I would love to be a star ship captain in a universe with faster than light travel. Or a surgeon. But you know actual life is good and I do enjoy watching DS9 with my young adult son, Benjamin. And reading about all the other cool things. It is better to live an imperfect experience than just wish for an ideal imagined experience. And better to act wrongly than to be right but do nothing.
One of the best lessons I've learned was that the happiest I've been (so far) was a time when I was dirt poor, while chasing my dream that everyone assured me ends in poverty.
Things have changed, but it takes some of the financial anxiety away when I remember that I would still give up everything to go back to that time.
We have to distinguish "our" dreams from, let's say, cultural ones. A lot of what we want, what we perceive as living a full life, having fun and so on comes from culture (and increasingly in the last decades/centuries, with mass media).
Besides that, we can't achieve everything, we could not be everywhere when something interesting happens there, at the very least because a lot of those things happened in the past, or do everything because physical condition, economics, or extra conditions (i.e. being an astronaut).
So you draw lines. This is what I can do, I can go, I can be. You may push boundaries, but in the end it will always be more things outside than inside. And try to be the best on what matters on those boundaries.
> Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently.
10 minutes doesnt sound like much of a loss, even if you do it every day. Maybe it helps you empathize with athletes, or if you get nostalgic/wistful, it helps you explore the range of emotions, which is fine as long as you don't get stuck with them.
> And yet, somehow, the more years go by, the more rarely I watch snowboarding videos.
I'd argue that snowboarding wasn't author's "dream" to begin with. I think it's reductive and unfair to compare your "oh it would be cool to do that" with someone else's actual dream: as in, a passion they pour their life and soul into. Being great at anything takes much more than a passing "it would be neat to be able to do X."
And achieving a dream (say, competing at the Olympics) is a lot less glamorous than a casual tourist might imagine.
I somewhat agree, but I think a person's "passion" is more concrete than their "dream". A dream is not necessarily something being actively progressed.
There is an analogy to be made between the space of human possibility and the space of possible Turing machines: in an unconstrained machine everything is possible and nothing is probable. If you accept constraints (e.g. the shape of a language) then most things become impossible but some things become probable. That is you gain access to some space and lose access to other space. It's a very fundamental trade-off and it's foolish to worry about it too much, especially considering that there is always some level of zoom where every hero, every winner of every game, is irrelevant.
Indeed the underlying insight that our lives are arbitrarily small and irrelevant, (yes, even the greatest titans of politics, tech, science and art), that drives the tech-elite long-now accelerationist ideal. Every life is characterized by [trade-offs + luck] and none of them have any meaning unless we get through the Great Filter. (Sure, this belief is mostly a post hoc rationalization to just do what you wanted in the first place, but I appreciate the attempt to paper over the naked self-interest.)
> You know what else I’d like to do besides becoming a great snowboarder? I want to learn kung fu. I’d also love to be a lot better at video games, get my Yu-Gi-Oh! hobby back on, and become at least fluent enough for everyday conversation in oh, I don’t know, eight more languages.
I think this sort of underplays the feeling of "lives unlived, paths not taken" that everyone gets hit with. Just flattens the whole thing that had been building up to that point, instead of allowing it to open up further.
Have you thought about absolutely monster knee braces? And then daily squats. They worked for me. Unfortunately now it’s my neck that’s trying to paralyze me, which would be such a not fun outcome.
I would love to be a star ship captain in a universe with faster than light travel. Or a surgeon. But you know actual life is good and I do enjoy watching DS9 with my young adult son, Benjamin. And reading about all the other cool things. It is better to live an imperfect experience than just wish for an ideal imagined experience. And better to act wrongly than to be right but do nothing.
Did you name your son after the captain of DS9?
One of the best lessons I've learned was that the happiest I've been (so far) was a time when I was dirt poor, while chasing my dream that everyone assured me ends in poverty.
Things have changed, but it takes some of the financial anxiety away when I remember that I would still give up everything to go back to that time.
We have to distinguish "our" dreams from, let's say, cultural ones. A lot of what we want, what we perceive as living a full life, having fun and so on comes from culture (and increasingly in the last decades/centuries, with mass media).
Besides that, we can't achieve everything, we could not be everywhere when something interesting happens there, at the very least because a lot of those things happened in the past, or do everything because physical condition, economics, or extra conditions (i.e. being an astronaut).
So you draw lines. This is what I can do, I can go, I can be. You may push boundaries, but in the end it will always be more things outside than inside. And try to be the best on what matters on those boundaries.
And don't forget, that sometimes day dreaming about going to space, might be more fun, than actually going. It's not like you can touch it anyways.
My point is: Remember to enjoy your dreams. And 99% of the time let them be just that: "dreams".
A life well-lived is really what we should all hope for. What that actually means varies by person.
Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently.
Everyone has regrets but my attitude is: I can’t change the past, but I can change the future.
> Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently.
10 minutes doesnt sound like much of a loss, even if you do it every day. Maybe it helps you empathize with athletes, or if you get nostalgic/wistful, it helps you explore the range of emotions, which is fine as long as you don't get stuck with them.
> And yet, somehow, the more years go by, the more rarely I watch snowboarding videos.
I'd argue that snowboarding wasn't author's "dream" to begin with. I think it's reductive and unfair to compare your "oh it would be cool to do that" with someone else's actual dream: as in, a passion they pour their life and soul into. Being great at anything takes much more than a passing "it would be neat to be able to do X."
And achieving a dream (say, competing at the Olympics) is a lot less glamorous than a casual tourist might imagine.
I somewhat agree, but I think a person's "passion" is more concrete than their "dream". A dream is not necessarily something being actively progressed.
OK
Did that get in the way of you actually understanding the meaning of this post?
Do you think that nitpicking terminology when the meaning is clear is actually contributing anything?
There is an analogy to be made between the space of human possibility and the space of possible Turing machines: in an unconstrained machine everything is possible and nothing is probable. If you accept constraints (e.g. the shape of a language) then most things become impossible but some things become probable. That is you gain access to some space and lose access to other space. It's a very fundamental trade-off and it's foolish to worry about it too much, especially considering that there is always some level of zoom where every hero, every winner of every game, is irrelevant.
Indeed the underlying insight that our lives are arbitrarily small and irrelevant, (yes, even the greatest titans of politics, tech, science and art), that drives the tech-elite long-now accelerationist ideal. Every life is characterized by [trade-offs + luck] and none of them have any meaning unless we get through the Great Filter. (Sure, this belief is mostly a post hoc rationalization to just do what you wanted in the first place, but I appreciate the attempt to paper over the naked self-interest.)
As I always say - do what you will regret NOT doing once you are old.
I think my old self will want my younger self to have had done lots of things I don't want to do now.
Future me can suck it. I'll be selfish in the moment.
This is like watching videos of old folks saying: "I wish I took better care of my teeth". Right, cause thats what matters a lot to you now.
The lesson to be learned is that what you want from life changes. You shouldn't prioritize the needs of a future version of you.
If you don't take care of your teeth, it might matter a lot to you very quickly and pain is a good instructor.
> You know what else I’d like to do besides becoming a great snowboarder? I want to learn kung fu. I’d also love to be a lot better at video games, get my Yu-Gi-Oh! hobby back on, and become at least fluent enough for everyday conversation in oh, I don’t know, eight more languages.
I think this sort of underplays the feeling of "lives unlived, paths not taken" that everyone gets hit with. Just flattens the whole thing that had been building up to that point, instead of allowing it to open up further.
Have you thought about absolutely monster knee braces? And then daily squats. They worked for me. Unfortunately now it’s my neck that’s trying to paralyze me, which would be such a not fun outcome.