5 ms·

I don't read "give until it hurts" in "give over and over myriad petty, unsexy ways". That's your own bias creeping in, I think.

by rosser 9y ago

smokeyj 9y ago
No, I just think it's paradoxical to free your mind of fixation only to fixate on something else (relentlessly helping others). I don't think being happy, or contributing to society requires a fixation on giving - or for it to be uncomfortable. Bill Gates seems to be a pretty generous dude, but I don't think he makes being Jesus-like his identity. So in a certain sense, I think working smarter not harder is a healthier and more sustainable mentality.
- rosser 9y ago
  Where do trying to be "Jesus-like", relentlessness, or replacing one fixation with another come into it? That's the bias I'm talking about; you're making a leap from one extreme to another that's unsupported by anything in the discussion, or the referenced text.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    > The really important kind of freedom involves .. being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. Are we not reading the same thing? Is this sentence not the crux of the entire message? It seems to me - by the word choice used - that DFW finds sacrifice to be "petty and unsexy" - yet does it to a repetitive extent for the sake of real freedom. I'm making the observation that that also sounds like a type of worship. Maybe it's totally off base, but I don't see why the point is confusing. It's pretty simple actually.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - throw_away 9y ago
      I don't think the author denies that this is a form of worship. Immediately before the above excerpt, Wallace says: "Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."

I don't read "give until it hurts" in "give over and over myriad petty, unsexy ways". That's your own bias creeping in, I think.

by rosser 9y ago

I don't read "give until it hurts" in "give over and over myriad petty, unsexy ways". That's your own bias creeping in, I think.

smokeyj 9y ago

No, I just think it's paradoxical to free your mind of fixation only to fixate on something else (relentlessly helping others). I don't think being happy, or contributing to society requires a fixation on giving - or for it to be uncomfortable. Bill Gates seems to be a pretty generous dude, but I don't think he makes being Jesus-like his identity. So in a certain sense, I think working smarter not harder is a healthier and more sustainable mentality.

rosser 9y ago
Where do trying to be "Jesus-like", relentlessness, or replacing one fixation with another come into it? That's the bias I'm talking about; you're making a leap from one extreme to another that's unsupported by anything in the discussion, or the referenced text.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  > The really important kind of freedom involves .. being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. Are we not reading the same thing? Is this sentence not the crux of the entire message? It seems to me - by the word choice used - that DFW finds sacrifice to be "petty and unsexy" - yet does it to a repetitive extent for the sake of real freedom. I'm making the observation that that also sounds like a type of worship. Maybe it's totally off base, but I don't see why the point is confusing. It's pretty simple actually.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - throw_away 9y ago
    I don't think the author denies that this is a form of worship. Immediately before the above excerpt, Wallace says: "Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."