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I can't quite put my finger on how to define "this" but it seems like stories like "this" have been replacing stories of drive and grit in our cultural lore. I

I can't quite put my finger on how to define "this" but it seems like stories like "this" have been replacing stories of drive and grit in our cultural lore. It's en vogue now to talk about "doing nothing" or making it sound normal that you need to hire someone you don't know to accompany you to visit the hospital, etc. I am sure this is a part of the human experience but is it really a part we need to normalize, versus reconnecting with the culture of yesteryear of toughness, resilience, independence and productivity? The reason I say this is because I think the world is a tough competitive place whether we act like it or not. There's a premium to be someone (and a nation of someones) who can deal with harsh realities and crush through adversity. Every society that got to "the top" got there because of this, and I suspect every society that declined did so because of overindulgence in decadence and weakness. We don't want that.

bentcorner 6y ago
You get out what you put in - I see this story as someone making the best of a bad situation, finding a unique niche and innovating something that didn't exist before. (If the story is indeed true) "Doing nothing" is just click-bait - he's definitely not doing nothing, he's connecting with people who need it, and has built it into a business with a twitter following.
hh3k0 6y ago
> The reason I say this is because I think the world is a tough competitive place whether we act like it or not. It doesn't have to be, though. I guess the individuals featured in such stories are the change they want to see in the world.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  Sorry, but LOL. You can't opt out of competition any more than you can opt out of gravity. If you aren't "strong" enough to do the hard work, someone else in your town will do it and reap the rewards while you become irrelevant. If your whole town opts out, some other part of the country will do it while your town drifts away into irrelevance and poverty. If the whole country opts out, some other young and hungry country will take advantage of the opportunities your country passes up, until that country makes your country irrelevant. Everything we have is because we or our ancestors (whether literal ancestors or the people that built the countries we live in) did the hard work. A few people can opt out and free-ride on others. But if the whole culture opts out, the whole culture will become irrelevant.
  - larkeith 6y ago
    > You can't opt out of competition any more than you can opt out of gravity. Perhaps not as an individual, but I wonder about as a society - I don't know how we would get to this point, but imagine the sheer potential we as a culture could unlock by moving to a more cooperative model; consider the billions upon billions of person-hours wasted on things like stock trading, internal politicking, and marketing/advertising: all the things that provide no value to the race, but "required" to facilitate interpersonal competition. Of course, none of that is against your primary point, which is that hard work is still, on the whole, required. It just irritates me to see competition equated to a law of nature; we're not animals, we can choose whether and how competition applies.
    - xyzelement 6y ago
      Sure, I agree with that. There is plenty of cooperation in the world, when two strong parties come together and say "this will work out better for us if we do it together." My main point and I think you agree, is that you can never get there from a position of weakness and laze. No one is going to throw in their lot cooperating with you if your ethos is to "do nothing" or if you aren't functioning as an adult (whether an adult individual or an adult nation/country.)
  - hh3k0 6y ago
    > Everything we have is because we or our ancestors (whether literal ancestors or the people that built the countries we live in) did the hard work. 1) You can work hard in a non-competitive society. 2) That being said, hard work isn't -- contrary to what you seem to think -- inherently good. An industrialized genocide took place because my ancestors were diligent and hard-working. And I'd wager that a significant portion of modern-day hard workers is complicit in committing ecocide. 3) Besides, the way that you fetishize your ancestors' way of life I surely hope you're not vaccinated against polio and tetanus. And heaven forbid, I hope you are not wearing contact lenses or glasses. Disregard the current levels of automation and manifold other advances, putting in the hard work in a competitive society and eventually dying of typhus is most definitely the way.
wilburTheDog 6y ago
I think there is another level to what this guy is doing that's hard to see if you just believe what he says about himself on its face. I feel like to be able to listen to and or be with someone while they do whatever and have no judgement, criticism, or suggestion requires you to have a very high level of Zen. I would probably want to correct or assist or do something in most situations. He's operating on the level of a therapist. But it's hard for people to admit sometimes that they need a therapist. There is a stigma and a feeling like there is something wrong with you that you have to get over just to ask for a therapist. This guy skips over all of that resistance by having, by all appearances, no ego at all. He's saying 'I don't have any skills so I can't possibly criticize you'. But having no skills doesn't stop most people from making suggestions or being critical. He is providing high value assistance to people and presenting himself in such a humble way that it's easy to ask for his help.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  I actually agree with that, I do think therapy and "getting things out of your head" are incredibly valuable. I don't have a problem with this guy - basically he found a way to make money doing what capitalism has deemed a valuable service so he's OK in my book. He's working and building. My problem is more with the cultural ethos and the vibe of this story and what it and stories like it appear to celebrate or at least normalize. This headline should have been "enterprising Japanese man builds a service and earns a good living satisfying the needs of others that they value and pay for" :)
klmadfejno 6y ago
Japan has a stronger culture of people being ok not chasing great wealth. You don't need to be at the top, Japan or otherwise. It won't make you happy. Being at the bottom might be nice to avoid though.
ad404b8a372f2b9 6y ago
Everybody knows the world is a horrible, heartless, unfair place. They do when they visit their dying relatives in the hospital, when they go through gut wrenching legal proceedings with a person they once loved, when their boss tells them they're worthless. We all crush through harsh realities on the daily, having someone by your side doesn't make you weak. There is nothing to "normalize", if anything the abnormal thing is that we strayed from it to a culture that pretends the individual is all powerful, a masturbatory illusion of absolute self-reliance. Grit will help you right up until you jump off a bridge. Very few people succeed through sheer tyranny of will, most do because they have a support network that helps them survive.
rafaeltorres 6y ago
I found it interesting that you framed "people not wanting to do things by themselves" as the opposite of grit. What if it's just an issue of loneliness? I can see how even the most resilient individuals may want someone to talk / relate to if they feel lonely, and this desire be completely independent from their drive and competitiveness.
gamacodre 6y ago
That assumes that your goal is to get to "the top," though. And the world being a tough, competitive place was much less (directly) relevant, and to many fewer people, just 20 or 30 years ago when they could nestle into their own communities and occasionally decry the state of the world as seen through newspapers and the 6:00 news. I'll speculate that we're seeing more high-profile stories about "unremarkable person does a peaceful thing" because the internet allows it. It used to be, that stories of exceptional drive or grit were likely to appeal to gritty, driven publishing executives, back when publishing (or syndication) involved offices full of people doing things to pieces of paper. These days, you can publish worldwide from your smartphone, and the people who _aren't_ filled with grit and drive can at least summon a "like" when they see someone doing something that resonates with them.

bentcorner 6y ago

You get out what you put in - I see this story as someone making the best of a bad situation, finding a unique niche and innovating something that didn't exist before. (If the story is indeed true) "Doing nothing" is just click-bait - he's definitely not doing nothing, he's connecting with people who need it, and has built it into a business with a twitter following.

hh3k0 6y ago

> The reason I say this is because I think the world is a tough competitive place whether we act like it or not. It doesn't have to be, though. I guess the individuals featured in such stories are the change they want to see in the world.

xyzelement 6y ago
Sorry, but LOL. You can't opt out of competition any more than you can opt out of gravity. If you aren't "strong" enough to do the hard work, someone else in your town will do it and reap the rewards while you become irrelevant. If your whole town opts out, some other part of the country will do it while your town drifts away into irrelevance and poverty. If the whole country opts out, some other young and hungry country will take advantage of the opportunities your country passes up, until that country makes your country irrelevant. Everything we have is because we or our ancestors (whether literal ancestors or the people that built the countries we live in) did the hard work. A few people can opt out and free-ride on others. But if the whole culture opts out, the whole culture will become irrelevant.
- larkeith 6y ago
  > You can't opt out of competition any more than you can opt out of gravity. Perhaps not as an individual, but I wonder about as a society - I don't know how we would get to this point, but imagine the sheer potential we as a culture could unlock by moving to a more cooperative model; consider the billions upon billions of person-hours wasted on things like stock trading, internal politicking, and marketing/advertising: all the things that provide no value to the race, but "required" to facilitate interpersonal competition. Of course, none of that is against your primary point, which is that hard work is still, on the whole, required. It just irritates me to see competition equated to a law of nature; we're not animals, we can choose whether and how competition applies.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    Sure, I agree with that. There is plenty of cooperation in the world, when two strong parties come together and say "this will work out better for us if we do it together." My main point and I think you agree, is that you can never get there from a position of weakness and laze. No one is going to throw in their lot cooperating with you if your ethos is to "do nothing" or if you aren't functioning as an adult (whether an adult individual or an adult nation/country.)
- hh3k0 6y ago
  > Everything we have is because we or our ancestors (whether literal ancestors or the people that built the countries we live in) did the hard work. 1) You can work hard in a non-competitive society. 2) That being said, hard work isn't -- contrary to what you seem to think -- inherently good. An industrialized genocide took place because my ancestors were diligent and hard-working. And I'd wager that a significant portion of modern-day hard workers is complicit in committing ecocide. 3) Besides, the way that you fetishize your ancestors' way of life I surely hope you're not vaccinated against polio and tetanus. And heaven forbid, I hope you are not wearing contact lenses or glasses. Disregard the current levels of automation and manifold other advances, putting in the hard work in a competitive society and eventually dying of typhus is most definitely the way.

wilburTheDog 6y ago

I think there is another level to what this guy is doing that's hard to see if you just believe what he says about himself on its face. I feel like to be able to listen to and or be with someone while they do whatever and have no judgement, criticism, or suggestion requires you to have a very high level of Zen. I would probably want to correct or assist or do something in most situations. He's operating on the level of a therapist. But it's hard for people to admit sometimes that they need a therapist. There is a stigma and a feeling like there is something wrong with you that you have to get over just to ask for a therapist. This guy skips over all of that resistance by having, by all appearances, no ego at all. He's saying 'I don't have any skills so I can't possibly criticize you'. But having no skills doesn't stop most people from making suggestions or being critical. He is providing high value assistance to people and presenting himself in such a humble way that it's easy to ask for his help.

xyzelement 6y ago
I actually agree with that, I do think therapy and "getting things out of your head" are incredibly valuable. I don't have a problem with this guy - basically he found a way to make money doing what capitalism has deemed a valuable service so he's OK in my book. He's working and building. My problem is more with the cultural ethos and the vibe of this story and what it and stories like it appear to celebrate or at least normalize. This headline should have been "enterprising Japanese man builds a service and earns a good living satisfying the needs of others that they value and pay for" :)

klmadfejno 6y ago

Japan has a stronger culture of people being ok not chasing great wealth. You don't need to be at the top, Japan or otherwise. It won't make you happy. Being at the bottom might be nice to avoid though.

ad404b8a372f2b9 6y ago

Everybody knows the world is a horrible, heartless, unfair place. They do when they visit their dying relatives in the hospital, when they go through gut wrenching legal proceedings with a person they once loved, when their boss tells them they're worthless. We all crush through harsh realities on the daily, having someone by your side doesn't make you weak. There is nothing to "normalize", if anything the abnormal thing is that we strayed from it to a culture that pretends the individual is all powerful, a masturbatory illusion of absolute self-reliance. Grit will help you right up until you jump off a bridge. Very few people succeed through sheer tyranny of will, most do because they have a support network that helps them survive.

rafaeltorres 6y ago

I found it interesting that you framed "people not wanting to do things by themselves" as the opposite of grit. What if it's just an issue of loneliness? I can see how even the most resilient individuals may want someone to talk / relate to if they feel lonely, and this desire be completely independent from their drive and competitiveness.

gamacodre 6y ago

That assumes that your goal is to get to "the top," though. And the world being a tough, competitive place was much less (directly) relevant, and to many fewer people, just 20 or 30 years ago when they could nestle into their own communities and occasionally decry the state of the world as seen through newspapers and the 6:00 news. I'll speculate that we're seeing more high-profile stories about "unremarkable person does a peaceful thing" because the internet allows it. It used to be, that stories of exceptional drive or grit were likely to appeal to gritty, driven publishing executives, back when publishing (or syndication) involved offices full of people doing things to pieces of paper. These days, you can publish worldwide from your smartphone, and the people who _aren't_ filled with grit and drive can at least summon a "like" when they see someone doing something that resonates with them.