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Comment by joslin01 | Hacker News Reader

I really don't think this contradicts PG's point or challenges it in a way to be deserving of the phrasing "entirely different perspective."

For one, from the essay:

> But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them

And for two, Kurt is at odds with himself in that quote though his overall sentiment is correct. He says to "fart around" and then creates a straw-man with computers. What he really means to say (I think) is that life is about experiencing it and appreciating those experiences.

This certainly doesn't run contrary to what PG is saying. In fact, he's saying the same exact thing -- life is short, so find what you love and do it & love it.

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I think it conflicts because of pg's focus on intentionality the way you spend your time - which, if not the strict opposite of 'farting around', is darn close. If pg preaches impatience for what matters, Vonnegut preaches farting around because, who knows what you want?

I was going to have a similar reply. The first part anyway. Clearly farting around is something that matters to Kurt.

But that makes me think on what actually matters. Doesn't everything we do in our free time matter? If it didn't, why would we do it?

And then we do things that don't matter all the time at work, PG used meetings an example. Usually, they don't matter, but we do them... it seems there's a bit of give and take. I suppose we could ignore some of the meetings but too many missed meetings might piss the boss off. Then we lose the income source and makes it really hard to do what matters.

This piece hit me pretty hard. My dad's in the hospital again, one of the many times over the years. I never know when might be the last. I live hundreds of miles away... it sucks.

Life here is first and foremost arbitrary. As a result of this, the world is like a blank canvas we look out to and fill in with meaning.

The life of a human can be wrought with meaningless acts that have been given a lofty value in the human's head. One human says "This is meaningless!" while the other calls it holy. Many take this as a lesson to say that happiness is found by arbitrarily assigning value, but this -- and all idols -- will fail.

The great lesson of this world is to find yourself. This is necessary because the world is a dream; a very complicated but simple illusion. How does one escape illusions? Surely not by fighting with them, but by letting them go. This is why monks train so long to let go of attachment to the world and learn how to disconnect from it. The enlightenment that follows is but recognition of the real world -- what some would call "heaven" or "nirvana".

Different strokes for different folks, but the end-goal will always be the same for this world. The "last judgment" will be when the world has finally been judged truly and we relinquish from it and go back home. It might be many, many years away, but there are some of us whose only purpose is to accelerate the return.

Therefore, knowing that I have a purpose, responsibility, and finite time on this world, the equation for what has meaning to me is "Is my function aligned with my purpose?"

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