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I don’t have the same interpretation of her words. But she glosses over what she means because it involves introspection and this essay is almost anti-introspec

I don’t have the same interpretation of her words. But she glosses over what she means because it involves introspection and this essay is almost anti-introspection. It isn’t, but the author devotes zero inches to it. To me meaning is made retrospectively. She’s right about experiences and so are you, you don’t choose most of what you experience, but afterwards you must assign a meaning to those experiences. As a writer Shrier provably takes that for granted (curse of knowledge). I agree she went too far in her rhetoric, but I still feel it’s an excellent article.

soundnote 4y ago
Yeah, that kind of thing happens, like people in retrospect really valuing their time in the military despite getting conscripted and a lot of the experience being on its face awful and full of suffering. But what I was talking about is more realtime, say you pick up an instrument and keep experimenting with it and what can happen is that it starts to click and feel really good and the possibilities for self-expression or just making nice sounding things really hit you and get you excited to play the following day and so on. A sense of meaningfulness and import then and there. It's the stuff that creates motivation and people are waiting for when they want to start doing something, when they should just start.
- solarmist 4y ago
  Oh! Yeah. Play. Unstructured play is super important. And very devalued in modern society as well, but we've realized it's important, so I think this is on the mend (slowly).
  - lordfrito 4y ago
    This. Kids want to explore their world. We've setup so many safe sandboxes and guided activities for them they don't get to explore. This is why 20 somethings are so stressed about dealing with the real world, and wish it would change to accommodate them. Up till this point, everything else has accommodated them.
    - solarmist 4y ago
      Yup. Taking on and handling risk is very important to becoming an adult. But American life sanitizes everything until you’re 18 then throws you to the wolves.

soundnote 4y ago

Yeah, that kind of thing happens, like people in retrospect really valuing their time in the military despite getting conscripted and a lot of the experience being on its face awful and full of suffering. But what I was talking about is more realtime, say you pick up an instrument and keep experimenting with it and what can happen is that it starts to click and feel really good and the possibilities for self-expression or just making nice sounding things really hit you and get you excited to play the following day and so on. A sense of meaningfulness and import then and there. It's the stuff that creates motivation and people are waiting for when they want to start doing something, when they should just start.

solarmist 4y ago
Oh! Yeah. Play. Unstructured play is super important. And very devalued in modern society as well, but we've realized it's important, so I think this is on the mend (slowly).
- lordfrito 4y ago
  This. Kids want to explore their world. We've setup so many safe sandboxes and guided activities for them they don't get to explore. This is why 20 somethings are so stressed about dealing with the real world, and wish it would change to accommodate them. Up till this point, everything else has accommodated them.
  - solarmist 4y ago
    Yup. Taking on and handling risk is very important to becoming an adult. But American life sanitizes everything until you’re 18 then throws you to the wolves.