# Brandon Homework #1 — Avoidance + Vision (no excuses) **Date:** 2026-06-13 (Sat) — Day 1 of program **Prompt:** "Write down the areas of life that I've been avoiding since I've been in the Bay. Things that I want but that I've been making excuses for. If no limitations, how would I be living without any excuses. Think about for an hour." --- ## Cameron's first pass — what I want (no excuses, no toning down) **The biggest one — self-attraction.** I want to have high self-esteem and be attracted to myself. To think that I'm sexy in all parts of my life. **Robotics / company.** I really want to build a home robot in the next year, and 1.5 years after this I want to have a home robot company. I need to take actions that would lead me to become one of the best in the world in robotics dealing with this project, and launch that as a platform. **Vibrant social life + female attraction.** A more vibrant social life where girls are more attracted to me and I don't have such a weird relationship towards girls. They kind of flock to me, and I reject them (because I have a girlfriend) — but I still want to garner female attraction. **Family + Sufi practice.** Spend more time with family. Continue Sufi practice — Khanega on Sundays. (Was dictated as "Hanukkah on Sundays for Sufi practice" — interpreting as Khanega.) **Be the life of the party wherever I go.** (He said this twice. Worth holding both times — it's the energy lever.) **Aesthetic — model-esque physique.** Thicker neck, more weight training, better diet. Model physique. **Financial.** No financial goals other than building the home robot company. Everything else is lower scale. **Travel.** Need to travel more. Greece trip — probably next summer. To travel more = be the life of the party wherever I go, not a party pooper. **Note from Cameron on what he's noticed already:** "I think some things we were avoiding in the Bay have been becoming more present and liking ourselves more." Day 1 of program already shifting the avoidance pattern. --- ## Reflection (from agent, based on prior context) ### The unifying thread Every item on this list is the same theme in different costumes: **presence + magnetism — being someone who other people (and yourself) want to be near.** - Self-attraction → being a presence even for yourself - Female attraction → being a presence in rooms - Life of the party → being a presence in social environments - Model physique → being a presence visually - Best in the world in robotics → being a presence in your field - Travel as life-of-the-party → being a presence in foreign environments The unifying line: *"I want to be someone whose presence is undeniable, including to me."* The shadow version: *"I've been a presence I'm not attracted to."* ### What stands out from prior conversations - This list is more honest than the Drake-drive monologue (May 25). That one was about "swagger" through external optics. This one names the *internal* version — *self-attraction* — which is the real lever. - The "girls flock to me and I reject them" frame is a step deeper than "missing club energy" (May 30, June 9 dinner). Then it was wanting the *environment*. Now you're naming wanting the *position* — the position of having options and choosing Izzy from strength, not from default. - "Life of the party" repeated twice. Worth honoring — this is the energy you keep saying you want and don't yet feel. It connects to the Becker Boris archetype you flagged: infectious positivity offered freely. - Robotics timeline got specific: **1 year home robot, 1.5 years company.** That's the most concrete you've put it in writing. Worth treating as a real line, not vague aspiration. ### What's NOT on the list (the avoidance lens — Brandon asked two questions; you answered the vision side) Some of these may genuinely be off the table; others are likely avoidance worth naming: 1. **Persian fluency** — your stated pillar 2 of *jacked/Persian/robots*. Not mentioned. Worth asking: still a goal? Or quietly deprioritized? 2. **Izzy long-term clarity** — relationship trajectory question. Not mentioned. The "garner female attraction while having a girlfriend" line raises it implicitly. Brandon will likely ask. 3. **Real male friendships in the Bay** — you focused on female attraction. Male friend group is what makes "life of the party" sustainable. 4. **Wardrobe / personal style** — you went straight to physique. Style is the daily visible expression of the self-attraction goal. 5. **Money beyond the company** — "everything else is lower scale" could be focus or avoidance. Even the company needs a financial relationship in your head. 6. **PhD endgame** — you said "1.5 years to company." That's mid-PhD. Will you finish? Drop out? Defer? This is the unaddressed structural question. 7. **What you're actually avoiding in the Bay right now** — Brandon's first lens was *avoidance*. You answered with *vision*. The avoidance answer is probably what's most useful to write. (E.g., are you avoiding: hard conversations with advisor, calling parents in Persian, going to the gym for heavy lifting, eating at maintenance to retain muscle, real solo dates with yourself, looking in the mirror without judgment?) ### The honest read This list is good. You wrote vision, not avoidance — that's already a tell. **The vision is clearer than the avoidance**, which means the avoidance is the part that wants the second pass. Brandon's prompt is two-sided: *what do you want* AND *what are you avoiding*. The asymmetry of your answer = where the next hour of writing should go. ### Sub-prompts for the avoidance pass (if you want to expand) - What did I avoid TODAY because of the excuse "I'm too tired / focused / committed"? - What conversation have I been postponing for >2 weeks? - What action would the version of me I want to be take that current-me hasn't? - What in my body or wardrobe have I been ignoring even though I notice it daily? - What do I look at on Instagram and feel envy for? (That's a map.) - What would I do *right now* if I knew Izzy / advisor / parents wouldn't judge? ### One specific thing to bring to Brandon "I want to be attracted to myself" is the line. If you bring nothing else to your next session, bring that. It's the root that all the others grow from. --- *Iterate from here whenever you want. This file lives at `/data/cameron/life/brandon/01_avoidance_vision.md` — append revisions, don't rewrite. Tracking your honest evolution week to week is the point.* --- ## 2026-06-14 — addition: what would FUN actually look like? Brainstorming what I want for my life — I think I need to think about **how to have more FUN.** Both to attract people who also just have fun, and to enjoy myself. Not be afraid of everything. Not make it all ambitions and checklist items. What would a fun life actually look like? - Volleyball is fun - Going out - Dressing well - Being fancy - Going to fancy bars *(Agent reflection: this is a real shift from your prior monologues of "extreme urgency" and "maniacal mode." You're naming FUN as a separate category from ambitions for the first time. The pull to FUN is part of what the program is unblocking. Worth a sub-pass at the next homework iteration: what specific fun things have I been treating as frivolous or "later" — and what would it look like to do them now?)* --- ## 2026-06-14 evening — the avoidance pass (Cameron's first draft, dictated) **What I'm avoiding:** I'm hiding behind more work — and avoiding actually dressing up and going out and meeting friends in social vibrant places and being in attractive scenarios. And I'm hiding from my fitness goals of getting leaner etc. behind the idea of *balance* and *being more confident*. ### Two patterns named (agent reflection): **1. Work as a hiding place.** This is the hard one because it's *respectable*. Nobody calls Cameron out for being at the lab. He can avoid for months under the cover of "I'm focused." The TRI internship makes this especially seductive — there's always one more eval, one more print, one more model. The earlier-today fear of "staying in solitude" has the same root: work as the structure that keeps him out of the harder rooms. **2. "Balance" as alibi for not pushing fitness.** Calling restraint "balance" is the version of avoidance most people never catch. Real balance includes the hard reps. The version he's using lets him off the hook for the lift he doesn't want to do, the meal he doesn't want to skip, the mirror he doesn't want to look in honestly. The dead giveaway: he's named "model physique" + "thicker neck" + "lose 10 lbs" multiple times across months — and "balance" is the word that always shows up to soften the edge. Both of these work because they sound like wisdom. That's what makes them effective camouflage. ### Next sub-prompt to probe What specifically would I do this week if I dropped "work as hiding" and "balance as alibi"? That's where the action items live. I'm wondering what should I do to better define these and actualize them -- vision boards or make it a habit/checklist of going out x times per month to y scene?