Non-Normative Life Paths? How to do something no one has ever done before?

[BRUTE]

brute will push this book onto the list of books to be read.

[Jean]

two x's are missing

[Riggerjack]

Don't rule out kids and marriage until you've been around kids and happily married people. You're a guy so your shelf life is longer, but after years of saying I didn't want kids I'm surprised to realize that I kind of wish I'd had one.

I've been pretty vocal here about not wanting kids. But I do agree with this. I grew up knowing I didn't want kids. It wasn't until my 30's that I saw people who were good at parenting, and it was an eye opening experience. I still don't want kids, but I see now that much of my aversion was due to my experience of family and child rearing, not an objective look at how it is for those who are parents, rather than just breeders.

Now, as to your do something never done before nonsense...

7 billion people on the planet, you want to do something none of them is doing. No, something none of them is doing, has ever done, or any of their ancestors have ever done.

I submit to you that if you find something to do that fits that bill, it will either be utterly useless, novelty for novelty's sake, require the dedication of your whole life in commitment, or a combination of all of these.

While you may end up doing something truly original, setting out to do so seems an unlikely path to success.

Read the Guinness book of records for a snapshot of how much effort has been dedicated to just setting records in the silliest of ways.

Spend a few years outside of the homogeneous people soup you have experienced so far. Trying to be different in a crowd of people of similar age, experience, and political views has been your experience so for, but you are out now. You will never again be in that environment, so I recommend you put your efforts into recognizing the difference in your new environment, and adapting to it.

[Jean]

One motivation for traveling was to do more original things than other people, and of course, you meet people doing similar things, and it stops to seem original enough.
It never ends, and at some point you have to carry heavy fire arms to protect yourself while hiking, but you still feel like your doing nothing worthy of attention.
And it isn't worthy of attention.

[bryan]

Always keen on advice/sentiment like @EdithKeeler's:

Here's the great revelation of my life: very few people give two shits what you do or how you live your life. Seriously. It finally hit me when I was about 45 or so that after decades of thinking about what other people might think or perceive what I did and did not do, none of it mattered. Everyone else is too busy living their own lives to think very much about yours.

Trust me: at the 30 year reunion, the conversation will be: "there's Jack, he made kabillions as a trader and has three great kids. Oh, there's Olaz, he backpacked across the country naked. You see the blurb in National Geographic? Oh, and there's Rene--she finished med school and got a phd and had two sets of triplets!" And on. At best, you'll be an anecdote in someone else's conversation. Beyond that, really: no one cares.

Luckily this lesson can be learned on the dance floor. For me, it was meeting/"dating" a girl who introduced me, really, to dancing socially. After learning I really liked it, I eventually started to notice how many shits people give about dancing abilities. I think you can extrapolate it to the rest of your life's pursuits.

[BRUTE]

taking the OP literally, the easiest way to do something no humans has ever done before is probably to combine cross-domain activities, and add something to the mix that's only recently been possible. e.g. being the first human to sing Merry Christmas on Easter while riding a unicycle while wearing pink shoes while not wearing pants while carrying a late-model phone.

just typing this out brute realizes that it's really just an exercise in looking closely enough until enough detail for uniqueness emerges.

[TopHatFox]

Could be the making of a fun Youtube channel lol

[BRUTE]

sounds like signaling uniqueness is the goal

[TopHatFox]

Nah, I think the more important part of this post is what it means to live a meaningful and fulfilling life/ how to do something interesting that also makes us happy (though not necessarily other people or the masses)

[stand@desk]

I'd say find a good looking but not too good looking yet trustworthy life partner with a good family. Have a child or two and stay cash flow positive your entire life. The rest will take care of itself.

[stand@desk]

To further add to the conversation, relinquish the need to be or do something that has to be named so you can take an identity from it. Like going "vegan" for instance, or becoming a "marathoner." The bias for all or nothing in theory rarely transfers easily or accurately in practice. Sure, my wife and I have some vegan meals sometimes but not all the time. We do a lot of running but we don't only do marathons. Life is a long evolvement from one stage to the next. It is not static. If you do ERE at 35 or 18 or 50, you might also make some money on the side working on your own terms instead of the mans. Planning and discussing something named is great but in practice life is more fluid and I'd like to share a quote that has resonated with me recently:

"The meaning of your life is in the hands of those to come; that you do not have an authoritative voice in the meaning of your life. You do not, and it is proper that you do not..It is your humanity that the world needs. It is not you." -Stephen Jenkinson

Yes you can have some degree or a large degree of control of your life. But the meaning comes from those around you. It doesn't really come from you yourself.

[BRUTE]

I'd say find a good looking but not too good looking yet trustworthy life partner

but not too trustworthy

[Salathor]

I'd say find a good looking but not too good looking yet trustworthy life partner

but not too trustworthy

Ha! Stand@Desk's advice is good, though.

Responding to OP, though, have you considered whether the desire to follow 'non-normative' paths for the sake of not following the herd may be a weakness rather than a strength? Uniqueness often carries an added cost, and I'd imagine the same is true for lifestyle designs/costs, as well. Ie, being a vagabond wandered may come at the cost of not being able to develop long-lasting, fulfilling relationships as easily as you otherwise might.

One may say that this doesn't matter--and, indeed, deciding where to buck herd behavior for one's benefit is the whole point of ERE--but it's entirely possible that much of the "herd behavior" developed because it's best for "survival" in the metaphorical (not literal, anymore) sense. In other words, working while young, marrying and staying married, having kids, etc., may have physiological and psychological benefits that have conferred a survival advantage over the generations, and that's why they're now the norm.

I don't know why overspending has become the norm, unless it's our species' way of "peacocking" to attract a mate.

[stand@desk]

There is a lot of truth to the adage "Safety in the pack." -- Similar to the safest way to invest is in index funds because it's just safety in the pack investing. (Although I expect many on this board may have a different viewpoint on that statement.)

I believe it was Jacob that made a comment some time ago about opinions (or viewpoint of the world) on a spiral staircase. As you start out, your opinion of something may be a certain way. Then as you learn and gain experience your opinion changes to something different, and as you grow and gain even more experience, your opinion may be akin to your original opinion, but for completely different feelings and reasons.

I think it is like a distance runner. The best are able to run at many different speeds and hold the pace (depending on what type of training or racing they are doing), where beginners may not have that type of control over their running, so they just run the same pace all the time and think they are doing the right thing or what is right for them. And if anyone tries to tell them different they are unwilling to hear it out.

I guess the upside to living a non-normative path is that if it doesn't work out you can always write a book on it!