4 ms·

Not directly related, but the line "Finally, you need to remember that failure is not the end. Your company might fail, but that doesn’t make you a failure." i

by rmah 6y ago

Not directly related, but the line "Finally, you need to remember that failure is not the end. Your company might fail, but that doesn’t make you a failure." in the article has me thinking a bit... What is it about our culture (is it mostly a western culture thing?) that is so obsessed with the question of identity?" Am I a success? Am I a failure? Am I a programmer? Am I a mother? Am I a nerd? Am I X? Am I Y? It seems to me that all these things are either descriptions of attributes, feelings, past actions, past results, etc. No such statement is even close to describing a person in totality. And thus, is never, strictly speaking, true. You may have failed at something. But are you, literally, a failure? No, you're a person who happened to fail at something that one time. I guess, most of the time, this is just semantics -- a convenient shorthand. Perhaps problems only arise when one takes the shorthand "I am X" phrase too much to heart and actually starts to believe it literally? Is this even worth thinking about? Hmm...

ck425 6y ago
I think it's a natural human tendency. It makes it easier on our heuristics to sort other humans and ourselves into identities. The issue now is that we have the delusion that we can choose to be anything which makes us unhappy. Previously you were just told and had to get on with it or you had a handful of options and the best one for you was relatively easy to figure out.
blfr 6y ago
What is it about our culture (is it mostly a western culture thing?) that is so obsessed with the question of identity? Western people are much more individualistic, we're not defined by our family/clan as much so we seek other markers of belonging.
majormajor 6y ago
> What is it about our culture (is it mostly a western culture thing?) that is so obsessed with the question of identity? There are a lot of people now who don't have the traditional anchors that answered these questions for people. Religion has always been a big one - and shows how important group membership or not has always been, with often deadly consequences - but it's less important to many people today than in many times in the past in the west. Many people also no longer have a lot of the pure "I do these things because they are necessary for mine and others' survival" driving factors in our life. Most jobs, at an individual level, could be given up without much impact on everyone else. Often even the person who quit would still land in a safety net and still survive fairly easily. And a lot of these changes have a lot of benefits. It's good that you can fail at a job, it's good you can have more free time, it's good you don't have to belong to the same church or stay in the same place as everyone you group with. But then what do you replace it with, if you seek your own way? You have to answer that question yourself.
Jimpulse 6y ago
There's a whole body of thought around this under the concept of no-self in Buddhism. If the concept of self is an illusion, then trying to build an identity around it is futile.

by rmah 6y ago

ck425 6y ago

I think it's a natural human tendency. It makes it easier on our heuristics to sort other humans and ourselves into identities. The issue now is that we have the delusion that we can choose to be anything which makes us unhappy. Previously you were just told and had to get on with it or you had a handful of options and the best one for you was relatively easy to figure out.

blfr 6y ago

What is it about our culture (is it mostly a western culture thing?) that is so obsessed with the question of identity? Western people are much more individualistic, we're not defined by our family/clan as much so we seek other markers of belonging.

majormajor 6y ago

> What is it about our culture (is it mostly a western culture thing?) that is so obsessed with the question of identity? There are a lot of people now who don't have the traditional anchors that answered these questions for people. Religion has always been a big one - and shows how important group membership or not has always been, with often deadly consequences - but it's less important to many people today than in many times in the past in the west. Many people also no longer have a lot of the pure "I do these things because they are necessary for mine and others' survival" driving factors in our life. Most jobs, at an individual level, could be given up without much impact on everyone else. Often even the person who quit would still land in a safety net and still survive fairly easily. And a lot of these changes have a lot of benefits. It's good that you can fail at a job, it's good you can have more free time, it's good you don't have to belong to the same church or stay in the same place as everyone you group with. But then what do you replace it with, if you seek your own way? You have to answer that question yourself.

Jimpulse 6y ago

There's a whole body of thought around this under the concept of no-self in Buddhism. If the concept of self is an illusion, then trying to build an identity around it is futile.