# Where Superpowers Come From

*What I've Been Thinking About Lately #85*

By [WIBTAL](https://wibtal.com) · 2026-04-19

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The skills you are best at were chosen by a kid who just wanted to have fun.

It takes a lot of work to be great at anything. Ideally you find the thing you work on fun, because it's hard to continually work on something that isn't.

Kids haven't been programmed with obligation yet, so they naturally pick what's fun to them. They feel no guilt to do "responsible" things.

If you are lucky, the kid version of you found something like reading or athletics fun, because it set you up to be smart or athletic. Unfortunately lots of skills kids acquire are worthless in adulthood.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d475cb6b01e66dbfc654dee9e844f93a2eb2fa8f1994a4dfe8d5992bd7aa0e6c.gif)

_Me watching my past self play Minecraft instead of doing literally anything else_

One of the things I was into as a kid was making memes, which is less useless than it sounds. I'd spend hours every day making them, learning templates and looking for ways to apply relatable words to them. Posting gave me a feedback loop. I found out quickly whether people liked my stuff based on likes and I got better at it as I created more.

Now, writing is my grown-up version of making memes. The goal is the same: move a concept into someone else's head as efficiently as possible. I built skills as a kid by making memes that directly apply to my writing ability

1.  **Compression.** Memes force you to land a joke or idea in one image and a handful of words. Every unnecessary word detracts from the point, just like in writing.
    
2.  **Setup and payoff.** Every meme is a micro-story. I learned to put myself in my audience's shoes and walk them through my story.
    
3.  **Pattern Matching.** I developed a reflex for noticing patterns between domains which helps me synthesize content.
    

At the time, I had no idea any of this would matter. It was just fun. But there was no shortcut. I spent a lot of time doing it. I'm using this lesson today. I have no idea if what I'm doing will help me in the future, but I'm maximizing for fun and we'll see in 10 years if it was a good idea.

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*Originally published on [WIBTAL](https://wibtal.com/85)*