Comment by __s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by __s | Hacker News Reader

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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.

Dammit, was a mental lapse. Appreciate the correction!

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.

As a counterpoint, if they hadn’t done it, someone else would very likely have done it. Individual artworks would be a more unique legacy.

Quite clearly if population bottleneck wasn't dealt with noone else would be left to do it.

Sure, someone else would have overcome it. Could have been just around the corner. You don't know.

Exactly. Inventions, knowledge, and other things are all inevitable--rediscovered and recreated from scratch each time. Art is our only unique contribution/feedback to the universe.

If you subscribe to determinism, all art pieces are also inevitable.

> overcame population bottlenecks

Their names were Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.

Was more thinking about the Toba eruption bottleneck 75k years back, but sure :)

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.

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