Life is not short | Hacker News Reader

Life is not short

dkb.show

820 pointsdbrereton500 comments

At 35 I decided to fuck the "normal life" and just go RVing with my wife. We saw the country (US). Fast forward 7 years and we are now building our own house paycheck to paycheck. It's a beautiful property. I know there are people on here that have much, much more and could afford to buy an already existing house. But my dreams are to have a different kind of life, so in that sense I am definitely living that. Yes there are mornings I wish I can wake up and NOT want to install my own well pump, install mini splits in 105 degree weather, install siding, dig foundations, run 40 80-pound bags of cement in a mixer, 2 at a time. etc etc etc...

But my alternative life would have been spending the last 7 years playing new versions of Call of Duty and kinda pissing time away.

Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games? While it's great that you found an opportunity to go RVing with your wife. Because such a feat is not really possible for everyone to do, less people do it so less congestion and you can make it enjoyable. Imagine if 100 million people in the US decided to all at once go RVing around the country. All the areas would be full of RVs and I bet it would not be as enjoyable anymore.

It is. Or at least it is for a lot of us. In working through some things a few years back I realized that when I’m worn out I do certain activities to recharge myself, and some of them aren’t actually recharging, they’re just running down the clock and Time is doing the recharging.

Gaming was very much a pastime rather than a recharging time. Worse, with games it’s too easy to get sucked into a thread that keeps me up well past bedtime, in which case I’m more tired then next day, not less.

Other hobbies accumulate progress, and are sometimes more open to participation by friends and family. Now I spend a lot of time gardening or doing other hobbies, and more of my screen time comes when I’m resting or trying to limit my skin cancer risks (1 pm instead of 7 pm).

The quote that resonated the most with me here went something like: Life is a series of bricks, placed day by day, to build the foundation of life.

I’d take it one step further and say life also has compounding returns. What you invest today yields returns tomorrow. Not all hobbies yield the same returns.

Gaming as a hobby offers a flat return. The time you put in is the time you get out. There is no progress outside the bounds of the game (except for some fuzzier returns about societal commentaries and personal growth on par with the returns on a fantasy novel - or the future returns of making a game yourself).

The returns of a hobby like glass blowing is the improved ability to create on the other side of engaging in the hobby. Every piece you make sets the stage for the next piece. It’s a compounding return where the investment you make today is part of the return you get out of tomorrow’s investment.

I still play games, watch TV, and read fiction. But I no longer engage with them the way I used to. Now I engage with hobbies that yield compounding returns because tomorrow’s happiness is just as important as today’s.

I like your phrasing here a lot. I have come to a pretty similar realization recently. For me a small about of gaming does recharge me, but as you say it’s really easy to get sucked into spending too much time and ending up tired or sacrificing other recharging activities like exercise and socialization.

I think it’s possible to weave socialization and accumulated progress into the gaming experience and have it be a fully enriching hobby. But many (most?) single player experiences are just a pastime for me, as you say.

I like how you expressed the first two paragraphs. Both I something I can completely relate to.

"Is it really pissing time away if you're enjoying your time spent playing video games?"

It depends on if you ever think you will regret it or not. I thought the same thing 10 years ago when I was spending years playing games and having fun. Now it feels like I wasted a colossal amount of time no matter how much fun it was at the time. I'd never made that choice knowing what I know now.

Interesting. I was very into PC gaming in my teens and look back on that time quite fondly. Certainly not with any regret or a feeling that I wasted my time.

Regret isn't an problem with your past, it is a problem with your current self's opinion of the past. You are judging your past self based on your current self but that is unfair and you might want to think how that impacts your life going forward. Making decisions based on what you think your future self will approve of doesn't seem like it'd have the best results.

Could that possibly be a failure on the part of your future self rather than on your past self?

Though to be fair the economy would adapt to 100 million people RVing. Services would pop up, new taxes would be created I'm sure for driving x number of kilometres per year, etc, etc.

I agree with your first point though. Perhaps the OP doesn't think playing COD is a great way to pass the time -- but video games are certainly not a waste of your life if you really enjoy them. This applies to any hobby.

Ultimately we have a short time here and it's up to us personally to decide what is a waste of our time and then act accordingly. Judgement on these efforts is hardly effective. RVing with my wife sounds like an incredibly suffocating experience -- trapped with another person in such a small space -- akin to buying a boat and spending 3 years "sailing", without seeing land for many days on end -- just figuring out what to do with the day when you wake up. But some people yearn for it, and that's great.

I can't disagree more with many comments on here in response to if it's pissing away time playing video games.

I mean, I guess I don't really play CoD vs more narrative games, so I can't speak to that specifically, but I greatly credit my time in virtual worlds with a lot of my intellectual flexibility.

In my experience there's a palpable benefit to exploring impossible worlds and carrying out a personal story shaped by my actions within them. Making hard decisions that I would never be faced with in reality informs me about myself, and encountering stimuli well beyond what reality has on tap conditions me to look beyond the box in what reality does throw at me.

I can't really say that any other medium or activity offers the same mental exercise as an engrossing game.

To each their own, and people are welcome to decide that they found a greater purpose in a national park vs a spaceship exploring unknown worlds. But people are also welcome to find greater purpose in the other.

As someone who does (though I find variety the spice of life and also do enjoy national parks - just not as much), it's interesting the ways in which people pass judgment on each other, and themselves.

I'd value a gamer spending decades in video games over a monk spending decades mediating and in a vow of silence, and yet I suspect given the general fetishizing of traditionalism and demonizing of modernism many would disagree and see one as pursuit of a higher truth and the other as a pursuit of nihilism.

It's useful to check in with oneself as to if our choices are actually giving us value or are an escape from things that would give us greater value. But if they really do give you value, then value them. And if they do not, don't make the mistake of thinking that equation would hold true for others as well.

It depends on the game.

Not facetious - for me it's all about whether you build memories,and whether you'll regret time later.

Mass effect, deus ex, back in the day Another World or Sierra's space quest and Rama etc - these are important memories and experiences to me.

Overwatch (nearest call of duty analog I played, maybe), let alone all the phone games, are just time killers in the sense I do them to pass the time. They are games I actively regret playing moments, not even years after I'm done.

I don't think his/her point is that we should all live an RV life. I think the point is that we should all try to live a fullfilling life. For some of us, it's going to be in an RV. For a lot of us, it could be in a very classical apartment building. However, what you do in this apartment building is (almost) entirely up to you.

I'm going to add a second data point of deep regret over time spent gaming and playing sports in high school and college. They contributed negatively to my life and put me so far behind where I could have been socially and intellectually which are things older me cares about immensely and it is unfortunate that I wasn't able to consider the future when I was younger. The idea that all leisure activities are equally valuable is a fallacy in my opinion.

Indeed! A food for thought: https://twitter.com/khemaridh/status/1538899517629640704?s=2...

Yes! When I worked on FB games the internal running joke was our business was stealing people's life a second at a time and monetizing that stolen time. Our game was 'free' like in bait.

GAMES ARE FOR CHILDREN AND A WASTE OF YOUR LIFE :)

Getting outside is the best thing you can do for your health and the dog park next to a busy city street is not going to cut it.

Thinking like "But what if everyone did that?" or "is it fair that not everyone can do that?" are just ways to get you to 'agree' to take away other people's freedom or yours.

I'd say there's two elements to fun - how you view it in the immediate, and how you view it further down the road. And given that the further down the road part is something that sticks with you on the order of decades, while the immediate part tends to be on the order of hours, it seems clear to me which should be given priority.

For instance that's why I quit social media (excepting intermittent HN). I really enjoyed it in the shortrun, but I wasn't happy with what I was getting out of it in the longrun. We all convince ourselves we're making an "impact" by expressing ourselves, but I think that's something we all know is just a self delusion - we're just one voice ranting alongside a billion others doing the same. By contrast I've also spent tens of thousands of hours dedicated to chess, and it feels extremely good in both the short and longrun.

I suspect a lot of competitive multiplayer games are pyrrhic in retrospect. That is, not necessarily fun to get there but with a promise of fun when you’re at the top, but most people never really get there and so it was just kind of a waste. Especially games where you mostly play strangers and never really see them again.

This sounds like a fallacy to me. If everybody wanted to go see a concert, most people wouldn't get a seat. If everybody wanted to fly tomorrow etc. The good thing in the world is also that bit everyone dreams of the same thing.

Playing video games and surfing the web for fun, living with friends and family instead of having a large family and a consumerist lifestyle, would have a smaller footprint

The video game argument represents some kind of fallacy: A rational actor picks the best form of entertainment which turns out to be video games - how can that be wrong?

However, there are many local minima in entertainment and life and many great things require going through a learning curve and preparation. Even the greatest couch enthusiast can remember, say, a magical moment during a pickup basketball game, and surely those kinds of moments are happening in this city right now...

I don’t think the point of the parent comment or the OP is that everyone should RV instead of gaming. It’s that each individual should do what they find fulfilling, now not later because there might not be a later.

I think the reply would be: If you get joy and fulfillment from gaming, do that instead of working really hard to earn money that you don’t need. If you think you’d rather RV than work & play games, go RV now instead of putting it off for later/retirement.

Frankl at least talks about life in terms of the responsibility you take on in your decisions. So in that sense video games are less likely to be meaningful than RVing with your main squeeze.

This is the exact thing that happened to remote work.

Is drinking?

It’s easy to delude yourself.

It's depressing that this question even had to be asked

Yes, it is.

> Imagine if 100 million people in the US decided to all at once go RVing around the country. All the areas would be full of RVs and I bet it would not be as enjoyable anymore.

Yes, I call this the "Dave Ramsey Syndrome". You know, he wants everyone to save money and not spend it so they can be debt free and have millions of dollars in the bank. But if everyone did that the economy, our consumer economy, would crash.

And you are right. I have been living in my Van since before the pandemic. It is impossible to find camping spaces now in national parks and even the Wal Marts are starting to get pissed at all the RVs again. These people too, these rich people, sit out on BLM lands longer then allowed, because it is free and they could most likely afford an RV park.

I live my life in a similar way, at least at times. I decided decades ago that I didn't want to work five days a week taking two vacations a year for 20-30 years and then retire comfortably.

Every few years, I take a lot of time off. Months, sometimes over a year. If I plan well, I have money saved and I travel. Every time I do this, it sets me back financially; sometimes I'm completely broke before I start working again. I'd be well-served to balance it a little better, and only blow half my savings before going back to the grind. It's not easy for me to find that balance, and sometimes it's a real struggle.

I have a knack for poor timing (left a job right before the 2001 dotcom crash, left a job right before the 2008 recession, and left my latest job just now, when there appears to be a recession looming). I'm about to set off on a months-long RV trip, and for once I expect to have a decent amount of savings left at the end, and plan on buying a house some time next year. While I like my itinerant lifestyle, it's time to secure a base of operations, too. Something modest, so that it won't prevent me from doing another trip like this in a few years.

It's not for everyone; I get that. I don't think it's a better lifestyle than working hard and retiring in comfort. It's better for me, though.

You're only your current age once. If you wait until you're old, you won't have the same experiences. I'm not willing to deny myself these moments along the way in return for a potential future payoff. So many people die before they get to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It's possible to work full-time and simultaneously live a fulfilling life; I see plenty of people do it. I don't know where they get the energy, though; all I can manage while working is TV, video games, and infrequent weekend activities. Most of the time I feel like all I do is work. Big breaks are what keep me sane.

Do people who do this have kids?

Depends to what extent. I have three children (4-9yo) and take them out of school now and then to do trips from a week up to three months. When I was a teenager, my parents took our family (us kids were 9-14) to China for three months, and that was an amazing experience for which I'll always be thankful. I carried text books in my luggage.

It is certainly harder and unless home schooling you want a home base/school, but you definitely don't need to be anchored to just school holiday periods. In our area, you file for a school exemption which is reviewed by the principal and, unless your child is lagging, they seem to approve it easily enough. You can find out what they'll miss in class and take materials along for the kids to do as activities.

Our holidays are more adventurous than sitting around a pool (usually roadtrips/hiking/camping) and we constantly talk about what's around us, so holidays are very educational and I don't feel like I'm letting the kids down long-term by pulling them out of school now and then.

Doing more than that though might be disruptive or difficult. You'd need to be travelling prior to school age, home schooling (adds extra workload for the parents) or switching schools/curricula frequently. I know home schooling is not entirely uncommon, but I think there'd be inevitable sacrifices if you were juggling that on top of work and travel.

Did the kids — nest is empty — time to switch gears on life and live the way I have wanted to for a long time (second best time to plant a tree and all that, you know).

I do this and I have kids. We home school and it has been going well. My oldest has spent a few years in various public schools and the education they get through online classes and parental teaching is far superior to a traditional public classroom. They are set to graduate high school at 16, through a GED of course.

It's easier if you don't.

Good for you for chasing your dream

Chances are that after a certain age you won't have the mental or physical energy to even desire to do all that much.

I know quite a few people who retired quite well off and instead of traveling the world spending all this money as they thought they mostly just watch a lot of TV and sit on their phone. They don't even spend their social security check a month and they are perfectly content with this life.

Many people have confused the reality of old age with marketing from retirement firms and mutual funds.

It's a funny thing. I thought that I would have regrets playing World of Warcraft for years of my life, but looking back, I really enjoyed my time playing it even when it felt a little monotonous. I played from 2005-2007 pretty hardcore. No regrets.

I think you would have enjoyed either path you took. I've second-guessed some of my past choices and I'm not sure I would be happier than I am now, or a better person.

I believe it’s the story games that fit under “living” definition of the article - you merge the story experience into your life, making it richer. But online/MOBAs are more of a waste, at least for me.

You are just living your own meme. You got into RVing when the whole meme was taking off, #Vanlife! You were told you want a different kind of life. All the people not living your "different life" are working at the jobs you left and are supplying you with the things you need to live a "different life".

And you all talk about "wasting life" like at the end when you die you get to do something with it all with all the time you did not waste. You are still pissing time away, all you did was give your self meaning and that makes it feel like you are not.

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” ― Seneca

"For men in a state of freedom had thatch for their shelter, while slavery dwells beneath marble and gold." ― Seneca

Seneca also lived in comfort, so do as I say not as I do

Why so jealous though.

Where do you get jealous?

Probably has something to do with how much time he’s spent “following the DAO”

Similar story here. We traveled with my wife for 3.5 years. Then we built homestead on 30 acres of forest land in rural WA. Now I am 36 and we bought land in HI to build our second homestead. And it is from scratch again! Most of our income comes from freelance gigs. The last time I visited big city was over 10 years ago. No regrets here.

I think the best framework is to not compare yourself to others. And fear of change is a normal, ordinary feeling. Comparing to others makes no sense, just try to do things that YOU will not regret and things that make you happy in long term.

How does raising kids work in this kind of regimen? How do you ensure they have a big social pool available to build peer relationships?

Love to hear any thoughts you have on homesteading in Washington state. Specifically, areas you think are good.

For some reason I am attracted to the south-eastern area that is drier. Forests say "fire" to me (and I also love the sun too much to be "enclosed" by a forest).

North and/or high altitudes say "cold" to me.

Yes, but we are comparing ourselves to you right now and feeling the wanderlust.

2 words for the path in the middle (sort of, at least for me) - adrenaline sports. I don't say which exactly should work for likes of others, that's kind of unique to each of us. For me its climbing, paragliding, skiing/ski touring, a bit of alpinism. Plus diving when near corals, also serious hiking.

Apart from making me properly happy (and some of those are easily post-work ones if you don't have kids, like climbing or paraglide depending on your place), they keep me amazingly fit, which is source of long lasting content from oneself. Vacations spent backpacking in crazy exotics (mostly south east asia) help too.

I can do boring and uninspiring software dev office job that pays the bills and some more (seldom intertwined with nice creative part when actually solving interesting problems, rather than drowning in processes and politics). It doesn't dent the content/happiness part a slightest bit.

Also numerous side effects - one starts eating healthier. Any kind of gaming addiction I had before was cured too, now its just waste of life that repulses me (not making critique - if that's your real kick I guess go for it, but I can't anymore).

There is one slight problem with this, although it otherwise worked me 100% for past 10 years - if you get kids and are not utter sellfish a-hole, you will lose most of this, at least for some (long) time. Positive side is, one day you will be one hell of inspiration for them. Other source of issues is accident - time off everything, for longer, can be depressive.

Talking as proud parent of two small kiddos who exhausted me during WFH to max, and who after 4 month recovery of messed up wrist broke his foot in kindergarten and is on crutches at least for next 6 weeks of amazing summer. I think right now the lowest point in my whole life so far due to all above. But that means it will only go up, eventually. Life is funny.

Are you me? I've been slowly getting into alpinism in the Sierras and looking into getting my p2 cert. (I'd love to combine the two...imagine climbing in the palisades then paragliding or base jumping off )

I regrettably spent my 20s in academia and now I'm in tech and actually afford these hobbies. I'd love to have kids but I'm pushing it off because as you mentioned, it seems selfish.

I'm thinking about a SEA climbing holiday during the winter. I'm eyeing Vietnam. Do you have any favorite locale?

I am from Europe, so probably can't recommend anything useful for you. But if you ever come by Geneva, Switzerland, we have fine indoor and outdoor places. Next one could be Chamonix, any climb when you have glaciated giants 3800m higher than valley is pretty nice.

Step foot into any climbing gym in the Bay Area, and at least 50% of the folks there are SWEs. Probably the same with improv groups. We're not that unique. ;)

I started getting into skiing a few years ago, and within the last year have started climbing. I seriously enjoy it, but how do you get over the constant fear of a permanent debilitating injury? I've mostly rationalized this away by doing everything I can do stay safe (equipment, partners, not pushing the limits too hard), and realizing that life is here to be lived, but still..

If you do sport climbing with bolts drilled and glued in rock or in gyms, the chances of bad injury are super tiny, and sprained ankle would be the worst possible outcome. It never happened to me, and I overshot my level by mistake few times. The more you gain experience, the less the risk.

One thing that usually helps with fear is actually exposing yourself to it rather than avoiding it - you are afraid to fall. Find safe overhang (or vertical if unavailable) ie in gym, and just fall in it. Then fall again. Practice technique - push yourself from the wall with legs during fall, not too much just to avoid contact.

Its just like SIV course in paragliding - you learn about bad situations that can happen and how to handle them by getting into them on purpose (and then either managing them or throwing reserve, usually all done above lake for extra safety). This allows you to progress further faster and gain confidence in you and your wing.

At one point, its your choice - push things always to the max for whatever reason, or just enjoy good climb that can be challenging (or not) but not scary. Progress happens on both, usually a bit less on latter.

For me, I cut off all chasing for higher difficulties, if my skill drops I enjoy the challenge of trivial routes again. And even non-challenging climb is a very fine experience for me and that's enough (especially now).

Previously, I enjoyed actually overcoming of that ever-present fear as the best part of climbing, building character and shaping personality. I do honestly believe in it, I mean you expose yourself for 2-4 hours to acute (even if baseless, but your brain doesn't recognize it) fear of death, and you continuously overcome it to achieve your goal. If that doesn't teach you about yourself, nothing will.

It is interesting how much everyone thinks these are the only two alternatives though. You can live an extremely fulfilling life out of the most boring Phoenix suburb, and you could (probably very easily) live a life with no meaning out of the most rustic cabin you can imagine.

Kinda impossible to do this with kids on the way, please blog your journey I will live vicariously through you. Also will donate coffee money often.

Actually, one period that suits a flexible lifestyle is from around 1yo until formal schooling starts. Could start earlier if you weren't fussy about consistent doctor/program/country for checkups and immunisations.

Generally, flights are cheaper before they 2yo. Food is cheaper for small kids. Accommodation is easier. Go now!

We did a trip to Europe and Morocco with our first child before he was 1. When our third was about the same age, we gutted/converted a bus and drove around the US for 2-3 months. Both of us have had fairly normal jobs throughout, and the three kids have had a pretty typical educational pathway (bit of childcare, kindergarten, school).

It gets harder the deeper into school they go IMO.

Nice! I’m going to live by this wisdom. I’ve done plenty of solo/partner travel in the past, but with a kid on the way, I thought those days might be over.

But you’re saying I have 5 precious years left. I will spend them wisely. Thank you!

Super cool, I bet they really enjoyed the adventure. Hats off to you for taking the road less traveled.

Marx has said: "Creative labor has become the primary need of life". I don't know if it's the original words, I translated it from Chinese. You think spending 7 years to build your own house is better than to play video games. But what if to create a video game? Creating a video game is too hard? How about to just write game reviews and walkthroughs in detail and combine them into a book. It's not that you think building a house is more meaningful than playing video games. It's that you want to create, but your job didn't give you a chance to create or what you create doesn't belong to you.

Fantastic, and congratulations! We did roughly what you’re doing but backwards, and still had a lot of fun doing it.

However, I’m deeply envious that you can just drill a well. I live in Seattle, where drilling the well requires that you blow the mayor, bribe an inspector or two, buy what they call “mitigating” land someplace else in the state, and sacrifice a goat. And after you found a suitable plot for the well, a $1 million drill has to be towed onto the property to make sure ground is preserved.

Where are you living this beautiful life of you’re?

Head east. Or west. There are lots of wonderful places outside the I-5 corridor where I would argue our quality of life is at least on par. Different, and perhaps with fewer economic opportunities, but nonetheless a very high quality of life.

Not sure you can technically blow this mayor but I digress

I may have indulged in a wee bit of hyperbole

Drilling a well in the city of Seattle ? Why would anyone ever do that?

Technically rural Redmond, a neighboring city. I bought some of the vanishing farmland.

* yours not you’re. Thanks, Siri

I'd love to read the exit interview of your kids when they get to 30. Did anyone else go through this with their parents? Would you/are you changing anything as a result?

There’s a documentary called Surfwise about the adult children of a couple who lived in an RV and traveled from beach to beach surfing waves and not doing much in terms of education.

They were various degrees of maladjusted if I remember correctly.

I think you are supposed to be writing philosophy, not wasting time building a house that will be destroyed some day (footnote 16).

I don't subscribe to the idea of being always productive either. Humans need 'play time', whether that's a video game, bingo, or playing the lottery. I saw people in my circle ignore this and pretty much all of them became depressed.

two of my uncles did this - plumbers until 50, then RV life for 20 years, then built houses. as a kid they were my heroes. older, I am not so sure it worked out, but they had a good time for a while.

What part(s) of it don't you think worked out with the benefit of hindsight?

Kudos for living this kind of life. Inspiring for all of us.

are you happy?

Definitely subjective. Sounds like hell to me. But i respect anyone with enough energy to actually do something.

I'd replace happy with content there.

Happiness comes and goes. Contentment runs a bit deeper and gets at it what this article talks about.

Not the OP, but I did something very similar with my wife and daughter a few years ago. Each day was more enjoyable than the last, especially with the RV. That was the most enjoyable time, and that enjoyment came from just existing and taking things as they come. There was never any monotony.

what is RVing?

Traveling and living in a recreational vehicle (RV). Often a motorhome or camper, sometimes a boat.

> You should organize each day as if it were your last

I never understood this. If you live every day as your last, surely you would only engage in short term pleasures instead of pursuing longer term hobbies/goals?

I recently reread Ecclesiastes & on the second reading came across what people tend to be trying to get at with that advice. I'll try give it from the Ecclesiastes perspective

Whatever you go out & gather, is ultimately worthless. So if you're in a shit mood & thinking that some day this work will pay off, you'll find that your days are spent in a shit mood & thinking some day this work will pay off. & then you die & everything you did doesn't really matter, & you spent your time in a shit mood. So if instead you find enjoyment in the simple daily toll, that your work today is essentially paying for the food you'll enjoy today, then you'll find your days are spent in a good mood. & then you die & everything you did doesn't really matter, but at least you enjoyed your time while it lasted

So "live it like your last" is a bit hyperbolic, but at least don't justify your suffering on the idea that life gets better

To try make sense of "live it like your last", it might be better said as "go to sleep at peace with your life even if you were to die in the night"

Stoicism appears to have had a great deal of influence on Jewish writing at the time. Have a look at "St. Paul and Stoicism" if you are so inclined. Interesting paper.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/475275

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Edited to correct attribution error.

Not sure if you meany to imply this or not, but Ecclesiastes is not Christian writing, it's Jewish.

Thanks for the clarification. I think the description “live like your last” needs to be tweaked.

Perhaps what is more productive is: live your days so that when you think back on them (let’s say at a time horizon of months), you feel satisfied in what you’ve done and how you’ve grown.

“ everything you did doesn't really matter, but at least you enjoyed your time while it lasted”

Problem with this statement is that what matters after someone does really doesn’t matter to that person after only before, also, on a long enough time span nothing will matter after. Does what most people did 3000 years ago matter? 10000? A million? I wouldn’t chase legacies

I don't think people 'chasing legacies' are generally concerned with whether 'most people' are remembered, that's exactly the point isn't it? Standing out?

A better 'problem' to point out might be the timespan over which few legacies that are remembered originate. 'I want to be the Tutankhamen of my time' is all very well, but there's no reason to think there will even be one.

Some people have tamed fire, invented wheel and overcame population bottlenecks. We don't know their names but their legacy is profound.

Some long-term investments are not fun, but do pay off.

As someone who put in the effort for many of these things and is now reaping the reward, I am certainly glad my past self got me here.

Sure, a little misfortune could have led me to a drastically different state today.

But as the saying goes:

> God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

Which is a saying attributed to Epictetus, written during his time, said that way before anything related to this God was even planned. It's his first rule in the Enchiridion (put to writing by disciples).

God was added there, in a very convenient rephrasing, as if to switch the responsibility from oneself (the core of Epictetus' stoicism, what he was talking about), to God.

Great comment. I’ve always hated that comment but your phrasing makes so much sense.

That's a beautiful perspective. Thanks for your comment.

Perhaps you‘ll find Nietzsche‘s „eternal recurrence“ to be a better approach to the same question. Which is basically to ask:

„If I took this minute / this day / this month / this year of my life... and somebody were to tell me that I had to live it over and over again, ad infinitum, with everything exactly as it was, and nothing changed at all... would I be screaming Hell Yes, or would I be screaming Hell No?“

To me, it‘s an appeal not to recklessness or consumption of short-term pleasures, but to living in integrity with oneself. Not to take shortcuts which you think you‘ll somehow be able to compartmentalizations out of your life. And I think he meant it also to be applied in retrospect: Whatver you did, and whatever happened in your life... can you „own“ it, with all its apparent flaws, and pains and errors? Are you able to see yourself, and see your own life, beyond the categories of of good and bad? Can you, like a good author, take the good, the bad and the ugly from your past and create something of truth and beauty from it?

> If I took this minute / this day / this month / this year of my life... and somebody were to tell me that I had to live it over and over again, ad infinitum, with everything exactly as it was, and nothing changed at all... would I be screaming Hell Yes, or would I be screaming Hell No?

If that argument were actually valid, it would be a fully general refutation of any possible use of your time whatsoever. There's a reason the narrative trope of "trapped in a time loop" contains the word "trapped".

1) You’ll die anyway. So what does “make use of your time” even mean?

2) There’s an augment to made that anything you do or think is predetermined anyway, by past, biology and circumstances. Or, if you prefer, that it’s all based on a fundamental randomness. Either way, that you are more a symptom of the universe than an independent agent. In that sense, Nietzsche’s thought experiment might actually be closer to reality than we think.

3) How can you possibly know that your life right now is not actually just such a recurrence? The fact that you don’t know that it is one would be, of course, part of the script. (Knowing that it is a recurrence would be changing something. And that nothing will be changed is part of the premise.)

As with most things in life, I think finding a balance between the two is most enjoyable. If you only focus on the long term and plan, unless you have a continuous set of long term plans set to culminate and actually do, you'll have gaps in your living experience. You'll always be saving and investing for that one golden day that you may never see for some reason or another.

Meanwhile as you point out, if you focus on living in the moment only, you'll live on cheap small rewards in life.

I think a lot of good long term strategy with allotments for little impulse to pepper life is the best mix, at least for me, so that's how I live. Every now and then I'll splurge and do something unplanned a little extravagant but that's because I already budgeted for that sort of stuff -- my little fun pocket change time and money. Meanwhile I have nice set long term goals that improve my overall life experience as I get older. Some may never happen and that's fine because I'm not living my life wailing for that special time.

Nothing to understand. It's poorly worded at best.

How do you feel about "You should organize each day to be the best possible prototype for all following days?"

That would imply that all following days have the same requirements, which is not the case at all, neither in the short term nor in the long term.

It does not. "each day" means you reapply the mantra every day to the then current state of your life. "for all following days" is the mechanism which forces you to most broadly consider the future and not just one day (as is the issue with "live every day as if it was your last")

> I never understood this.

You're definitely understanding it correctly. It's atrociously dangerous advice for any manner of long-term well-being. Humans can reasonably live to 80-100 years of age. Trying to live even 18,000 days as your last is psychotic and impossible, it's both not worth attempting that and harmful to attempt it. Being healthy requires thinking and acting longer term; building savings over a lifetime requires long-term thinking; raising children successfully requires long-term thinking.

Try raising children one day to the next with the guiding parental premise being: this is our last day on earth, what shall we do? It's a recipe for disaster to try to live in short-term thinking day to day.

One of our greatest attributes is the capacity to think, plan and act for the long-term, as many of the things we want require such. Notice I didn't say everyone thinks long-term consistently; notice I didn't pretend all of our institutions think long-term all the time; both are standard issue sarcastic criticisms against long-term thinking, neither of which invalidate the value of long-term thinking.

The correct answer is that some things benefit from (and or require) short-term thinking (particularly immediate focus), some things benefit from (and or require) medium-term thinking, some things benefit from (and or require) long-term thinking. Where thinking implies the comprehensive (thinking, planning, acting, etc).

Whenever I hear/read that phrase, I always picture myself lying in a hospice bed, hooked up to all sorts of medical equipment.

<nit> The philosophy behind hospice is that you are *not* hooked up to all sorts of medical equipment. Rather, you only receive the minimal treatment needed to make yourself comfortable as you let your illness run its course. </nit>

Fair point. I knew that, but my previous comment was poorly articulated in that regard. I meant something along the lines of: hooked up to an opioid infusion.

This needs to be a post in r/comics

> I never understood this

Me neither. I think there are two distinct possibilities you should consider when you think what to do today. First one is that you may die today. Second is that you may not die today.

so the conclusion is that I should get life insurance and try all the drugs I always wanted to?

If you have 'always wanted to' try a bunch of drugs.. yes probably you should (according to that advice).

The thing to realise is that many people don't have any desire to try (the things that we call) drugs, so your comment isn't exposing some flaw in the advice.

If an oracle told me it actually is my last day, I'm not suddenly going to smoke some weed, snort some cocaine, and shoot up some heroin. I wouldn't want to any more than knowing (or assuming, as I do) that I'll live until (at least!) tomorrow.

It is meant as a guide and criterion for finding what matters the most in one's life and one's existence and organize their way of life around that. If it was your last day (and you were a philosopher) you would only concern yourself with the most fundamental and essential aspects of existence and questions of life. It is a reference to the Socratic question and quest: "what is the best course in life". He is instructing people to organize the totality of their lives, in answering and as answer to this question. Even if you do long term planning (and he is not saying you shouldn't) he is telling you to focus and concern that worthy life plan of yours, in answering and as answer to that question.

Implicitly, he is also saying that what drives people to waste their time and concern themselves with petty issues, unimportant to their fundamental existence and be drowned in "everydayness", is the ever-lurking-in-the-background assumption that "I have got plenty of time".

I see it as, don't postpone the things you really want to do until some later day, that day may never come. Start on them now.

Aka don’t wait for the right time, because the time is almost never perfectly right.

It’s a dumb statement. Better advice is to live a life worth reliving exactly the same way an infinite amount of times.

Ok, echoing my top level comment... An alternative framing that I've come to find more helpful is to take your life expectancy, and cut it by 2/3. For example, if you're 20 years old and your life expectancy is 80 (ie. 60 more years), pretend that you only have 20 more, so you'll only live until you're 40. It's nice cause it naturally adjusts as you get older. You'll have smaller windows to work with.

This approach strikes a nice balance. It gives you enough time to be able to really do something and change directions if you want. But not so much time that you can really waste any. It forces you to ask the hard questions about whether your day to day is truly connecting with your dreams, and whether you're on a path to get there.

Of course, Seneca didn't have life expectancy tables to work with. But I think he would have approved. :)

I often see the opposite in practice: young people living as if they were going to die tomorrow and old people living as if they were going to live forever.

I think what it means is that you shouldn't procrastinate anything or think that you can make up for things later. There may be no later, so just do your best here and now. That of course includes resting when needed, so it doesn't mean always be doing something.

I imagine my last day is going to be spent hooked up to a life support machine in a climate controlled environment as various close people trickle in to say farewell.

I’d prefer to spend the close of my 20s doing something else like raving on a warm beach with a bunch of people who don’t know me and won’t miss me tomorrow, and hopefully finding one or two fellow travellers who I can keep in touch with until my dying days :)

exploration vs exploitation

The real kicker of course, is for many people there is even more than a few folks coming to visit, especially for folks who don’t do the hard and nasty stuff in like when it’s necessary for others.

Same. If today is my last day, I am sure as hell not going to work (even though I love my career). I am driving to have a huge party and spend every minute with my family.

My conclusion has been to not take the time scale literally. I find it useful to act as though I only have 3 years left. That’s a good timescale to have life operate properly, but also realize you need to make hard choices sooner rather than later.

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life" much more inspiring

Either you are dying. Or you know you will be killed, so why not waste all the money and other property you have when you still have a chance... Seems like not really advise you should follow exactly.

exactly. If I live till old age, I fully intend on living out my last days as a drug addict rather than some futile, painful attempts at curing a terminal illness

A famous saying in my culture goes, work for a better life as if you live forever; work for a better end as if you die tomorrow.

> You should organize each day as if it were your last

We all do. Even if we choose to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

>If you live every day as your last, surely you would only engage in short term pleasures instead of pursuing longer term hobbies/goals?

Isn't that the entire point of the exercise? Is there necessarily any better payoff, either way?

> You should organize each day as if it were your last, so that you neither need to long for nor fear the next day.

I've come to find this "live each day like it's your last" advice to be pretty unhelpful. My favorite quote about it is, "all that goes to show you is some people would spend their last day giving you stupid advice".

The problem is that if it actually was your last day, most people would give the finger to all of their responsibilities and go party, eat cake, see friends, familiy, lovers, etc. Which is simply not an actual way to live your life. It's a way to exit your life.

An alternative framing that I've come to find more helpful is to take your life expectancy, and cut it by 2/3. Now what do you do? For example, if you're 20 years old and your life expectancy is 80 (ie. 60 more years), pretend that you only have 20 more, so you'll only live until you're 40. It's nice cause it naturally adjusts as you get older. You'll have smaller windows to work with.

Of course, Seneca didn't have life expectancy tables to work with. But I think he would have approved. :)

If you read Seneca that's not what he's saying. He says that you should live your life in such a way that if before sleeping someone told you that it had been your last day, you would feel content with what you did today.

He says that you have to remind yourself that you can die at any time. So before doing something ask yourself whether you'd be proud of you if what you were about to do would be the last thing you'd do.

He also says that you should strive for that life, to use this advice as a compass. Not to literally start each day and do what you'd do if you were going to die tonight.

Also a good life according to Seneca is not a life full of instant gratifications like drugs, party, food. It's a simple, ascetic life.

It's a bit contradictory to resist instant gratifications, because if you asked people if they would feel content with what they did that day, I guess more would say yes if the day was packed with instant gratification compared to more boring but good strategic activities.

I think it's good advice, when placed in the correct context.

Live every day as if it could be your last - to me it's about ensuring you always strive towards being your best self, in the context of the virtues (wisdom, temperance, courage and justice) and the Stoic duty towards society.

Giving the finger to the world and living a hedonistic lifestyle is decidedly not Stoic.

Putting aside the distraction of past and future and focusing on the present is a Stoic ideal though:

"I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived - and dying I will tend to later." ~ Epictetus

> "all that goes to show you is some people would spend their last day giving you stupid advice".

That is brilliant. I'm stealing it immediately. Thank you for a bright moment early in the day!

"long for nor fear the next day" can be interpreted as to fulfill your responsibilities so that you don't fear the next day.

Here's a mundane (but I hope helpful) take on a portion of this:

> The most surprising thing is that you wouldn’t let anyone steal your property, but you consistently let people steal your time

This line struck the strongest nerve with me. I've started to REALLY pay attention to this and fight back, where I can.

Example: I subscribe to a meal prep service. They recently stopped sending out the weekly reminder email to choose your meals, and I chatted with CS to figure out the issue. They said "we suggest you put a reminder on your calendar so you don't forget to order from us in case our email doesn't go out".

I explained to them: "Sorry guys, I am paying you to save time. You do not get to add an item to my to-do list" and cancelled my account.

This kind of thing happens SO often with businesses. "To fix your problem with us, please go through these series of steps". It's maddening.

There are only 4 entities that get to forcibly add items to my to-do list: Me, my wife, my CEO, and the US government ;)

>> The most surprising thing is that you wouldn’t let anyone steal your property, but you consistently let people steal your time

> This line struck the strongest nerve with me. I've started to REALLY pay attention to this and fight back, where I can.

And at some point your time isn't even worth "Sorry guys..."

Hit unsubscribe.

What are you doing for meal prep now?

> It’s even worse when people come up with deferred life plans. They’ll say something like “When I’m forty, I’m going to retire and write a book” or “I’ll do this thing I hate right now so I can make money, then in ten years I’ll do what I really love”. Seriously? You think that the universe is going to let your life proceed the way you want it to? What guarantee do you have of making it to that age?

This is often used as a reason not to save when you're young, and to generally dunk on the the traditional idea of retirement. Believe this and in a few decades we're going to have a large number of people aged 80-120 seriously struggling. Apart from a recent dip, average life expectancy in the US has been going up pretty much forever. Life is not necessarily long, but it can be. Yes, you might drop dead of a heart attack the day before you retire, so all that saving was a waste. You also might make it past 100. Who among us has enough savings to last until they are 100? You won't if you're spending every penny you have when you're young.

Thanks to compounding interest, the best time to save and invest is when you are young. A dollar earned and invested when you're 20 is many times more valuable than that dollar earned when you're 60.

>Thanks to compounding interest, the best time to save and invest is when you are young. A dollar earned and invested when you're 20 is many times more valuable than that dollar earned when you're 60.

And money spent on experiences in 20s can't be made up with experiences in 60s - plus the kind of experiences you have in 20s will define the person you'll be in 60s. Hell even in 30s you can't get your 20s back. There's a biological peak - saving money for your twilight years might make you safer in the far future but it's guaranteed to make you miss out on your prime.

I'm willing to bet investing in yourself early will outperform the compounding interest you make on income you have at the start of your career.

> I'm willing to bet investing in yourself early will outperform the compounding interest you make on income you have at the start of your career.

People present this often as a choose 1, but in reality there's a big gradient of options here. There's no reason you can't spend some money for experiences in your 20s and also save a good deal for compounding interest in the future.

>There's no reason you can't spend some money for experiences in your 20s and also save a good deal for compounding interest in the future.

Well in my scenario (and that of most of my peers/siblings) income is low and cost of living is a large % - you don't have a lot of discretionary funds to manage so it usually is one or the other.

> People present this often as a choose 1, but in reality there's a big gradient of options here.

The word you're looking for is "false dichotomy".

Agreed. In my early 20s, I spent a year backpacking around the world. I was fortunate enough to have the money, which I could have instead invested in property. Now I'm in my late 30s, I struggled to buy a home, I have a big mortgage, I'm getting by alright but I have very little in terms of investments.

I don't regret my choices for a second. My year spent travelling was the best experience of my life. It defined who I am. I learnt so much. I met so many wonderful people. I discovered so many amazing places. Wouldn't have been the same, had I deferred it until later in life (and many older travellers that I met told me as much).

I'm not an expert in Seneca, but from reading the article, I think he'd argue that time is much more valuable than money.

Depends on your definition of performance

Exactly. And wonderfully, performance can be anything, by any measure. My preferred metric: time ratio for which I get to choose - or agree to - whatever I do. In my case, pretty much all my time. Because one day I decided to make my own choices, in regard to time allocations, occupations and general use of my time. Which means I'm almost never defaulting to other people's agenda, unless I agree to it. Everything is a choice, and I make it my own.

JFYI you're writing from a very privileged perspective. I live in former USSR. My parents were robbed by the state of their life savings twice in their life (one day you have enough to buy a car — a luxurious item indeed, next day you have nothing), and thrice their saving were depreciated by 30-60% in a single day due to shock devaluation of the currency. I think this is pretty typical for 'developing' countries.

Most of my Russian friends have been working unofficially and haven't been paying anything to the retirement fund even before the war started (which just seems to have proven them right).

A relative lived sensibly and modestly her whole life. Three years before retirement the Northern Rock collapse happened in the UK and she lost her entire pension. Even in the 'developed' world, don't be sure any sort of pension will be there.

> Apart from a recent dip, average life expectancy in the US has been going up pretty much forever.

I see no reason why life expectancy in the US will not continue to drop. At some level, we have made a conscious decision to rebuild our society with a greater emphasis on hierarchy and hereditary wealth. We should expect life expectancy for bottom 90% of Americans to continue to deteriorate, while those in the top 10% will continue to improve.

My retirement was just pushed up three years and the future is very uncertain due to climate change. I’ll feel privileged if I’m able to rearch retirement at all in a stable and functional society, even if I have to live off a small pension.

> Apart from a recent dip, average life expectancy in the US has been going up pretty much forever.

I'm worried that the "healthy at every size" movement means this is the beginning of a large drop, not just a little dip.

Hm. I dunno about others, but whenever I hear someone say that, what I hear is that sections of our life are short. Childhood is short, teenage years are short, early twenties are short, etc etc. Cumulatively it's "long", but that misses a lot of the core point.

Fair point - the sections we have to adjust to an be short, relative to how we figure them out.

For example, one has to figure out how to be a man in some period of 15-23yro. Then live that. Then if one has kids, how to wholly be responsible for others in that 20's-30's range. Then wholly how to let them go, and then potentially to help one's parents after that. All while balancing self, identity, aspirations, dreams, adulting, and placing food on the table.

Each period is short, in a long overarching "cumulative years"

> potentially to help one's parents after that

Tangential discussion: I have two teenaged kids, both my parents are still alive and healthy enough to look after themselves and go on overseas holidays every couple of years (pending COVID), and both of my grandmothers are still alive although neither able to look after themselves. We utilise both my parents and my wife's parents to help with school drop-offs / pickups and appointments every now and then, plus my parents have to also look after their respective mothers, including dealing with their financials and moving "homes" and what to do with their belongings etc.

My mother, bless, complains about having to look after their mother's. This is a little coarse, but also understandable in that they're in their mid-70's and struggle enough with their own health nevermind the power of attorney kinds of issues required of looking after their elderly parents. Both my parents are getting noticeably older, decreasingly able to deal with their own issues.

With an aging population, retirement isn't what it used to be. Retirement is ferrying grandkids and juggling not-yet-deceased estates, whilst having an increasingly full calendar of appointments with doctors and specialists to keep your own machine running.

There's a potential scenario that could play out in only a few years where I could be responsible for both my parents and my grandmothers' welfare at a time my children will be in late high-school.

I'm not being woe-is-me, I'm trying to explain what 'normal' may already look like for Gen X-ish, and how different it may be from expectations.

The shortest period I've experienced is pre-10-years old kids, when they're in that beautiful unsuppressed-by-societal-norms personality discovery mode. I took lots of home video footage of my two "in their natural habitat" and goddam I miss being in the midst of it, and goddam they had a great time being free to be themselves.

Everything is short when it's over. Even pain.

I like this quote from an otherwise terrible Chris rock movie:

"Some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years."

Oh, I was thinking of Chris Rock too, but his stand up album "Roll with the New", and his spiel about commitment vs "new women" (not the word he uses, obvs). https://youtu.be/VJpKAk4E5_k?t=130

Yeah, there's not a lot of real choices in life once you hit a certain age/condition.

Once you get married and have a family, it's basically just grinding away at work, with chores, etc. Stuff that just has to get done, or the consequences are catastrophic (divorce, medical bill bankruptcy, losing the house, etc).

This is the bleakest picture of family life I have ever seen.

Certainly you have more choices/options if you have more money, right?

You have more choices if you have more money. Most of the folly with divorce is still completely avoidable for the breadwinner (if the couple has one). I won't describe it, make enough to get your own set of lawyers and ask for the supporting case law before implementing any strategy. There are things that work equally as well in community property states and equitable distribution states. Having your own assets completely paid for before the marriage is a great first step that most of the population cannot do and cannot relate to, so this influences the collective conscious. But there are also things you can do for assets you paid for in your marriage to keep as your own.

Don't apply if you don't have money, and this has nothing to do with a pre-nup which you should also do.

The irony, for those about to have a kneejerk reaction about merely considering the financial realities of marriage instead of solely the love partnership part, is that this kind of pre-planning actually allows you to focus on the love part. You don't have to be skeptical or worried about any partner or anecdotes because you have it all figured out.

"The irony, for those about to have a kneejerk reaction about merely considering the financial realities of marriage instead of solely the love partnership part, is that this kind of pre-planning actually allows you to focus on the love part. You don't have to be skeptical or worried about any partner or anecdotes because you have it all figured out."

That's my basic opinion. My wife and her family had a fit when I suggested a prenup, even though it mostly followed the general guidelines in law with the removal of alimony. It was crying and "you don't know what you're doing" with not a logical argument in sight. I just wanted a calm, rational conversation. Instead I feel like I was emotionally bullied and manipulated. If only I realized it then.

> But there are also things you can do for assets you paid for in your marriage to keep as your own.

Having separate accounts? What would you suggest

Maybe. But usually that means you spend more time at work. I have two family members with medical issues, so we hit the out of pocket max in medical bills every year (and possibly more due to some things being coded incorrectly and nobody being able to fix it).

Then there's the fact that you need concensus for things. Like can we move to another area? No, wife doesn't want to ever leave the county. Should buy an unaffordable house? No, that's financial suicide. Wife wants another kid, but also complains that I don't do enough (not going into it, but she's way off base). I don't want another kid due to all that I have to do for the current one and her (she needs help with many things).

In theory, we could each pretty much decide these things unilaterally. In practice, that's likely to result in divorce even if we have more money.

Mostly just sounds like you don't like / get along with your wife, which sucks for you but isn't true for a lot of people.

Nope, it actually challenges everything you thought you knew about everything.

Want to hang out with your friends? Good luck on agreeing on a place to rent that's in budget for all of you if you have £1m+ in the bank.

Want to treat your wife? Good luck she is already accustomed to nice meals. It's unlikely you'll surprise her with something special.

Kids birthday? Good fucking luck. He's got the latest of everything.

And so it goes...

> Want to hang out with your friends? Good luck on agreeing on a place to rent that's in budget for all of you if you have £1m+ in the bank.

What? Is the wealthier person in this scenario too much of a snob to stay in cheaper accommodations that everyone can afford, or pay a little more than their "fair share" to help book nicer ones that everyone can enjoy?

I would not want to be friends with that person.

Poor rich man.

> Want to hang out with your friends? Good luck on agreeing on a place to rent that's in budget for all of you if you have £1m+ in the bank.

If i had the luck to have £1m+ in the bank and if I wanted to hang out with my friend, i would happily let them pay what they can afford and pay for the remaining.

> Want to treat your wife? Good luck she is already accustomed to nice meals. It's unlikely you'll surprise her with something special.

My wife don't need nice meals to be happy, just some time together is enough.

> Kids birthday? Good fucking luck. He's got the latest of everything.

It's not because you are rich that you have to buy your kids anything they want. You can have positive experience with your kids everyday without buying anything.

Sorry if i sound harsh but it's really strange reading this when you DON'T have 1m+ in bank. And I'm not especially poor.

It is whatever you perceive it to be. Family life is not like that for everyone, and money is definitely not the only reason.

Not when that excess income goes directly into the kids mouths.

if your kids / wife aren’t making you happy maybe you should reconsider the choices you don’t think you have

As i advance the more i realize time is not my friend nor my enemy. Maybe it is just a big dance between energy and matter. Until the end it is what i had. I have no ambition to be remembered for a very long time, but even that is ultimately beyond my control.

My time is mine. I will keep using it however i can and see fit. Should that create unexpected results in this universe, i hope they were fun or helpful ones.

I have found that I sometimes need "down time." This may involve sitting in a recliner, reading junk fiction, or watching vapid TV shows.

When I am "on," I am really "on." I like to be constantly "producing" stuff. I tend to not do much "farting around." All my work needs to have some deliverable goal.

It's not necessarily for the best. I probably miss out on a lot of creative exploration. I'm very empirical. I think that abstract thinkers may come up with some really cool stuff, and they may do that, while sitting in a coffee shop, staring vacantly out the window.

Related: it strikes me as a paradox that we are envious of people in their 20s because they have their whole life ahead of them, and feel sorry for people in their 80s who have their life behind them. Does it mean we value the potential more than the realized? Is a potential life worth more, perhaps because it still contains all the promises of potential futures, while a life lived has been whittled down to a single path, with all the mistakes and regrets that it entails?

I think it might even just be that living life is awesome in general (overall, though there are obvious ups and downs). So the more you have left to live, the better

True, but the 80-year old is guaranteed to have lived that many years, while the 20-year old could die tomorrow...

Isn't there a bit of a sunk cost fallacy there? You can't influence the past but you can influence the future. That's why we care more about the future than about the past.

> Does it mean we value the potential more than the realized?

Yup, just like a pitch to a VC is easier with magical future potential numbers, rather than realised numbers.

Potential is only limited by imagination, and realised numbers can’t be changed!

"No one is willing to hand out their money randomly, but that’s exactly what you do with your time. You’re very frugal with your physical possessions, but when it comes to your time, you’re wasteful of the only thing in the world that you should actually be frugal with."

This is something where I frequently have arguments with my wife (mild and civilized, not that it's a real problem or anything). For example, suppose that we buy something online that is, say, $20, and it isn't up to our (or her) expectations. She will want to return it, and ask for my help. But my position is: returning it takes time (going to the website and finding out how to make a return, preparing the package, possibly waiting in a line in the post office), and for me that time is worth more than $20, so I'd rather lose the $20 and not do it (time has grown increasingly valuable in the last few years because we have a kid, so while we have decent savings, our amount of free time for ourselves -not kid-related- is close to zero).

I'm pretty sure my position makes sense, but it's difficult to convey it in a way that doesn't seem like I'm just "not caring" (I think part of the issue might be that for me, devoting time to things like doing a return, taking more time for a purchase to find a discount, etc. is just a chore, and she somewhat likes it) so we end up in a middle ground where each gives in a little.

PS: I am fully conscious that I'm writing this from a privileged position as there are people for whom those $20 would be a godsend, and it does make me feel somewhat guilty to take positions like this sometimes, but it's inevitable that one judges with respect to the scarcity of each resource in their own circumstances... and in my case it's free time which I consider to be very, very scarce. The fact that the $20 could be highly valuable to other people doesn't make it more senseful for me to spend some of my scarce free time on them if I need the time more.

Just throwing out as a thought, but as an alternative you could spend a minute putting it for sale online where someone would come pick it up, or even just put it up for free so someone that may need it more can get it. It can be a very quick process, especially with smaller things like that. You might even be able to just throw it on the porch when they say they’re coming.

Read Martin Hagland for a much more applicable take on this. The primary way we waste time is via waged employment. For this reason most people have very little control over how they are spending their limited time alive https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/if-god-is-dead...

Why is waged employment a time waste? It allows me to browse Hacker News, and take a coffee at some fun new bistro in the city center of Lisbon! ;-)

Jokes aside, I'm asking this question sincerely.

Life is short because society takes so much of it. School wastes so much of your time, employment likewise. Some sort of drastic change is needed.oog

Yes these kind of discussions are often useless to me because they ignore the things in life we don't choose. They're written as if someone has complete agency and is just choosing between easier and less reward versus harder and more reward. For me at least the real difficulty is dealing with broken systems and all that's needed of you from them, when rejecting the system can mean complete failure of the worst kind.

People don't let others steal their time because they're weak, it's because the system is so broken.

It's not so much "do I put this effort into building a ship and charting new territory" it's "do I chart this ship into pirate-infested waters when then outcome could mean death, and shipbuilders are defrauding people about the safety of materials?" The correct analogy in contemporary society often isnt builders or explorers, it's refugees.

Yes I'm cynical. I wish I weren't.

I really like how society provides libraries/internet - well you still have to spend some time on banal things like learning reading or filling in forms in writing to have access.

School is also useful to learn about mistakes or shitty things people did in the past so you don't do the same in your life. Without society you would not have access to great minds of the past which might be even more useful.

Unless you know you are kind of prodigy that without learning reading or writing you could build modern washing machine from raw materials available in your area.

My point is that school is just a baseline for living in a modern society.

If you by any chance live in a first world country maybe you should be ashamed of yourself. Maybe you should watch some documentary about how barely literate people struggle in 3rd world countries and how much of their life is wasted on meeting basic needs and they did not have time to attend the school or there was no school available at all.

They’re not saying “don’t educate yourself and take advantage of your privileges”, but “school as we know it sucks and I could have done a lot more with the time.” At least, that seems like the generous reading.

That’s the correct reading.

It also takes fucking forever and it gets you nowhere.

Life is short because of senescence

If only as a society we could put some effort into that instead of pretty much everything else for a little while. If we solved anti-senescence we'd have all the time in the world to fix everything else

Yes, looking back I cannot believe I did not just walk out of high school each day. I could have headed to a library and learnt a lot more in a fraction of the time. I could have become incredibly physically fit with the remaining time, or improved my guitar playing.

I guess I just didn’t have the confidence to think - well, actually, this is stupid and walking out is a smart thing to do.

Society can only give what it takes (from you and others).

I dont think that is true, society can create value from trade and good organization providing more resources to everyone for collectively the same amount of work.

In the sense that the whole is more than the sum of its parts? Of course!

No synergy to be had?

This is incorrect.

This is giving me a bit of a Zizek-ian "wisdom" feeling. E.g. in "Putting things off for the future is the biggest waste of a life. You deny yourself the present by promising the future." one can make the counter-argument of the entire marshmallow experiment with children where the whole point is to actually put things off for the future!

I've always liked the marshmallow experiment, but it turns out less clear than we may have thought.

If a child trusts the adult will be back shortly with marshmallow in tow, they may wait. But if adults in their lives are less predictable, they may reasonably choose to eat the marshmallow before the adult returns.

The marshmallow experiment may show that kids that can trust adults do better in life.

My perspective:

No, take things now if you can. And I can, with a very small amount of creativity involved. I realized recently I don't need to be rich/financially independent at all.

I work 4 days per week, I'm living the dream as I've realized that I want to work for 3 days per week. I want to crack my brain on something for 3 days per week that I'm not necessarily passionate about, but that feels as "good brain exercise" (aka programming).

So I only have to put up with 1 day per week, but I also want a bit of that I need to "put up with something", so 4 days per week is my jam, apparently. Programming allows me to stay mentally sharp, so it's a health thing as well.

My free day is on a Wednesday, so my rhythm literally is along the lines of:

work, work, rest, work, work, rest, bonus rest*

* Aka go nuts/crazy since I'm already rested.

You can have your cake and eat it too. Provided if you're Dutch, because a 4 day work week is easy to fix there.

4 days means you make about 85 to 90% of your 5 day net salary anyway, so you're not losing too much cash. It's easily doable if you spent 70% of your income anyway, which is what I was doing (and that is me being wasteful).

Life is beautiful :)

Yeah, those who refuse to bargain with the future end up the same as those who refuse to bargain at car dealerships. They pay the worst prices.

Even hunter gatherers sacrifice for the future. I haven't read much Seneca, but this article strikes me as a shallow interpretation of him just from its Instagram-quote-ey notes that are thrown in every now and then

I've found you have to balance the 2 sides- saving for the future while enjoying the present. Doing both at once is not impossible.

Any advice for someone who has not done anything other than work in the last 15 years (weekends and vacations spent home indoors etc.)? I spend my free time obsessing how I'm pissing away my time on this planet and at the same time terrified of doing something else.

Start small and spend your weekend and vacation not indoors? :) if you are really afraid of getting away from a job then just bringing some reading material for the job outside could go a long way

Looks like you know what there are some problems (at least in your POV) with your current life.

Take a sabbatical[0] and try to understand what do you need to be a happier person.

[0] in my case it was a sessions of a late night and beer talk with a people who doesnt't know me, but was greatly supportive of my situation (beer hleped there). YMMV.

I sort of feel similarly. I do wonder if it would be more meaningful to engage in a dialog with someone on HN beyond just one off replies.

Just small talks on Discord for example. I'm pcurve#3558

In a way, HN is a forum with built in common interest.

Time spent happily is the best possible way of spending it. Were you happy doing nothing? If so, perhaps it time was well spent.

Sure, see a therapist, find out why that is.

Anyone else been increasingly dissatisfied by Stoicism lately? It's been super in vogue for about a decade now in tech for some reason. I've read several books on it, and apply some of the practices, but there's something that doesn't sit quite right that I haven't fully been able to put my finger on it yet.

Maybe you'll agree with this (really good) argument against stoicism: https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/stoicism-is-not-enough

Maybe you're just a contrarian. Anything that's fashionable, especially when it's corpo-speak, rubs you the wrong way.

I'll hazard another guess why you may feel this way. The current discourse around stoicism is essentially aspirational. We no longer recognize the internal fortitude stoicism requires, neither in ourselves nor our peers, so we desperately cling to its ideals. Much like toddlers repeating they're not afraid in the dark when going into the basement.

See similar motivations around how all corpo-speak is now all about empathy, kindness, tolerance, and other traits we are really bad at putting into practice, but feel compelled to reiterate.

Life is short in a sense that I know I won’t have time to learn about everything there is to learn. I won’t have time to study and understand the proof of Fermat Last Theorem, the latest breakthroughs of physics. I won’t be able learn piano like a professional or violin. I know that I won’t have time to read many classic of literature, etc. I can choose to do certain things but now I have to choose where to focus my time.

> Everyone complains about how short life is, but that perspective is broken. Life is not short. The real issue is that we waste so much of it.

> Life is long enough for you to achieve your wildest dreams. You’re just so busy wasting it that you get to the end without living much of it.

Hey guys, what kind of fallacy is this? This observation presented is saying its not too short to live your wildest dreams, but isn't refuting the idea that it is short, which is a common view of relative time that is shared amongst people.

My observation is that we can spend too much of it chasing our wildest dreams, while their observation is that people spent too much time wasting it (as if that is exclusive from not chasing their wildest dreams).

Kind of all points to the idea that it is short, and doesn't bother refuting the supposition.

indeed, you could do one or the other, and you could fail at both.

in fact for some having a decent place to live is a dream out of reach.

The article is extremely dismissive toward the real reason most people waste time. The vast majority of the world is working for basic subsistence.

60% of the world's population does not have a flushing toilet at home. Hopefully the author's magic wand is a hella good one.

Is that article target audience "whole of humanity"?

That 60% of population is probably not going to read that article. They will be busy with more important things like living till next day.

Interestingly, Seneca himself most likely did not have a flushing toilet at home.

Don't like most "progress people," don't like most philosophy, don't like most self help.

If you have "it" figured out, why is that not enough? All I can see are ulterior motives: a desperate need to feel seen or remembered or virtuous or important, something to sell, an attempt to elevate one's status, etc.

I agree with this; I wasted so much time in my childhood and teenage years doing nothing and feeling bored. Eventually years later I realized how much destructive it was for me both mentally and physically. Children and young people need to be guided in the early stages of their life because they will be disoriented just like me.

Hey, but what I should do, if, say, I don’t have my own house and I really need to buy one? How can I just stop doing what I don’t love in that situation?

Also, what about the situation when one day you really love your work and find it very interesting and fulfilling, but the other day it’s just the opposite?

Different take - it is pointless to think life as short or long. Life just is. You ARE in this moment of conscious time (to borrow Descartes). Anything else is either memory (history) or future yet to be.

You, your 'self' are defined by your memory that is the consequences of the paths you took and not the ones you could have, and just like that your future will be the paths you take in this moment. Some try to make effort to be the best version of themselves, some try to live in this moment and many are in between. I do not think there's anything wrong with either extremes as long as you consciously and willingly do it, and sign up for the consequences. But.. idk.. I find this 'life is long vs short' debate a bit besides the point. I mean we do everything to fit the curve of 100 years of life - first quarter: education, second quarter: career, start family etc. May be its a perception thing - you're 40 and suddenly you realize you didn't become the astronaut you thought you'd be when you're grow up: how quickly life has passed by. To me personally, framing life as short vs long doesn't provide much solace in this situation but rather the one with culmination of past choices does.

Lots of comments here about tradeoffs between having fun and working hard. I'd say work hard, but take a year off every decade or so and just enjoy it.

Personally, I find it hard to get away from work, because getting away means changing mindsets and changing mindset takes longer than 48 hours or even a week of vacation. If you've ever quit your job voluntarily and lived in another country for a bit, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I was just complaining to my wife about this.

A vacation is never a vacation. I need at least 3 months off based on how the past chances for a few weeks off has went.

`Life is not short if you're lucky?*` I think that's what Seneca would have said back in the day. Nowadays, at least for the developed countries we could state `Life is not short if you're not unlucky`.

That said, many good things in life require time, work and careful planning (for somebody this could be building a house, finishing uni, perhaps raising a kid, tons of examples apply). Those that really bring fulfilment and satisfaction, where you can look back at this and say "I did that myself". Moment and day-like successes feel often like a serotonin hit, but do not persist long. So, I may say that I disagree with the premise of the article. What is often perceived as wasting time aka "watching Netflix", "playing games", "drinking with friends", turns out to be indispensable for us when we need to chew through mundane chores to reach the long-term goal we really strive for. But, if we're unlucky, we don't get to see the final result. A middle ground would be to start enjoying the small milestones?

You could live your entire life right. Save money, build a family, find the love of your life, and have it all come crashing down in a single instant for any number of reasons. That terrifies me for some reason.

Why do you think there is a 'right way' to live life?

'right' needs to be 'inherent'. There is no 'inherently right' in life. So where does that come from that you think there is a 'right' in life?

Sure, but that realization is also somewhat liberating.

Yes it is despite what seneca says.

People obsessed about not wasting their lives are actually the ones that waste it.

I suspect the only way to guarantee you’ve wasted a moment is to spend it in some unneeded state of distress.

The more moments you spend worrying about whether you’re spending the moment well, the more waste accumulates

In this sense, TV and smart phone waste people much of their lives. And it’s only going to get worse for the coming generations.

I talked with a financial advisor. He said for some of his higher end clients who have 25 million dollars that are simply sitting around in investments. The money is doing nothing for them except accumulate. He advises them to at least spend some of it.

It's interesting how the amount of money involved can change your perspective. For me the single most important thing to do with money is save it. Nothing I can buy will give me as much happiness as being able to help make the lives of important people in my life easier. We have a broken housing system that screws over almost everyone who doesn't get help so I want to save a sizeable contribution to my son's downpayment. I want to help pay for his wedding. I want to pay for his education. I want him to have a better start to life than I did and I want him to have more opportunities than me. I guess once you accumulate enough money you can do all that and still easily have more left over for the nice to haves.

https://dilbert.com/strip/1991-08-20

don't worry. the market decline will take care of that

This is making me want to quit my CS program: I asked about that here recently... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284802

This makes me want to quit University RIGHT NOW...

In 2 years what will your perspective on your decision be either way? Assuming all other things are equal...

Drop out: You most likely won't have wild success 2 years from now. Building marketable experience is a long uphill battle and if success were easy, then it wouldn't be considered so valuable.

Or don't drop out: You'll have a better marketable baseline. School and certifications make it easier to cold-apply to places. The more relevant they are, the more they help you avoid relying too much on social networks to move up.

The interviewee is talking about people who make a 10 or 20 year plan and then act surprised when life changes and they look back and feel regret over missed opportunities. They're not saying to forego building safety nets.

If you have concrete opportunities that you are giving up in order to complete school, then that's a different position than simply wanting to be available for opportunities that have not yet been offered.

> This makes me want to quit University RIGHT NOW...

I remember that feeling. If I could give advice to my younger self, it'd be: fast track uni as fast as possible. Bachelor + master takes 5 years? Do your best to do it in 3. Try to keep some room for social stuff. Yep, it's going to be a busy 3 years, but when else do you get to try to bring out your A-game? It won't happen during work as an employee, since you won't be rewarded for it. For uni, the payoff is clear: you go faster through the bitter pill that you don't want to swallow, and by going faster it's actually more interesting and therefore less bitter.

My opinion as a long time gaming "connoisseur:" there are many games that can engage with your sense of empathy, wonder, reconsider your and society's ethics, and build your creative and logical problem-solving skills. All good things, but there comes a time when you are just trying to get blood from a stone. When you feel like you aren't getting as much out of gaming as you used to, retire. There's so much more to life than gaming.

Life is infinitesimally short regardless of what anyone says

Life is the longest thing in life

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” - Fight Club

I like the article's perspective, but there's a rub. The Juanes song "La Vida Es Un Ratico" seems to say that despite the best efforts to not waste time, life is still short (the "ratico" part). And that was in 2007!

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much overlap between those on HN and those listening to Colombian rock.

They used this song in Spanish class I took in Medellin. I think I’m not the only one who spent some time there and spends some time here on HN. Don’t underestimate that Venn diagram :) (Does early Shakira count?)

I think it's worth talking to a few people who have master or phds in Philosophie. From my sample the general rule is that staying philosophy results in your have a huge set of new questions but no answers. So i am very skeptical of spending time on reading more philosophy than i have.

Just a comment on that second to last paragraph. Rest is good imo

That paragraph is strange to me, too. First he says you should not waste time or let others steal your time. But then he goes on that you definitely should spend time on philosophy. And when philosophy raises more questions than it answers, isn’t it the also a waste of time?

This person obviously has never had life catching up to him. My wife's parents where both diagnosed and died of cancer over an 8 year period. First my father in law had a brain tumor, went through extensive radiation an chemo therapy and when he was dying my mother in law was diagnosed with colon cancer. She also underwent extensive chemotherapy. Both were depressed during their sickness, never wanted to leave the house but where dependant on others to take care of them. Me and my wife were caretakers and simply did not have a choice to leave for the white sandy beaches whenever we wanted; thus this author's argument of "it's a choice" clearly does NOT apply.

What would happen with them 100 years ago? There was no chemo or radiation.

I personally like the idea that, when this life ends we judge ourselves.

Of course, I have no idea whether this is the reality. :)

Regardless, it is a idea that I find motivates me in the here and now. I don't want to act badly, have regrets, do the right thing, etc.

Stoicism is a dour, striver philosophy….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism

I like this comparison, wikipedia can be too technical. https://dailystoic.com/epicureanism-stoicism/

Looks like the site went down due. you can access the article here -- https://archive.ph/QQ5iV

I would like to add a comment for a perspective that's a little different to some of the others here. I'm sure many of you here are familiar with John von Neumann. He died in 1957 at the age of 53. Throughout his life he was a busy man, and many times he deferred doing things saying that he would do them at some later unspecified date. For example he once said he would write a big treatise on von Neumann algebras, a technical mathematical subject of his own creation. However once WW2 started his interests changed and he became very involved not just in applied mathematics related to the war, but in consulting and advising too. By the 1950s the majority of his time was not spent on academic work, but rather on this latter subject, advising big important agencies of the US military on various matters.

Some of his colleagues at the Institute of Advanced Study and in other places resented this. They said he was wasting his time, wasting his talent, on this work that could be done by other people, while his mathematical brain could be doing academic research that others could not do. Just shortly after being appointed commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the pinnacle of his non-academic career, he was diagnosed with cancer. Within 2 years he would be dead. At the time of his first diagnosis the main academic subject he was dealing with was his theory of automata, however at first he was optimistic about his cancer and continued working heavily on things to do with the AEC. After some time the doctors made it clear to him that he was going to die soon, and he should wrap up any affairs that he wanted to complete quickly before he died.

Now he panicked, after living his life and having so many incomplete things he wanted to do he was going to die and he was running out of the one thing he could not escape from - time. He tried to finish the topic he was currently working on, the theory of automata, however cancer affected him quicker and quicker and he could not. He wouldn't even finish a lecture he was asked to give - Yale's Silliman lecture, although the lecture he didn't finish would be cobbled together and published as a book, The Computer and the Brain, as would his work on automata, which was edited by Arthur Burks. He had grand aspirations for his theory of automata, it would be his greatest work, something he created entirely on his own, combining mathematical logic, information theory and biology. However, he put other things first, and he never got to finish it, indeed it seemed like he wanted to write far more, the book edited by Burks covered only 2 or 3 of the planned set of 5 lectures, and this was only the first set of five.

After he died several of his colleagues again made comments when interviewed that they felt that his talents were wasted. Considering his working life was only about 30 years they felt much of the last 10 years of his life, primarily spent consulting and working with the government, would be better spent on things that only von Neumann could do, his treatise on von Neumann algebras, his work on automata (incidentally, his theory of automata hasn't really made much progress since he died, especially in comparison to other fields), many other things that he worked on for a bit, got interested in other things, and said he would come back to later.

I am not sure what conclusion I should make of this, but I hope this little story is interesting to others too.

I found this interesting, thank you. I am familiar with Von Neumann's reputation as a genius but haven't read much about his life. A few biographies of him are on my to-read list. Do you know which ones have more detail on this portion of his life and his thoughts on time?

From studying other historical figures, this phenomenon of "dying before the Great Work is done" seems to be a common theme. Alexander, Caesar, and Nietzsche come to mind.

I'm not sure what to make of it. On the one hand, most such figures still end up being influential, so if your goal is to be remembered by others, you mostly just need to do something important, at some point in your life.

On the other hand, if you feel that the most important part of your work is continually being pushed to "some point in the future", then it would be fruitful to take a step back and figure out how to minimize the "not really important work" (running government agencies in Von Neumann's case.)

On a society-wide scale, I think there are quite a few adjustments that I wish would be implemented to minimize this "wasted administrative time." Things like waiting in traffic and cities oriented toward cars, software that is designed to be addictive, and so on.

It is uncertainty that makes us waste so much time. If you can focus early in your life, consider yourself lucky instead of being superior to your peels.

The days are long but the years are short.

It’s all about time scales.

"People overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year"

Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent

— SJ

I watched this speech some 10 years ago and that quote has stuck with me. And particularly the subsequent sentence: "It (death) clears out the old, to make way for the new."

This is from Steve Jobs' Stanford 2005 commencement address - https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc (at 12:03)

Was waiting for someone to post PaulG's take on this. So here goes:

http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

Journey > endpoints

"Live each day like its your last" is just as bad as "sacrifice everything so that when you turn 65 you can retire and finally be happy"

The troll clickbait titles always get the most comments

Was gonna write my disagreements with this article, but i think this quote sums it up:

"There’s no better way to spend your time than studying philosophy."

I don't like the quote either, but if you expand the reasoning it makes sense.

Spending time on philosophy is valuable because it can prevent you from wasting time on things that don't matter. It is like an investment, spend 2 days on philosophy now and save yourself 10 days of pointless activity. Like an investment, it can result in negative returns if not managed well.

Everyone uses some form of reasoning to guide their decisions, even in the absence of philosophy. Most people take whatever philosophical / religious system they are given at birth (which is likely to be suboptimal) or invent their own from scratch and figure out the downsides the hard way. The point made in the article is essentially: "Why reinvent the wheel when you can read wisdom of people who spent their whole lives thinking about this stuff"

E.g. people who try base their life on Hedonism (sex, drugs and rock'n'roll) often overindulge and eventually find it to be 'empty' in some way. If they had read some of the Stoics or Epicureans they may have discovered the reason for this emptiness and avoided the downsides of overindulgence.

These are truly my favorite types of articles on HN.

This article just stole 10 minutes of my precious time. But I would not know if it was wasted or worth it until the time is actually spent.

The good health/good energy/good looking period of life is like 30 years maximum. I would consider that pretty short.

Well I am 35 and have good health/energy could drop some belly fat but I don't care.

Look at the Hollywood stars 60 year olds looking still good.

You don't know any good looking 48 year olds? (18+30)

If you stay thin and keep active, you could probably double that estimate to 60 years if not longer.

A few weeks ago I saw my parents, aged 60 and 61, dance at my wedding and I would like to disagree with your statement.

With all due respect, that is total bullshit.

To me, the stoics come across as privileged dudes who have the resources to while away their time at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy, trying to self-actualize their way into a sense of purpose.

Whenever I hear the Tim Ferriss' of the world using a stoic as a motivational lever, all I can hear is "just lift yourself up by your bootstraps."

Ugh Seneca. No gracias. Hard pass.

692,040 hours. That's short.

Not when you're constantly assigned backlogged busy work JIRA tickets

Most of us would be lucky to have 500,000 hours of conscious thought.

Seneca already said all this 2070 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Brevitate_Vitae_(Seneca)

Literally that’s the point of the article.

DKB.show must go on!

sorry, what does 'dkb' stand for?

AMAZING

Fundamentally I think you missed the point of Ecclesiastes. It is: anything you do is meaningless compared to God, and you should fear him and therefore do what He has commanded of you.

Excuse my French, but this God is a real asshole, and I think it's best that people ignored these threats.

Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. We don't want flamewar here generally and the religious sort is particularly pernicious and also particularly avoidable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31885625.

God is an asshole if you read a random bit of the Bible in isolation of the theology/tradition that sits around and explains it. The way I’ve heard it explained by people who have lived this for a long time is a slightly different angle; which is that the way humans were created means that the way to be truely happy is to be aligned with God’s will. At the start you don’t really know what that is, which is why we have ‘commandments’/instruction, but as you deepen that relationship it becomes more and more fulfilling.

I don't believe Ecclesiastes presents one central and unambiguous argument. Like a lot of books in the Bible, it may well have more than one author, too.

You probably know that the ending to Ecclesiastes is a bit controversial in that it might not have been in the original treatise.

It is possible that it was added by an later editor to make Ecclesiastes suitable for inclusion in the canon.

https://books.google.lv/books?id=TX9DuDb9hgQC&redir_esc=y

IMO it's a useful lens to think of religion as an operating system for a society, and the Bible as the source code for an OS specifically for an agrarian society.

Agriculture only works if a lot of people do a lot of work which has mostly future payoffs, if they stick around in one place, form stable relationships, and so on. Individual selfish desires must be suppressed to some degree for the greater good of the society.

Fundamentally I think you missed the point of Ecclesiastes.

Why do you have this level of vitriol? Surely if there is a "one true God", this instruction will not seem out of place coming from them? Like it would make sense that this God will say this?

And given that we don't know for sure whether or not there is a one true God, why exactly are you so angry about Ecclesiastes?

I think there have been a series of misinterpretations that unfortunately result in a lot of confusion and (in my opinion) completely miss the point of these stories.

I don't think 'God' is an 'entity' per se, I interpret 'God' as the reality one lives in. "God is an asshole", and "Life is a bitch" then become equivalent statements. Whether or not 'ignoring the threats' posed by 'God' according to this interpretation is wise is left as an exercise for the reader.

I think you might be taking it a little too literally

>but this God is a real asshole

From His/Its/Her perspective, if I had Billions of life forms I was responsible for on each of millions(?) of inhabitable planets throughout just this Universe - I'd be crabby as $hit too. All of them needing constant resources, continually consuming energy to be used on everything from pissing it away, to working for money, or in the rare lot - improving the future of ones species. All while they're bitter and unhappy.

And since I was infinite - I had to do that forever for some odd reason... I'd be bitter.

الوقت كالسيف إن لم تقطعه قطعك

From Google Translate:

"Time is like sword: if you do not cut it, it will cut you."

It appears to be an Arabic proverb.

Would it have killed you to provide an English translation and maybe a few lines of context? It’s especially poor form not to include an attribution.

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