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Comment by asdfman123 | Hacker News Reader

I just listened to an episode of The Happiness Podcast and it made it clear that obsession over goals and other people's validation kills our natural passion. I don't know about you, but passion is what I'm really after -- the kind of state where you get lost in your work and love what you do.

It may be easy to dismiss Bukowski's advice because his abrasive and cynical delivery style, but I think he has a point. Follow your interests, and try to forget about your ego and the rest of the world.

(However, at the same time, I think it's important to be consistent and develop good habits that will prevent you from quitting at the first roadblock.)

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> the kind of state where you get lost in your work and love what you do.

I don't disagree, but one of the challenges is that humans have become really good at synthesizing devices that artificially give you that sensation at the expense of future regret. We call them "games".

For me, playing a good videogame (I'm particularly prone to Minecraft and roguelikes) exactly gives me that delightful incremental reward lost-in-the-process flow state. It's so good that I can lose myself in it for hours.

But then when I look up and see I've spent the entire night on it, I regret the lost opportunity to do something more meaningful for myself and others. So, for me, I try to seek out activities that blend enjoying the process and enjoying* the outcome. Too much of the former feels like a waste of time. Too much of the latter feels inauthentic and like a grind.

There is a sweet spot in the middle for passions that do involve some chore and grunt work, but are also joyful and leave me with an artifact I feel good about and can share with the world. That positive outcome helps motivate me to get through the un-fun parts.

Of course, if you don't feel regret, then by all means game away. But I do. Beyond a certain point, playing games feels like eating junk food. Gloriously satisfying during, but unnourishing and regretful afterwards.

You raise some interesting points here. I think that deep certainty that your time was well-spent comes a lot from others' appreciation.

If my friends inhabited and appreciated the structures I build in Minecraft as much as I do then it would be just as fulfilling as when I give them something I made with my hands. As it is it does feel slightly empty even though I enjoy it so much that I sketch plans up while I'm at work.

I suppose the key is that your hobby satisfies some deeper need your soul wants, like intellectual, artistic or emotional growth and expression.

I know some people say they find growth and meaning through the storylines in video games and I'm not trying to invalidate that, but I find I personally get way more rewards from reading a challenging book or learning an instrument or developing a hobby or something.

Growth and meaning in video games doesn't only have to be due to the storylines. There's also mastery, like playing Tetris and becoming better and better, or fighting Dark Souls bosses without taking damage.

In the Dark Souls community there are many challenge runs, for example finishing the game without leveling up your character, or by using only unupgraded starting weapons. When you play the games for the first time, you struggle even with a fully upgraded character and weapon, but after a while you don't need them. This gives a great sense of accomplishment.

Another need, related to mastery, is competition and overcoming opponents. When you start out playing Rocket League or Fortnite, you usually don't do very well. But as you play more, you become better and can do more things in game. Each new personal level of skill has its own challenges. Some people actively use the practice mode in the games to improve certain mechanics, others just play a lot of matches and improve that way. I would view a (to you, not compared to the pros) perfect Rocket League goal as something expressing both artistry, skill mastery, and an expression of your personal playing style. If you want to become good at either game, you also need intellectual growth, because you need to read guides online or watch YouTube videos to learn how to do new things, and then you try it in game until you learned them yourself.

Actually, even though they get critisised a lot because of loot boxes, skins in online multiplayer games also serve as personal artistic expressions. Designing an 80s-themed Rocket League car, or a car as disgusting-looking or silly-looking as possible, and showing it off to your teammates and opponents is definitely an expression of your person.

Also, to me, no one needs to see your creations for them to be artistic personal expressions. If your hobby is to draw or write short stories, that's a way for you to express yourself even if you never show them to anyone. It's the same with your house in Minecraft.

It's honestly hard for me to understand. My parents made me feel so guilty for spending any amount of time on the computer growing up that I can't untangle it. But I respect your perspective - thanks for sharing.

I love roguelikes too but I tend to burn out in less than a week on games. I can't play rpgs for 60 hours like I used to do.

The older I get the easier it is to predict the end result of an activity and the easier it is to not start things that won't produce long term fulfilment.

Having the same feeling when playing many AAA rpgs, maybe except the Witcher series or the titles from Obsidian. And, I used to spend 100s of hours trying to complete every possible gameplay in FO2.

What I really enjoy now are smaller indie titles with shorter gameplay and more focus on artwork, like Journey, Little Nightmares, A Way Out, Night in the Woods, Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

You summarised my feeling towards most AAA games these days. I bought a PS4 Pro a couple of years ago that saw almost zero use, bought some good games, started them and... Got demotivated playing as I knew what would be the end result: grind this, get this skill, get that ability, follow this quest, this will open up the story, etc. I sold it in less than a year.

Even when the process was enjoyable (as in playing Souls-like games) because your own skill is improving it was very lacklustre compared to my other more recent hobbies (such as music), it gave me a sense of accomplishment that is very narrow, it only applies to that particular game and it isn't a skill that is broadening me as an individual. And then I realised I didn't like this kind of game anymore.

I'm still very much up for playing short games (or games I can play in a burst and let it sit), couch multiplayer/co-op games, etc., games that are an activity while socialising but single-player grind-y games aren't my thing anymore, they are too time consuming for my life nowadays.

Games, reading and doing various sports is what keeps me having a good life. I'd have loved to able to find meaningful work, but that never happened. Interestingly, this is freeing. If my work will never be important, I'm free to just enjoy life while it lasts. Maybe that perspective helps.

This comment gave me some peace.

Lovely comment.

That. Exactly.

Also, I disagree with the whole idea of "Don't Try" in context of many pursuits. Perhaps it applies to writing as described in the article, but a lot of stuff is worth doing because it creates value for others. That value is created only if we're successful. How can one engage in such activity without having the end goal as target?

IMO the best of both worlds is to have a good life by enjoying it as parent poster said (with games, reading, sports) and when possible putting all you have into trying to achieve your goals even if the possibility of success is remote. How would the Wright brothers achieve powered flight if they didn't try. It wouldn't happen organically as a side effect of their work.

I think we should just limit games like junk food to moderation so that we can keep working on productive things. The trick is pulling yourself away from it. The plus side with junk food is that your stomach will rebel if you eat too much where as your mind rebels only after you have stopped and realized you have played too much.

I think you are right about games. I play a lot of games, but I also have more physical hobbies than I have weekdays to practice them. Which means that all my gaming time is usually a couple of hours after training when I'm tired anyways or they are on weekend nights where I can be productive during the daytime if I choose.

And if for whatever reason don't train for a period and only game I get a little of what you are describing.

As a counter point, I think obsession over goals and intense work ethic can bring immense happiness. Allows you to eventually explore and build projects you want to. To live in a home not plagued by disruptions and slum lords. To access lawyers if you need them.

I think most people are just boring, lack imagination and don’t know anything interesting to do. Perhaps it’s tied to their ability to excel at a high paying job. But more likely, I’d say people are just diminished by education and life but somehow never can change. I know a lot of rich people who are terribly unhappy and do nothing at all with their vast wealth.

This. I think people generally are just really boring and don't have the capacity to think about all the extraordinary things they could be doing with their limited time on the planet.

The world is infinite and extraordinary and full of joy and pain and suffering and intrigue - most people through upbringing, education and lack of long term thinking, cannot see past menial jobs, solving menial problems of no real value - simply because it passes the time and gives you a little lazy leisure and the occasional pat on the back from your superiors.

Our socioeconomic system is great at delivering hefty and immediate penalties to people who try to escape being a cog in the machine: loss of income (and often access to food/shelter/health care/etc.), loss of social status and connections, and becoming an outcast from one's (former) community.

I can't blame people who don't find these punishments attractive.

One doesn't have to become a homeless person living in the forest - look at artists as an example - why are they revered so much? Because they have managed to live as outliers outside of the norm.

.01% of artists are revered because their work is worth a lot of money.

or just that we remember the ones who succeeded and forgot all the others

It's too bad you don't know any artists. You must be one of the boring people mentioned above. I know many - few have any money, but they live rich, interesting lives outside of the status quo.

What do they eat and do they have a shelter?

It's not a black or white sort of thing. Living as an artist isn't necessarily better.

It's a question of how much is it worth to you, and are you willing to pay the cost? Are you willing to suffer for years to make it and actually produce worthwhile art?

Some have the creative drive to the point where it's their only option. Others could take it or leave it.

Frankly, I used to try to look interesting and found it's far better to look boring and do what makes me happy. But that's just what works for me.

Never forget that we're all different people with somewhat different needs.

David Berman of the Silver Jews (may he rest in peace) wrote the following about the artistic struggle: "If we'd known what it would cost to get here, would we have chosen to?"

I've known many artists, liked lots of them. Doesn't mean they're generally revered, lol.

Artists who have proven themselves worthy of being called artists are revered.

People who try and don't make it are subject to contempt and scorn.

It's society's way of saying, "We only need a few great people to be artists, and if you're not that, then go back to doing something else useful for people."

And in our society, usefulness is measured by income.

It's not a lack of imagination and it's not that they're boring. It's because society is structured to punish people who try to step outside of their roles, socially and economically.

If you're from a poor family, they won't like it if you try to rise to a higher rank and may even reject you entirely. If you try a creative pursuit, you will suffer people's judgments and outright scorn on your journey.

Society needs people to shovel the gravel, and unless you can figure out a more efficient way to shovel even more gravel by tomorrow, it's back to your shovel. (The clock is ticking; what's your big idea, kid?)

There's an idea that you should be free from other people's judgments, and I think it's good practice to not take them to heart, but we still all social creatures and I think in the west we tend to overestimate how independent we really are, how much we are a part of our families, and how much we're a product of our environment.

Lots of people want to be artists and creatives and visionaries, but society needs very few of those, and if people deem you do not belong to that class then they will try their best to strike you down.

Many have tried, many have been stricken down.

The most creative and ambitious people I know are not the most comfortable, though. The worst way I see "society" "punishing" people economically is they get a 6-figure desk job and are afraid to leave it.

Why do you say you think society needs very few artists and creatives and visionaries? I say we have too many people writing the same CRUD web apps (and usually, if the numbers are to be believed, having their projects killed, before or after launch). Artists at least produce something.

Many have tried, and then they go back to their boring useless desk jobs because they have a mortgage.

Okay, I guess it's fair to say society is not willing to pay for more artists and visionaries. If we all spent $200 of our income a month buying music and art from local artists (and I don't mean buying beer at a club, I mean actually giving them that money), and it had the same priority as paying for gas or mortgage payments, there would be millions of new artist jobs. But people generally aren't doing that.

People are willing to pay for gas. They're willing to pay people to drill the wells and design and build the refineries. They're paying people to lay the pipe. They're paying business people to say, "Keeping track of all that data is hard and expensive, let's build a web app to manage that, lower our costs and become the best oil and gas company on the market."

So CRUD apps get built. Some of them are useless. Some save companies millions and millions of dollars. But on average I'm willing to assume businesses come out ahead with this whole "in house software" trend. Because I've personally built smaller pieces of CRUD software in house that has saved Nicole and Monica in accounting from weeks of dull spreadsheet work.

Of course, responsibility for actual products gets lost when you go through eight layers of management. Lots of people are pretending to work because it's enough to fool the VP who might come strolling by. But on average it must be working to some extent because I can buy gas and my car runs.

Sadly, a lot of people's interests (or their interests combined with their lack of ability, connections, etc) don't put enough food on the table.

"Forget about the rest of the world" isn't helpful if someone has a family to support, or even themselves. It is pretty privileged to think everyone can choose to only work in a field of their choosing... I don't know if many janitors have an 'interest' in cleaning toilets... they have an interest in supporting themselves.

I have always appreciated Mike Rowe's views on work and this idea... it is ok to just work to make money, and find meaning in other parts of your life.

I think this is in address to creative types. It's ok to be a creative and have a day-job.

I'll say this, though. I hate development less than I would one of Rowe's jobs.

Then you just have to decide what your primary goal is:

Is it to create a piece of (truly) original artistic expression?

Or is it to... put food on the table?

Both are perfectly valid. But -- as you are correct in noting -- quite different.

Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table! You must be pretty insulated from the hard realities of life if you think people can simply treat survival as optional.

Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table!

I meant your goal in choosing to do creative work, obviously.

Not in a hierarchy-of-needs sense.

But I was speaking in a hierarchy-of-needs sense. Not everyone gets to the point where you can choose to do creative work.

I recommend reading some biographies of famous creative people. You’ll quickly learn that a sizable portion of them lived in poverty, took on enormous debts, or died young.

Are you suggesting that is correct choice to make?

Obviously one should try to avoid poverty, debts and early death. But if you are truly dedicated to your creative field, then sure, it's clearly the correct choice. Having a family, buying a house and other middle-class living standards are choices, not necessities. If someone isn't willing to make some sacrifices for their art, perhaps they aren't meant to be great at it in the first place.

Otherwise, when will you pursue your art? In the next life?

Putting food on the table for yourself is pretty damn easy. But if you want a house, kids, a wife, a nice car, etc, then it gets exponentially more difficult.

So, there is a choice available for creative people who don't wish to compromise: They can be fully into their work at the expense of the above cultural norms - perhaps if they are very successful in their niche they can have those things too, but there could be a very long or infinite period of their lives where this is not possible - that's the sacrifice.

I'm so sick of the 'I can't do XYZ because I have kids and a mortgage' talk - well maybe you should have thought about the long term ramifications of kids and a mortgage?

Okay, I agree with you. I guess "put food on the table" has a connotation of providing specifically for others and not just yourself, which I wasn't considering.

As my father phrased it when I moved out at 18, "Make sure you have food on the table and a roof over your head, the rest is just details."

You're right, but I meant that implicitly in my comment:

> it is ok to just work to make money, and find meaning in other parts of your life.

That you have to make that clear is a testament to how crazy work and more specifically developer culture is these days.

This is why we should have Basic Income!

Why isn't it meaningful or fulfilling to do a "dirty job" that other people need done?

It seems like people just get stuck with the contradiction that if they are good people, they must care about others, but they don't like doing things for other people.

I've noticed that a lot of people in IT seem to gravitate towards a position in which they have power...to say "no". If you like saying "yes", you will go down a different road. And yes, I know the typical responses to that and why you shouldn't do that.

> It is pretty privileged to think everyone can choose to only work in a field of their choosing

Have you ever read Bukowski before writing this? He worked odd jobs he loathed to support himself. He was fired often. He spent part of his life homeless.

Well, isn't this exactly what the Author did? He worked blue-collar jobs for decades and "putting in the real work at the typewriter before each shift at the day job".

One problem I've had that I can easily follow my interests and ignore external validation or doing what others think is best. The problem is I've found often that 10 years later I realized I didn't see the bigger picture and should have done other things. Often following your natural passion takes you into a suboptimal path and you should have just made money & friends like everyone else.

I agree. I think the normal, well beaten path of simply chasing money and making friends is the best way to be both happy and succesful.

To me it’s an average life, but mix luck in and you get fame and fortune.

Wow, this cuts to the bone. I do this too.

Passion is important, it's what makes you unique and fulfills your life, but you need other people to achieve it and thus you need to do things they expect of you. Sometimes, in order for them to even give you a chance, you need to impress them when you're introduced.

What do you think this insight tells you about macro-economic policy and the structure of our current society?

Isn't the whole idea of capitalism to force most people to align themselves to exterior goals?

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain your question in more depth?

Yes, and we're reaping the rewards. I mean that in both the sincere and the cynical sense.

> Isn't the whole idea of capitalism to force most people to align themselves to exterior goals?

No more than a subsistence living as a hunter-gatherer, and in fact, likely less so. If you live absolutely primitively, then your circumstances force you to align your life and habits to those behaviors that sustain life. There is something external to yourself which constrains the actions that contribute to your continued survival.

The whole idea of capitalism is this: If you want something you do not have, then you must offer to those who have it something that those people value. There is something external to yourself which constrains the actions that contribute to your continued survival. This may force you to align your life and habits differently than in the subsistence scenario, but not necessarily more so.

In each scenario, there are things you can control, namely your actions and behavior. You can take actions which convert into shelter, water, and food. Whether there is nature or human volition on the other side doesn't matter so much. There are actions you can take which support your survival, and actions which don't. That the actions are different is not germane to the question as posed - there are external constraints that determine which of your own actions contribute to life.

As a side note, there is nothing inherently uncapitalistic about the subsistence scenario[0]. If you build yourself a shelter, do you consider that you own the shelter and get to control its use? If you do, this is capitalistic.

[0] This is phrased as a negative on purpose. I am not claiming that the subsistence scenario is inherently capitalistic.

Noting as a reply, rather than an edit. Neither scenario I described implies that the entirety of one's life must be devoted to subsistence.

The fact that the vast majority of people participating in a capitalistic society consume at a rate greater than mere subsistence indicates that they value luxury[0] more than passion, at least over some curve of resource consumption beyond subsistence. There may be an intersection point where marginal passion is valued more than marginal luxury. I will make no statement or judgment about where this intersection occurs, though you are free to.

[0] Here, I am using "luxury" in a non-standard way - to indicate those things which are beyond subsistence. In this definition, all resources beyond the minimum required to support life are luxuries. I don't have a better word to use. This is a reductive definition. Anything beyond the barest shelter and minimum calories to survive is luxury for the purpose of this definition and the argument in which it is used.

What you cited as the whole idea of capitalism is actually the whole idea of trade, which existed long before capitalism. The idea of capitalism is that the profits brought in by one's assets and labor can be reinvested in more assets or rented labor, which further increases the inflow of money as long as there is unmet market demand for whatever it is that you're doing.

Likewise, building yourself a cabin in the woods is not a capitalist enterprise unless you plan on renting out that cabin and using the proceeds to build more cabins.

"What you cited as the whole idea of capitalism is actually the whole idea of trade, which existed long before capitalism."

Trade and property are what people usually mean by 'capitalism'. I mean, yes, Marx popularized the term to refer to specific things he saw in the economies of Europe in his time, but when people refer to 'capitalism' today they mostly aren't referring to those things. They are referring to an economy built on private property and free markets.

Capitalism is fundamentally based on private ownership. The rest falls out of it.

If I own and control something, and you own and control something else, trade is a natural byproduct.

If I own and control something, then of course I can reap benefits from it in the future. Building a completely isolated cabin in the woods that I have no intention of any other human even seeing is capitalist insofar as I assume property rights over it. I am investing time and effort now to build a large, durable structure that I may reap the interest for the remainder of my life, that interest being the durability in storms and the saved effort of rebuilding semi-permanent shelter on a recurring basis.

This is exactly profit brought in by one's assets and labors. I may choose to invest the saved time in other activities, such as tool-building to make the rest of my life easier.

Of course, no man is an island. The concept of capitalism means little in the absence of other humans, though as we see above it can still have some small meaning.

If I exist in some loose society where I interact with others and they may see and interact with my cabin, it matters much more if I assume property rights over it. Even if I do not ever allow another human to interact with the cabin, I reap the same benefits of my investment discussed above.

Note, I've not brought up the idea of money yet. Money is absolutely not required for us to be able to describe something as capitalistic. This is a common misunderstanding, as "capital" today often refers to cash and cash-valued assets.

Now, I am not trying to make a claim that capitalism is necessary for trade, simply that capitalism is sufficient for trade. Similarly capitalism is not necessary for the idea of investing for the long term, merely sufficient.

We could, of course, talk through a thought experiment where humans in a socialistic society build a cabin or cabins and this community accrues benefits as we've discussed.

I agree. But being a hunter gatherer or farmer is much easier than working in today's society. We are working very hard and have little time to invest in our natural interests. If you look at existing hunter gatherer societies, the actual time that is required to be invested in subsistence is much less than the 40 hour weeks of today's society. Capatilism doesn't give us the rewards of our labour, it only gives us enough to subsist at the maximum amount of output that we are able to provide. This is written into the dynamics of the system.

This is so true. And also ironic, considering the massive amount of productivity increases we've seen in the last couple thousand years, at least 100 fold or more.

But, the cause is not capitalism. There are many causes and all of them link back to regulation, government and an unwillingness to allow for lower cost options for (housing, transportation and medical insurance). For example in housing. Consider this: We could build the type of homes humans had 1000s of years ago very easily and it could be super cheap, only costing maybe a few dozen hours worth of wages to through up a couple of wooden walls and a ceiling but none of that is legally allowable. We've created an environment where only housing of the highest possible quality is legally allowable, thus forcing everyone to work long hours to afford all that whether they want it or not. this is further compounded by the fact that we're forcing people into a very tiny amount of land, thus driving up the cost of land needlessly when there's soo much empty space out there that can't be developed.

I think this is quite a rosy view of being a hunter gatherer or a subsistence farmer. From what I've read, there's like, a LOT of murder in existing hunter gatherer societies. And back when everyone was either a hunter gatherer or a farmer, lots of people starved to death all the time. It may be true that a farmer of 500 hundred years ago got to keep all of the rewards of their labor (though many... most(?) of them had to give up some portion to the local strongman), but those rewards generally amounted to barely enough to make it through the winter, and certainly not enough to survive, say, two bad harvests. As crappy as capitalism is sometimes, most people in the developed world are very, very far away from worrying about starving to death on a yearly basis. The biggest problem is that what we consider subsistence is way more expensive that what an existing hunter gatherer considers subsistence. If we were willing to live on nothing more than barely enough food and have almost no clothes, or housing, or possessions, we'd be able to work a lot less too.

...rosy view of being a hunter gatherer or a subsistence farmer.

There is a vast difference between hunting/gathering and what you think of when encountering the phrase "subsistence farming". You're on the right track when considering "the local strongman". Sedentary farmers of scheduled-harvest process-heavy plants (most grains) are vulnerable to the predations of government in a way that people who live more in tune with nature are not.

In this imaginary hunter gather scenario, you certainly must account for life expectancy being what, 40 years? Infant mortality rate 50%?

If given the choice, I think most beings would select into a stream optimizing for actual existence. Sounds strikingly close to evolution.

But the math is different one you have already not died as an infant, isn't it?

You realize that the average life expectancy already includes the infant deaths, right? It does not mean that a healthy 18 year old is unlikely to live past 40. Only a newborn baby is.

Does it? https://krusekronicle.typepad.com/kruse_kronicle/2008/02/inf...

> If you look at existing hunter gatherer societies, the actual time that is required to be invested in subsistence is much less than the 40 hour weeks of today's society.

40 hours of work provides much more than subsistence, even at sub-minimum-wage income levels in the US.[0]

The vast majority of people earning an income in the US earn greater than the minimum wage. Only 2.1% of hourly workers earn at or below the minimum wage in 2018, and it's been trending downward for decades.[1]

Both a hunter-gatherer society and modern capitalist society offer opportunities for luxury[2] beyond subsistence. These are different. A value judgment between the two would be just that, and I don't want to fight about any differences among the things that you and I value.

EDIT : updated BLS link to latest, and reference to 2018, instead of 2017.

[0] Personal experience. I have lived at $10K/yr within the last decade in the US. My sister has, too. Note, this would be a full time $5/hr.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage

[2] See my comment sibling to yours for this non-standard use. I don't have a better word. Here, I mean "luxury" as "beyond subsistence".

If I understand your question correctly, capitalism has no goal. It's mainly driven by people whose goal it is to increase their own wealth. It's contributed to by people who want to provide for their families.

At times, capitalism has crushed people and kept them in miserable jobs in the interests of increasing wealth. It has overthrown democratically elected governments for the benefit of private fruit companies.

I am not anti capitalist, in fact I think it's better than all the other awful systems we know about, but just because it is doesn't mean it's optimal. I don't think a society built out of human beings can be optimal.

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