7 ms·

This is totally missing the point of the post. This post is maybe the most humane, grounded, kind thing I've seen in a while -- and I go to the comments section

by leoh 6y ago

This is totally missing the point of the post. This post is maybe the most humane, grounded, kind thing I've seen in a while -- and I go to the comments section and I see a bull whip. We all need to take a break and chill. There is an antique question put to Napoleon -- after you conquer the world, what will you do? Napoleon says: I'll sit back and drink a glass of wine. Our time on Earth is limited. If you want to spend it "winning" go on right ahead. But you need to make sure you also know you're perfectly okay right where you are, too; lest you go insane, lest you spend your whole life in a tizzy about where you rank. Which unequivocally seems to me to be a life... wasted.

slibhb 6y ago
For better or worse, we are constantly ranking ourselves against others. I'm not sure it's possible to opt out of this. If the author of this article didn't care what other people thought, why would he publish a blog? Even if all you value is equanimity, you'll compare yourself to people embodying it. True detachment is basically an ideal, religious state. If you fail to acknowledge the part of you that ranks yourself, it often leads to poorly masked jealousy. Like thinking everyone who makes more money than you is greedy, everyone who is smarter than you is pretentious. Better to notice that part of yourself. It doesn't have to rule you completely but it's there.
- ganafagol 6y ago
  Maybe one way out is to change the metric you are comparing. That overachiever neighbor with 3 kids he rarely sees, the trophy wife that wants another gucci handbag and the porsche he drives hastily to the next meeting? Does he have more money? Sure. Is he more happy? Hardly. If the happiness and relaxation metric are what counts then me bindge watching netflix a lazy saturday morning wins 10x over that guy rushing to the airport to make it to his business class flight to Paris.
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > Is he more happy? Even if he is, it's not like happiness is a zero-sum game for humanity.
  - biren34 6y ago
    This is super interesting to me. Several comments to this thread show that the poster is mixing up the will to power with a specific value system. The will to power--and the skills to go with it--are a pure good in my mind. It's the stuff let makes babies get up and learn to walk. It's the curiosity that makes kids ask "why?" about everything in the world. It's the fire in humanity that let us put 7+ Billion on this little blue planet while generating amazing standards of living for so many of them. That will to power can be aimed at whatever target you choose. If Porshe's and Gucci bags and trophy wifes, okay. It can just as easily be a good-paying job that puts a roof over your head and feeds your family, while leaving you plenty of time to be present in everyone's life. It can easily be starting a charity that feeds the homeless or shelters battered women. The will to power--and the skills that go with it--are the ability to shape your world in to whatever you want. There's nothing in there that forces you to pick ugly shapes.
ZephyrBlu 6y ago
Who doesn't want to win at what they do? I think this is more about picking the game you want to play. Also, if you "know you're perfectly okay right where you are" why would you want to change?
- minblaster 6y ago
  "Win at what you do" is one of those rah-rah go-getter mindset phrasing that has infected the Western world. Do you "win" at being happy? Having fulfilling relationships? Is everything a game/competition, to be measured with winning and losing?
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    Let me rephrase: doesn't everyone want to win the game they choose to play? If you don't then maybe you picked the wrong game. If you choose to strive for a fulfilling relationship, and you succeed in achieving that then yes, you've won. I only use the analogy of life as a game because it resonates with me. There are other ways to phrase what I'm saying.
    - stavros_ 6y ago
      I choose to play fighting games, and I get my current fix from Dark Souls - an asymmetric fighting game. I enjoy winning, and I structure my play around intentional practice so that I can improve. But I don't want to win. This is an important nuance. Do you know what winning means? It means the game is over. It means there's no more challenge, no more adversary. It means boredom and purposelessness. Rather than winning, what I want is to fight. Focusing on the outcome of the fight is missing the forest for the trees - the fun is in the conflict, in the struggle with your opponent(s), in the instinctive collaboration with your occassional teammate. In the glory of the defeat, as well as victory. Unless you've got firsthand experience of this, you won't believe how wonderful it feels to get your ass handed to you by a truly superior player. To put the gaming analogy aside, life will always have its ups and downs. Life will always take you somewhere unexpected. Fixating on outcomes will blind you to opportunities and invite needless suffering into your life.
DC1350 6y ago
The post is just trying to help people cope with knowing that they're behind. It's not a good approach to life.
biren34 6y ago
My reply to another similar comment: I think there must be some misunderstanding. My point is that everyone will have to deal with not being the best. For the vast majority of people being the best at anything is out of the question, regardless of effort or focus. Even if you are one of the lucky few who can be "the best", it'll only be for a moment in time. All of us age and our capacities fade. Then you're left dealing with the additional burden of having once kissed the sky and now being earthbound like the rest of us. The whole point of the philosophy is finding something else to focus on other than the (true but depressing) objective rank-ordering of you among your peers. Leaderboards are useless to all but a chosen few. However, everyone (even the ones that will place on the top of the leaderboards) can benefit from taking their focus off the leaderboard and putting it on their own process and effort (in some sense replacing the comparison to others with a comparison to their yester-selves).
- cousin_it 6y ago
  I think focusing on the process of self-improvement is still focusing on success in disguise. The root problem is that Western culture ties happiness to success instead of community, and it's hard to shake off (despite the obvious misery it causes) because everyone around still expects you to follow it.
  - biren34 6y ago
    I 100% believe in "success" and the will to power--and I want my kids to succeed, full stop. I make no excuses. It's part of my value system, and I don't hide from it. I'm a second generation immigrant, and on my visits back to India, I've seen what real poverty looks like. I don't mean any offense in this, but here it is as plainly as I can say: The idea that "success" isn't crucially important in life is just wrong. I see it as coming from a softness that I associate with participation trophies and the general wimpification of America. I very much ascribe to G. Michael Hopf's philosophy of “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” The ability to succeed is essential. It's the ability set a goal and accomplish it. That ability is totally separate from the nature of the goal. That goal can be making a billion dollars or it can be building a neighborhood community group. If I had to guess--and I don't know you well enough to do anything but guess--you're confusing America's value of extreme individualism and a proper focus on internal control and self-improvement in order to be able to succeed.
FabiansMustDie 6y ago
You're the same type of wimp the GP was referring to: lacking skill in internal-state management. If you believe you need to "slow down," you will think it's the only way to manage your state. If you see someone else espousing "you can go as fast as you like, deglove your entire body, and still feel alright" you'll learn that it's possible to live another way. The human nervous system has a wealth of tools at its disposal, and your suggestion that people eschew them in favor of simply avoiding the circumstances required that call for these very same tools is meek and unvirtuous.
username90 6y ago
I don't see the difference between the posts? Both of them says that you should be fine with being behind. One lays out the facts more explicitly while the other is more philosophical, some prefer one of them over the other but it is good to have both.
mewpmewp2 6y ago
I don't like the post since it starts with a false premise. It's pretending that reality is one way, and it's only okay this way. Rather than telling yourself that "you are not behind" you should accept the fact that you are behind, but it's okay and the only productive thing here to do is to give your best. And the saying "you are exactly where you are supposed to be" is non sensical. Who or what "supposes" where you are?

by leoh 6y ago

slibhb 6y ago

For better or worse, we are constantly ranking ourselves against others. I'm not sure it's possible to opt out of this. If the author of this article didn't care what other people thought, why would he publish a blog? Even if all you value is equanimity, you'll compare yourself to people embodying it. True detachment is basically an ideal, religious state. If you fail to acknowledge the part of you that ranks yourself, it often leads to poorly masked jealousy. Like thinking everyone who makes more money than you is greedy, everyone who is smarter than you is pretentious. Better to notice that part of yourself. It doesn't have to rule you completely but it's there.

ganafagol 6y ago
Maybe one way out is to change the metric you are comparing. That overachiever neighbor with 3 kids he rarely sees, the trophy wife that wants another gucci handbag and the porsche he drives hastily to the next meeting? Does he have more money? Sure. Is he more happy? Hardly. If the happiness and relaxation metric are what counts then me bindge watching netflix a lazy saturday morning wins 10x over that guy rushing to the airport to make it to his business class flight to Paris.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > Is he more happy? Even if he is, it's not like happiness is a zero-sum game for humanity.
- biren34 6y ago
  This is super interesting to me. Several comments to this thread show that the poster is mixing up the will to power with a specific value system. The will to power--and the skills to go with it--are a pure good in my mind. It's the stuff let makes babies get up and learn to walk. It's the curiosity that makes kids ask "why?" about everything in the world. It's the fire in humanity that let us put 7+ Billion on this little blue planet while generating amazing standards of living for so many of them. That will to power can be aimed at whatever target you choose. If Porshe's and Gucci bags and trophy wifes, okay. It can just as easily be a good-paying job that puts a roof over your head and feeds your family, while leaving you plenty of time to be present in everyone's life. It can easily be starting a charity that feeds the homeless or shelters battered women. The will to power--and the skills that go with it--are the ability to shape your world in to whatever you want. There's nothing in there that forces you to pick ugly shapes.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

Who doesn't want to win at what they do? I think this is more about picking the game you want to play. Also, if you "know you're perfectly okay right where you are" why would you want to change?

minblaster 6y ago
"Win at what you do" is one of those rah-rah go-getter mindset phrasing that has infected the Western world. Do you "win" at being happy? Having fulfilling relationships? Is everything a game/competition, to be measured with winning and losing?
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  Let me rephrase: doesn't everyone want to win the game they choose to play? If you don't then maybe you picked the wrong game. If you choose to strive for a fulfilling relationship, and you succeed in achieving that then yes, you've won. I only use the analogy of life as a game because it resonates with me. There are other ways to phrase what I'm saying.
  - stavros_ 6y ago
    I choose to play fighting games, and I get my current fix from Dark Souls - an asymmetric fighting game. I enjoy winning, and I structure my play around intentional practice so that I can improve. But I don't want to win. This is an important nuance. Do you know what winning means? It means the game is over. It means there's no more challenge, no more adversary. It means boredom and purposelessness. Rather than winning, what I want is to fight. Focusing on the outcome of the fight is missing the forest for the trees - the fun is in the conflict, in the struggle with your opponent(s), in the instinctive collaboration with your occassional teammate. In the glory of the defeat, as well as victory. Unless you've got firsthand experience of this, you won't believe how wonderful it feels to get your ass handed to you by a truly superior player. To put the gaming analogy aside, life will always have its ups and downs. Life will always take you somewhere unexpected. Fixating on outcomes will blind you to opportunities and invite needless suffering into your life.

DC1350 6y ago

The post is just trying to help people cope with knowing that they're behind. It's not a good approach to life.

biren34 6y ago

My reply to another similar comment: I think there must be some misunderstanding. My point is that everyone will have to deal with not being the best. For the vast majority of people being the best at anything is out of the question, regardless of effort or focus. Even if you are one of the lucky few who can be "the best", it'll only be for a moment in time. All of us age and our capacities fade. Then you're left dealing with the additional burden of having once kissed the sky and now being earthbound like the rest of us. The whole point of the philosophy is finding something else to focus on other than the (true but depressing) objective rank-ordering of you among your peers. Leaderboards are useless to all but a chosen few. However, everyone (even the ones that will place on the top of the leaderboards) can benefit from taking their focus off the leaderboard and putting it on their own process and effort (in some sense replacing the comparison to others with a comparison to their yester-selves).

cousin_it 6y ago
I think focusing on the process of self-improvement is still focusing on success in disguise. The root problem is that Western culture ties happiness to success instead of community, and it's hard to shake off (despite the obvious misery it causes) because everyone around still expects you to follow it.
- biren34 6y ago
  I 100% believe in "success" and the will to power--and I want my kids to succeed, full stop. I make no excuses. It's part of my value system, and I don't hide from it. I'm a second generation immigrant, and on my visits back to India, I've seen what real poverty looks like. I don't mean any offense in this, but here it is as plainly as I can say: The idea that "success" isn't crucially important in life is just wrong. I see it as coming from a softness that I associate with participation trophies and the general wimpification of America. I very much ascribe to G. Michael Hopf's philosophy of “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” The ability to succeed is essential. It's the ability set a goal and accomplish it. That ability is totally separate from the nature of the goal. That goal can be making a billion dollars or it can be building a neighborhood community group. If I had to guess--and I don't know you well enough to do anything but guess--you're confusing America's value of extreme individualism and a proper focus on internal control and self-improvement in order to be able to succeed.

FabiansMustDie 6y ago

You're the same type of wimp the GP was referring to: lacking skill in internal-state management. If you believe you need to "slow down," you will think it's the only way to manage your state. If you see someone else espousing "you can go as fast as you like, deglove your entire body, and still feel alright" you'll learn that it's possible to live another way. The human nervous system has a wealth of tools at its disposal, and your suggestion that people eschew them in favor of simply avoiding the circumstances required that call for these very same tools is meek and unvirtuous.

username90 6y ago

I don't see the difference between the posts? Both of them says that you should be fine with being behind. One lays out the facts more explicitly while the other is more philosophical, some prefer one of them over the other but it is good to have both.

mewpmewp2 6y ago

I don't like the post since it starts with a false premise. It's pretending that reality is one way, and it's only okay this way. Rather than telling yourself that "you are not behind" you should accept the fact that you are behind, but it's okay and the only productive thing here to do is to give your best. And the saying "you are exactly where you are supposed to be" is non sensical. Who or what "supposes" where you are?