"Questioning Life Assumptions" Reader Response & Counter-Response
A conversational dialogue on meaning in life
The following is a conversation which ensued in response to this post about “Questioning Life Assumptions” which can be read or listened to.
Reader Response: You and I have always been of similar mind and thought, but this is about as close to my current mindset as I've read yet. The last few years have been a bit of a "finding the meaning of life" journey. Unfortunately, for me that train of thought tends to lead me down a more nihilistic view of things, but this past year helped me change that and find more meaning in small stuff. We were making cash, big house in a highly desirable suburb, 3 cars, all "the good things" yet the underlying misery was substantial. I got fat, lazy, and pretty much over everything. We were working jobs we hated to support a life that wasn't making us happy, which begged the question, “Why?" Someone recommended I read Walden, a book I was forced to read in school and didn't really understand at the time. But this time, it made me question everything and started my thinking down a new path. If "the good life" isn't all it's cracked up to be for me, then what is? I've always felt a connection to nature, it's where I'm truly at peace and ease. The city was the opposite of what I wanted, but it was a necessary evil to work to support life. Material things just didn't do much for me...so what if we just cut things to the bone?
The pandemic hit, my wife’s company went under, and the house was no longer worth trying to afford. My wife was so miserable in her job that she needed some time off, my job got more tolerable from home, so we started to rethink things. At the same time, a friend of ours mentioned he was selling his upstate and asked if we'd be interested. We rented it for a brief period, then struck a deal to buy it. Sold the house, sold the cars (I just have a cheap lease now), sold much of our material crap and downsized drastically. I've never been happier. We could have bought the house cash with proceeds from our last house, but a 2.6% 30 year fixed mortgage was too good to pass up. I can work at Costco and more than pay the mortgage, or liquidate some investments and pay it off at any time if needed. What this made me realize is how happy financial independence makes me. Above all else, I like the freedom to not be a slave to the corporate farm. My wife is "retired" taking an extended break unless something drastic comes up and we need some income. She seems to be the happiest she's been since we've been married (which by the way is 9 years now, wow time flies).
The hardest part is: what's next and what's the point? Working from home means I can put in the bare minimum at the farm and get by, which many days feels like retirement. While I'm happy, the nihilist in me waves his hand in the air to remind me that it all seems somewhat pointless. Just like you I'm by no means motivated by having a family, and neither is my wife. Is sitting in the forest bird watching all day really going to keep me going for another 30+ years? I know I'm going to be forced to quit my job, and that's actually something I look forward to. We've got cash to sustain ourselves for years, but there's that underlying "should" that you reference at the beginning of your magnum opus that gets me. Do I actually feel a hole in my being or is there a "should tyrant" that I need to overthrow. Much like you, I'm happiest helping people. I pivoted my career from marketing to be more product focused, thinking that maybe I could help people by making things that enhanced their lives. Instead, I spend my days cutting costs and hitting worthless farm metrics that do absolutely nothing but screw over the end customer. I went from trying to enhance people's lives to trying to figure out how much we can take from the customer without pissing them off to the point where they won't buy the product. I've worked for two major farms now, only to find it's all the same, and leaving isn't an option. I've found quickly that product management of physical products isn't valued by society anymore. Unless you're working in the digital space on some startup or some bullshit, my profession is dead.
Man, that got long. Sorry, reading your magnum opus struck a chord and got me going.
TL;DR: Life's weird, farms suck.
Counter-Response: Do not be sorry about your long response, I like talking and thinking about all of this; in fact, I am sorry that I am going to one-up you in response length! I think you hit a lot of nails on the head here. I think on the political left there has been, for some time and in various ways, the idea that we can construct something better for humanity than what has evolved. But, just ask all those people from Mao’s China and Stalin’s Gulags how well that went and how much they loved “to each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” I think it is quite apparent that global capitalism is nowhere near collapsing, that there is no “increasing misery of the proletariat,” and capitalism (or whatever mixed form of economic system the World has) is not going to “wither away” (Marx). So, we have a paradox; an economic system that provides for the survival (not necessarily thriving) of 7 billion people.
I think people have an incredible negativity bias. Journalists like Chris Hedges, who has done amazing work and traveled to war zones to see the dark underbelly of just how bad war is, pens op-eds using Marxist slogans “Workers of the World Unite!” and how awful all the exploitation is that goes into the making of, say, iPhones. What if Apple figured out how to roboticize the whole thing. I feel like that isn’t outside the realm of possibility. What about those evil corporations then? That’ll sure end the “exploitation” of those innocents, all right, and then people won’t have any jobs at all and it’s back to the rice fields, if that. Maybe things aren’t always as bad as they seem. I now like to begin my days saying, “I will not be making iPhones today, and for that reason alone, it is a great day.”
Could things be better? Is there tyranny, exploitation, racism, you name it? Sure there is. But it’s hard to coordinate to stamp out all the wrongness via fiat, and even still, some things cannot be stamped out via fiat, nor should they be. I remember working in the auto business and coming across the dealership people, and they would always be these slimy sort of people. Hey, let’s take you into the finance office and get you some garbage to upsell, undercoat for the rust, etc. A lot of the time these people were huge Christians. Because, if you’re doing God’s Work, it’s okay to be a little slimy to get the money to perform God’s Work.
Ultimately, the whole thing works, at some level. People make the cars. People sell the cars. People fix the cars. It all makes jobs. It’s hard to regulate all the potential for crookedness; a lot of industries, the only people who can really regulate it effectively are the insiders, not a bunch of geriatric Congresspeople and their lobbyists. Steven Pinker wrote a book Enlightenment Now that basically took the “Maybe it’s not so bad” position, to the shrieking dismay of far-leftists.
I, like you, have always been a bit of a pessimist, but I like to think of it as being a realist. Jordan Peterson calls it “insipid rationalism.” Optimism is a great thing, and I think I’ve learned to be more optimistic, or more hopeful, about what could be possible, mostly by trying to put, at the very least, my own best foot forward. I think some forms of optimism border on delusion, but a lot of “impossible” problems have been solved via optimism.
I think the political left holds a lot of delusion about what is possible for humanity and what human nature is; I think a lot of it stems from a deep psychological need for what the World “should” be, an inability to accept the many contradictions of civilization and the myriad terrible things that result from imperfect humans. I like to be positive and think that we can do a better job, but recognize it’s not going to manifest itself. I ultimately believe, “We’re all in this together,” but what follows from that statement has led to a lot of terrible things, historically (see: Soviet Union, China). I also do not want to clean toilets and take out trash, nor do many millions of people, and they’re not going to if you tell them they have to and they can help it. I think people should be free to do as they choose, for the most part. That’s an idea that, ultimately, is in conflict with “equality.”
One thing I have found that is rewarding is being kind. I have found that most people will be kind back to you. When I ride my bike, if someone looks like they wouldn’t be embarrassed by being waved at by some goofy guy on a bike, I wave hello at them. 90% of the time people wave back and smile. I think most people are pretty decent, on the whole. Just don’t wear a competing team jersey to a Raiders game.
When it comes down to “What’s the point of life?”, you sort of face a personal decision. Many intellectual types seem able to throw their hands in the air and give in to religious belief Tolstoy did it and wrote an 80 page “Confession” about it. Former-agnostic Libertarian Charles Murray has transitioned. Many other people I have encountered personally in life have embraced faith after not. Steven Colbert has been an enormous Catholic from the get-go. I cannot believe it, nor do I want to. I ultimately find many of the pleasures of life to make life worth living for myself. Beautiful bike rides overlooking the ocean are a great source of joy. I also feel I have found a sort of inner peace which I can sense the majority of humanity has not found; I would like to try and help those people find it as well, because it is nice to live life on an even keel. I would like to think it’s possible to improve our “democracy” (oligarchy?). There are tons of policy books on the question (Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop, They Don’t Represent Us, The People Vs. Democracy, Hate Inc., etc. etc.). None of it can work though until shrieking everything-is-awful woke people and vote-suppressing, you took-my-jerb “conservatives” can manage to see that, on the whole, the country is united on an enormous array of policy issues, and is only successfully divided by the political Duopoly on a handful of culture war issues that causes the extremes of both parties to… shriek.
Could an economic system be somehow better made around “human need” as opposed to what has evolved? Who knows, but I lean towards no. People need to eat though, so you can’t just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Milton Friedman himself argued for a negative income tax, and even people such as Charles Murray advocate a UBI (with a welfare state dismantling). I don’t see how Andrew Yang and left-leaning folks could legitimately think a “living wage” UBI would be economically possible. Anyhoo, I’m just a guy.
Ultimately, the whole thing makes it possible for you to find something to make you happy; the rub is that part of what makes you happy will probably involve trying to give back to humanity, somehow, some way. Even the business owner exercises his creative capacities in running a business, and gets meaning from creating jobs for people; Ayn Rand had some things right (certainly not all). How do you help other people without robbing them of their life tasks (teach a man to fish vs. giving him fish?). I think it’s a tricky balance. But there are tons of ways to give back. Show people how to do something you love; fix cars, ride bikes. Do mentoring. There are a lot of small things that can feel meaningful as you say, that don’t necessarily have to be you out in the street trying to coax strung-out heroin addicts to go to the homeless shelter. Maybe building mountain bike trails would be meaningful, carving out new berms, making signs, sawing down trees, I don’t know. You love biking and you’d be giving back to other people who love biking. Ultimately I think you should just follow your interests, continue to practice financial freedom, and see where it gets you. You can’t just get fat and lazy and sit around and do nothing, though. You’ve gotta do stuff. Humans have capacities and need to use them. You like helping people because ultimately that's what a person is. So at some level, we need to just accept what we are. The problem with socialism is that everyone sees things differently. And, also, I don't want to be forced to fix your toilet or pay for your inability to manage finances responsibly. I think if you keep doing what interests you, you will eventually find some sort of path or paths, whether it’s starting a business, or a program, or a passionate pursuit.
It’s funny they make us read books like Walden in high school. I also remember “reading” Walden and most of it was lost on me at the time. I honestly think the whole liberal arts at age 18 thing is… premature. I don’t think I gained much of anything from college; this is something my mother disputes. Hard to say what really does or doesn’t influence us, ultimately. School mostly trains us to be donkeys that like trying to get carrots, which is useful since we need to eat. I think if you want to go into a skilled profession, by all means, go get a degree in engineering, doctoring, lawyering, whatever it is. But I don’t think an 18 year old is mature enough to gain a lot of life insight in college; maybe I just went about it the wrong way. But, I’ve been reading a ton of books now, including many of those books you “should” read in school. It turns out a lot of them are really great. I highly recommend John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I think I’ve made it through about 130 books in the past 18 months, with a bunch more I put down along the way, and I try to journal about each book so I can go back and remember what I’ve read. I can say, without a doubt, the knowledge I’ve gained has changed my life. Which is to say, the things and insights from books coupled with my lived experiences produce a better way of interpreting the World and living in it, for me. People put a lot of effort into books. If you feel like you need some help finding something to believe in, you can think alongside everyone who ever lived and wrote a book. If you want some recommendations, I can give you some ideas on books that will make you THINK (Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Jiddu Krishnamurti off the top of my head); I know reading is not for everyone and that it can feel like more work. I didn’t know what to read for the longest time and I am sad I did not figure it out sooner, but c’est la vie.
The “Good Life” of consumerism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I don’t think, but everyone’s different. I don’t want to live in a Soviet apartment, and I’m sure you don’t either. Everyone wants different things, on some level. Bernie doesn’t want anyone to have anything nice; no one is allowed to have a Sea-Doo until child poverty is eradicated (an impossible feat in a society where people can have ten times as many children as they have marketable job skills). So, I think it’s up to people to figure out what they want, and a lot of people want (or think they want)… stuff. It’s also an easy way to social respect, which a lot of people crave, for better or worse.
I think the real Good Life is satisfying little wants within reason. I want a nice place to live. I have a nice little apartment in a brick building built in the Roaring Twenties. It’s not a $3M house, but it’s nice for me, and nicer than a Soviet Apartment. I love coffee. I get good coffee beans and make pour-overs multiple times a day. I think a lot of people do mental kung-fu creating needs out of wants, perhaps accidentally, perhaps on purpose because they don’t know what else to do, either way entirely upsetting Keynes’ predictions about the end of work. But, if people stopped, the music would stop, and the World economy would be a big toilet. So, maybe this isn’t so bad. Ultimately, I’m glad there’s something to motivate doctors and surgeons and garbage people to keep going to work, because, you know, we need those people. And, sometimes even my own cognitive dissonance and doubt creeps in. Maybe I should buy a nicer place to live or get some crazy expensive bicycle; but then I’m back to the self-imposed slavery of paying for those things, and I have to remind myself, no, I do not think I really want those things.
I like being outside in nature too. Seeing the Ocean is a wonder (this is the main nature I can see these days). “Back to Nature” is a funny thing. If you think about it, nature is pretty terrible. Humans are not at the top of the food chain in nature without all the ingenuity that makes humans human. Bears would take us out pretty quick if we didn’t have guns. Humans have conquered nature and I think it’s pretty amazing. I think there’s a lot of misanthropes amongst the hippie-dippie, Rainbow-wearing, crunchy-granola, fuck-the-system types, but I know that is not you! Seven billion people need food.
The pandemic has a lot of people rethinking things, and I think that’s good. I don’t think people step back enough to evaluate what they’re doing. If you look around at the faces of people driving cars around, there are a lot of Living Dead out there. Every time I hear someone honk a horn in rage or cuss out another driver, I am sad that that person has not learned that it does not have to be so. Perhaps this is an irreconcilable part of the human condition for many.
Congrats on nine years of marriage! I can’t believe it. Financial freedom does feel amazing. The whole rethinking that people are doing with the pandemic will be interesting to watch unfold; ultimately, I doubt real work-collaboration happens very well when everyone’s working via Zoom. But, it seems like a lot of people are throwing up their hands and saying Uncle. Maybe the Midwest will see more of a resurgence with remote work. Part of me wants a silly brick mansion in some formerly industrial city for half a million dollars.
If you really want to let your inner nihilist run wild, objectively, he’s not really wrong, on the surface. So, it really comes down to how you want to look at the glass, and what you get out of living. Yes, bird-watching in perpetuity might actually wind up being some sort of purgatory if you tried to do it for 30 years. But, maybe somehow inspiring a bunch of kids to love bird watching would be rewarding, making YouTube videos about it, writing about it, making an Instagram about it, I don’t know. The belief in life is, in a way, a bit of sophistry, just as much as belief in religion. My dad used to say of my little cousin, “She could be president one day!”, to which I would respond in my head, “So what?” My inner nihilist looked at the whole thing and saw basically what you saw, this sort of pointless circle. People work, many do jobs they hate, so that they might have children, those children go to school, they get degrees, go get more jobs they hate, wash, rinse, repeat. But, I realized, maybe some people just enjoy having a family. And, maybe not everyone hates their work (and, yes, people need to pay bills). My personal philosophy is why do we have to make more humans, there's already seven billion. But, I'm not trying to take away meaning from the people whom enjoy having a family, I’m certainly glad my parents had me, and if we believe in life, people need to have children. If something makes someone happy, good on them. Just don't expect me to live in the United States of Jesus, or the United States of Woke for that matter. Through following my personal interests about politics, I’ve wound up finding things I like “working” on, even if it’s just reading a bunch of books, writing about them, and germinating ideas at this point. But, I think I will get somewhere eventually with it all of it. I wanted to start an organization to get inner-city kids out cycling, but I talked to some lawyers, and they said that was potentially bad-news-bears for my personal liability. So, back to the drawing board on that one.
As a sidebar, American Factory is an amazing film, if you haven’t seen it, replete with Chinese Mega-Boss who confesses, “Well, this is what you do with life, I guess...?” It also has a great scene with a mega-entitled MAGA-type thoroughly incensed about his lunch breaktime and location. Recommendation for both you and your old man.
I think the anecdote that best explains my evolution in thinking is a couple of personal email addresses I made in middle school. My first email address was dogsarestupid@hotmail.com. I hated dogs (sorry). I always thought they were stupid creatures, smelly, jumped too much, too hyper, I liked nothing about dogs. Then I met my girlfriend’s Yorkie four years ago or so. And, he was all of those things. But, something changed, whether it was that particular Yorkie, or just a perception of what a dog is. A dog IS stupid. But, that’s the reason to like the dog. It’s so stupid (okay, not all breeds). It’s always happy to seize the day. I proclaim now every time I see a dog, out loud, “Doggy!” Would I ever get a dog? NO WAY. I still think all the things I ever thought about dogs. Way too much work. But, I now rejoice in the presence of dogs in life, as opposed to hating dogs.
I made another Hotmail which was algoreisamoron at Hotmail. I actually still use this email for junk; one woman from Craigslist was most unamused with the email address and said she no longer wanted to buy my Miata (and, she was not kidding). I guess I was sort of an entitled angry kid; I thought the email address was funny at the time. I think that’s just… normal and something you grow out of, if you’re lucky. I cringe reading old Yelp reviews I wrote, and sometimes delete them when I do.
Sorry my response to your response got long. I find all of this stuff interesting, thinking about life. And that is, for me, another reason for enjoying living, however circular that may seem.