Great post. This is super hard stuff. Actually knowing what you like vs. what you had to pretend to like early on in life to get into a good high school, college, job, fit in, etc. It's super easy to lose touch with what you actually find fun.
I wish I could channel your fun to write these academic papers that keep nagging me out of fun. Science is super fun but not all of it. And this I think relates to relationships, I don’t think I can’t always be having fun... a balance is key. Otherwise how would I know this is fun from non-fun? If we are bored we can even plunge in an introspective journey about boredomness and find it quite funny.
You present as a thoughtful person but this post really gives it away: you ‘believe things come to us when we both understand our needs and are able to act on them’. So there are no missed opportunities? Either this is really poorly phrased or shockingly ill thought out. It also presupposes some kind of cosmic force that delivers insight and opportunities at the right moment—well, how convenient.
Harping on about ‘fun’ also reveals how privileged you are and how much self-awareness you lack in this respect. Imagine having the liberty to write banal, half-thought posts such as this and think that the reason others might be unfulfilled or unhappy or whatever (the rich 30 something who can’t find a partner) is because they don’t know the proper role of fun in their lives. Christ. The overwhelming majority of people can barely make a living: they literally cannot afford to think about having fun. What a superficial and unapologetically classist post.
I was never sure whether this blog was as trite as I suspected it was behind its rhetoric but this post confirms all my suspicions. The purpose of this blog is to advertise how much you like to read and write (and it is glaringly obvious that you think this confers upon you some kind of moral advantage) and to showcase how contrarian and original you think you are when, in fact, what you write is largely rhetorically disguised banality.
Ehh, yes and no. I notice a lot of your personal philosophy revolves around doing things by intuition—being in touch with your deepest emotions, driven by your gut. There’s definitely an importance to that. We can get too lost in logic, try to engineer our lives and end up miserable. But this view that everything will fall into place if we just go after what excites us strikes me as misguided, romanticized, and overly optimistic. It’s so important to temper our passions with logic and reason, not to become a slave to either. To take a relevant personal example: I had a two year long relationship with a woman I absolutely adored. I often say it was the most fulfilling relationship of my life—there was so much of that “play” you talk about. Laughter from the time we woke up, stupid jokes littered throughout the day, randomly bursting into duets. And yet, it was also deeply abusive, wounded me in a way I had never been before and, I suspect, is largely the inflection point in my life where I stopped seeking out and forming meaningful relationships. I know now that should I choose to pursue a romantic relationship in the future, I need to seriously consider (logically) whether the person I’m interested in is actually *good* for me in the long term, regardless of how much “fun” we’re having.
The hardest thing to do is to figure out your identity again after spending years on the "must earn X to own Y" train...
It is soul destroying, I am there now, and was probably happier at 24 writing for a small specialist daily paper than 10 years on making three times as much but unchallenged and uninspired.
I love this post and your work so much :) Such a joy in my inbox. Would love to hear your thoughts on the next step: how to come back to yourself and know what you enjoy
Great post. This is super hard stuff. Actually knowing what you like vs. what you had to pretend to like early on in life to get into a good high school, college, job, fit in, etc. It's super easy to lose touch with what you actually find fun.
I wish I could channel your fun to write these academic papers that keep nagging me out of fun. Science is super fun but not all of it. And this I think relates to relationships, I don’t think I can’t always be having fun... a balance is key. Otherwise how would I know this is fun from non-fun? If we are bored we can even plunge in an introspective journey about boredomness and find it quite funny.
I love this, so simple and intuitive
You have to date the person you actually like, not the ideal of perfection you fetishize in your mind.
You present as a thoughtful person but this post really gives it away: you ‘believe things come to us when we both understand our needs and are able to act on them’. So there are no missed opportunities? Either this is really poorly phrased or shockingly ill thought out. It also presupposes some kind of cosmic force that delivers insight and opportunities at the right moment—well, how convenient.
Harping on about ‘fun’ also reveals how privileged you are and how much self-awareness you lack in this respect. Imagine having the liberty to write banal, half-thought posts such as this and think that the reason others might be unfulfilled or unhappy or whatever (the rich 30 something who can’t find a partner) is because they don’t know the proper role of fun in their lives. Christ. The overwhelming majority of people can barely make a living: they literally cannot afford to think about having fun. What a superficial and unapologetically classist post.
I was never sure whether this blog was as trite as I suspected it was behind its rhetoric but this post confirms all my suspicions. The purpose of this blog is to advertise how much you like to read and write (and it is glaringly obvious that you think this confers upon you some kind of moral advantage) and to showcase how contrarian and original you think you are when, in fact, what you write is largely rhetorically disguised banality.
Ehh, yes and no. I notice a lot of your personal philosophy revolves around doing things by intuition—being in touch with your deepest emotions, driven by your gut. There’s definitely an importance to that. We can get too lost in logic, try to engineer our lives and end up miserable. But this view that everything will fall into place if we just go after what excites us strikes me as misguided, romanticized, and overly optimistic. It’s so important to temper our passions with logic and reason, not to become a slave to either. To take a relevant personal example: I had a two year long relationship with a woman I absolutely adored. I often say it was the most fulfilling relationship of my life—there was so much of that “play” you talk about. Laughter from the time we woke up, stupid jokes littered throughout the day, randomly bursting into duets. And yet, it was also deeply abusive, wounded me in a way I had never been before and, I suspect, is largely the inflection point in my life where I stopped seeking out and forming meaningful relationships. I know now that should I choose to pursue a romantic relationship in the future, I need to seriously consider (logically) whether the person I’m interested in is actually *good* for me in the long term, regardless of how much “fun” we’re having.
The hardest thing to do is to figure out your identity again after spending years on the "must earn X to own Y" train...
It is soul destroying, I am there now, and was probably happier at 24 writing for a small specialist daily paper than 10 years on making three times as much but unchallenged and uninspired.
I also have a lot of fun when I write... but I'm also often writing about sex clubs and seduction artistry, which are fun topics.
I love this sm💓
ava, saw that you loved eyes wide shut so i'm curious if you've seen crash (1996)!
I like this post, but the first part was really unnecessary. It just makes passive people feel bad about themselves.
I did relate to the part about liking writing. Made me think, that I do really enjoy writing too.
I love this post and your work so much :) Such a joy in my inbox. Would love to hear your thoughts on the next step: how to come back to yourself and know what you enjoy
Loved this post. And it made me remember a great piece in Vanity Fair from when Tartt first published 'The Secret History': https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1992/09/donna-tartt-the-secret-history