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To be fair, guys: find yourself in the right position in life and any act to try and enrich the thing you're calling life, enlighten yourself, and improve your

To be fair, guys: find yourself in the right position in life and any act to try and enrich the thing you're calling life, enlighten yourself, and improve your lot will be considered irrational by somebody. Best take a few steps back. He's brazen, and maybe a bit dumb. I'd probably get along with calling him too proud, mostly. Now to reduce myself to platitudes: at least he did something. That's living. Who deserves in this life to try and come up with something new? I hope not only the few special people who were ever so lucky to be born into the right place, or have the right amount of money, or the timely and rational roadmap laid out before them like some kind of gospel whispered in their ear as if from above. For all your favourite painters, scientists, theorists, philosophers, chefs, writers, musicians, actors, even just general stop-gap-role human beings (as the preceding rhetoric might lead me to classify them—after all what kind of animal would admire a labourer[/s]), remember: there are millions who died in obscurity, having lived more or less than this goofball, or you, and most of them didn't offer up (or didn't have the chance to offer up) any insight so that you might avoid the same mistakes. It's not that you're necessarily wrong in what you're saying outright, but maybe something else. The unfortunate thing about social matters, is that social science is kind of trite—seemingly because it can't really be treated like science—the rules' changes depend on too many variables. I think that's the beauty of it. You're not assessing a matter that is purely business or financial or scientific. You're reading it from the wrong perspective. Put his shoes on and just listen and learn from the experience. I think that's all there is to it. This is why we share experiences. I mean, unless you know everything and have done it all already—then I'd love to hear more from you! On another note: if that's the response of an engineer, and their treatment of clients with a similar critique, let me know—I'll choose another bridge but those that such an engineer designed to cross any divide. I think the right response is to ask a question.

AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
> at least he did something. I mean no offense, because I do sorta appreciate what you're going for, but this is almost the most philosophically, semantically, and most sillily empty sentence that exists. Everyone does something. People who do 'nothing' do something. We only praise people whom succeed publicly or fail publicly. Even then, we only praise the people who fail when we ideologically align with them. We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group, nor the ones who succeed. Trying isn't really something that should count to other people. I won't say it shouldn't count to the person who tried it; self-esteem is a very personal thing. Failure shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing personally either, but let's not pretend that it's usually a good thing. The vast majority of failures are just failures. Starting a bead store in 2017 isn't a good idea, and we shouldn't congratulate my mother-in-law for doing it and wasting 30k in investments, nor should we congratulate her investors. Edit: Also, can anyone tell me if I should have used 'who' or 'whom' here? I don't 'think' it's the direct object, but I will defer to someone else: 'We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group'
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Sure, sure—but you're cutting one small phrase out of my larger sentiment. I know it's a dumb platitude. I said as much. I'd prefer the focus of my comment be the rest of it. I didn't think I had to break it down further, and I was trying to be cool and all that, but what I was trying to say is: [if you know that area of Toronto, the location he chose was not that out of the way business-wise, but it is a little bit and ] he was trying to bring growth and culture to an area of his city that needs it. He was trying to do something that would have a significant positive impact for his family and his community. That seems like a good thing to me, overall. He didn't do everything wrong. The reviews he received, being rated higher at some point than Bar Isabel (one of the best, if not the, best Spanish restaurant in the city), and Cafe Boulud (one of the finest French restaurants in the city at the Four Seasons in Yorkville) are substantial. Wasn't congratulating the guy. He's got a tough road ahead. I'm just encouraging the humanist understanding treatment vs. hard-analytical treatment of the article. He already knows he's screwed He's said as much. That might mean he wrote it for another reason, no? It certainly isn't encouraging charity. Maybe he just wrote it for people like himself to read? I think that's a good starting question.
  - AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
    Apologies, I'm a few glasses of wine in, and your elucidation made it much clearer. Thank you for your response!
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      No problem, I can see where I fuzzed my own points!
  - ImSkeptical 9y ago
    I feel like this story really highlighted all the guy's flaws, and hopefully exaggerated them. As you say, he must've been doing something right. The story seems like he took a terrible risk he couldn't afford, he didn't prepare or research things well, and his endeavor failed largely due to his own shortcomings. Sure, he learned something and has a story. He also borrowed and lost thousands of dollars from his friends, and severely set back his family - possibly for life. Given that he's unlikely to be a restauranteur again, his lesson doesn't seem that valuable either.
bps4484 9y ago
Unfortunately I agree with your intent (going after your dreams, trying to enrich your life or enlighten yourself in a way that may seem crazy to most) but disagree that it can be applied here. He literally did nothing to prepare himself to fulfill his dream other than a mandatory 3 months of lazily being a line cook learning nothing, and a weekend cooking at a festival. I'm not in the food industry, but off the top of my head here are basic things I would advise to prepare yourself for success: 1. Get yourself a year of runway so that you can spend 1 year being a restaurant owner's apprentice. Spend 3 months being a line cook, 3 months working bar, 3 months wait staff, and 3 months helping with the book. 2. Use this year network with restaurant owners. Agree to buy 10 them drinks so they can tell you about their biggest mistakes. This < $1000 investment probably could have saved him 10s of thousands. 3. Use this year to also network in the service industry generally, which tends to have high turnover and is good to have a network to find replacements. This plan took me 10 minutes to think of and could probably be vastly improved. Instead he just hoped things would somehow work out. At some point you shouldn't applaud someone for following their dreams and instead just call it what it is, dumb.
Lazare 9y ago
> at least he did something. That's living. Yeah, true. But...let's be honest, the thing he did was very destructive, dumb, and doomed to failure; he didn't get the outcome he wanted going in, he's not happy with the outcome he ended up with, and he's not articulated any lessons he learned from it. There's a lot of things he could have done. He could have changed careers, gone back to university, backpacked across Europe, sold his house, put everything he owned in storage, and then circled the globe hopping from port to port on tramp freighters. Instead he cached out a chunk of his pension, sold his house, spent all the equity, borrowed money from friends, and basically spent every penny he and his wife had on pretending to be running a restaurant. Commiting suicide is "doing something", so I guess by your definition that's living? That doesn't seem very useful of a definition. Meanwhile, I have a rewarding job I deeply enjoy, I spend time with friends and family, I have hobbies, I learn new things. Am I not "living"? > Put his shoes on and just listen and learn from the experience. That would be easier to do if he'd learned from it first. I think the point of making mistakes and "living life" is learning from those mistakes, and becoming a better person. What do I learn from reading about someone's fatalistic retelling of something he tacitly admits he knew was dumb? "Don't sell your house to invest in a project with no real upside and an overwhelmingly likely chance of 100% losses"? "Don't spend money you need to feed your kids on a vanity project which you've sabotaged for your own convenience?"
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  You're not all wrong. I live similarly to the way you describe. I'm certainly not setting him up as a model, or defending the subject of the story. Do you know Toronto well? It might not be to learn from the lessons he has to offer, but may be something somebody (or many people) in this town need to hear. Like I said, there are so many would-be anythings that fade into obscurity for one reason or another, for a cause that was their fault or not. Normally you just don't hear from them. Everybody loves an unlikely success story, but are full of venom when shown the other side. Maybe nobody wants to believe it, and would prefer to believe that everything follows a perfect order and all you have to do is follow a prescribed set of rules and you'll be fine. I think the context is important—the story is a tragedy, not an ode.

AnkhMorporkian 9y ago

> at least he did something. I mean no offense, because I do sorta appreciate what you're going for, but this is almost the most philosophically, semantically, and most sillily empty sentence that exists. Everyone does something. People who do 'nothing' do something. We only praise people whom succeed publicly or fail publicly. Even then, we only praise the people who fail when we ideologically align with them. We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group, nor the ones who succeed. Trying isn't really something that should count to other people. I won't say it shouldn't count to the person who tried it; self-esteem is a very personal thing. Failure shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing personally either, but let's not pretend that it's usually a good thing. The vast majority of failures are just failures. Starting a bead store in 2017 isn't a good idea, and we shouldn't congratulate my mother-in-law for doing it and wasting 30k in investments, nor should we congratulate her investors. Edit: Also, can anyone tell me if I should have used 'who' or 'whom' here? I don't 'think' it's the direct object, but I will defer to someone else: 'We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group'

52-6F-62 9y ago
Sure, sure—but you're cutting one small phrase out of my larger sentiment. I know it's a dumb platitude. I said as much. I'd prefer the focus of my comment be the rest of it. I didn't think I had to break it down further, and I was trying to be cool and all that, but what I was trying to say is: [if you know that area of Toronto, the location he chose was not that out of the way business-wise, but it is a little bit and ] he was trying to bring growth and culture to an area of his city that needs it. He was trying to do something that would have a significant positive impact for his family and his community. That seems like a good thing to me, overall. He didn't do everything wrong. The reviews he received, being rated higher at some point than Bar Isabel (one of the best, if not the, best Spanish restaurant in the city), and Cafe Boulud (one of the finest French restaurants in the city at the Four Seasons in Yorkville) are substantial. Wasn't congratulating the guy. He's got a tough road ahead. I'm just encouraging the humanist understanding treatment vs. hard-analytical treatment of the article. He already knows he's screwed He's said as much. That might mean he wrote it for another reason, no? It certainly isn't encouraging charity. Maybe he just wrote it for people like himself to read? I think that's a good starting question.
- AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
  Apologies, I'm a few glasses of wine in, and your elucidation made it much clearer. Thank you for your response!
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    No problem, I can see where I fuzzed my own points!
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  I feel like this story really highlighted all the guy's flaws, and hopefully exaggerated them. As you say, he must've been doing something right. The story seems like he took a terrible risk he couldn't afford, he didn't prepare or research things well, and his endeavor failed largely due to his own shortcomings. Sure, he learned something and has a story. He also borrowed and lost thousands of dollars from his friends, and severely set back his family - possibly for life. Given that he's unlikely to be a restauranteur again, his lesson doesn't seem that valuable either.

bps4484 9y ago

Unfortunately I agree with your intent (going after your dreams, trying to enrich your life or enlighten yourself in a way that may seem crazy to most) but disagree that it can be applied here. He literally did nothing to prepare himself to fulfill his dream other than a mandatory 3 months of lazily being a line cook learning nothing, and a weekend cooking at a festival. I'm not in the food industry, but off the top of my head here are basic things I would advise to prepare yourself for success: 1. Get yourself a year of runway so that you can spend 1 year being a restaurant owner's apprentice. Spend 3 months being a line cook, 3 months working bar, 3 months wait staff, and 3 months helping with the book. 2. Use this year network with restaurant owners. Agree to buy 10 them drinks so they can tell you about their biggest mistakes. This < $1000 investment probably could have saved him 10s of thousands. 3. Use this year to also network in the service industry generally, which tends to have high turnover and is good to have a network to find replacements. This plan took me 10 minutes to think of and could probably be vastly improved. Instead he just hoped things would somehow work out. At some point you shouldn't applaud someone for following their dreams and instead just call it what it is, dumb.

Lazare 9y ago

> at least he did something. That's living. Yeah, true. But...let's be honest, the thing he did was very destructive, dumb, and doomed to failure; he didn't get the outcome he wanted going in, he's not happy with the outcome he ended up with, and he's not articulated any lessons he learned from it. There's a lot of things he could have done. He could have changed careers, gone back to university, backpacked across Europe, sold his house, put everything he owned in storage, and then circled the globe hopping from port to port on tramp freighters. Instead he cached out a chunk of his pension, sold his house, spent all the equity, borrowed money from friends, and basically spent every penny he and his wife had on pretending to be running a restaurant. Commiting suicide is "doing something", so I guess by your definition that's living? That doesn't seem very useful of a definition. Meanwhile, I have a rewarding job I deeply enjoy, I spend time with friends and family, I have hobbies, I learn new things. Am I not "living"? > Put his shoes on and just listen and learn from the experience. That would be easier to do if he'd learned from it first. I think the point of making mistakes and "living life" is learning from those mistakes, and becoming a better person. What do I learn from reading about someone's fatalistic retelling of something he tacitly admits he knew was dumb? "Don't sell your house to invest in a project with no real upside and an overwhelmingly likely chance of 100% losses"? "Don't spend money you need to feed your kids on a vanity project which you've sabotaged for your own convenience?"

52-6F-62 9y ago
You're not all wrong. I live similarly to the way you describe. I'm certainly not setting him up as a model, or defending the subject of the story. Do you know Toronto well? It might not be to learn from the lessons he has to offer, but may be something somebody (or many people) in this town need to hear. Like I said, there are so many would-be anythings that fade into obscurity for one reason or another, for a cause that was their fault or not. Normally you just don't hear from them. Everybody loves an unlikely success story, but are full of venom when shown the other side. Maybe nobody wants to believe it, and would prefer to believe that everything follows a perfect order and all you have to do is follow a prescribed set of rules and you'll be fine. I think the context is important—the story is a tragedy, not an ode.