Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja
Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:47 am
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I personally wouldn't be caught dead saying such stupid saccharine shit out loud but thanks for the important reminder.black_son_of_gray wrote: ↑Tue Nov 13, 2018 6:27 pmKurt Vonnegut on his uncle Alex:
It's hard to simultaneously feel both [insert negative emotion] and gratitude.
This is from a book I'm listening to as I'm walking the halls at work to stretch my legs. Somehow the passage struck a chord with me, as I sometimes find the repetitiveness of life to be quite disheartening. It's easier to feel inspired when you are reaching for or building something new than when you are not, such as when you are just keeping the trains running. Of course, the building towards something new is a mirage, as you are never really building anything new, but simply reinventing a wheel that someone else has already built.* But in either case, whether building something new (to you) or maintaining the previously designed or constructed, such as a day-to-day life of one's choosing, one can view the thing one is doing as having a point, a destination, a goal and one can view oneself as putting one's energy into accomplishing that goal. Call this "the executive view"."You must find the most important words a man can say." Those words came to me from one who claimed to have seen the future.
"How is this possible," I asked in return, "have you been touched by the void?"
The reply was laughter. "No, sweet king, the past is the future and as each man has lived, so must you."
"So I can but repeat what has been done before?"
"In some things, yes. You will love; you will hurt; you will dream; and you will die. Each man's past is your future."
"Then what is the point," I asked, "if all has been seen and done?"
"The question," she replied, "is not whether you will love, hurt, dream and die - it is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path."
This started my journey, and this begins my writings. I cannot call this book a story, for it fails at its most fundamental to be a story. It is not one narrative, but many, and though it has a beginning, here on this page, my quest can never truly end. I wasn't seeking answers - I felt that I had those already, plenty, in multitude, from a thousand different sources. I wasn't seeking myself - this is a platitude that people have ascribed to me and I find the phrase lacks meaning. In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing - a journey.
lightly edited from chapter 105 of Oathbringer, third book in the Stormlight series
I'm bored in my job. I'm not learning anything new. Which leads me to feel angsty. But I get paid very well to do this job. And it's not too demanding. Which leads me to not want to consider other jobs where I'd have to start all over (both in terms of skill and pay). Golden handcuffs. Which leads me to consider other similar jobs where if I take on a bit more demands (i.e., go back to a law firm with billing pressures and client handholding, but substantively the same), I'd make a bit more money. Basically same job, so why not go for more money? So long as the extra money > the extra demands.In your current state, as a twenty or thirty or forty something professional, you’re not always happy, but neither are you unhappy. And you’ve internalized the profound benefits that this situation has on your life; you feel safe and secure. So what if you’re bored or frustrated a great deal of the time?
You’re not alone. This is the typical progression for white collar workers. I’m not guessing here. I recently finished reading Stud’s Terkel’s Working, in which the author interviews dozens of people with all sorts of different professions. These themes are depressingly common. Very few people are called into a profession. Most of us stumble into one and find we can manage all right, and goddamn, we need the money, so we trade our time for temporary financial stability, paycheck after paycheck, despite a growing sense of malaise that’s hard to pinpoint as the years pass.
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[college years are exciting because you are constantly learning new things in new areas and meeting new people and there's not enough permanence to become bored]
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Now that I’ve fixed the so-called money problem in my life, though, by becoming FI, I can return to that state of flexibility and creativity, if I so choose. (This is one of the main reasons people want to achieve FI, actually — it isn’t that they hate their jobs. They just can’t see doing the same thing for the rest of their lives.)
Many jobs are "too small for one's spirit." People need to feel challenged in order to be fulfilled. A job which is secure and pays adequately may mean complete misery if there's no challenge or sense of meaningful contribution.
Interestingly, I make this argument for the exact opposite reason. I tell myself to put up with the relative boredom/misery with the best $:BS ratio because it wont last for long. I tend to think it was easier to switch professions pre-ERE knowledge, simply because my tolerance for misery was lower when I thought I was stuck doing it for 30+ more years.suomalainen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 10:36 amBut the fact is that I have to stay working for the foreseeable future, if only for "safety" reasons (3 kids, so healthcare and other exigencies). So, full circle, if I'm going to be working for money anyway...might as well maximize the $/BS ratio. I guess this goes back to what I think @cL was describing for his own situation.
You mean higher?classical_Liberal wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 6:04 pmI tend to think it was easier to switch professions pre-ERE knowledge, simply because my tolerance for misery was lower when I thought I was stuck doing it for 30+ more years.
Living deliberately does not require changing one's external circumstances, such as going to the woods. Going to the woods to live a spartan, essential, sturdy existence is not required; seeing past all the bullshit to see life as it really is can be done here. It can be done now.I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...
Chronic stress is the number one killer in modern society. It is linked to heart disease, cancer, accidents, suicide, and much more.suomalainen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:30 pmI wonder if excessive cortisol has negative physiological effects or is linked to alzheimers or something.
I'm sure you know this, and @Gus already chimed in, but that "geography" demand is a big one. My dad did the long commute thing when I was growing up (week at work in other states, weekend at home), and it sucked. I barely saw him and it has affected our relationship to this day. I'm sure there are people who can make it work (and perhaps the telecommuting could work on that front). But it's got to be tough, as family mostly happens in our current culture in the mundane experiences of getting everyone ready and out the door in the morning and then fed and settled down for bed in the evenings. And if you're doing the long commute thing, you're not really part of that. I gave up a bunch of guaranteed income when I left the big firm for the boutique firm earlier this year, and a big part of the reason I did that was because even a ~35-minute commute was too much time away from family, when given the option of taking less guaranteed money to have ~5 minutes by bike between home, work, and kids' school.suomalainen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:57 amThe only additional "demands" would be getting to know a new client group and dealing with geography - potential options would be 1) relocating the wife and 3 kids, 2) long-commuting (week at work, weekends at home) or 3) telecommuting with some long-commuting mixed in (ratios TBD).
I like this as well. Similar, sort of, from Aristotle: "Existing for pleasure alone is a vulgar state befitting animals. A man can achieve pure happiness only by reaching the height of his potential, and that means not just thinking virtuously but behaving virtuously too."suomalainen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:30 pmI really like that idea: liberation from the craving to capture pleasant feelings and escape unpleasant feelings, liberation from the persistent desire for things to be different than they are.