I propose that this fellow does not have any children or other dependents.
My thought exactly, the author basically has to avoid any long-term project like raising a child. That's fine when you're in your twenties I guess.
In praise of blowing up your life
211–220 of 352 posts
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparing the suicide rate of those groups with middle aged white men (adjusted for the population size) is a bit silly. Some sources point to 40% of trans people having attempted suicide, and I don't think 40% of middle aged men have attempted suicide. In absolute numbers the suicide rate among men is an epidemic, but it's not fair to equate the two populations...
Uh. Ok so one groups rate of successful suicide is more important than the others. Gotcha. At least we can agree that it is an epidemic among white middle aged men.
The mentioned statistics are not comparable, so there is no "more importance" regarding this.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#213Alternatively, 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...
I have to agree. For those people who have loving families that they can work with - realizing that EVERYONE has differences of opinion - staying near family is the single best thing you can do. You can have kids. Those kids can be around your parents and siblings and other relatives. Honestly it is true living. All else gravitates towards being too self centered.
I moved continents 12 years ago. I'm now happily married with a kid and have a life I love in my new home country. But I've only recently recognized the price I've paid in moving so far from my parents and siblings and what my daughter will miss out on because of it too.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#214Alternatively, 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…
That quote is a great counter balance from the one in Fight Club, "Only when you have nothing, can you do anything."
One issue I have with the CS Lewis quote is I have been happy at both extremes. Tied down when I was younger was not for me, but now that I'm older I deeply appreciate all the ties I have. I'm not sure I would have gained this appreciation without taking the path it took to get here.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
While moving from Pittsburgh to Paris to Hong Kong to Singapore to Berlin to Cape Town is more likely a waste of energy again and risks burning you (not mentioning the planet) out. It's a lot easier to turn the adventure-o-meter up than to turn it down.
Agreed. This brand of self-aggrandizing “I did it my way” advice adverts always exemplify a special brand of narcissism; the speaker is unaware that they aren’t the center of their own life. The truth is that “blowing up your life” isn’t usually good or laudable: if you regularly find yourself in situations where you think it’s best to hard reset you’re probably very confused about what you want and need and, ironica…
But also to the contrary this is the exact line of thinking that causes the large majority of people to sleep walk through life, as the author says. It is a hard truth of life that the large majority of people (80+% I would say) do not take any real risks in their entire long life.
You can obviously over-do it, and yes it probably feels good to follow the herd and stay in the "okay" relationship and the "okay" job with the same old things because you feel like that's what everyone does. But... there is much more outside that world. The walls you think are there are in fact not there at all. There is room for risk within reason in life.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#216I have a theory that this is the Monty hall problem effect in practice [1]. When you blow up your life you are opening an unknown door... But after you have narrowed your options, so the outcomes are likely to be better than your status quo. [1] https://link.medium.com/N6HaHXgyAAb
I think the difference is in the Monty Hall problem a 3rd party who knows one of the options to be a dud, reveals it to be so. In real life you're still just as likely to pick the dud. (One of many)
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
"People travel to change themselves, but they only manage to change the scenery." (Not my quote, alas, and my memory has butchered it enough that I can't find the original.)
Except that traveling is already requiring change in a person, opposed to being stationary. You have to face new situations all the time - requiring a different state of alertness and consciousness. And new sceneries have different people, climate etc. also literally changing people (microbiome for example). So yes, some people travel to run away from problems they never dare to solve, but some people just like to be…
Nomadic ancestors traveled with their (extended) tribes.
Very different from people who are straining or destroying their relationships to go have some croissants in Paris or whatever.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#218Earlier 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…
Are you sure you're not trading your willingness to make more genuine human connections for the convenience of a psychologist?
Ouch, that… is a good point. I really needed one at some point because I had an infinite-loop on negativity, but I need to try to emancipate from that.
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#219> There’s no guarantee that blowing up your life turns out well.
ahem... agreed. In fact, I have seen this many times, and most have not turned out well.
But some have turned out quite well.
A lot of times, we have no idea what's good for us, and when we get what we want, we find that the fox wasn't worth the chase.
In my case, I was forced into my current situation, and it has turned out well.
I was laid off my previous career, as a manager/engineer at a very well-known camera manufacturer, and discovered, to my anger and dismay, that the current tech industry actively hates people over 50.
Not a fun time.
But it forced me to take stock, and I realized that I actually have plenty to retire on, and there really wasn't a need for me to be desperately seeking work.
I then lowered my requirements, since I didn't need the money. I would have been happy to work at risky startups, for equity. I have a pretty vast array of experience and skills that would have been almost ideal for a startup.
Still wasn't enough. I'm still old. Damn.
Well, I guess I'm retired, then, whether I like it or not.
Turns out, I like it. I can afford the tools I need, and I still work (more than I ever did). I just don't make money at it, and the folks I'm working with, though young, appreciate me and my work. They know the value they are getting, and the gray hair doesn't fill them with fear. Surprisingly, I'm actually pretty good at working in a team. May have something to do with having worked on high-functioning teams for my entire career.
TL;DR: I was afraid to take the plunge, and needed to be pushed.
In my case, it's worked, but I was very fortunate. A lot of others, in the same case, would have been absolutely clobbered.
I have a friend that is a chef. He got pushed out for being old (actually won an age-discrimination suit). He used his winnings to set up a catering business, and now makes way more than he ever did, as a wage slave.
He's really, really good at what he does. That's the thing that a lot of ageists don't seem to understand. That gray often caps a great deal of competence and ability. It isn't just about "culture." Getting Stuff Done requires Discipline, Competence, Tenacity, Skill, Intelligence, and Ability. Many older folks have these, in spades.
> "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
- Hunter S. Thompson
Re: In praise of blowing up your life
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alan Watts was the one that was always saying, "the you that is trying to be better is the same you that needs improving." Try breaking out of that trap! To some degree if you are going to change yourself for the better, you will already be doing it. It is a bit defeatist but also a little bit of truth. It is like how some folks try desperately to learn an instrument or get better are writing or whatever. They have t…
In creativity, unless you are a savant it takes grinding to increase your ability to match your taste. If you started very young, then bravo, the grinding is out of the way and you were likely to be able to focus on the fun parts and have fewer distractions. If you're starting as an adult, then it's gonna take some grit to get to a level you're satisfied with.
The idea that to some people being a top artist comes naturally is just the excuse that lazy people use.