8 ms·

This was a good read. I wish I could understand the mindset of people who can live spontaneously like this. I always plan so far in the future because I feel li

by DC1350 6y ago

This was a good read. I wish I could understand the mindset of people who can live spontaneously like this. I always plan so far in the future because I feel like it’s way too easy to ruin my life financially. Is this a generational thing? A class difference?

perfmode 6y ago
check out “the middle class curse” for a class-based reflection on this
- nostrademons 6y ago
  Link? The best Google result I could find given context was: https://www.thefearlessman.com/the-curse-of-the-middle-class-live-outside-your-comfort-zone-inside-fearless-part-6/ https://www.thefearlessman.com/the-curse-of-the-middle-class... but there was a full page of different results under that title so I'm not sure it's what you were referring to.
  - cam0 6y ago
    That is essentially it - the upper class has the confidence (and safety net) required to take big swings, and the lower class has nothing to lose. The middle class has been conditioned to live conservatively.
    - perfmode 6y ago
      yes, this is what i had intended to point at. thanks!
mplewis 6y ago
Frankly, Paul Graham has a lot of money.
- DC1350 6y ago
  I know he does now but I’m talking about the earlier sections of the essay. He mentions taking time off from art school to work because he needed more money. What’s interesting to me is how he just decided to go to art school, study philosophy, or work on projects that had nothing to do with his career when he wasn’t already financially secure. The common narrative around really successful people is that they work really hard in a few focused areas but it seems like he just did whatever he wanted to and somehow it all just worked out.
  - ISL 6y ago
    One can certainly suggest survivorship bias in this sort of situation. Another commonality I've found with very-successful people: they work really hard, but they might not be aware that they're working much harder than others. Two anecdotes: 1) A pianist in my high school was Eastman or Julliard-bound. One day, I watched her sight-read a new piece. It was beautiful. As someone who struggled mightily sight-reading single-threaded trumpet parts, I asked, "How do you sight-read like that?". The innocent and frank reply: "Oh, I'm just having fun to see what it sounds like." Sometimes (not always), people can be on another level. 2) The truly outstanding see themselves as normal. I think everyone sees themselves as normal. Freeman Dyson, from [1]: `I asked him whether as a boy he had speculated much about his gift. Had he asked himself why he had this special power? Why he was so bright? Dyson is almost infallibly a modest and self-effacing man, but tonight his eyes were blank with fatigue, and his answer was uncharacteristic. “That’s not how the question phrases itself,” he said. “The question is: why is everyone else so stupid?” ' I've never thought that Dyson said this with any malice, simply as an honest reflection of his experience. For me, if I want to get something done, I have to work really, really hard on it. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-danger-of-cosmic-genius/308306/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-dan...
    - kenjackson 6y ago
      And some successful people pride themselves on how hard they work. There's a story that Jay Williams tells about Kobe Bryant. Jay is playing Kobe the next day and they both happen to end up in the same gym the day before. When Jay gets to the gym Kobe is already there working out. Jay works hard and sees Kobe is still there. Jay eventually wraps it up, while he sees Kobe still working out that evening. The next day Kobe has a great game, and after the game Jay asks Kobe something like, "Do you work out that long all the time?" (can't remember the exact question) -- to which Kobe says, "I just wanted to let you know that no matter how hard you work, I'll always outwork you". For a lot of successful people their joy is their work and they take pride in being great, but still working harder than everyone else.
eschulz 6y ago
It could be either, but with pg I feel as thought it's just a personality thing.
alexashka 6y ago
It's a class thing. It's not that it's easy or hard to ruin your life financially - if your parents have the attitude of 'go live your dreams, be happy', then there is no financial ruin, because the only ruin in your mind, is not getting to live your dream. People who have the 'dream' attitude tend to come from families who lucked into financial stability. In some sense, this is a story of a family that's been winning lottery tickets in life for multiple generations without realizing it. Of course Paul's blissful ignorance is what enables him to live as he has and to write and publish this very essay. I mean, what makes this essay worth reading, other than that it's Paul Graham? It's typical lottery ticket winner hubris to think 'I randomly stumbled into everything good in my life' is worth writing about in the first place. Oh well :)
- hinkley 6y ago
  My kids have one set of grandparents who will not let them fail, even if something happens to us. There are good, respectable degree programs that will get you a job where you never lay in bed worrying about money. But if you want to be rich? You may have to take a bigger risk on a more prestigious program that not only looks good on the resume but introduces you to a social network of other future (or current) rich people. If that doesn't work out for you, you've saddled yourself with a huge bill. If your parents can't help you pay that off, you're completely fucked. Especially since they've made sure that you can't discharge those loans via bankruptcy (and that is class warfare).
  - anonymouse008 6y ago
    Bankruptcy discharge and payday loans. So sad to see it waged and no one knows it’s happening.
tqi 6y ago
I think class does have a lot to do with it. It's not (just) the obvious reasons, like having access resources to start new ventures or having a backstop in case things don't pan out. For some there is a feeling of responsibility for your family, from the very beginning, that informs every choice you make. If it were just me, I know I can live cheaply and get by if I have to, and therefore could afford to take on high risk/high upside ventures. However the reality is, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about whether I can support my parents as they age. Whether I can pay for an occasional vacation for them, or maybe a nicer house. These are things they would NEVER ask for, and I know they can live just as cheaply as me (if not more so). But I can't help feeling like I owe it anyway. And so I take high paying, low variance jobs.
- fuzzfactor 6y ago
  >If it were just me, I know I can live cheaply and get by if I have to, and therefore could afford to take on high risk/high upside ventures. Me too, and I could see there was no other possible way to save my parent's house than to start my company.
jeremysalwen 6y ago
Definitely a class difference. From the essay > Computers were expensive in those days and it took me years of nagging before I convinced my father to buy one, a TRS-80, in about 1980." Based on a quick search, the price was probably about $1200-$2000 inflation adjusted dollars. I grew up in probably a similar environment, my dad was also a physicist, and I also had access to computers from a young age, and I was encouraged to explore interests in technology, science etc, without pressure to make sure I found a successful career. Over time I've realized that paradoxically, a culture of not valuing money/success is actually a marker of being upper class, because 1. You are quite likely to succeed even without any specific plan if you are well educated 2. The risk of financial ruin is not the same if your friends and family are financially stable enough that if worst comes to worst you would always have a place to sleep. Because this safety net does not involve any assistance except in the darkest timeline, it's very easy to forget that it exists as an invisible insurance that not everybody has. I wish everyone did.
- dang 6y ago
  I think you might be overestimating how much money pg's family had; I'm pretty sure they were squarely middle-class (e.g. the next sentence reads "The gold standard then was the Apple II, but a TRS-80 was good enough," and that took "years of nagging"). Strictly from a class point of view his background would have been risk-averse. But your point about the intellectual environment seems solid.
  - jeremysalwen 6y ago
    I think people have different definitions of "upper class". Maybe "Upper-middle class" would have been a better term, since pretty much everyone in the U.S. calls themselves some flavor of middle class. But my point is is that most people are not doing nearly as well financially as a mathematician/manager working at Westinghouse modeling nuclear reactors[1][2]. For example, 70% of americans have less than $1,000 of savings[3]. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/work.html http://www.paulgraham.com/work.html [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html [3] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/12/18/the-percentage-of-americans-with-less-than-1000-in/ https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/12/18/the-percentage-of...
robocat 6y ago
Some people live without fear for their future and explore their world. Edit: PG wrote something relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html The mindset is commonly trivialised as a class[1] issue, but that is easily debunked because people from poor, middle-income or rich backgrounds can live like PG has. Different wealth levels lead to different explanations for why someone lives more conservatively. Rich people are often trapped by social ranking or lack of motivation even though they have a financial backstop in theory. It is commonly said that the middle-class are the most trapped, yet plenty of middle class tune out and go beat their own drum. Poor people sometimes have nothing to lose, but perhaps they have to run two jobs just to stand still. The poor generally lack the opportunities (such as access to a PC or University) but sometimes make up for it with motivation and in some first-world countries they can freelance while on the dole (common with artists). [1] class in the sense used within US English.

by DC1350 6y ago

perfmode 6y ago

check out “the middle class curse” for a class-based reflection on this

nostrademons 6y ago
Link? The best Google result I could find given context was: https://www.thefearlessman.com/the-curse-of-the-middle-class-live-outside-your-comfort-zone-inside-fearless-part-6/ https://www.thefearlessman.com/the-curse-of-the-middle-class... but there was a full page of different results under that title so I'm not sure it's what you were referring to.
- cam0 6y ago
  That is essentially it - the upper class has the confidence (and safety net) required to take big swings, and the lower class has nothing to lose. The middle class has been conditioned to live conservatively.
  - perfmode 6y ago
    yes, this is what i had intended to point at. thanks!

mplewis 6y ago

Frankly, Paul Graham has a lot of money.

DC1350 6y ago
I know he does now but I’m talking about the earlier sections of the essay. He mentions taking time off from art school to work because he needed more money. What’s interesting to me is how he just decided to go to art school, study philosophy, or work on projects that had nothing to do with his career when he wasn’t already financially secure. The common narrative around really successful people is that they work really hard in a few focused areas but it seems like he just did whatever he wanted to and somehow it all just worked out.
- ISL 6y ago
  One can certainly suggest survivorship bias in this sort of situation. Another commonality I've found with very-successful people: they work really hard, but they might not be aware that they're working much harder than others. Two anecdotes: 1) A pianist in my high school was Eastman or Julliard-bound. One day, I watched her sight-read a new piece. It was beautiful. As someone who struggled mightily sight-reading single-threaded trumpet parts, I asked, "How do you sight-read like that?". The innocent and frank reply: "Oh, I'm just having fun to see what it sounds like." Sometimes (not always), people can be on another level. 2) The truly outstanding see themselves as normal. I think everyone sees themselves as normal. Freeman Dyson, from [1]: `I asked him whether as a boy he had speculated much about his gift. Had he asked himself why he had this special power? Why he was so bright? Dyson is almost infallibly a modest and self-effacing man, but tonight his eyes were blank with fatigue, and his answer was uncharacteristic. “That’s not how the question phrases itself,” he said. “The question is: why is everyone else so stupid?” ' I've never thought that Dyson said this with any malice, simply as an honest reflection of his experience. For me, if I want to get something done, I have to work really, really hard on it. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-danger-of-cosmic-genius/308306/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-dan...
  - kenjackson 6y ago
    And some successful people pride themselves on how hard they work. There's a story that Jay Williams tells about Kobe Bryant. Jay is playing Kobe the next day and they both happen to end up in the same gym the day before. When Jay gets to the gym Kobe is already there working out. Jay works hard and sees Kobe is still there. Jay eventually wraps it up, while he sees Kobe still working out that evening. The next day Kobe has a great game, and after the game Jay asks Kobe something like, "Do you work out that long all the time?" (can't remember the exact question) -- to which Kobe says, "I just wanted to let you know that no matter how hard you work, I'll always outwork you". For a lot of successful people their joy is their work and they take pride in being great, but still working harder than everyone else.

eschulz 6y ago

It could be either, but with pg I feel as thought it's just a personality thing.

alexashka 6y ago

It's a class thing. It's not that it's easy or hard to ruin your life financially - if your parents have the attitude of 'go live your dreams, be happy', then there is no financial ruin, because the only ruin in your mind, is not getting to live your dream. People who have the 'dream' attitude tend to come from families who lucked into financial stability. In some sense, this is a story of a family that's been winning lottery tickets in life for multiple generations without realizing it. Of course Paul's blissful ignorance is what enables him to live as he has and to write and publish this very essay. I mean, what makes this essay worth reading, other than that it's Paul Graham? It's typical lottery ticket winner hubris to think 'I randomly stumbled into everything good in my life' is worth writing about in the first place. Oh well :)

hinkley 6y ago
My kids have one set of grandparents who will not let them fail, even if something happens to us. There are good, respectable degree programs that will get you a job where you never lay in bed worrying about money. But if you want to be rich? You may have to take a bigger risk on a more prestigious program that not only looks good on the resume but introduces you to a social network of other future (or current) rich people. If that doesn't work out for you, you've saddled yourself with a huge bill. If your parents can't help you pay that off, you're completely fucked. Especially since they've made sure that you can't discharge those loans via bankruptcy (and that is class warfare).
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  Bankruptcy discharge and payday loans. So sad to see it waged and no one knows it’s happening.

tqi 6y ago

I think class does have a lot to do with it. It's not (just) the obvious reasons, like having access resources to start new ventures or having a backstop in case things don't pan out. For some there is a feeling of responsibility for your family, from the very beginning, that informs every choice you make. If it were just me, I know I can live cheaply and get by if I have to, and therefore could afford to take on high risk/high upside ventures. However the reality is, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about whether I can support my parents as they age. Whether I can pay for an occasional vacation for them, or maybe a nicer house. These are things they would NEVER ask for, and I know they can live just as cheaply as me (if not more so). But I can't help feeling like I owe it anyway. And so I take high paying, low variance jobs.

fuzzfactor 6y ago
>If it were just me, I know I can live cheaply and get by if I have to, and therefore could afford to take on high risk/high upside ventures. Me too, and I could see there was no other possible way to save my parent's house than to start my company.

jeremysalwen 6y ago

Definitely a class difference. From the essay > Computers were expensive in those days and it took me years of nagging before I convinced my father to buy one, a TRS-80, in about 1980." Based on a quick search, the price was probably about $1200-$2000 inflation adjusted dollars. I grew up in probably a similar environment, my dad was also a physicist, and I also had access to computers from a young age, and I was encouraged to explore interests in technology, science etc, without pressure to make sure I found a successful career. Over time I've realized that paradoxically, a culture of not valuing money/success is actually a marker of being upper class, because 1. You are quite likely to succeed even without any specific plan if you are well educated 2. The risk of financial ruin is not the same if your friends and family are financially stable enough that if worst comes to worst you would always have a place to sleep. Because this safety net does not involve any assistance except in the darkest timeline, it's very easy to forget that it exists as an invisible insurance that not everybody has. I wish everyone did.

dang 6y ago
I think you might be overestimating how much money pg's family had; I'm pretty sure they were squarely middle-class (e.g. the next sentence reads "The gold standard then was the Apple II, but a TRS-80 was good enough," and that took "years of nagging"). Strictly from a class point of view his background would have been risk-averse. But your point about the intellectual environment seems solid.
- jeremysalwen 6y ago
  I think people have different definitions of "upper class". Maybe "Upper-middle class" would have been a better term, since pretty much everyone in the U.S. calls themselves some flavor of middle class. But my point is is that most people are not doing nearly as well financially as a mathematician/manager working at Westinghouse modeling nuclear reactors[1][2]. For example, 70% of americans have less than $1,000 of savings[3]. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/work.html http://www.paulgraham.com/work.html [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html [3] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/12/18/the-percentage-of-americans-with-less-than-1000-in/ https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/12/18/the-percentage-of...

robocat 6y ago

Some people live without fear for their future and explore their world. Edit: PG wrote something relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html The mindset is commonly trivialised as a class[1] issue, but that is easily debunked because people from poor, middle-income or rich backgrounds can live like PG has. Different wealth levels lead to different explanations for why someone lives more conservatively. Rich people are often trapped by social ranking or lack of motivation even though they have a financial backstop in theory. It is commonly said that the middle-class are the most trapped, yet plenty of middle class tune out and go beat their own drum. Poor people sometimes have nothing to lose, but perhaps they have to run two jobs just to stand still. The poor generally lack the opportunities (such as access to a PC or University) but sometimes make up for it with motivation and in some first-world countries they can freelance while on the dole (common with artists). [1] class in the sense used within US English.