Like you, I went to an Ivy League institution in the 1990s on a high-income trajectory and once kept the same academic, professional, and social company as the people now spilling from those places and bombarding society with precisely the bullshit they've been programmed to unleash with unconditional preaching. As someone who both washed out of that environment when it appeared more respectable and am reduced to mocking it from the outside, I am therefore disempowered 00 from the standpoint of someone who still wishes to remain within that system and somehow draw satisfaction from it.
When I was young, I was naturally very good at the things that put people on a path to becoming, say, a doctor. So I strongly believed I wanted this, and for a while I genuinely did. But I also don't think I am well suited to serve large systems, be it the military or the health-industrial biocomplex.
For years, I assumed that such perceptions were rooted mainly in a benign form of sour grapes -- I didn't get what I long planned on having, so I therefore never really wanted it anyway. But having seen booze-free for seven years and examining my own inclinations even with maximal freedom, I'm convinced I was and remain better suited for somehow serving a small number of people in a larger-than-usual way and doing just enough to get by without freeloading, as I believe that some kind of work in return for comfortable time in the world is essential to well-being.
It's empowering to be able to retreat from everything not just with running but in the form of a musical instrument. This alone is empowering and I wish more people pursued this instead of, say, watching TikTok videos all day.
You bring up an interesting point that was too much to fit in this short piece, namely what to do with an inclination without a clear associated vocation, or an inclination-vocation attached to shitty institutions, e.g. word-lover and journalism, biology-lover and medical complex, etc.? My inclinations always took me to history: understanding the past in order to grasp the present and future. As much as I love words, they've always been a means to an end. But what does a history lover do for work, especially in a world that increasingly devalues the value of viewing history? This goes back to the locus of control subject. Do we follow our inclinations regardless of external circumstances or accept that our inclinations might not have as big of a role in our lives as we would prefer? I suspect you and I are the types who heedlessly follow our inclinations, partly due to our inabilities to unable to betray ourselves, but I often get signals to go different direction for practicality's sake.
I discovered the HubermanLab podcast a few days ago, when I learned Apple lists this as the #1 Shared podcast of 2023: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain-health
I'm quite thrilled with the amount of bad PR alcohol is getting lately.
One of your best and not a wasted word.
Like you, I went to an Ivy League institution in the 1990s on a high-income trajectory and once kept the same academic, professional, and social company as the people now spilling from those places and bombarding society with precisely the bullshit they've been programmed to unleash with unconditional preaching. As someone who both washed out of that environment when it appeared more respectable and am reduced to mocking it from the outside, I am therefore disempowered 00 from the standpoint of someone who still wishes to remain within that system and somehow draw satisfaction from it.
When I was young, I was naturally very good at the things that put people on a path to becoming, say, a doctor. So I strongly believed I wanted this, and for a while I genuinely did. But I also don't think I am well suited to serve large systems, be it the military or the health-industrial biocomplex.
For years, I assumed that such perceptions were rooted mainly in a benign form of sour grapes -- I didn't get what I long planned on having, so I therefore never really wanted it anyway. But having seen booze-free for seven years and examining my own inclinations even with maximal freedom, I'm convinced I was and remain better suited for somehow serving a small number of people in a larger-than-usual way and doing just enough to get by without freeloading, as I believe that some kind of work in return for comfortable time in the world is essential to well-being.
It's empowering to be able to retreat from everything not just with running but in the form of a musical instrument. This alone is empowering and I wish more people pursued this instead of, say, watching TikTok videos all day.
Thanks for the compliment.
You bring up an interesting point that was too much to fit in this short piece, namely what to do with an inclination without a clear associated vocation, or an inclination-vocation attached to shitty institutions, e.g. word-lover and journalism, biology-lover and medical complex, etc.? My inclinations always took me to history: understanding the past in order to grasp the present and future. As much as I love words, they've always been a means to an end. But what does a history lover do for work, especially in a world that increasingly devalues the value of viewing history? This goes back to the locus of control subject. Do we follow our inclinations regardless of external circumstances or accept that our inclinations might not have as big of a role in our lives as we would prefer? I suspect you and I are the types who heedlessly follow our inclinations, partly due to our inabilities to unable to betray ourselves, but I often get signals to go different direction for practicality's sake.