I'm in my late 20s, but I noticed that people live as if they are forever.
They spend half of their life working for survival, preparing and planning for their (!) future.
Some people die in the process and never live to see that future,
but some people reach that point and become aware of the finite time that just elapsed.
Having physical needs met is trivial in our society.
Everything beyond is self imposed suffering by comparing oneself to others.
But for what purpose? Just to have more than someone else? Just to be better than someone else?
Nobody truly cares. Nobody cares about how fancy the technology is that someone built to make people click more ads online - even if that someone thinks he is doing god's work.
We came to this earth naked and we will leave naked. Just like my parents did. Any material possessions and people will be left behind. Most of us will be forgotten 2 generations ahead or end up as UTF-8 characters on wikipedia.
I can at least walk joyfully in the present and not suffer my imagination about the future. I can also make a conscious choice to not indulge in activities that destroy the planet for others. I don't think the older generations see it the way I do.
"I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment."
-Anonymous; Datalinks, SMAC
OP's piece and the SMAC quote really remind me of this art at the Met:
The Angel of Death and the Sculptor from the Milmore Memorial
> Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed suffering by comparing oneself to others
Sometimes we have dependants that cannot ensure their own wellbeing (e.g. children). Sometimes we have good reasons to believe that we will not be able to work in the future (e.g. health issues).
Ensuring that you and your loved ones will have a decent quality of life regardless of your ability to work in the future can be a strong motivator to push your own boundaries today.
I will add something to it - many people want are afraid that they will regret somethings in the future. But at the end you won't regret a thing because you will not feel a thing. You are going to be dead and as hard as it is to imagine it - you won't think or feel.
If you are religious you may have more thoughts about what is the next stage in your after life, but in any case it won't be thoughts about your current life.
Just live each day to it's fullest and that's it.
What really is important is to find a balance between being in the moment and preparing for the future. If you don't prepare for your future, in the future you won't be able to enjoy your current present. However, if you only prepare for your future, you'll never enjoy what you prepared beforehand.
I am glad that you are in your early 20s and understand this fundamental life truth - I am in my mid-40s, met some friends this past weekend, friends since elementary school, some more successful than others, in the capitalist sense of the word, although all of us are pretty well grounded.
One of my buddies, who had more fun than the rest of us was complaining how his 20's and early 30's were all about experiencing life - and he wished he had focussed on his career and saved more. But at the end of the day, he has more stories to tell that anyone else. At the tail end of life, those stories are all we have..
"The grass is always greener" seems to be a fundamental human condition.
Your friend wished he had focused on his career while the people who focused on their careers wished to have lived more experiences.
Married people wished they were single to enjoy the freedom and live a simpler life. While single people wished they met a SO to be less lonely.
People with stable high paying jobs like many developers, daydream about financial independence and quitting their jobs. While most other people dream of just finding a stable high paying job.
People from 1st world countries complain a lot about their own countries while most people in the rest of the world would literally die crossing the border to get there.
Young people wish they were rich. Rich people wish they were young.
And the list goes on and on. This seems to be something very human... Why do we think so much of the things we lack/didn't do but seem to forget what we have/have done?
Just to refute one of these as it’s a bit of a misconception.
> Married people wished they were single to enjoy the freedom and live a simpler life. While single people wished they met a SO to be less lonely.
What single people want is the option to not be single and to not be lonely. When people are married and wish to be single - it’s not that they wish to be lonely, it’s that they wish they could have more freedom. (This has little to do with marriage and more to do with other life choices. I know married people with more freedom than single people)
I think you’re oversimplifying things by ignoring the fact that people want both and not either/or. They want to be young and rich. They want to have their health and their wealth. They want to be single but not fucking lonely.
It’s really not that hard to understand when you don’t make false equivalencies and bullshit narratives.
They spend half of their life working for survival, preparing and planning for their (!) future.
Some people die in the process and never live to see that future, but some people reach that point and become aware of the finite time that just elapsed.
Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed suffering by comparing oneself to others.
But for what purpose? Just to have more than someone else? Just to be better than someone else?
Nobody truly cares. Nobody cares about how fancy the technology is that someone built to make people click more ads online - even if that someone thinks he is doing god's work.
We came to this earth naked and we will leave naked. Just like my parents did. Any material possessions and people will be left behind. Most of us will be forgotten 2 generations ahead or end up as UTF-8 characters on wikipedia.
I can at least walk joyfully in the present and not suffer my imagination about the future. I can also make a conscious choice to not indulge in activities that destroy the planet for others. I don't think the older generations see it the way I do.