When you get to the end of your life, old and tired, and you look back on all the things you did and time you spent, what will make you say: yes, I did well and it was all worth it?
Put another way, if you have an extra hour tomorrow with nothing planned, what could you do with yourself to later say: I’m glad I did that? What if you have an unplanned day? Or a week? Does how you use that time change? Would the choice of how to use that time be more or less deliberate, depending on how long you have? Does that choice define you as a person?
The four kids I raised after their mother passed. I did a good job. They all will be hanging out with me (and each other) for a week in December for the holidays.
From one father of four to the next: Damn good job!!
I would sit in a chair in my back yard, listen to the wind chimes and birds, and watch all of the wildlife just living their life. In essence, I’d spend the hour in mindfulness.
I love it.
I figured out how to escape others’ expectations and assumptions about how I ought to live. I did more of what I wanted and less of what other people wanted me to do.
When I had more, I gave more. When I had less, others helped me.
This sounds really good to me. How did you escape others’ expectations?
Some of it was open contrarianism. No wedding, no kids, no car, all on principle. This was a way to refuse to live by someone else’s script. I/we didn’t need these things, so I/we opted out.
Some of it was fear of despair. My mom died a wage slave of a heart attack on the job. I was not going to let that happen to me, so I learned about personal finance and learned about refusing to live by the standard script of buying what I couldn’t afford, keeping up with the Joneses, and so on. This also meant leaving the big city. It also informed the decisions about wedding, kids, and car.
Some of it was metta meditation. As I learned to have compassion for others, I learned to see their expectations of me as regrets about themselves. This made it easier to consciously ignore them.
Ultimately I learned to pay attention to every time I thought about what I “should” or “ought to do” and challenged myself to find a reason to do that thing that felt genuine to me. Did I really need to? What bad thing would happen if I didn’t? Would I truly value it? And when this led me to find no genuine, compelling reason, I didn’t do it. I became allergic, in a sense, to “because I’m supposed to”.
I’m not sure whether that actually explains anything, but it’s what I can offer for now. Further questions are welcome.
This resonated so much with me. I am nearly 40 and have spent far too much of my life obligated to others and not setting healthy boundaries. And of course, now that I’ve realized that and started setting stronger boundaries with people about what they may and may not demand of me, there is anger and pushback that I am declaring sovereignty of my own time.
When I was 26, I looked at my career and realized I would wake up old one day having accomplished nothing – largely due to government spending cuts in my original area of expertise (biology / forestry). Oh well, no hard feelings. Governments need to do that sometimes.
So I quit, sold all my possessions, immigrated to Vietnam, and spent literally every dime to my name setting up a company (I had the equivalent of $0.025 left). Then I cram-studied software and electrical engineering every spare moment for 3 years (meanwhile I survived on low-value, high effort contracts that no one else wanted). I also met my wonderful wife at an engineering club while doing this.
Looking back, it was an unreasonable, absurd, dangerous journey. Maybe there is something about those qualities that define actions I value? I used to wonder if I was entirely sane at the time, until I had the chance to visit my home country recently. I saw the economy hadn’t changed, and I would still be in the same dead-end job at 40 if I was lucky. Is accepting drudgery really more sane than taking a risk?
Maybe there is no sanity, only the ways we are mad together, and the ways we are mad alone. I don’t know which is better.
When I have spare time, I create things. Music boxes of exotic wood, robots, particle detectors. Lamps that shine in colors that are hard to identify (via optical illusion). Artificial plants that quiver in anticipation of rain. Nightlights designed to last forty thousand nights. A Lemmy bot that does I-Ching divination with a hardware TRNG. Machines that try to detect if the Universe is a simulation. Those musical greeting cards that no one likes. Anything, so long as it is strange and new!
I never regret time spent this way, and all my days are unplanned at some fundamental level.
I hope that every word of this is true. I loved reading it.
Oddly enough!
If you want to read about stuff I work with, I post some of it to vintech@voltage.vn from time to time.
Also you can use the I Ching implementation by sending your query to kong_ming@voltage.vn (the bot will communicate with the machine on my desk using a little Lemmy-MQTT bridge I wrote). Internally, that machine uses an el-cheapo version of the simulated-universe-detector – using a circuit that is hard (but not provably impossible) to simulate that is based on diode breakdown in 2N3904 transistors.
I’ll connect up the fancier version eventually. I’ve built it before, but the original design used export-controlled parts and could be construed as nuclear technology (it’s a very sensitive particle detector), so I don’t really want to carry it across borders. I live in Vietnam, my luggage gets searched 100% of the time as-is, and someone at CERN published a neat design I can adapt that relies only on unregulated parts (https://github.com/ozel/DIY_particle_detector)! So I’ll get to that in a few months or whatever.
I could also use a Geiger tube but that feels sort of boring.
Please tell me you have a blog?
If you drop by my instance (vintech@voltage.vn) I do some long form posts on some of the stuff I make, with photos. Lemmy is a weird thing to use as a blog, but I’m chronically short on time so whatever :D
…not everything is there though. I have this weird habit sometimes of publishing things under different names, then throwing away the accounts. Truth be told, even I’m not entirely sure what I’ve done over the years. Some ideas belong only to themselves, I guess.
Right now (professionally) I’m trying to pull together some kits for a STEM program – STEM programs are generally worthless marketing fluff here designed to help rich parents show off on Facebook while teaching kids exactly nothing. Also it’s like the cheapest kit from USA or China depending on the affluence of their target audience. A client mentioned that they want to set up a STEM school, so I’m going to pitch them a vertically integrated business so I can optimize for quality at all levels (kit engineering - curricula - marketing). It’s also way cheaper to manufacture good robots locally off my own IP than to buy them across the world :D
Besides that, I’m working on doing audio analysis on the Attiny10. It’s got 32 bytes of RAM, 1k words of program space, and 4 I/O. So that’s being challenging. The screen with graphics works right now, but I wrecked the last chip when I overclocked the ADC that does the audio sampling by too much. Luckily they are like 30 cents each. The final goal is being able to do beat detection so I can make little animated companions with face graphics that sing along with you e.g. at karaoke. I actually hate karaoke, but the idea demands to be born, so I have little choice in the matter. I can always choose not to sell it, I guess :P
I try not to worry about having a legacy, and don’t think dead people have the same priorities as living people. Being nice and taking the time to listen to people is what I think has made the most difference in the world so far. If I had only one hour left I’d call all my kids. If I had only a few months left & would be healthy for it, I’d travel around the world.
Good answer. Do you call your kids now? Do you travel now?
Some are still young at at home, most are in town, a few are farther away, we text more than talk but stay close.
Travel, no, sadly many kids means less money! We do have a vacation at least every other year but usually nearby.
If I have changed even one life of a stranger in a way that helped them, I’m happy with my life.
To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Ah, ambitions of conquest.
There are some philosophical undertones here, and I’m wondering what you really want to ask. Could you elaborate?
I don’t know what words might better express what I’m thinking. So I’ll tell a story. I was raised religious, in a demanding Christian sect. There were a lot of expectations and judgement about what it takes to be a good person. Now, I’ve arrived at a point in my life where I reject the religious ideology and the conception of what it means to be a good person. I think that life is due to chance, that life is brief and temporary and that meaning is created only in my mind. I’m married and have kids. That gave me a lot of meaning, but my wife and I have drifted apart and my kids are mostly grown and are mostly independent. What now? I enjoy sports, and VR gaming and public speaking. I also tried cannabis (legal in my country) and it’s fun. Is there any reason I shouldn’t use it often? Is there something more important I should do with my life? Will I regret later doing things that are fun now?
Maybe none of it matters, but I’m curious what other people think and feel and believe. I’m happy to hear philosophical views, but I’m really curious about how others live.
Thank you for your clarity. I don’t know how common it is for people to directly question existence, social contracts, our roles and purposes, but I imagine your thoughts resonate with many of us; the experiences and perceptions you shared are deeply familiar to me.
Since your story helped me understand where you’re at, I will reciprocate with a story for you.
I never quite succeeded at living a life that resulted in genuine acceptance from relatives, religious circles, authority figures , or peers. I tried to fit in for awhile, and to even please others a few times, but it isn’t who I am and it shows. This disconnect allowed me to metaphorically wander into the wilds.
For over 30 years, I explored almost all big religions and some philosophies, and by the time I was in my late 40’s I finally embraced my atheism with a growing sense of liberation, although I don’t mention it around theists. I think it scares them, and who am I to yank away anyone’s security blanket?
I’ve lived a long and unconventional life with my own credo. Sometimes this meant fine tuning who is in my life, and who is excluded, which can be controversial - but for me it’s been a relief. Also, controversy is just one spice in a feast.
I agree with you that institutions or culture leaders or mythological deities can’t dictate what is good. My direction has always come from within because that’s the loudest voice*, and when I need to be reminded of what that means, I focus on the REAL life around me.
I don’t look for a purpose or a life well-lived because humans are no different than fish or rabbits or deer … except for how we lost our way. Seriously, look at the animals; this is what I mean by REAL life. They don’t waste their energy striving for someone else’s declared ideal. They don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow. They don’t get wound up in possible outcomes or fake rewards. They just … are.
As you stated, we are briefly here on an insignificant rock spinning around in a tiny solar system of a regular galaxy, in one universe among countless universes, and we weren’t deliberately placed here to hoard crap, exert “dominion”, destroy everything, or delude ourselves that we should be famous or rich or impactful. (Okay, I took your thought and ran a bit with it.)
My life is filled with the things I need to do for survival, with interludes of connection that bring me joy. I try to not think too much about the survival part because for humans it’s so contrived, and it blocks natural feelings. My biggest struggle is keeping that shit where it doesn’t ruin the things that matter.
And what matters is YOUR call. Time with the people you love or being immersed in music or reading or looking at stars or laughing at how your dog zooms or touching trees or breathing or … whatever you want. As long as you can be in the moment with your true self, you aren’t wasting this magical blink of life.
*I don’t have an actual voice within, because I have total Aphantasia.
I love this answer so much. Thank you for taking the time to share it.
I would consider my life “well-lived” if I die with no regrets.
I used to think that. Now I know that regrets are inevitable. And I think they make life interesting. I’d rather have regrets than boredom.
lasting contributions to open-source software
Definitely a worthwhile thing to do, but software is so ephemeral that it’s hard to say “lasting.” If I died tomorrow, all my projects would likely be irrelevant and forgotten within a few years. Though some projects have stronger lasting power than others. Now I’m curious what the oldest line of code in the FreeBSD kernel is.
Sorry, not trying to be negative on your accomplishments. Just been thinking about this lately.
How to make lasting contributions that will stand the test of time:
- Create a new project from scratch that would have wide-ranged-but-niche applications (i.e. some app, firmware, or library that fills an important-but-unrecognized niche)
- Design the code to be intuitive to you and you alone, prioritize functionality over readability, forgo documentation, and abstract as much as possible. You can be the only contributor during the developmental stage
- Go public and get as many people as possible to adopt your project
- Continue maintaining until you die
- Now companies and people that have unknowingly become heavily reliant on this are going to scramble to continue maintaining it, but will only be willing to create surface-level bandaid patches and will avoid making any more fundamental changes for fear of breaking literally everything everywhere because now the stakes are too high to take a fuck-it-we-ball approach. This is why it’s important to be niche: it reduces the chances of an actual tech wizard coming in and reverse-engineering the whole thing.
- Voila, your contributions shall remain for all time, like some sort of mystical wizard’s tome on whose magic the world continues to spin
Yeah I maintain a 30 year old legacy codebase how could you tell
Between work and two small children, I’ll gladly spend an extra hour with them. Or just with me, to get away from all that.
Living a life well-lived vs feeling like you’ve lived a life well-lived are two different things. The first… be a good person, treat others and yourself with kindness, try to leave the world a little better than it would have been without you.
Feeling like you’ve lived a life well-lived though, that’s different for everyone. In the Sims games there are Lifetime Wishes. One wish to accomplish over that Sim’s entire life. I think real life is similar - everyone has a lifetime wish that once accomplished will fill a hole and help them be more at peace with dying. I got lucky, mine was easy. I wanted to help someone in a way that positively impacted the rest of their life. When I discovered that I had accidentally done that for a friend, the effect was amazing. I felt spiritually whole and like I was done doing what I was put on this earth for. I’m not religious, btw. I’m still living so I’m going to keep doing my best… but now I feel like my life has been well lived.
I don’t think the answer is so clear for everyone. My spouse doesn’t know their “lifetime wish”. Maybe it’ll be revealed with time or maybe they’ll never consciously know. I don’t think it’s something you get to choose, either. If you ask yourself what’s the one thing you absolutely need to do to be at peace before you die then you may figure it out eventually.
I have all day tomorrow, with nothing planned. Odds are I’ll waste it playing video games, because I have nothing better to do.
Is that because video games are awesome, or because you haven’t used your creativity to come up with anything else?
What’s the point? In 100 years, everyone here now will be dead. Nothing we do really matters. Life is pointless.
That is the point. Do whatever you want because no one’s gonna remember it anyway. Once I realised that, life because a bit more bearable.
Had the same realization here. But still, that was not enough to placate my feeling of the world being inadequate to my needs and desires. So I joined a progressive political party, partake in biweekly local party meetings, working groups and other odd gatherings. I also help with local projects like having cars banned from an inner city street for a day to repurpose the gained space into a children’s playground with outdoor toys and stuff.
In short: take your anger of the world’s senselessness and inadequacies and direct it into positive action. It really works (for me) to assuage the helplessness about my and humanity’s situation in general as I actually am making a difference in the world by coordinating with likeminded people. It really gives you a very palpable and natural feeling of one’s identity finally and actually making or having a some kind of “sense”. For me it really was an epiphany on the level of like “this feels an order of magnitude more natural than all of my previous life experiences in school, uni, or work life.” I feel like getting into local politics is more akin to discovering a whole new circle of friends who share the same goals as you, than it is just about making do with the work groups and desired outcomes you get assinged for in uni or at work.
What a great thing to do! I think it’s why a lot of people volunteer for causes and give their time and money to charity. Such a great way to directly see the positive impact you’re having on the world.
The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life. Rabindranath Tagore
Do you think this makes any sense? If not, why not?
Life well lived for me is the following.
- My life ends in a comfy bed surrounded by friends and family having died before becoming a burden on them.
- I’ve made a positive impact on those around me
- I’ve left my children/family in better financial shape than I was born into (which, frankly, was pretty good already)
- I traveled and saw what the world has to offer
Yeah, life is meaningless, and we’re one small speck in a universe so big it breaks our brains to think about and we only last a similar amount of time in regard to the vastness of time itself. . … so I might as well make myself and the people around me feel good
As far as the short term? Have a good conversation with friends/family, go for a walk through a nearby forest.
I will think it was all worth it because I lived in each moment making it the best and not fretting about how I’ll look back on it when I’m about to die
