Dear Ada,
I’m writing this from London; it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve held you, the longest we’ve been apart. You’re 3.5 months old now — too young to remember your dad being gone for a month, which is one reason I thought taking off now would be good. But I’ll remember this distance, this gap between us.
I’m writing this because, well — I was morbidly wondering “what would I do if today was my last day”. Not because I think anything bad is going to happen to me; rather, I was pondering the question of identity, how we constantly are being replaced with slightly different versions of ourselves, ala Derek Parfit or Holden Karnofsky. The last time I got into this particular odd mindset, I was high on LSD and realized I’d never told my siblings how much I loved them — which I decided to promptly correct by sending them some (possibly worrying) texts.
And thus, this letter to you.* If today were my last day, I’d want you to understand why we decided to have you, and how I feel about you, and what kind of person I am. Some of it is mushy “I love you” stuff, but some isn’t — and I think the latter is also important for me to express, because otherwise you could just replace this letter with something spit out by a large language model acting out the persona of a fairytale ideal dad.
Why did we have you?
Even before we’d met, your mom and I had been independently keen** on having kids; your mom’s written about this at length on “Why baby now?”. My own reasons were less guttural than hers; some influences I can point to:
- I’m personally really happy to exist; I’m glad my family and my friends and all the people in this world exist. In the words of Joe Carlsmith, I wanted to welcome more people into this grand party we call life.
- My parents are really great. Whenever I go back to see them they’re always happy to see me, and trying to figure out how to help me and do what’s best for me. I think it’d be wonderful to have someone towards whom I felt that way.
- Since middle school, I’ve been a big fan of Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” series. The Ender’s Shadow series goes into how Bean and Petra end up deciding to have kids, painting it as the ultimate goal of life, more important than conquering nations or politicking on the global stage.
- I’m driven by success and achievement, especially the kind that is like “impressive for your age.” I don’t think anyone called me a prodigy but like — I was near the top in my class, across competitive schools, after having skipped a grade. I crammed what would usually usually 6 years of an undergrad + Master’s degree, into 4. I started a bit late on romance, but after meeting your mom we speedran our way through courtship into marriage and now, well, to having you.
How do I feel about you now?
To be honest… I haven’t been missing you very much. The things that are easy to write in this letter are the ones where I can playact the perfect dad, but — as I go about my work in London, rarely do I stop to think about the little baby I left behind.
If I were to be brutally honest, with you and with myself: perhaps our first couple months together were something of a letdown. This isn’t your fault, of course, just: after decades of yearning for a child of my own, and a years of scheming with your mom to make it possible — to have finally achieved this milestone, I’m left with a bit of feeling of “… so is this it? what now?”. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way; for example I recall a similar sense of confusion after having finally completing my Master’s thesis. But this feels somewhat monstrous when applied to the birth of my daughter.
In my defense, you don’t have much personality yet; these early days of yours are filled with sleeping, eating, pooping, and very occasionally, a joyous laugh. I’m not really sure you qualify as a person, at this stage of life — more like a pet, or maybe an alien. So right now, I’m mostly selfishly glad to be free of the responsibility for caring for you, while you and I are separated by an ocean.
But I do miss you, a bit. I miss holding you up by your armpits and bouncing you up and down; I miss lying down with you on my chest; I miss swinging you recklessly through the air (while your grandma looks on disapprovingly). I’m hoping that neither you nor I forget this shared language of physical contact that we developed, during this time I’m gone.
More than the 3 month old baby I left, or the 4 month old I’ll see in a few weeks: I’m looking forward to meeting the Ada who has grown up enough to read this letter. Who expresses some pieces of me, and some pieces of your mom, and some pieces of some wholly other, unique individual. Who I can teach, and argue with, and learn from, and perhaps someday work with. Who I can love in a meaningful sense; who can love me back.
What kind of person am I?
Foremost, I care a lot about being good and doing good. My parents raised me Catholic, and I expect to raise you the same way. To me, Catholicism isn’t about a set of quaint beliefs that we dogmatically cling to; but rather a guide towards becoming the most loving, caring, and selfless versions of ourselves. One of my favorite compliments your mom has paid me starts with “I love how deep your goodness seems to go” — and in turn, I knew I wanted to marry her after seeing the way she cares for others.
I love reading (in case the other references in this letter haven’t already made it obvious). I love sci-fi and fantasy, immersing myself into universes adjacent from our own; simulating the motivations and feelings of other characters as I race through the words and pages of a book. I’ve spent more hours of my life reading text than listening to people speak.*** My friends called me “bookworm” in elementary school; one of my dearest wishes is that you grow up a bookworm, too. I can’t wait to share with you my favorite stories, and to learn what stories you choose for yourself.
I love games. I like making decisions, thinking through strategy, fast feedback loops, winning. But I also like the element of play, of making each other laugh, of constructing a shared universe, of the narratives that we carry on with us. I’m looking forward to playing with you.
I enjoy solitude, being alone. This is always hard to say directly to people — expressing “I need time alone” feels like it comes with an undertone of “I don’t like you”. Really, it’s: when I’m spending time with other people, a chunk of compute in my brain is inevitably dedicated towards simulating their perspective and responses. Sometimes I need a break, even from those I most love, just to be able to reclaim that compute and think for myself. Please understand if I’m not always there for you when you want; in exchange, I hope to be fully present for you when we’re together.
So: these were some snippets I wrote down to try to qualify who your dad is, on this one day in September 2024, long before you’re capable of proper understanding. Of course, I expect that you’ll see more of who I am, as we live the rest of our lives together — richly, in high dimensionality, going much deeper than words on this page. But: harking back to the question of identity, the dad that you’ll get to know over the years, is not precisely the same person as the one writing these words at this moment. He’ll have changed, due to the passage of time, the surrounding culture and technology, and due to spending time with you. Give him a hug for me; and know that even before our years together, before I became that person: I loved you.
* of course I’d tell your mom too, but I’ve already written to her many times on the subject, so on the margin I think putting down my thoughts to you would be more important. also disclaimer that I’m on modafinil at the moment, which I generally think makes me more like myself but /shrug
** british speech is starting to rub off on me
*** one consequence of which is that I’ll mispronounce words, which your mom teases me for. In my defense, I grew up bilingual, only ever hearing Chinese from my parents.