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Comment by golemotron | Hacker News Reader

If it happens to you, you'll know what it's like.

That is what is like with all life situations. They are mystery until they happen to you. You don't know what cancer is like or the death of a loved one is like until those things happen to you, and you don't know what the boredom of abundance is like until you have it either.

On the latter, the important thing to get is that much more of what motivates us survival driven than most people realize. When survival is sort of guaranteed, a lot of motivation can dry up along with a lot of the juice of life.

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That's very well put and I fully agree with what you describe on the majority of the situations (i.e birth of a child, loss of a pet, other important thing in life...), but I'm a bit confused on how this nicely written "boredom of abundance" can create problems on people.

Oh well, that's probably because I don't have enough money (and time) to do all the things I want to do :-)

I'd wish that for you but it might not make you happy. That's the paradox.

A silly example: when I was young I loved the game civ. In some games I would occasionally actually succeed at defeating all competition. But the game wouldn’t end cause you could try to go to another solar system or something still. But it was much less fun once the competition was over.

You're seriously comparing a cancer diagnosis with being bored while reveling in nigh-infinite opportunity?

There is a simple and obvious solution to this "abundance boredom": remove the abundance. There. Done. Put all your money in charity or, if that's too altruistic of you, lock it away in investments where you can't get at it easily and force yourself to live off of the national median income (~$38k individual, $70k household in the us).

The thing about being poorer is that you can't do the opposite, so it is quite understandable that no one in a poorer position has any sympathy.

This isn't about wanting sympathy. It's merely an observation.

If you ever get there, you'll see ;) don't worry, you're not special, and you too can become bored with infinite money... it's just nature.

> You're seriously comparing a cancer diagnosis with being bored while reveling in nigh-infinite opportunity?

Yes I am. I can compare anything even grasshoppers and peanut butter. They often have different colors, but grasshoppers have more legs.

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