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Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

nik.art

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Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#131

Post by lazyasciiart »

grogenaut wrote: post #87
adithyassekhar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeremy Clarkson is a really tall guy.

Jeremy Clarkson in a F1 car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOh77dwAr54 . There's a reason they had hammond try that. I could barely get in or out of the original tesla roadster. I had to go out on my hands. Was fun to drive. My feet just didn't make it out the door sills sideways. Same thing for the back of a jeep cherokee in the late 90s. I'm 6'2" and have size 13 feet. I'm not making my shoulder, hips, or feet sma…

Don’t give up on all of them. My friend here is 6’5 and a pro strongman at the time https://70sbig.com/blog/2013/10/mike-interviews-pro-strongma...

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#132

Post by lazyasciiart »

madaxe_again wrote: post #110
stego-tech wrote: post #50

It’s the not-knowing that is the most haunting. I know I’ll never be able to take martial arts; I have made peace with that. I know I will never be an amazing athlete; I have made peace with that as well. Same with my body composition: I will never be rail-thin, I will never “fit” into most “fun” cars even when I finish my weight loss journey, I will never be the kind of guy who can fit into a Medium of anything clot…

Hm. I think Proust put it well: Desire makes everything blossom and flourish. Possession makes everything wither and fade. I’m a lucky son of a gun. Managed to slap the eject button on the treadmill early enough in life that I found myself in my early 30s with all the time in the world, and enough cash that it certainly felt like it. I went and lived so many dreams. Did a whole bunch of things I had already, in my de…

> Great; I’ve caught the mailman - now what?

Let him go so you can chase again. Give all the money away; or burn it if you’d rather. If you don’t want to do that because having unlimited cash does satisfy you, then make that a deliberate choice each day so you can remember why you like the life you’ve chosen.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#133

Post by nicbou »

madaxe_again wrote: post #110
stego-tech wrote: post #50

It’s the not-knowing that is the most haunting. I know I’ll never be able to take martial arts; I have made peace with that. I know I will never be an amazing athlete; I have made peace with that as well. Same with my body composition: I will never be rail-thin, I will never “fit” into most “fun” cars even when I finish my weight loss journey, I will never be the kind of guy who can fit into a Medium of anything clot…

Hm. I think Proust put it well: Desire makes everything blossom and flourish. Possession makes everything wither and fade. I’m a lucky son of a gun. Managed to slap the eject button on the treadmill early enough in life that I found myself in my early 30s with all the time in the world, and enough cash that it certainly felt like it. I went and lived so many dreams. Did a whole bunch of things I had already, in my de…

I had a mild version of that, and it allowed to focus on the parts of my work that I love without constantly worrying about productivity or monetisation. I could get more involved in the community and do fun things just for the sake of it.

Travel got old quickly. Consumable experiences in general did too. Making art, coding, and working with others did not.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#134

Post by raffael_de »

TrackerFF wrote: post #130

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that dreams are often just that, dreams. Once they are realized, many will not live up to the expectations. Managing your expectations plays a big part. So at least for me, that knowledge has helped. Another discovery I made, was that some of my best experiences and decisions have been by pure chance. Things I never planned to do, or had any desire to do, but turned out to be…

It's also worth reflecting on what's underlying the dream. Your "dream" was prestige. You obtained it and it disappointed you. My hypothesis would be that underlying your desire for prestige was a fundamental desire to be loved. Then you realized that prestige only looks superficially like being loved but it's actually something very different and materialistic. If you had reflected that earlier you could have avoided wasting effort for obtaining prestige. The same mechanism is true for all dreams.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#135

Post by raffael_de »

shermantanktop wrote: post #7

A life well-lived is really what we should all hope for. What that actually means varies by person. Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently. Everyone has regrets but my attitude is: I can’t change the past, but I can change the future.

> A life well-lived is really what we should all hope for.

That doesn't make sense. A life however-lived implies you're dead. You cannot admire your well-lived life.

> I can’t change the past, but I can change the future.

You cannot change the future ...

Maybe you're not a native speaker. The reason why I reply is because I notice that many people fall into language traps when reasoning about something philosophical. The result of that reasoning looks good but doesn't check out and hence doesn't get you anywhere in terms of actually realizing something important.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#136

Post by sph »

I just finished reading Four Thousand Weeks and this post resonates with me a lot. I recommend it. Despite its subtitle, it's decidedly not a conventional "time management" book, just a reminder that life is too short to do all the things you are wishing for today, that the day where you'll finally find the time to tackle that project will never arrive, and freedom is found when you just drop all that hope and need to control your life.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#140

Post by keybored »

Desires are severely overrated. The more you get the more you desire. The more you know the more you desire.

You can only get some of it. But you also only need some of it.

The key isn’t to get more. The key is to practice quietism about all the “unrealized” and eventually equanimity.

And there is still room for discontent and rebellion. But with more quietism there is more space to focus on those few things you can indeed change.

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