Calendars are a hell unique to my @berkeley.edu email address. I have been asked a number of times what my thoughts on “freedom” are—especially after I published I See Dead People, people asked where I draw the line on free speech. On surveillance, on age restrictions, on all sorts of things. These are difficult questions to answer, and my answer often changes, so let me tell you about calendar hell as a glimpse into why I generally disapprove of regulation.

I cannot add my Berkeley Google Calendar to my laptop’s Calendar app:

This is because, as I am writing this, I am seventeen years old. I can’t sign in for attendance at Ethics for Engineers lectures because I’m 17. I had to write a script that would download events from my Berkeley calendar and mirror them into a fake calendar that I could subscribe to from my laptop.

I define freedom as success—or perhaps success as freedom.

My goal in life is to attain freedom to live life on my own terms—free from restrictions beyond those that are self-imposed (like, by my vast and many morals). Money is a means to this end; a large and supportive network is a means to this end; being able to write code to get around problems is a means to this end. So traditional definitions of success are partial ways of measuring the true goal of myself, and of humans throughout history: freedom. The Underground Railroad was established because people wanted literal freedom; the Boston Tea Party happened because people wanted freedom from taxes; and agriculture first appeared because humans wanted freedom from hunger, hunting, and death.

In general I am against restrictions on freedoms: being 17, I can’t open a bank account (which literally represents financial freedom), I can’t trade on any platform,^[1] and I can’t even attend events like Cal Hacks. This is not very great and makes me quite unhappy—I am as capable as my peers; why does my institution’s admin need to review my calendar sign-in request?

Success is freedom.

Freedom from economy-class boarding times, 9-to-5 schedules, and thinking, “I can’t, it costs too much.” It’s the freedom to live in a cabin in the woods for ten years and collect mushrooms. And in many ways this is what I strive for myself: I am in my mind a successful journalist because I have the freedom to publish uncensored and honest thoughts on challenging topics. I consider myself a successful student because I have the freedom to skip a week of classes knowing I’ll catch up.

Haha. I’ve been writing this so long that I have turned 18. Time to finally get a credit card.