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Comment by massysett | Hacker News Reader

I’ll add one: there is limited time in life, and you cannot implement all the advice you’ll get about how to live a good life. A doctor will tell you to take care of your health. A sociable person will tell you to have friends. A traveler will tell you to travel. A priest will tell you to know God. A careerist will tell you to work harder. An entrepreneur will tell you to start a business. The list goes on and on and on.

Life is about what you decide to do, not about what others think you should do and certainly not about what some random old person says you should do because that’s what he wishes he did.

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kk isn't really just some random old person, he was Wired for all intents and purposes for a long time, he is an astounding and empathetic travel photographer and is one of Stewart Brand's best friends. I realize you were speaking generally but I hope we can all make an exception for this one random old person. Do yourself a favor and turn the pages of Asia Grace. Ageism is a hell of a drug.

https://kk.org/books/asia-grace/

sneaky edit: if I could get life advice from any random old person, he would definitely be on my short list. The guy knows how to live.

He sounds impressive, and I can get with you on being anti-ageist, but saying "The guy knows how to live" just reinforces the idea that everyone has their own take on what's important, and one size doesn't fit all. My idea of living my fullest potential barely overlaps with the apparent life of the person that you admire.

> My idea of living my fullest potential barely overlaps with the apparent life of the person that you admire.

And that's fine; I read the point about "knowing how to live" to mean: he knew the life _he_ wanted to live, and lived it.

Your first paragraph is insightful.

The second is an incredibly uncharitable take on a well-crafted list.

That may be true, but for me his second paragraph is refreshing when it comes about advice I read on this website

But the second paragraph is not about the list.

What makes this list "well-crafted"? It doesn't seem to be any different than any other listicle on the internet. Is it?

Those people ~ "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." [1] Law of the Instrument

"Where some have found their paradise, others just come to harm." - Law of Joni Mitchell

"Don't do things for the wrong reasons."

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument

I'm not sure I understand Joni Mitchell's law (beside a naive "when up, things can only go down")

“Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot”

I read "come to harm" as "get harmed" instead of "do harm".

In simpler terms: what's good for some is bad for others.

Yes, the idiom "come to X" does mean "be acted on by X". Common usages "come to harm", "come to Jesus", "come to his/her/your/my senses" ( = rational thought).

It's especially confusing in this case, where the previous sentence refers to a place.

"I come to the beach to relax, but others come to party."

I think what you're getting at, since we're talking about values, is déformation professionelle: valuing things that you know, and devaluing (valuing less than objectively appropriate) other things.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9formation_professionnel...

“All we need to do is to decide on how to spend the time that is given to us”. Gandalf knows best. The hard part is making that decision. It’s something that ideally happens once you know your personal values. But - It’s even harder to make those decisions once you realise that your values will change over time. What a pickle!

TFA speaks to this directly:

"The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?”"

Along those lines, almost all advice is highly contextual. You'll often hear that people criticize bad advice that is actually good advice applied inappropriately. Perhaps in the author's view, he could have benefited from taking more breaks, but in my case, it would probably be better off if I spent less time shitposting on HN.

> Life is about what you decide to do, not about what others think you should do and certainly not about what some random old person says you should do because that’s what he wishes he did.

I would take the same list and interpret as life demands prioritization. That which you choose to do gives it value, in part, because you choose not to do other things. When someone chooses to love me (like in a marriage for example) it's not just the love I receive but also the gratitude for the privilege of exclusivity.

What did you think about the list in the article?

I found everything written to be insightful and I resonated with a lot of it mostly because I picked up most of it in my own travels.

Absurdism has a lot of overlap with what you mentioned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#Absurdism

Counterpoint: meaning is a social construct and thus we derive meaning from doing activities which are essentially advice from other people (albeit implicit and not necessarily verbal).

Your examples and many in OP’s list are non-actionable non-concrete advice. For example, “take care of health” is non-actionable but “go running one hour after you wake up” is actionable. However, much better advice is not about what to do but what not to do. The absolute golden advice is what everyone is doing but why you shouldn’t in a specific context. This is more akin to a traveler coming out from journey and recounting what he/she considered mistakes.

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