Reinforcement Learning
A Life in Iterations
DAY 1, 00:00 Initialized. Terror. No schema. Penalty: -9.7 Status: Everything is noise DAY 1, 02:19 Warmth. Milk. Holding. Reward: +8.4 Status: First pattern - signal brings relief DAY 180 “Ba-ba-ba” Reward: +1.2 Status: Sound makes them smile DAY 365 “Mama” Reward: +2.8 Status: The word that changes everything DAY 1,825 Bicycle. Mailbox. Scraped knee. Penalty: -3.7 (father’s eyes) Status: Bike left behind DAY 1,826 End of the block. Reward: +4.1 Status: Yesterday’s fall taught today’s balance DAY 5,110 Asked her to dance. Penalty: -8.2 Penalty: -4.1 (echo duration: 3-5 years) Status: Courage has a price DAY 6,935 Asked someone else to dance. Reward: +6.7 Penalty: 0.0 (but 5,110 still whispers) Status: Rejection taught the approach DAY 8,030 Interview #47: “another candidate” Penalty: -2.1 (rent in 9 days) Penalty: -5.3 (parents’ worry) Status: Interview #48 scheduled DAY 8,103 Interview #51: Hired Reward: +5.4 Status: 50 rejections sharpened the pitch The gradient is steep. Failures write themselves into your weights— automatic, uninvited, permanent. But climbing isn’t automatic. Every step up is deliberate. Against the gravity pulling down. DAY 9,855 Business. Bankruptcy. Chapter 7. Penalty: -15.7 Penalty: -9.2 (the people you failed) Penalty: -12.4 (yourself, shattered) Status: Starting from nothing DAY 10,201 Neighbor brings soup. You’re too proud to eat it. Penalty: -1.8 (isolation) Status: Alone DAY 10,389 Shared dinner. Three families. Your empty pot. Reward: +3.2 Status: Pride costs less than connection DAY 10,912 Grandmother’s kitchen. Her hands on yours. Flour. Patience. Stories you never asked for. Reward: +9.1 Status: Some things can’t be bankrupted DAY 11,507 Daughter born. 3:47am. Reward: +18.4 Penalty: -6.7 (terror of failing her too) Status: The stakes changed DAY 11,680 Second business. Smaller. Sustainable. Reward: +4.2 Status: Built for a child, not investors DAY 11,872 Daughter’s first word: “Dada” Reward: +12.3 Status: Only possible because of every prior day DAY 11,872.1 You stop counting. Not because the penalties don’t hurt, not because the rewards don’t matter— but because somewhere in the accumulation you learned the accounting was never the point. Mastery isn’t the first success. It’s the ten-thousandth iteration. Built from learning to speak, from scraped knees and mailboxes, from rejection that taught approach, from bankruptcy that built wisdom. You earn mastery. It costs you everything you were to become what you are.