Are you serious?

Good morning, dear friends. This week has been a massive push on Database School. I have been coding my brains out and it's been a lot of fun. We're going to launch the subscription platform on Monday. So if you're around, I would love the help on Twitter and elsewhere. The initial courses are going to be Intro to Postgres, Mastering Postgres, High Performance SQLite, and MySQL for developers. This is the culmination of a lot of thinking and even more work and I think it is going to turn out great. I am very excited for it. (Also, because of that, I've been underwater on emails and DMs, so if I owe you something… my bad!) --- ### Thoughts from the week One of the best articles I've ever read is on the concept of taking things seriously: The premise of the article is that there aren't very many serious people in the world, and serious doesn't mean tedious or solemn or somber. It means having the willingness and determination and persistence to actually go after what you want for a long period of time. The argument is that most people are unserious because they never commit to doing the thing. They never want anything out of life and therefore don't get anything. There's a tweet below about cynicism and irony, and I think that is the great plague of our time: everything is ironic. It's cringe to be sincere or to actually state that you want something! But that might be changing! [Timothy Chalamet's acceptance speech](https://www.reddit.com/r/oscarrace/comments/1iwtyc1/timothee_chalamets_winning_speech_at_the_sag/) about wanting to be great felt so counter-cultural for that reason. Doing something great requires being serious about it. So does being a good parent. So does being a good spouse. So does being a good friend. You have to take it seriously, but not be a serious bore. Fun is serious business too! --- 🎬 **YouTube** **Strictly typed SQL with Contra CTO, Gajus Kuizinas** In this episode, Gajus Kuizinas, co-founder and CTO of Contra, joins me to talk about building the engineering world you want to live in, from strict runtime-validated SQL with Slonik to creating high-ownership engineering cultures. We dove into developer experience, runtime assertions, SafeQL, and even “Loom-driven development,” a powerful review process that lets teams move fast without breaking things. Check it out on [YouTube](https://youtu.be/TQiFPMwy6O4) or your [favorite podcast player](https://share.transistor.fm/s/6990b708). --- ### Things I found this week *Just a heads up that each Twitter/X screenshot has a link to the original post if you want to go follow the account.* [](https://x.com/MilesJohnston/status/1990491930703376764) I've reached out to the artist to see if I can buy a print of this because when I saw it, it immediately triggered an emotional response in me. There's just something so pure and tender about a kid falling asleep in the car and the parent carrying them in late at night. --- [](https://x.com/sketch/status/1991389639434002818) "Today we get to make something we’re proud for a large enough customer base that appreciates it to keep us in business. It’s nice." This tweet is in response to somebody asking how Sketch lost to Figma. Sketch was the big SVG tool for a while and then Figma came and totally obliterated them. And the people that run the Sketch account say, "You know what? We've got a pretty nice life." It's a good reminder that you don't have to be the biggest to win! Just depends what game you're playing. There are a lot of people that appear very successful from the outside that are absolutely not happy. It's worth thinking about what game are you actually trying to win and do you actually want to win it? --- [](https://x.com/aydaoz/status/1991564242546540923) Okay, so I'm kind of torn on this one! I think this is maybe superficially false, but in a more deep sense true. I'm not really sure. I am sure that good things take time. I am also sure that you can get good at things by iterating quickly. So it feels like there's a bit of tension here. Maybe the real answer is that you need to be learning and experimenting quickly, but you need to expect the body of work or the artifact to take a long time and you can't rush that. You have a reasonable sense of urgency in the day to day, but you have patience in the long run? There's something here. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I think part of this tweet is true, or rather, I think this whole tweet is true, but for part of the experience of making things. Whew, that was a journey 😂 --- [](https://x.com/Pri_promo/status/1991562460076339531) Somewhere deep in my soul is a soft spot for the Fast and Furious franchise. I unironically love them. So you'll have to forgive me when I tell you that this video is so awesome. I know it's stupid, but I freaking love it. I've probably watched it like 10 times. It rules. --- [](https://x.com/ryjlocal/status/1990936747136725209) "Before reading or hearing anything, he would always have irony at the ready, like the shield of the savage." I haven't yet fully formed my most cohesive thoughts on irony, cynicism, and sincerity. They're still ruminating in the background. But one thing I definitely know is true is that being constantly cynical or ironic is usually a defense mechanism for something. It's scary to try hard or believe in something or put yourself out there and so we cloak everything in layers and layers of irony or cynicism. It's actually a pretty good protection mechanism! But I think it also keeps you from getting a lot of the deep rich things that you probably want. --- [](https://x.com/Joseph_Fasano_/status/1991173494168834277) Here's a poem about dads. Maybe it's about your grandpa, or your dad, or maybe it's about you. --- [](https://x.com/visakanv/status/1082392984115531776) This relates to my notion or concept of "[become known for a thing.](https://aaronfrancis.com/2025/become-known-for-a-thing-5738e314)" If you give the world an easy way to interact with you, it will interact with you! If you talk about databases a lot, people tag you on database conversations. If you send a newsletter full of tweets that you think are fun and interesting and inspiring and generally cohere around some of the same ideas, people start to bring those tweets to your attention. It's like a friend catcher. And that's what this newsletter has served as! A lot of people will tag me on tweets that they think are appropriate for the newsletter. Whether I include them or not, it makes my life better. It's so awesome. It's so fun. It exposes me to new types of content and it's a fun and fulfilling way to interact with internet friends. --- If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter and think a friend may enjoy reading it each week too, please forward it to them! They can sign up to receive it weekly here: . That’s it for this week! I enjoy reading all of your replies, so if you see something interesting or just have a thought you want to share, please hit reply and let me know. Talk soon, Aaron {{ ENV.unsubscribe\_personal | default: visitor.unsubscribe\_url | hyperlink: "Click here to unsubscribe." }}