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As the saying goes: predictions are hard, especially about the future.
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Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
by James Wright
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.Eady because you derive that directly from your hierarchy of values.
Hard because you can’t just “decide” what your hierarchy of values is. There is a significant transcendental part to it that critically depends on other people, on your environment, even God.
This is why many stuck in a limbo of analyzing and rationality justifying their goals.
So eventually all people do the same thing - they just pick whatever their intuition tells them from available options. That’s the framework.
What matters after death? What matters before it?
Avoiding death is impractical. The lifehack is to propagate a bit of your life forwards, i.e. children. Make sure they end up with all the advantage you can give them. Many can't do this, so the other trick is to propagate similar cells - family, humanity, earth creatures.
I'm a believer in occasionalism though. The philosophy/theology takes a few years to click, but in the end I think all that matters is patience and perseverance.
Patience for the trials and temptations of life. Perseverance is the struggle. Some call it a journey, but I think the anime Berserk captures it perfectly. To struggle as if you're branded for death and all odds are stacked against you.
If you believe in a judgement day, then these virtues will be rewarded. If you do not, then throwing yourself into whatever gets in your way is a more enjoyable way of living life than being passive. And in engineering terms, if you channel a lot of energy somewhere, something happens.
Some people think aiming at goals is the most important thing you can do. Sam Altman is one of those people. You can spend a lifetime aiming and still miss.
I have learned that there is no straight career path. Your best bet is to have a large group of friends and acquainted, and keep in touch with all of them. They will present you with opportunities all the time, if you're open to them. I was interested in machining after decades in IT, and I got a job making gears. It was really rewarding, but the pay and commute sucked. I still miss it, even though I got yeeted out of the work force with Long Covid.
Don't wait to do the things you enjoy, take photos, write stories, visit with friends now, while they're all still here. Work is what you do to pay for your life, not the other way around.
My biggest regret is not keeping a journal. I really appreciate the huge number of photos I took between 1997 and about 2016, recording my life with abandon. Now I'm mostly too tired to do anything sustained.
mikewarot's point about work being what you do to pay for life, not the other way around, really resonates. It's tough to balance, but for me, continuously refining what I `want` to do versus what I `have` to do has been critical. Keeping those connections open, like mikewarot suggests, also consistently brings new perspectives and options.
I ended up falling into a computer related major when my first choice became problematic due to the failings of my high school curriculum and the policies at the college left me in a kind of purgatory.
After graduation I put my resume online and waited about 8-12 months until someone called me about a contract job. That lasted a couple months, then I got another call. I’ve been working at that 2nd call for 20 years.
I still don’t know what I want to do. I’ve thought about quitting or completely changing careers almost everyday, but nothing really calls to me.
Considering I mostly left things up to chance, things worked out fairly well when I look at it objectively.
I’ve worked with other people who have had dozens of careers for one reason or another. You don’t necessarily need something that will work out for 40 years, especially if you have a personality that likes some variety. You just need something that works for you right now.
I wanted to study business, but a software dev booth at my college convinced me otherwise. I loved computers and already paid rent by making websites.
A few years later, I'm studying software engineering in university. Some senior convinces me to go abroad while it's easy. I find an internship in Germany.
A few months later, it's time to go back to Canada, and I don't want to. I love Berlin, Germany, Europe and a girl. I have a job offer. I love the team, have a good salary and get more time off than my parents combined. I drop out, sell my stuff and settle here.
Meanwhile, I get frustrated with German bureaucracy, so I start writing simple guides on a simple website about it. Traffic picks up, then revenue. Meanwhile, my second job at a big corp kills my passion for coding or waking up. I'm single again. I quit the job and ride a motorcycle from Berlin into the side of a car in Tajikistan. While waiting for repairs in Kazakhstan, the website's income meets my cost of living.
My passion for motorcycles died before I did, but the website is still going strong. It gave me purpose, a relaxed life and a grateful audience. I am still excited about it; the code, the content, the marketing challenges. AI is upsetting that balance, but even if it ended tomorrow, I'd be forever grateful for the last few years.
I'm not clever or hard-working. I just rolled the dice more often than many. I tried stuff and fully committed to my silly ideas. I have my fingers in many pies and leave a lot of half-finished projects in my wake, but at least I'm not afraid of trying things out. It could have worked any other way, but after experiencing a few months in a cubicle farm, I'd rather off myself than go back to that.