No man can set in order the details unless he has already set before himself the chief purpose.
– Seneca
This essay is me sketching out the greater picture of the life I want, so I don’t get lost in the daily maze it presents.
In some of his lectures, Jordan Peterson broke life down into career, family, friends, meaningful things outside work (some might call these hobbies, but that is a derogatory reduction – “for pleasure” is only a subset of “for meaning”). These I will use as a skeleton to outline the life I want. And the ones I don’t. For not all manifestations of this skeleton guarantee a life you’d want, it has to be your own little Frankenstein. A difficult task; might hint it is worth doing.
The importance of work and money; a truth so often mis-presented. As if the fact was known, but the reasons weren’t shared, so each grandiose parent had to think up their own (and often missed). I was instructed to pick earning prospects over what brings pleasure (but with a soviet tint of guaranteed money over extreme money; wealth was simultaneously wished for and despised, likely feared, likely not understood). At first I followed, then rebelled, now trying to integrate. You have to be of value to others! Value is often represented with money. Money is necessary for most lives I can imagine enjoying. But. Those lives don’t include being a 9 to 5 wage slave. Nor an extreme specialist (in the classical sense at least). A jack of all trades has been more my style (with an analytical logic backbone to it all); the specialisation being the abstraction of ideas across domains, the ability to learn and adapt quickly. When asked about the “key to success”, John Danaher answered:
Finding a way to work in a world where most of the answers are already known. [..] In a highly developed world, the key to success is to be able to identify some area of the industry that you’re in, which is currently under-valued. [..] something which is genuinely useful but currently underused/underutilised and I want to bring that back in and develop it. And because it’s an inherently useful product, it will be very successful in its initial applications against people who aren’t currently using it.
– Lex Fridman podcast #260
I don’t need to come up with new answers, I need to recognise them. If I can learn to see, I can be of value. Do that with leverage and I don’t have to be a 9 to 5 wage slave.
The thinking doesn’t change much when considering “hobbies”. Meaningful remains meaningful, only sometimes likely less profitable (potentially because it can’t be done with leverage; or you like doing it more than you are good at it; or you are just not there yet). Dancing, writing, bodybuilding, shamanism, tattooing, music. Movement and thought, body and mind, fundamental cornerstones to a meaningful life. And through sharing, teaching, inspiring – they are no longer an individual venture, but improving the social fabric as well.
Entertainment, emotional support, people that love you – friends. Now let me present the case for why none of these is what I want my friends to be. In the era of being soothed by podcasters and youtubers and old sitcoms and comedy specials, I see where the image of the entertainer friend comes from.
Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images.
– Neil Postman
This thought was formulated back in 1984, as part of a warning that what entrapped us is Huxley’s world not Orwell’s. I’d say it’s grown more extreme since then. We are drowning in attention sucking entertainment, I don’t need more of it in friends. A difficult proposition; if the only time you are sober is with friends, then time with friends would be constant withdrawal. Might have something to do with the teenage smoking and drinking and drug and phone use…
Can you imagine a life in which you refuse to enjoy a single word of appreciation or to rest your head on anyone’s shoulder for support? [..] To see at last with a vision that is clear and unclouded by fear or desire. You will know what it means to love. But to come to the land of love, you must pass through the pains of death for to love persons means to die to the need for persons, and to be utterly alone. [..] the love of laughter and intimacy with people to whom you do not cling and on whom you do not depend emotionally but whose company you enjoy. [..] you are unaccustomed to aloneness. If you manage to stay there for a while, the desert will suddenly blossom into love. It will be springtime forever; the drug will be out; you’re free.
– Anthony de Mello, Awareness
Can you imagine… another difficult proposition. A friend of mine interpreted this passage as saying that not being dependent on others is in fact so difficult that it is not worth attempting; better instead to deliberately settle with the self-admitted imperfect state of emotional dependence (mirror the state and you get “emotional support”). I read it differently. The described state is exactly where I want to be; the cost is one I’m willing to pay. Intuitively I had already attempted pieces, now I knew to head there fully, to develop the taste for “the love of laughter and intimacy with people to whom you do not cling and on whom you do not depend emotionally but whose company you enjoy.” At first, the “utterly alone” sounds freaky, but that is what we are, so why not embrace it? Why not be Peterson’s meta-safe, Nassim Taleb’s anti-fragile, de Mello’s utterly alone, utterly free, utterly in love.
Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That’s false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, not to be loved.
– Anthony de Mello, Awareness
So we arrive at my final proposition – friends aren’t for me to be loved, but for me to love. No need to conjure a creep in some unreciprocated stalking relationship; friends can still love you, it’s just not what they are for. I don’t want them to be my entertainment, emotional support, drug of being loved. Friends are who I think with, whose company I enjoy without clinging, who I love.
Scito: ama et aude millia. [Know this: love and dare (to love) a thousand times.]
– Written on the wall of a boutique psychedelic wine brewery near Pompeii; shared by Brian Muraresku in Immortality Key.
More on love, now in the context of family. I know that I want kids; I don’t know that I need a classical life-long monogamous relationship. I’m not opposed to it, but I’m not convinced by the arguments for it being the way to do partners. Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein (a pair of evolutionary biologists with a lovely book) as well as Jordan Peterson argue that non-monogamy results in incel terrorism (I’m paraphrasing). I agree with the reasoning they have, but they assume polygamy (individuals of one sex have just one reproductive partner, but individuals of the other sex have multiple partners) and seem to be unable to imagine and consider a version of polyamory that includes pair-bonding (or group-bonding? since we are discussing poly). Plus imagine using this argument to someone’s face, “we like you, we love you, we could twine our lives, but we don’t want eventual terrorism so… leave?” Fuck that. I’m not arguing that you should actively seek an alternative arrangement, but leave your mind open; monogamous marriage, especially the self-isolating nuclear, doesn’t work well enough to afford not exploring alternative arrangements. This becomes especially important when talking about kids; alternative arrangements to the self-isolating nuclear, which can vary in their non-traditional extremism, can afford a stable layer of parental figures which survives the often-time inevitable separation of parents. However you do it, here I agree with the Heying Weinstein Peterson trio, that you should probably have kids.
If you think you a good person, please, have a kid. Put all your good ideas in that kid, so the world will be better.
– Dave Chapelle
That is how the world improves, how the best parts of “you” live forever. What could be more meaningful than creating a kid who is slightly less fucked up than you. If everyone does this enough times the world has no choice but to improve.
It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. [..]
Stop asking about the meaning of life, instead think of you as being questioned by life. Answer in right action and right conduct.– Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
It’s good to have set out what we want of life, no goal is achieved without first setting it, but life is chaotic. We can’t control what happens to us, only how we react to it; everything that I’ve imagined could be removed as an option, how should I respond to the world then? What does life want of me? How to answer it in right action and right conduct?
“King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” – a book and the Jungian four male archetypes – is what helped me structure my mind so as to be able to answer these questions. While the main conclusion drawn seems childishly obvious – different environments require different responses – it clicked in a new way for me. Allowing all your faces and potential to manifest, without judgement and suppression, integrating your shadow so it doesn’t lash out – that’s how I plan to manifest fully, express authentically, dive into life with all of my energy.
We’re lost in our minds, in our ideas and ideals, it’s always go, go, go. and we’ve got an inner self conflict which animals don’t have. And we’re always condemning ourselves and making ourselves feel guilty. [..] People do not know how to enjoy the lovely things of life. So they’re going in for greater and greater artificial stimulants. [..] They’re guilty, no time to enjoy life.
– Anthony de Mello, Awareness
I’ve often fallen too deep into the story of work and life and todos, losing awareness of the broader context, leading to stress and anxiousness – “guilty, no time to enjoy life”. Memento mori, our mortality and the briefness of life, is what helps me pull myself back up, to come back to enjoying the lovely things of life, to rid myself of the need for artificial stimulants.
The work of the philosopher is finding the perfect balance; working and relaxing, not working and work avoidance.
– Seneca
“Nekādas parazītkustības” [no parasite movements] – as my dance teacher said. You either step or you don’t, move or stay still. As Adiyogi, the first yogi, Shiva, who was always in either ecstatic dance or complete meditation. If you have energy? Go and do! No energy? Rest; no youtube and socials and work avoidance, but rest. To do this you need to be fully honest with yourself, have a meaning for your work and tasks, clear your addictions (or be very aware of them), always present, always aware. Wonderful goal to strive for I think.
You might suddenly understand who “I” is, and you’ll never be the same again, never. You will fear no one and you will fear nothing. [..] You fear no one because you’re perfectly content to be a nobody. You don’t give a damn about success or failure. They mean nothing. Honour, disgrace, they mean nothing! If you make a fool of yourself, that means nothing either. Isn’t that a wonderful state to be in!
– Anthony de Mello, Awareness
Take action. But not out of fear. Be calm, content, so your motivations are clear.
Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord.
– Lord Krishna to Arjuna, Bhagavad-Gita
No point philosophising if you don’t take action. Speak no more of what a good man ought to be, be such.
There being a right action and conduct as answers to life’s questions doesn’t sound as leaving much freedom to … do dumb shit. Add to that the convincing arguments of the overall lack of free will. Why go through the laborious process of just doing what the universe (through god or entropy) has ordained for you, what the Moirai have spun measured and cut, or even what you on your own have set as proper responses? Here I enjoyed how Neil put it in Nolan’s TENET:
What’s happened, happened; it’s an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world, it’s not an excuse for doing nothing.
– Christopher Nolan through Neil, TENET
So wake up, now and each day, and do the work of a human.