ryoko

What if you'd rather do nothing? Any "doing" is work.

Get crazy good at something. It's quite irrelevant whether or not you go to school. It's more like, does getting good at your thing mean going to school, then go. There's some things which schools will just utterly destroy and give it to you more broken than before. Depends on what you're trying to get good at, and what kind of a person you are, your temperament, goals etc. If your goal is money, follow the paths well troden. Playing the social game gets inevitable then. Just know that either path is not void of learning.

@Leo GuraI'd say you've spoiled an entire generation of youth with the idea of life purpose. Top misleading ideas of the century. Especially when spirituality comes into the mix and life is not something you "do", but life is what you are. The semantics of it is so baked into me, I simply can't relate to the very concept.

The fact that you're not sure of it points to undone work. Also, a lot of it is just maturity to see what's right for you need not be right for others, this is mostly systems thinking and understanding the mechanisms of various everyday things. You'll develop it over time if you make that a goal and work towards it. P.S - Just because you're so damn sure of something with no grounding for it doesn't necessarily mean it's right for anyone, even yourself. Most people had never gone through the work of questioning the status quo and arriving at the answers themselves. And sometimes they do end up back where they began, but this time with the realisation that some of the common views we so rejected were right all along. I find myself in a place where, I simply can't accept most things which are status quo, and I can only be at ease with some notion once I've thoroughly done the work of going through it myself and finding the answer. This doesn't make my life any easier, it just makes it more harder, but the reward is a more nuanced understanding. Sometimes I feel like most people have it so easy, they can easily accept the general consensus with no problem and go along with it with such ease. It honestly makes me jealous sometimes, how easy life would be. But then again, I'd be pretty conflicted if I tried to force group think. There's a purpose to fiction, it often facilities certain actions. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, all actions are rooted from a shared fictional consensus. The whole mechanism of believing in a fiction is, you're not self aware enough to see it's a fiction. Once you see the fiction, you can't go back to how you were even if you want to. You've broken the illusion.

The picture is more complicated: in the early 2000s some Chinese factory workers earned the equivalent of $80–120/month, but today legal minimum wages in China are generally $230–400/month, with major cities above that and far stricter oversight than 20 years ago. Their $100/month back then stretched much further because rent, food, and transport were extremely cheap, giving it roughly the buying power of $500–600/month in the U.S. today—still harsh, but not literal slavery. Poverty and exploitation absolutely exist, but the idea that “millions still make $100/month to build your products” is outdated and oversimplified. A worker living on $100/month in 2005 China often had stability, community, and social equality, while someone living on $500/month in the U.S. today faces isolation, high costs, and constant status pressure, making the same absolute poverty far more emotionally punishing. Poverty in developed nations carries intense stigma, which creates a far stronger drive to make money just to avoid the humiliation and instability that come with falling behind. When you already live under that pressure and then work full-time simply to survive—making someone else richer while losing the time and energy to pursue your own goals—the idea of “wage slavery” emerges naturally. It’s ultimately a question of meaning and comparison: if your neighbor drives a Ferrari while you’re drowning, the psychological weight of inequality can feel heavier than the poverty itself.

Haha, right. I forget not everyone is lucky enough to have it channeled into their career. Even still it's quite difficult. Constant maintenance. And very weird quirks and preferences pop-up even within it. Making it potentially unviable as an option. Despite all that, it's a tonne of fun.

I'm Gen Z 😂

It's not just the older generation. All generation is fucked up. Younger generation is no good either. Generally speaking.

All I can say is own your flow states. Make it the default way to learn, practice. And be very gritty about rest and recovery, flow states literally fry your circuits. Find something which you wanna do (if you wanna do nothing, that's perfectly fine too). I'm sure we'll find something which resonates, inspires, gives us a spark from some remote source. All the work is to embody it. And it's not gonna be easy. Recommend reading Steven Kotler's books on flow. "Laughing in the face of chaos" for alignment.

I agree to a great extent. I felt betrayed by the world's ways when I took the time to find alignment with my own nature. It all started with a quest to not be influenced by anything external. Realized everything which has been imposed on me was ruining my potential in ways I'd never tolerate if I had been aware. And all goals are society's imposition. No such thing as your own goals. Made me a misanthrope at the end.

It's not something to fix 🤷‍♂️

Survive!

Well put. I'd say the same for Spiral Dynamics and other models.

What's your relationship with AI? Or LLMs to be precise.

If you have problems with killing, you'll develop naive incomplete worldviews and ideas. Same for those who don't see life and death as one.