take small, small, baby steps towards the Shubha of my dreams.

I. Three years

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to spend the last three years of my life at Pixar.

During this time, I’ve worked on five animated feature films: Turning Red (2022), Lightyear (2022), Elemental (2023), Elio (2025), and Hoppers (2026). I started out as a Rendering Technical Director on Turning Red where I polished and delivered the film’s final frames, optimized renders for a complex act three with thousands of crowds characters and a gigantic furry panda, and helped produce the film’s 4k version. 

Later on, I became a Technical “Sequence” Lead for 21 sequences across three films — building what needed to be built, unsticking anything that needed to be unstuck, wearing any hat that needed to be worn, and shepherding each sequence through the production pipeline from start to finish. I concluded my time at the studio as a Rendering/Pipeline Lead where I architected the rendering pipeline for Hoppers while maintaining a close partnership with development teams to push artistic boundaries while ensuring technical feasibility.

The rumors are true — Pixar is a wondrous, magical place.

The studio excels at cultivating an environment for creatives through talks from visiting artists (some big names from while I was there include Taylor Swift, Greta Gerwig, Ryan Gosling, and Guillermo Del Toro), a comprehensive educational curriculum, and a co-op program which enables employees to borrow studio resources for personal projects. 

The campus is a striking site to see: life-sized Pixar characters stand sentinel in corridors, gallery walls showcase designs and storyboards from the latest films, and artists transform mundane corporate spaces into enchanted realms — Disneyland-caliber witch's cabins, submarines, taco stands, saloons, speakeasies, and Chinatowns.

Once, as I was giving my mom and sister a tour of the campus, we caught onto the tune of a cello echoing sweetly through my building’s wooden hallways. We followed the sound to a smiling cellist who spontaneously performed an exquisite, tender rendition of The Swan before recounting memories of time spent with Steve Jobs. That cellist was Yo-Yo Ma.

And as wonderful as all of this sounds, it pales in comparison to Pixar's most valuable and often understated asset: its people. I’ve discovered that the people who work in animation and gaming—where a launch into celebrity or wealth are rare, the hours are demanding, play is sacred, and artistry is abundant—are some of the most internally driven, curious, multi-talented, tasteful, and humble individuals I’ve ever met.

I know it’ll be a long search to find even a fraction of this utopic creative haven elsewhere.

II. Adieu

Three months ago, I left Pixar. 

There is a very distinct pain that comes with identifying as a creative and being a part of the most creative company in the world, yet realizing that you are, in fact, a plumber: someone who facilitates art's creation but has no direct influence on its voice.

I believe that this disconnect stems partly from working within a large, established production company where roles are hyper specialized and a strong divide exists between the "technical" and "creative" aspects of filmmaking. There are less than a handful of exceedingly rare, terrifyingly talented technical artists who adeptly traverse both realms. My read is that they exist despite the system by going against the grain, and not because of it.

Additionally, the animation industry has undergone seismic shifts over the last few years: a streaming wars-driven production boom, pandemic-altered theater markets, labor strikes, streaming's questionable profitability, and audiences increasingly gravitating toward other media formats (short-form video & gaming). Given these turbulent headwinds, large-scale productions, particularly time-intensive and expensive ones like animation (recent Pixar feature films have typically commanded $200 million budgets), must guarantee extraordinary success to justify their creation. 

Consequently, studios are increasingly relying on proven IP, stamping out sequels and franchise films that are verified for mass appeal and will reliably outperform original content at the box office. Five out of seven of the upcoming films from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios are sequels. We, the consumers, continue to vote with our dollars to further secure a future on the big screen where business imperatives take precedence over artistic vision. 

Then there’s the elephant in the room — AI. While generative AI has yet to “disrupt” the industry (as salivating, vulturous tech-bros continue to encircle and close in on artists like they’re weakened prey), there will definitely be changes to the animation industry as the cost of creation comes down alongside the costs of rendering and compute. 

However, I'm less concerned about stable diffusion AI-generated content competing directly with Pixar — at best, it would achieve similar visual quality with less craftsmanship. I’m more interested in the new interaction patterns and media types that weren’t possible or common before AI such as hyper-personalization and interactive storytelling. It seems to me that the "next Pixar" — the genuine technological breakthrough that advances storytelling and world-building — will likely emerge from the confluence of film and games.

It was a weighted combination of these elements, some weights higher than the others, that led to my decision to pull away from Pixar and plunge into the unknown, whatever that might be.

III. What’s next?

You’re likely to spot some odd, hopefully charming, probably cringe, decidedly earnest works from me over the next few months as I bumble about and find my footing. It’s been a bit over three months so far (two months of traveling and one month of bumbling). Apart from the generalized anxiety of not knowing what’s next, I feel pretty good. 

I'll close with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt which inspired me to take this leap.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The Hubble Deep Field images were groundbreaking observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope in the mid-1990s, initiated by astronomer Robert Williams. The project involved pointing the telescope at an apparently empty patch of sky in the constellation Ursa Major for 10 consecutive days, collecting light from extremely faint and distant galaxies. The resulting image, containing over 3,000 galaxies of various ages, shapes, and colors, revealed the universe to be far more complex and populated than previously thought.

The last eighteen months came with almost more changes than I could handle—the most pivotal of which was ejecting myself from the stable confines of pre-built systems after 17+ years of schooling followed by three years of corporate work to pursue  “my own thing,” a path as exhilarating as it is undefined. Every day is a fresh cocktail of mixed emotions: the intoxicating thrill of starting from scratch mingled with the sobering weight of needing to make it work. 

Amidst this daily tumult, there consistently remains an ever-growing sense of optimism, a strengthening sense of control in my life, and a rediscovered, child-like sense of awe in how infinite, continuous, and complex the world is.

I recently unearthed this tweet (above) about using the internet like a telescope to peer far beyond our immediate purview and seek out values, lifestyles, and “the others” who align with who we uniquely are. 

Once we’ve cleared through the noise of platforms, junkified with cheap dopamine hits and someone-always-trying-to-sell-you-something, and curated our online corners to aid us in our search, the internet becomes an engine of boundless opportunity and excitement with which we can begin shaping our very real world.

In the near future, starting with this piece, I’m hoping to write a bit more often to let “the others” know who I am and where to find me.

I. The Rise of AI

Every day is a new headline spelling doomsday for us in the film industry. The culprit of this prophesied calamity is almost always (or always, when traced back far enough) AI.

With all of the leaps and bounds made with generative AI tooling in recent years, the arts have emerged as the first target to be AI’d into obsoletion. Lacking the powerful army of legal and cash flooded soldiers to fight by their side, artists are left with their life’s work being reduced to a mere AI prompt.

And as much as we try to put a halt to AI’s potential by citing every moral dilemma, legal injustice, and well-founded fear of dystopian realities coming to fruition, there is simply no stopping it — unless our profoundly capitalistic society chooses to collectively shun the most significant “value add” in all of human history, for all time.

What does this mean for me, as a 3D animated filmmaker at Pixar Animation Studios, a studio best known for the painstaking human effort behind each and every meticulously crafted detail on screen? Do we bow in resigned defeat rendered obsolete by our new AI overlords? Are we to be among the first casualties in this new age?

II. Evolution of the Industry

I liken this period of history to when hand held cameras, film editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, and platforms like YouTube made the process of capturing, editing, and distributing film accessible to the masses, effectively democratizing access to live action filmmaking in the early 2000s.

Animation is a ruthlessly time and labor-intensive affair. It’s still the case that only the rarest of individuals with truly colossal resources and near-impossible-to-attain levels of skill could hope to create an studio-quality 3D animated film, end-to-end, entirely on their own.

The immensely complex 3D filmmaking pipeline consists of screenwriting, editing, concept art, storyboarding, modeling, rigging, shading, characters, sets, layout, animation, simulation, effects, crowds work, lighting, compositing, and rendering. Crafting animated feature films takes years upon years of time with mass amounts of compute and hundreds of highly specialized technicians and artists.

I remain more optimistic than ever about the future of 3D filmmaking. With the recent advancements in generative AI, I do acknowledge that animation is one of the best-positioned industries to be disrupted by AI technologies in the near future. Much like hand held cameras and editing software did for live action content, AI, generative and otherwise, in tandem with advances in real-time rendering and distributed computing, will democratize the ability for a single person to make high quality 3D animated films from end-to-end on their own.

Technically, I make my living in service of the Great Mouse. While I unfortunately have no useful insider information on the matter, I was intrigued to hear about Disney’s recent massive investment in Epic Games in February 2024, giving them a 9% stake in the company.

While the public angle was “bringing Disney into the metaverse,” sending the company’s most cherished animated personalities to wander around and interact with us commoners in a game-type virtual environment, it’s hard to ignore how Epic Games has also developed one of the most powerful setups for democratized animated filmmaking — Unreal Engine.

Self-advertised as “The most powerful real-time 3D creation tool,” Unreal Engine comes with comprehensive tools for animated filmmaking, complete with vast libraries of free assets and a robust real-time rendering engine which allows for rapid iteration and clean final renders.

Unreal starkly contrasts with Disney’s tooling, which is advanced by all means, but is largely inaccessible to the masses and is not meant for use cases any smaller than a well-funded production house.

Disney’s partnership with Unreal Engine is an acknowledgement of the impending 3D revolution from the industry giants. With this forged alliance, they have strategically positioned themselves to weather the chaos of AI and emerge as frontrunners when the landscape of 3D completely changes.

III. The Future of 3D Filmmaking

Generative AI is a small hint of what AI can truly change in the animation industry. While generative AI video generators like Sora, Pika, and Runway lack the controllability and reproducibility to create high quality films off-the-bat which can stand beside the likes of Pixar, Disney, and Dreamworks, the innovation of text-to-video also enables text-to-3D (as depth information can be pulled from videos), making AI-asset generation a possibility. These AI generated 3D assets can be cleaned and refined to perfection. Similarly, there are several companies and research projects focused on infusing specific domains in the 3D pipeline with AI, such as AI-based animation autocomplete and AI-based rigging.

As this trend advances, AI will increasingly facilitate every piece of the 3D pipeline with humans providing initial guidance via prompting and refining the final output to perfection. These innovations democratize filmmaking such that one does not necessarily need to have highly specialized knowledge about highly specialized tooling in a highly specific domain to be able to participate in 3D filmmaking.

Instead, it’ll be possible to create an animated film end-to-end as an individual by having a breadth of knowledge about the basics across all domains within the 3D pipeline, coupling that with a strong sense of artistic taste to understand what makes an output genuinely good, and being able to refine that output to perfection.

In this era of democratized 3D filmmaking, storytellers can make 3D animated films as easily as a teenager wielding a smartphone camera can produce short-form video content. In this world, all of us who joined the animation industry with the desire to tell great stories are no longer limited to a life of pushing a handful of pixels for large corporations (which prefer to fund stories with mass appeal in order to turn astronomical profits). We will no longer have to claw our way forward for the opportunity to be a creative and share our stories with the world.

So, are we filmmakers to be amongst the first to take the hit in this new era of AI?

Perhaps, initially.

Initially, many of our skill sets with specific tooling and the mechanics of filmmaking will be made obsolete and we will have to upskill on the next generation of tools built with AI. This was expected — we signed ourselves up for being career learners the moment we chose to work in an innovative industry marked by ever-changing technology. However, our cultivated passion and taste for making great art is a thriving quality in a world where AI has shifted the balance of things.

In this new era where execution is made easy, creativity reigns as king.

I’m Shubha. I write about computer graphics, tech, life, and anything else I find interesting! Feel free to check out my website for more odds and ends — shubhaj.com

I find myself on the doorstep of 2023 not quite knowing where I am on this expedition or why I’m here. 2022 was a wild road trip — a year of nonlinear growth. I can’t tell if this windy, mountainous road of highs and lows has brought me to a better place than where I started out. However, I do look back and take in that the journey here has shaped me beyond comprehension.

This was the year of evening concerts, weekend hikes, middle parts, and the color green. A year of reconnecting with art in its many forms, falling in deeper love with film, leaning into friendships, and learning how to do life a little better. I lived in four separate locales, co-resided with three proud feline personalities, and technical directed for two feature films.

Around three homes and two cats into the year, I discovered Brené Brown’s game-changing book, Atlas of the Heart.

Brown guides readers through the complex jungle of human emotion, detailing each species and subspecies in the ecosystem. Some of the emotions that we seek to cultivate live symbiotically with ones we crave to eradicate. Others live parasitically, threatening to collapse the forest if left unchecked. Brown gives each shade of emotion a meaningful place in life and with it, paints a story of what it means to be human.

I’m abandoning growth as my measuring stick for this year. With definition snippets from Atlas of the Heart in hand, I remember and celebrate the spectrum of experiences which came with being human on this Earth for yet another circle around the sun.

“I define joy as an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.”

Joy has been every moment I’ve spent in the quiet presence of nature. 2022 marked the beginning of my fervent love affair with nurturing a small army of houseplants, each new unfurling leaf acting as a catalyst to rapidly intensify my addiction. As my love of nature outgrew my apartment’s floor space, I spent many a weekend hiking amidst the trees and relishing the chance to simply coexist alongside the gentle giants.

“If you’re afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy — if you find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop — you are not alone. It’s called ‘foreboding joy,’ and most of us experience it.”

Foreboding joy was in imposter syndrome, my consistent, apprehensive companion with every new exciting career opportunity. “Now you’re going to have to prove yourself to be worthy of this,” it hisses through a forked tongue. This year, foreboding joy’s challenge enlivened in me a desire to prove my doubtful self wrong.

“Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”

Vulnerability was finally saying yes to asking for help with my mental health. After nearly a decade of thinking myself into cavernous depressive holes and hoping I could think myself out of them, I sought help via therapy and medication which gave me the lifeline I’d denied myself for so many years.

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

Connection was in watching films which illustrated how beautiful the highs and lows of life can be. My favorite movie of the year, Cha Cha Real Smooth, was a lightning strike of a reminder on how film can change the lens through which we look at our own lives. As a film about a recent college graduate navigating adult life, it was a mirror through which I recognized my own growing pains and was able to reframe them as essential character development in a greater story.

“Envy occurs when we want something that another person has.”

Envy was in wishing I could be traveling and seeing the world while strapped to a desk job as a corporate worker bee. The algorithms training on my finger swipes rapidly discovered my forbidden wishes and responded with taunting videos romanticizing quitting ones career to travel and reside in a motely of European cities. I don’t think this means of living is much of a tangible reality for me, nor would it lead to my long term fulfillment, but still, the envy was proving difficult to shake.

“Gratitude is an emotion that reflects our deep appreciation for what we value, what brings meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves and others.”

Gratitude is a practice I’ve been working to weave into the fabric of my day as a means to harvest more happiness from what I have and placate the restless beast of discontent. I was humming with gratitude every time I made the Bay Bridge commute to San Francisco and caught a glimpse of the city skyline, ever transforming with the passing of seasons. It was always a reminder of the years I’d spent wishing for the life that I get to lead today.

“Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, work perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Adulthood offers the gift of unbounded possibilities and infinite choices. Perfectionism was in nearly driving myself mad with decision fatigue, thrashing between pathways and believing there was always an optimal choice to pursue. Unraveling this knot of a mindset has been a process of embracing stillness, trying to erase the toxicity in my discipline, and learning to rest without guilt.

“Curiosity is recognizing a gap in our knowledge about something that interests us, and becoming emotionally and cognitively invested in closing that gap through exploration and learning.”

An insatiable curiosity settled in as I delved deeper into an assortment of hobbies this year and discovered photography at the intersection of painting, rendering, and film. The YouTube and Instagram rabbit holes served an unbounded feed of content to keep me aware of my knowledge deficit and positively sprinting on the hamster wheel of curiosity.

“Anger is an emotion that we feel when something gets in the way of a desired outcome or when we believe there’s a violation of the way things should be.”

Anger was in every blow suffered by women’s rights this year: the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the murder of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian government’s response to the resulting protests, and the increasingly suffocating laws of the Taliban regime. This is anger I wish to never normalize or numb over.

“Awe inspires the wish to let shine, to acknowledge and to unite. When feeling awe, we tend to simply stand back and observe, ‘to provide a stage for the phenomenon to shine.’”

Awe was in the nights of looking out into the stars and trying to comprehend the magnitude of the universe. The night sky is an ever-present reminder of how little is known of our universe and how each piece of this world holds in it, a universe of its own: every person I’ve met, every place I’ve been, and every moment of this year.

And with that, the 2022 season comes to an end.

The Guest House

Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
 Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
 some momentary awareness comes
 as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
 Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
 who violently sweep your house
 empty of its furniture,
 still, treat each guest honorably.
 He may be clearing you out
 for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
 meet them at the door laughing,
 and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
 because each has been sent
 as a guide from beyond.

When I tell people I work as a Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios, I typically get one of two responses.

1. Wow, you’re a Director? At Pixar?! (Haha, nope.)

2. Oh. So, what does that mean?

Like most folks, the me I was three years ago had not one single clue about what went on in the obscured, enigmatic world of film beyond the art I witnessed on-screen. I just assumed animation studios hired, well, animators.

The field of 3D animated films, which was largely born out of Ed Catmull’s pipe-dream-turned-revolution of making the very first feature-length animated film which we know now as Toy Story, is not too much older than 22-year-old me. It’s a field where we have quite a bit figured out, but also have a long ways to go. With each film, the story pushes the technology and the tech pushes the story.

By exploring the boundaries of what worlds can be brought to life if we just inch up our technical prowess a teeny-tiny bit more, we’ve seen Toy Story with a few animated characters move to Bug’s Life with hundreds of animated crowds. We’ve seen the world of pin-straight hair and hair shells give way to a vast array of possible textures and styles, addressing the need for more diverse stories that we so desperately need in Hollywood. Animation studios have been able to make incredibly complex characters made out of light, covered in fur, or with mind-blowingly realistic skin. Just look at how far things have come from Incredibles to Incredibles 2.

What Brought Me Here

I’ve always held onto a strong passion for both the arts and sciences and knew I would have to continue with both, somehow, in order to find a career which felt truly authentic to who I was.

I got my first taste at the studio environment as an intern with the Walt Disney Animation Studios Pipeline Engineering group. While I didn’t work directly on the films that were in the works, Frozen 2, Raya and the Last Dragon, Encanto, or Strange World, I learned from folks across the studio, attended Production Technology meetings, sat in on a scratch recording session, walked through war rooms filled with concept art from in-progress films, attended movie screenings, and stayed late scrolling through the latest work published from the day. I sat in on talks which ranged from machine learning-based denoising algorithms to how the three act structure of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse matches that of the 2007 coming-of-age comedy-drama Juno.

My takeaway from that summer was that animation studios are an environment of constant learning and change where art and technology are at their peaks individually and blossom together. I cherished that learning and collaboration were so central to each and every piece of work done in production. And not to forget, the alluring reality that these studios are releasing work that has a far-reaching impact being viewed all over the world. I was reminded, on a daily basis, that we were in a sense, writing history.

I wondered how I would best fit into this world.

Technical Roles in a Studio

With my background in Computer Science, I saw a variety of studio roles in which my technical skills could be of use in a studio setting. From my experiences with Disney Animation and Pixar, I mentally, roughly group the technical roles into the following:

• Research: The studio research teams work like academics, conducting high-level research, but are still slightly attached to the film’s production by following the general trajectory of where studio technology aims to be in a few years. They seem to not be tied to a particular movie as their work has an overarching impact on all productions. People on these teams have very deep knowledge in specific areas.

• Tools: The tools engineers work to develop and maintain the proprietary software used within the studios. They also are separate from each individual film and their work is meant to have an overarching impact on all films. Some of the tools they create are software used for creative processes in the film (modeling, rigging, shading, animation, etc). Others are internal tools used for tracking and viewing work done in the studio.

• Pipeline/Infrastructure: These are the teams I associate with maintaining the on-site render farm and ensuring all of the systems used within the studios are operating optimally. These teams do a fair amount of firefighting and are the studio’s reliable technical support system.

• Technical Directors: These are folks who are assigned to one specific film and work within an assigned department to aid in the making of that film. Technical Directors have roles spanning the full tech-arts spectrum. Where on that spectrum you lie depends partially on which department you operate in and partially on the sub-role you hold within that department. There are hundreds of Technical Directors in Pixar working in departments all the way from Modeling to Rendering.

As a Technical Director, the cadence of my work is that I am “cast” onto a film in a particular department in a specified role and I “roll off” onto my next film once that department is finished doing their part on the show. I’m typically on a show for half a year to a year before moving onto the next one (with the potential for a break in-between, if I so wish). I work at the technical end of the tech-arts Technical Director spectrum with the Rendering department and most folks on my team have a background in Computer Science.

Rendering is the process of capturing the final frames of the film. Consequently, we work at the tail end of the production pipeline, churning out final-quality shots to be shown and reviewed by the director for approval. It requires knowledge about the rendering process and computer graphics in general as we often need to conduct deep-dive investigations of artifacts we spot in the final frames of the film. I see my role as being the “grease on the wheel” that is production, ironing out any final kinks in the shots to output clean final frames. Within our team, folks have their particular areas of expertise and have the freedom to take ownership on whatever projects best fit their skills.

Within the technical side of the Technical Director role, career growth mainly takes on one of two tracks — the IC (Individual Contributor) track and the “Lead” track. ICs typically become better and better at their job with the highest level ICs being Technical Principle Artists who are pretty darn good (probably the highest studio-level expert) at what they do. Within the “Lead” track, folks become one of a few Leads for their department, then the Supervisor for their department, and perhaps even the VFX Supervisor (the single overarching technical lead for the movie). These are not necessarily career “levels” in a strict sense as folks can go back and forth, depending on their interests and the needs of different shows. For example, a Supervisor who feels a bit out of touch with more hands-on work can choose to operate as an Individual Contributor for a show and build back some of those skills.

From my experience at the studio, folks are encouraged to stay within their department and really become the expert in what they do. However, there are opportunities, when your desires and the needs of a show align, to do a “rotation” in a different department. I would personally be interested in doing rotations with the Global Technology, Sets Tech, and Studio Tools teams in Pixar.

Pros and Cons

In making my decision to leap out of the known world of big tech and Software Engineering and into the world of animation studios and Technical Directing, I made more than my fair share of pros and cons lists. Here’s what I’ve built up over the years so that it can serve as the base for yours, if you choose to go down this path.

Pros

• You get to be involved on a specific film working alongside artists. The sense of ownership and pride in being able to point to a film and say “I made that” is truly unparalleled. Working so closely with coworkers on such a beloved project provides a strong sense of satisfaction and camaraderie within the crew.

• You frequently change projects, allowing for variety within your role. If you don’t like things right now, it’s comforting to know that it’s not going to be this way forever. This also allows you to obtain a variety of skills and grow both your technical and artistic acumen if you so choose.

• You have the option to take a long break between projects to rest or to travel and see the world. Life is more than just work.

• Computer Graphics is a growing field (especially now with so many companies taking their bets on the metaverse and the emergence of many new studios making original streaming content) so optionality has never been better.

• There’s always the option to go back into Software Engineering and Big Tech, if you so choose.

• You have the ability to influence the culture of the studio and representation on screen if you choose to take a stand, be a leader, and use your voice to speak up for social justice. I’ve witnessed a lot of such change in the 10 months I’ve been at Pixar.

• You get to share your work and celebrate the release of each movie with the whole world. It’s a feeling like no other and a brief reminder that you are somehow connected to the dazzling world of Hollywood and the film industry.

• There is a culture of constant learning and teaching within studios, since we are constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

• You get to work with a lot of highly motivated and talented people, not to mention the folks who founded this field of 3D animation are still actively floating around in the workforce and you may get to work with them.

Cons

• The pay is not comparable to that you would get at a big tech company.

• You may have demanding hours during crunch periods.

• It’s very difficult to live as a digital nomad. Our work setups are difficult to transport form place to place and Pixar seems to wants folks back in the studio in the long run.

• The emphasis on developing expertise in a specific area makes it difficult to explore, something I think is important in your early career.

• Due to low turnover at Disney Animation and Pixar, upward mobility is difficult.

• Sometimes it can feel like you’re chipping away at small details and you wonder if you’re really having an “impact” with your work.

• There aren’t many “new grad” roles so the “cohort” aspect of simultaneously joining with other people your age is not quite there.

• I am a minority, in age, gender, and ethnicity, in my department. On the flip side, a pro would be that this is an opportunity to set up a path for others like me.

Setting Yourself up for Opportunities in Animation Technology

I typically dish out these pieces of advice to folks who are interested in pursuing this kind of career.

• Make a list of studios/companies you would like to apply to and check out their careers sites. Here are the sites for Disney Animation and Pixar which I applied through.

• Apply for a variety of roles, even if you’re not sure whether you’re qualified. Don’t hold yourself back!

• Look into learning more about the Animation Pipeline and tools via online courses like Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy or Blender tutorials on YouTube.

• Try to make a portfolio via a demo reel or a website with your projects. Graphics is a very visual field, even on the technical side, so visuals will go a long way.

• Look into attending SIGGRAPH, the main conference for Computer Graphics. It’s a great way to survey the field and get connected with some important players. If you are a student, there are volunteer opportunities and scholarships!

I’m Shubha. I write about computer graphics, tech, life, and anything else I find interesting! Also, I make cartoons for a living @ Pixar Animation Studios — shubhaj.com

This year was the year I built back my habit of reading. Being a bookworm was a defining part of my identity as a kid with many blissful hours spent befriending the local librarian, hovering impatiently over bookshelves in anticipation of the latest book drop in a series, and excitedly consuming books whole in marathon reading sessions.

Around high school, something changed. I stopped reading for fun.

It’s not that I didn’t try with continuing to read in high school and college. I read a decent amount, flitting from book to book, hoping to get back the spark which would launch me back into my voracious reading habit. I did come across the occasional gem, either amidst the required reading from school or my own selections. The overall level of enjoyment I gleaned from it, however, was really not even remotely comparable to what I experienced as a kid. Getting through books felt like a chore. I would inadvertently be counting the pages, checking how far through I was, and constantly thinking “Get to the point!” when I should have been enjoying the meandering, descriptive nature of artistic storytelling.

There were several reasons I dropped reading as a habit.

1. I dropped the habit of making frequent visits to libraries. As the barrier to entry for discovering new and exciting books increased, it became too easy to say reading is too hard. The most popular books seemed to be perpetually on hold, I was irregular in returning library books and had to settle my fare share of fines, and buying books seemed like an unnecessary expense for a frugal student living off of part-time job and gift money.

2. My time was fractured by being a student and I cared more about spending my free time fostering friendships than sitting in an isolated corner with my nose buried in a book. I simply couldn’t justify dumping large bouts of time into the multi-day, late-night reading sessions I once enjoyed.

3. Probably the biggest reason was that I didn’t know what types of books I enjoyed anymore. Somewhere along the way, my tastes had changed. The books I did select based on prior knowledge of myself were typically misses. One unfortunate thing people never told me when I was younger is that getting older means you start to notice patterns which make the experiences which once seemed striking and innovative seem dull and unoriginal. I was also perpetually influenced by this idea of what I should be reading, in a way one wouldn’t expect. I’d spent a lot of my childhood flouting my parent’s wishes for me to read “useful” (non-fiction, historical, biographical, self-help etc.) books in favor of reading and re-reading fictional fantasies which stirred my imagination. It never even occurred to me that I could grow into enjoying the “useful” sort of books.

So, the portion of my identity tied to reading took a back seat. However, life without reading is a life with little learning. Reading is the grease on the wheel that keeps our desire for knowledge and growth churning. Even reading so-called “useless” books as a kid inspired my love of writing, poetry, and engaging storytelling which shaped the way I view the world.

In the fall of 2021, I finally turned to face the roaring beast of a post-grad existential crisis I’d been turning a blind eye to for a number of years. In keeping busy hopping from distraction to distraction and focusing on doing over being, I fell out of touch with how I could enjoy simply existing by myself.

This is when I rediscovered reading.

Like, really reading. Not perusing through articles or posts which held my attention for a minute or two before I swiped down for the next dopamine hit. Not doomsday scrolling the New York Times once a day to drown in the disasters befalling our world. I mean discovering new ideas which constantly reshape how I view the world around me or living through a book where the images are so vivid the world around me just fades away.

Here’s how I did it.

1. I made it easy. In order to find and access my books, I have the Kindle App downloaded on my laptop, tablets, and phone. Sure, I’m one of those people who prefers a physical book over a digital one. But at the end of the day, I’m more likely carry along at least one device with me than to haul around a book at all times. With using the Kindle app for reading, there’s no need to buy a Kindle device, go to the library, or frequent a book store. Of course, having a full-time job helps me justify the money I spend on buying books. However, in general, Kindle books are cheaper than their physical counterparts and it’s an amazing feeling knowing that you can always carry your entire library with you as long as you have at least one device on hand.

2. I reassessed my relationship with reading and time. There are so many cracks in our day which we fill with scrolling on our phone — why not make it scrolling through a book? Before I go to bed, while I’m eating lunch solo, or when I’m waiting in a lunch line at work I’m on my phone, reading. I also swapped out my solo TV time for book time and only watch television when I’m with friends or on a machine at the gym. Although the micro-doses of book time steeply contradict my old, cherished habit of spending massive chunks of time reading, I’ve learned to glean the same sense of enjoyment by reading in smaller amounts but more consistently.

3. Reading doesn’t need to be an activity of isolation. It’s an opportunity to soak in the ambiance of a new reading spot, as long as one takes the (literal) extra steps to go somewhere nice instead of sitting in the same isolated corner. Additionally, reading the same book as a friend is an unconventionally social, shared experience. The most fascinating topics I’ve encountered in books frequently work their way into my conversations and often spur enriching debates and discussions with my friends.

4. Lastly, and most importantly, I rediscovered the type of books I enjoy. After years of dodging non-fiction in favor of creative books which boggled my imagination, it took a minute for me to realize that my tastes had changed. While I still enjoy the occasional sci-fi, mystery, or fantasy novel, the books which consistently grip me nowadays are those which give me reasons to be fascinated with the world around me. It took a fair amount of clues, a creeping interest for documentaries/based-on-real-life films and an unprecedented — dare I say it— interest in politics, for me to realize what seemed impossible was a reality. I’ve morphed into that lowdown, buttoned up, sensible adult I never intended on being. Heck, oh well.

On that note, here are some of the books I’ve read recently or am currently reading that I would recommend to a friend!

1. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson: the first of a popular dark high fantasy series

2. The Overstory by Richard Powers: a Pulitzer prize-winning fictional novel which will forever change how you view trees

3. Quiet by Susan Cain: a non-fiction book that tackles the topic of understanding and learning to value introversion

4. Talking with Zombies by Paul Krugman: a breakdown of major topics in politics consisting of essays written by this Nobel Prize-winning economist

5. Atomic Habits by James Clear: a best-selling book about how one can harness small, consistent changes in habits to change their overarching life trajectory

6. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: a fascinating non-fiction book about humankind which helps explain our world today through the lens of our evolution and ancestors

I’m Shubha. I write about computer graphics, tech, life, and anything else I find interesting! Also, I make cartoons for a living @ Pixar Animation Studios — shubhaj.com

2021 was a chapter of extremes and, as always, a year of growth. I travelled for four months with friends and spent four months at home with family. I shed my identity as a full-time student for the first time in 22 years and adopted the shiny new title of “working professional.” I lived as an extrovert and introvert, felt my most adult and my most childish, and operated as both my worst critic and biggest supporter. Here are some of the most defining lessons I carry in my pocket from 2021 as I roll into 2022. It certainly was one heck of a year.

1. Learning my seasons and embracing all of them.

There is no single way to live optimally. I spent my summer post-graduation traveling the world in an optimistic post-vaccine, pre-delta variant world. I measured my life in new experiences and time with friends. Monday evenings were saved for “getting my sh*t together” and planning every single waking moment of Tuesday through Sunday, packing it with as much discovery, excitement, and socializing as possible.

At the end of August, I headed back to my childhood home in the Bay Area suburbs as lockdowns creeped back in and friends moved back to school or moved on to new cities. I grappled with living the polar opposite of the life I sought after to optimize my happiness. The most exciting activity I did outside of work on a typical weekday was walk around the the same lake path I’d traversed hundreds of times over 22 years. Over the weekends I would attempt to resuscitate my old cadence of socializing by making frequent trips to SF, Berkeley, and Palo Alto. I had plans to move out which were repeatedly sabotaged by the ever-fluid nature of Covid impacting plans in the most inconvenient of ways. I just could not find a way to make my life into what I’d deemed was the best for me. It felt like life was wasting away and I wasn’t able to change anything about it.

While the world around me didn’t change, after four months of living at home, my definition of optimal living has changed. Three months ago, optimal living was exploring the world around me and today, optimal living is exploring the world within. Optimal living for me is waking up early, exercising, having a productive day pursuing my goals, getting locked into a good book for hours, and being so absorbed in my artistic pursuits that I can hardly fall asleep because of the excitement. I’m returning to the sources of happiness I pulled from as a young child.

I’m still optimizing for the same things: short term and long term happiness as well as pursuing my goals, but I’ve learned to go about it in two drastically different ways. The seasons of life are constantly changing. Sometimes, there are periods of socialization and excitement. In others, there are periods of isolation and free time. Many times, despite our best efforts, which season we’re in can be out of our control. Now that I’ve learned how to be “optimal” and find happiness in both modes, I hope to no longer feel that sense of fear and hopelessness when the seasons of life inevitably change.

2. Getting off of the consumerist hamster wheel and treasuring what I have.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a persistent little me in tightly-braided pigtails begging my mom to buy me a lion cub stuffed animal from the gift shop at the Oakland Zoo. “No,” my mother tiredly retorted. “You’re just going to throw it on the floor and it’ll be forgotten like the rest of your toys.” At the moment, I knew that she was 100% right. I was also fiercely determined to prove her wrong. I promised that this time would be different.

So, I proudly brought the creature home and christened her as “Kiara, daughter of Simba,” a not-so-subtle plagiarism of The Lion King 2. Poor Kiara endured the most torturous love she could have possibly been subjected to, complete with bubble baths (in which she lost a good amount of her stuffing), hair cuts (to which she, to date, suffers some unfortunate premature balding), and “jumping acrobatics” in which I would fling her in the air, her wiry, stuffing-depleted limbs flailing in weak resistance. Every night I would envelop what was left of Kiara with the tightest of hugs and softly whisper bedtime stories to her, filling my whole world with just the two of us.

Had my mother not said anything, I would have, guaranteed, thrown Kiara on the floor and promptly forgotten about her existence. By being intentional that this was an object that I would value and take care of, I was able to obtain more value from it than I would have otherwise. I think this is the core tenet of minimalism. It doesn’t necessarily mean owning very, very few things and living with the bare minimum. Instead, it means understanding how every item you own and every new purchase fits into and adds value in your life in the long term.

In particular I’ve felt this ever faster spinning hamster wheel in the fashion industry, leading to vastly unnecessary expenses that women in particular are subject to. Clothing trends are flitting in and out faster than ever with the advent of rapidly consumable short-form content. One way I’ve worked to counteract this in my life is by ensuring the clothing I own is “classic” in style and is unlikely to go out of fashion. I keep a list of things I want to buy and let it sit for a long, long time before I go ahead and make any purchase. I’ve also started sewing my clothes when they tear or tailoring them when do not fit me well. Lastly, I’ve focused on more neutral, easily matchable colors since I’ve found that statement pieces with bright colors and rare opportunities for use lose their novelty rapidly over time.

Minimalism, to me, also means finding a good home for the items you want to get rid of. I learned this year that most clothing sent to donation centers are simply burned, and I myself am guilty of spending years justifying buying new clothing by clearing out my closet, donating clothes, patting myself on the back, and proceeding to refill my closet with new clothing.

Of course, the concept of minimalism extends beyond clothing. For me in particular, I no longer buy new electronics unless it’s something I desperately need, I stopped buying physical books as I can read off of the Kindle App on any of my devices or borrow books from the library, I avoid buying groceries that I am not 99.9% sure I will finish, and I always save leftover food. I also try to gift meaningful experiences when I’m not sure that I can give someone a gift that they truly want or need.

My goal is to maximize the worth of what I own and minimize any waste I generate. When I do spend money, I want it to be on experiences — food, drinks, places, and people— because they will never diminish in value. Regardless of my constant thinking, rethinking, and overthinking, I still wrestle with the frequent, tempting notion of “if I had just this one other thing, I’d have everything I need.” So, I continue to work on myself and find new ways to grow.

3 . The value of sharing my work with the world.

If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I love the arts and will eagerly dabble in painting, photography, music, dance, writing, film, poetry, and literally anything else I can express myself with. I’ve long enjoyed these through what Susan Cain, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking refers to as flow:

“Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity…In a state of flow, you’re neither bored nor anxious, and you don’t question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing.”

However, sharing your art with the world is walking the fine line between desiring a state of flow and searching for external validation. I developed immense stage fright as a child so in a sense, external validation directly impeded on my flow. I grew to dread performing but loved the act of preparing for performances, jamming in my room, and meeting new people along the way. An equivalent in the painting sphere was that I was so embarrassed by previous art I’d made that I would try to throw away or hide old artwork that wasn’t up to date with my most current standards of perfection.

After some years keeping my artistic creations mostly to myself and over time it started to feel… hollow. Something was missing. If art is a means to express myself in this world, creating art without sharing it made it feel meaningless. The beauty of art is showing the world the bare bones of who you are and what you stand for, whether or not you receive a positive response. It’s Van Gogh seeing the beauty of his world and capturing it in vibrant hues despite battling crippling mental illness and never receiving recognition while he was alive. It’s Frida Khalo boldly defying societal expectations of what it means to be a woman and with her unapologetic persona and raw, unfiltered depictions of life. I want to start sharing my work again to share a piece of myself with the world, free from any expectation for validation.

4. Finding role models when I feel directionless.

I was an awkward, perpetually angsty teenager sporting a poor attempt at side bangs when I first discovered YouTube. In its early days, before the hyperbolic rise of uber rich and famous social media personalities became a common occurrence, YouTube was a community with a few innovative personalities who made somewhat random content, mostly for fun. I spent my teenage years watching these personalities share their makeup routines, heatless hairstyles, and back to school hauls, unknowingly also learning about their positivity, innovative mindset, and ability to reflect wisely upon their own lives.

So when I graduated from college this past year as a twenty-something, shedding my identity as a student for the first time ever and staring deep into the gaping void that was the-rest-of-my-life, my instincts guided me back to YouTube. The beauty gurus and chaotic pranksters I’d so meticulously followed as a teen had, for the most part, morphed into sensible thirty-somethings with their own businesses, sound financial advice, and beautiful families. And then I watched.

Though my path rarely intersects with that of a content creator on YouTube, age reliably marches us through the same stages in life. As I watched, I learned about the lack of defined and frequent milestones I’d experience as a new grad and how many feel the need to hurry life milestones—moving out, getting a job, switching jobs, getting a pet, getting a house, getting married, etc. —instead being patient and letting these milestones happen in their own time. I learned about post grad depression and how moving back home can be both the best and worst decision of your new grad life. I saw how these creators utilized their free time in a working world to build side hustles from their passions, diversify their income streams, and set themselves up for a financially stable future. Through their eyes, I pieced together a clearer picture of what the next five years would be and what the next ten should be.

Not all of my role models come from YouTube, of course. The vast majority are mentors who have pioneered paths I hope to follow or older peers who embody values I admire. But my journey down the YouTube rabbit hole in 2021 brought me back full circle to my teenage self and served as a reminder to be proactive in searching for and learning from role models when the next steps in life are unclear.

5. Without the right motivation, it’s impossible to build a new habit.

I’ve made it through a fair amount of life by checking boxes. When the actual task I was doing absolutely gutted my dopamine supplies, the rush of marking a task as completed was a motivator I frequently relied on. However, this model proved to be ineffective when faced with the fluid, continuous, push-and-pull nature of habit building. Successfully building a useful habit, say, exercising regularly, can sometimes begin with disgruntled snail’s pace strolls around the neighborhood and grow with incremental steps. It can lead to rest days from soreness and even more rest days from compulsive laziness. It can lead to tossing health to the wind for a day while embracing a sustenance-by-chocolate lifestyle.

With a box-checking approach, I would have checked and unchecked my “build a habit of regular exercise” box hundreds of times until I was sick of pursuing what appeared to be a never-ending uphill climb. By celebrating even 25% progress towards my goal and letting go of the notion of unhealthy eating as a failure, I was able to overcome the all or nothing mentality which had made my prior fitness journeys such an emotionally taxing experience with days of unhealthy eating being tailed by guilt. Alongside letting go of box checking, I had to find a stable, long-term motivator to successfully instill a lifestyle of regular exercise. In my case, this ended up being mental health.

September 2021 was a low point for me, possibly the lowest to date. I started exercising by just needing to get out of the house, go outside, get some fresh air, and think. I went on walks, circling the same loop in my neighborhood for hours, until I felt like I was ready to face another day. It took me a week to realize that the catharsis I felt was better than what sleep, doing an hobby I loved, or traditional “self-care” activities could give me. Though these tools would help me relax to an extent, only exercise could fully unravel any stress I’d gathered throughout the day. Since September 2021, it’s been a slow build up of hiking, cardio, and weight training, each addition making me less stressed and more energetic about pursuing my goals. It’s taken me this long to start exercise as a regular habit but now that I’ve found the right motivator through mental health, it has transformed from a despised chore to a treasured part of my day.

6. I freaking love cats.

Not really a lesson. Also, not really a surprise. But I really freaking love cats. This year I fostered two cats from the Tri-City Animal Shelter, Domino and Jack. These little gentle terrors, independent non-conformists, wild animals, perpetual nappers, and loving goofs have my whole entire heart. Domino was adopted into a loving family — a bitter sweet moment—and his leaving was marked by more than a few tears being shed in the Jagannatha household.

Soon after Domino came a kitten named Jack whose fear of humans was forever at odds with his undying curiosity about our world. After a day refusing to move from his carrier and a week of hiding under the bed, Jack has learned to like and even love this home, pitter-pattering around the house on grand nighttime adventures, surreptitiously pooping in our potted plants, and snoozing by my side until he sprints around with an unfortunate but strikingly reliable bout of 4am zoomies.

Through fostering, I’ve learned about patience, unconditional love, and how hard it can be to say goodbye, even if it’s for the best. I’ve discovered a wonderful new avenue to help several cats while also maintaining my flexibility to travel and live my twenty-something life freely in the near future. I highly, highly recommend fostering animals from the local animal shelter to anyone and everyone who is kind enough to lend me an ear.

And that about wraps up 2021! In 2022, I aspire to build on the learning, experiences, and growth I was able to have in this past year in order to make the most of yet another year in this unpredictable pandemic. I hope to look back on the year, as I do now, and know that in putting my whole self into everything I did, I left no room for regrets.

UC Berkeley is overflowing with unicorns. In my four years here, I’ve met countless students who juggle and excel in vastly interdisciplinary interests including my own passion of combining technology with the arts. Of those interested in the art-tech intersection, students I’ve met primarily pursue two paths: design (product design, HCI, UI/UX, etc.) and computer graphics. As I progressed in my technical degree, I found myself leaning further and further into the wonderful intersection of math, physics, art, film, and technological innovation that is computer graphics.

Unfortunately, the path to a career in Computer Graphics through UC Berkeley is murky at best. While many students arrive with a strong curiosity towards and inclination for the field, the lack of a clear curriculum and the relatively low visibility of the graphics community at Berkeley lead to many peeling away from the field in favor of more well-explored tracks. I believe UC Berkeley can do more to act as a guide to such students and continue to foster their interests in Computer Graphics.

The good news is, the pieces of the puzzle do exist. Berkeley has no shortage of resources for the student who knows where to look. I’ve compiled a guide based on my experiences and knowledge of UC Berkeley, as it exists in 2021, to help the technically-minded student find the right pieces of the puzzle and construct their path towards a career in Computer Graphics. Topics covered include coursework, clubs, and research!

Coursework

A short disclaimer — the information I’ve listed here has a bias towards undergraduate, upper division, and regularly offered courses. Additionally, the importance of certain topics will inevitably rise and fall given trends in innovation. These courses are what I deem to be important given my experience and research in the field as of 2021.

Core Technical Courses

[CS 184/284A] Foundations of Computer Graphics: This course is the technical course on graphics at Berkeley. It’s a wonderful breadth course which covers the fundamentals of a wide variety of topics which fall under the umbrella of computer graphics. It’s known as a high workload course with six projects and little guidance in getting up to speed with C++ programming. I highly recommend taking it with Dr. Ren Ng, who is a fantastic lecturer.

[CS 284B] Advanced Computer Graphics Algorithms and Techniques: This course is rarely offered, but is slated to be offered in Spring 2022! It serves to delve deeper into the concepts touched upon in CS 184/284A.

Useful Technical Courses

[EE 120] Signals and Systems: 2D signals (images), discrete sampling, and signal reconstruction are core topics in graphics. This course helps students get a theoretical handle on the fundamentals of signals. It’s a low to moderate workload course with lots of math involved!

[CS C267] Applications of Parallel Computers: Rendering and simulation are extremely time intensive tasks fundamental to graphics. Through this course, students learn the algorithms behind and applications of parallel computing so they can solve complex problems with efficient software.

Related Technical Courses

[CS 194–26/294–26] Intro to Computer Vision and Computational Photography: Another breadth course which covers a variety of cool topics. Vision is often seen as the inverse problem to computer graphics, so there are some interesting relations one can draw when studying both. The five-ish projects in this course can be a bit time intensive but the bonus is that you get visually stunning, artistic results! Dr. Efros, who typically teaches this course, is my favorite professor at Berkeley.

[CS 294–137] Theory and Applications of Virtual Reality and Immersive Computing: This course is unique in that it delves into the ideas in human biology, human computer interaction, hardware, and software that enable immersive computing systems. Topics jump every 1–3 lectures and they can seem a tad disconnected due to the wide range of fields covered by this course. It’s a moderate workload class with around 4 homeworks and a research-like final project.

[CS 189/289] Introduction to Machine Learning: Machine Learning is driving much of the recent innovation in graphics research, particularly in rendering and denoising. This course goes into great depth on the theory and math behind machine learning. It’s known to be a high workload class with intense, highly mathematical problem sets. Students who are mainly interested in the applications of ML may find this course far too theoretical for their taste. However, the offering with Dr. Shewchuck is generally known to incorporate more applied content than offerings with other professors.

Non-Technical Courses

[CNM 190] Advanced Digital Animation: This is a one-year course offered every other year for students who have previously taken the UCBUGG Decal (see below). The next offering is scheduled for Fall 2021-Spring 2022. It gives students an entire year to create a complex short from start to finish and delve to each step of the production pipeline in-depth.

Upper Division Art Courses: If you feel comfortable enough taking upper division art courses, I’d check out ART 172: Computer Graphics Studio and ART 178: Game Design Methods.

Decals

UCBUGG: UCBUGG is an intensive semester-long introduction to the production process behind 3D modeling and animation. Students learn how to use key technologies like Autodesk Maya, Pixar’s Renderman, and Adobe After Effects and work through the entire 3D animation pipeline to create a one-minute short. The decal team offers both beginner and advanced levels of the course to cater to varying levels of experience.

Art for Animation: Art for Animation is the 2D sister decal of UCBUGG. It touches upon the pre-production pipeline which typically deals with developing a storyboard, character design, and concept art. The final project of the course is an animatic— a low fidelity “mock up” of a film used to convey the story.

Video Game Design and Development: Students in this course learn fundamentals of game development by creating their own game over the course of the semester. Additionally, this course provides insight into the gaming industry to help interested students prepare themselves for roles in game development.

Virtual Reality: The Virtual Reality (VR) decal walks students through the technology and design skills needed to develop a VR game using Unity and C# programming. Students end the semester by designing and developing their own VR game which is presented in Berkeley’s Design Innovation showcase.

Clubs

Berkeley’s student organizations are vibrant and thriving communities which enrich the learning environment on campus and provide a space for students to connect based on shared interests. Here are some of the organizations on campus which are dedicated to various shades of Computer Graphics.

3D Modeling and Animation at Berkeley: This organization is a central community for students interested in exploring careers in 3D Animation. 3DMA runs the UCBUGG decal every semester and also hosts relevant events with industry professionals and guest lecturers.

Extended Reality at Berkeley: XR@B is dedicated to research, education, and development involving Extended Reality, an umbrella term which encompasses Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality. Teams in XR@B work with labs on campus to conduct XR research, host the Virtual Reality Decal every semester, or work on their own XR passion projects.

Game Design and Development at Berkeley: This club is a community for those passionate about or interested in exploring game development. GDD has teams which work together to develop new games, hosts industry speakers to provide insight into the gaming industry, and runs the Video Game Design and Development Decal.

Research

I always tell my undergraduate friends to try out research, at least once, during their time at Berkeley. It’s a great way to test out if grad school is a path you’d be interested in pursuing and it certainly doesn’t hurt that Berkeley is a research university which has historically been at the forefront of technological innovation.

Ways to Get Involved

This school provides a number of avenues for undergraduates to dip their toes into research. I’ve focused primarily on the programs and platforms which cater to EE/CS students since that’s where I’d expect to see opportunities in Computer Graphics research.

The first and most direct approach is URAP (Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program). This is a semester-long program in which students apply to projects and professors select students which best suit the projects’ needs. It’s my understanding that this program is quite competitive with the number of applicants far exceeding the number of spots available. Additionally, the projects available are limited to those listed on the URAP application. However, it’s a useful opportunity for people who are looking to test out research within a limited time period since this program has a semesterly cadence.

Next, for those looking into research within the EECS department specifically, there’s a relatively new program called DARE (Diversifying Access to Research in Engineering). Through this program, students apply to work with specific professors and professors choose students who suit their lab’s needs. If there is a match, students get to work with the professors for however long they choose. This program is specifically targeted to students who will improve diversity in EECS research but to my knowledge, there are no restrictions for who can apply.

For students interested in working on a defined project or utilizing specific skillsets, I recommend checking out Beehive. Beehive is a platform in which labs list projects which need additional students with certain skills. It’s a great space to find projects with a less formalized structure and survey the opportunities available at any given time. One downside is that it’s not a frequently used platform by labs so the number of project listings is typically low.

Lastly, if you have a specific professor, lab, or project in mind, the most frequently used and least formalized method to get involved with research is reaching out directly. I would thoroughly look through the lab and professor’s website since sometimes you can find instructions on how they would like you to contact them. Some professors and labs who come to mind for Computer Graphics and related fields include: James O’Brien, Carlo H. Séquin, Jonathan Shewchuck, Ren Ng, Brian A. Barsky, Alexei (Alyosha) Efros, and the FHL Vive Center for Enhanced Reality.

Cold emailing can seem daunting, especially with professors who often receive so many cold emails from students that they often choose to ignore them. Some methods to overcome this barrier include constructing a very specific and clear email by referencing your interest in their recent work and providing specific insight into what skills you can bring to their lab. Since professors often have to deal with a deluge of emails from students, I would also suggest reaching out to graduate students. They’re typically a tad more approachable and willing to make time in their schedule to meet with interested students.

My final bit of advice is, try not to get discouraged. Getting a shot at research in Berkeley is a difficult task since the ratio of qualified students to opportunities is somewhat low. Additionally, professors often require that students take a number of related upper division classes before joining their lab which shuts out numerous interested undergraduates. However, I believe there is always ample learning that comes with rejection which will allow you to better prepare yourself for future opportunities.

Final Thoughts

While Berkeley doesn’t have specified tracks for undergraduates interested in Computer Graphics, this lack of structure allows for students to have the freedom to construct their own course curriculum and delve deeper into the field via decals, clubs, and research. Berkeley does offer a one-year EECS MEng degree with a Visual Computing and Computer Graphics track for those interested in pursuing a master’s with added structure. However, the opportunities available to students in the track are, for the most part, widely available to students outside the program. I believe that with this bit of guidance, a sprinkle of passion, and a self-starter mentality, students at UC Berkeley can customize their learning to be wildly successful in a Computer Graphics career.