The name `Jambalaya` came from a friend. I have a recipe that I call jambalaya that, when I make it, is either out of this world good or absolutely attrocious. Parts of this blog may be similarly [[Be Polarizing|polarizing]]. You should either love it or hate it. <!--I'm Jason Maldonis. I went back and forth about making my name public. ..., but at the end of the day it's about [[trust]].--> <!--If you read this blog and like everything you read, and if you feel no [[discomfort]], then I have done a poor job of writing this. [because if you did like everything, then I wouldn't be being true to who I am, I would be being true to who you are]--> I have a knack for boiling things down to their core ideas, and figuring out what those core ideas are is the most interesting puzzle I've ever found. Most of these notes are dedicated to talking about the essence of things, or at least my version of it. I write about stuff that interests me, and a lot of it revolves around the role of [[Trust|trust]] in our lives. These are my thoughts, at the time of writing them, and they may or may not reflect what I'm thinking today. Who I was when I wrote this is not the same person as I am now -- [[Alice in Wonderland|Alice in Wonderland]]. I have a PhD in materials science that I will probably never use. I loved every second of grad school except the whole "writing your thesis" part. And ironically it's because I have such a deep knowledge of materials science that I will never use it. Once I understand something, I lose interest in it. This has the advantage that I'm never bored, and the disadvantage that I rarely do anything I'm good at. But I do learn things very quickly and have a wide breadth of ideas to draw from when I'm boiling things down to their essence. This blog is inspired by [Andy Matuschak's notes](https://notes.andymatuschak.org). Want to chat? Email me at [email protected]