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In praise of blowing up your life

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Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#121

Post by hayst4ck »

monero-xmr wrote: post #56

Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...

"One doesn't realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied." ~ CS Lewis

I don't know the context of the quote and I know next to nothing about CS Lewis, but having blown my life up at one point and experienced freedom on a level few on this planet could achieve (health, money, time, and will) the quote rang very true for me.

I think some people grow up in a community and are rooted within that community, but those people are also subject to that community and there is no guarantee that that "community that surrounds you with love" is a good community.

"Always be surrounded by love..." unless you are gay. Gay, trans, atheist, feminist, brown, an opioid addict, a questioner of authority, or otherwise different.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#122

Post by projectazorian »

hzay wrote: post #104
eastbound wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting topic. When you are socially underdeveloped, the strange sheep, the sightly bullied, the not-taken seriously, well it’s not so bad to go twice around the globe a few years and come back. There’s debate. I’ve lost a lot of social fabric. I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. But I’m millionaire, own my startup, own my house, and I can get advice on how to manage at work, get a psychologist, e…

> it will make you a broken soul with broken social fabric, but with more experience. I didn't expect this :( Why are you this way? Reading your comment until that point, I thought you'd figured life out.

He does now have all the tools at his disposal to fix it. It’s not so bad.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#123

Post by ilyt »

eastbound wrote: post #111
ilyt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not ideal, and ideally people would have recognized talent at home and/or just included me because I was a living person, but they didn’t seem to have this ethics. What an egotistical thing to say. You're not entitled to have people waste time trying to "be friends with you" just because you're financially successful > I’m workaholic because I don’t have enough friends. You don't make friends and are workaholi…

You see, I’ve proven that I’m a good person in many occasions, despite naysayers. Now if we all must collude to make women in tech succeed, then surely we can include me at an improv group.

Sorry I can't differentiate whether that was sarcasm or more self-ego stroking

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#124

Post by whitepaint »

hayst4ck wrote: post #121
monero-xmr wrote: post #56

Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...

"One doesn't realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied." ~ CS Lewis I don't know the context of the quote and I know next to nothing about CS Lewis, but having blown my life up at one point and experienced freedom on a level few on this planet could achieve (health, money, time, and will) the quote rang very true for me. I think some people grow up in a community and…

> "Always be surrounded by love..." unless you are gay. Gay, trans, atheist, feminist, brown, an opioid addict, a questioner of authority, or otherwise different.

Or a middle-aged white man. https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#125

Post by sledgehammers »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I love articles like this. The writer seems to have no idea they're revealing severe psychological trauma to the readers, and despite it they try to pass it off as sage life advice. Like telling everyone you spit in the soup at work but it helps strengthen people's immune systems so everyone should be unsanitary.

This is just my empirical evidence - let me know if you disagree and have contrary information - but psychological traumas like this are increasing everywhere I look. In my local community, local country, globally, it's the same story basically: burnout, a need for a life blowup. I think it's clearly a growing trend, the old world just isn't working.

Thoughts?

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#126

Post by pizza »

monero-xmr wrote: post #56

Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...

Always wonder what people without roots are supposed to do. Where's the advice for them?

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#127

Post by mejutoco »

badpun wrote: post #96
surfsvammel wrote: post #57

I spent years examining (also together with my psychologist) the question: “People always tell you to follow your dream”. But often following one’s dream comes at a cost, or at least comes with some risk. Yet, the advice to “follow your dream” is a blanket advice, it supposedly trumps everything else. I ended up deciding to not follow my dream, at that point in life, and I am happy I didn’t. I won’t be telling my kid…

> “People always tell you to follow your dream”. Perhaps in the US. It's the privilege of living in an extremely wealthy country - the risk of following your dream is not that high, since, if you fail, you'll probably still be able to eke a relatively comfortable living. It doesn't work that way in most other countries. In most places, having a stable job that allows you to afford an apartment or (gasp) a house!, IS…

Although the US is a wealthy country, I believe for most people "following your dream" there could be much harder than in Europe. Especially in terms of an unexpected healthcare problem at the wrong time.

Of course some people are wealthy enough for this not to be a problem, and it is easier to get investors there. Still, I would not characterize it as risk-free in the US.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#128

Post by projectazorian »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I love articles like this. The writer seems to have no idea they're revealing severe psychological trauma to the readers, and despite it they try to pass it off as sage life advice. Like telling everyone you spit in the soup at work but it helps strengthen people's immune systems so everyone should be unsanitary.

Severe trauma? Really? Didn’t see any mention of violence, sexual assault, prison time, or the like. These seem like totally prosaic life choices that more or less worked out fine for him in the end. Maybe the language is a bit overwrought but that could just be to punch things up for the reader.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#129

Post by projectazorian »

sledgehammers wrote: post #125
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I love articles like this. The writer seems to have no idea they're revealing severe psychological trauma to the readers, and despite it they try to pass it off as sage life advice. Like telling everyone you spit in the soup at work but it helps strengthen people's immune systems so everyone should be unsanitary.

This is just my empirical evidence - let me know if you disagree and have contrary information - but psychological traumas like this are increasing everywhere I look. In my local community, local country, globally, it's the same story basically: burnout, a need for a life blowup. I think it's clearly a growing trend, the old world just isn't working. Thoughts?

If you’re posting here, good chance you’re in a generational cohort that is entering prime midlife crisis years.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#130

Post by ensocode »

hayst4ck wrote: post #121
monero-xmr wrote: post #56

Alternatively, never blow up your life! Live near your family and lifelong friends, establish hardcore roots with your community, always be surrounded by love. A road less taken by the educated elites, but a happy and fulfilling road nonetheless. The Onion’s take: https://www.theonion.com/unambitious-loser-with-happy-fulfil...

"One doesn't realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied." ~ CS Lewis I don't know the context of the quote and I know next to nothing about CS Lewis, but having blown my life up at one point and experienced freedom on a level few on this planet could achieve (health, money, time, and will) the quote rang very true for me. I think some people grow up in a community and…

>"community that surrounds you with love" This hurts a bit for those who broke out of a toxic or at least not so loving community. I love your comment and I will add this citation to my favorites but it assumes that the ties and relationships are full of love, which I think is not the case for everyone.
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