Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thesuitonym | Hacker News Reader

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>Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?

And why should they? I'm no fan of trust fund babies who coast by on life, but really, why does anyone have to justify their lives by doing something to improve the world? What are you and I accomplishing right now?

Maybe it's just the severe burnout talking, but I for one would love to just stop everything and exist for a while with no tangible goals or requirements of me. Besides that, what good is a person who did the leanFIRE thing really supposed to do? The whole idea is to live cheaply, they don't have a lot of money to invest in making the world better. They have all the time in the world, sure, but if you're putting 40+ hours into "making the world better" (Whatever that means to you) then are you really retired? Or are you just doing the same thing as everyone else but living a much more meager life for the sake of it.

>why does anyone have to justify their lives by doing something to improve the world?

There have been a few replies in this vein, and I see where you're coming from based on the way I phrased what I was saying.

I'm not arguing that anybody should be forced by some external entity to do anything. I am advocating for a person in this situation to attempt to cultivate a passion/greater purpose because I believe it's something we need to be fulfilled. The man in this article designed a life for himself that was free from labor, but ultimately unfulfilling in many ways.

And if you need to find that passion, looking to improve society in some way is a great place to start. I can think of a few things in that vein that I would consider focusing on if I was in such a situation, and none of them are as far reaching as "make humanity multi-planetary."

The definition of 'retirement' is a common debate in the FIRE space. Often (not always!) it boils down to fights over definitions. Would you call daily volunteering at a soup kitchen (or church, or whatever) 'retired'?

By the way, "making the world better" doesn't need to be large or expensive, at least in my opinion: If I talk to the lone, probably widowed neighbour on my way home, I count that as "making the world better".

That's a good point about the scale of the "making the world better". It doesn't have to be huge.

I think at the end of the day, it's really about finding meaning in your own existence, and such a large part of that for a lot of us is feeling like we are giving back to society or helping our fellow humans somehow. I think this is where I can see the author's goal of just writing being hollow. He writes about his fears that maybe his writing won't ever be discovered. It makes me wonder if he's writing because he enjoys the craft or he wants the status of being known as a writer.

If he really enjoyed the craft, maybe he would've enjoyed writing more. The status thing would be nice, but maybe he would enjoy having other people read his stories and connecting with them. That could've been something to keep him going and give him some short-term goals, direction, and connection with other people.

I like the way you phrased this. Very in line with my thinking on this.

I see things similarly I think.

I figure that by definition, not everyone can be the 0.1% world changing person. Founder of Google/FB/Ikea or a Nobel Prize winner.

I want to leave the world better than when I came into it. It doesn't have to be gobsmackingly better, just fractionally better is fine. I try to apply this day by day.

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