Something I’ve been thinking about lately is why we fill the middle of our lives with big games of accomplishment and difficulty, when we already know what we want at the end.
To illustrate, here’s one of my favorite stories (which also serves as a joke with a punch line, of which all of us are the butt):
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An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.
The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”
The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish.
The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.”
The investment banker scoffed:
“I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.”
Then he added: “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied: “15–20 years.”
“But what then?” asked the Mexican.
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.”
“Millions, señor? Then what?”
To which the investment banker replied:
“Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
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What a perfect story. What an absolute slap in the face to everything we’re doing.
There are two questions to ask, or lessons to take, from this story. One is about capitalism, which is cultural. We are taught that bigger and better and richer are fundamentally good things. That’s the joke, because it’s obviously not true. At least not for everyone.
But underneath that, there’s a better question. A more important question. One that exists without capitalism, without investment bankers, even without money.
Why do we feel the need to “do” so much, through the middle of our lives?
If we’re being honest with ourselves, most of us, or at least most people I know, already have the end in sight. We already know roughly what we want the end of our lives to look like. Simple, routine-oriented, predictable, safe, and full of some of the most basic but timeless comforts we enjoy.
For instance, what’s the first place you think of when you think of old people in America? Florida. Everybody and their sister retires there, because it’s exactly those things. It’s the stereotypical “end” of a story. It offers a basic, timeless routine of nice weather, serenity, and good company.
Even from a young age we hold within us the wisdom to want that, even if we can’t explain why.
When we’re children, we live moment to moment. We’re not self conscious, we have no goals, we have no big consuming projects. When we’re old, we revert back to this state. Living moment to moment. This absence of time pressure or self-consciousness. But in between, we just can’t stomach it. We just have to do something.
Why all this extra shit? Why don’t we just work as a cashier, buy a home in the country, build the life we already know we want at age 29, and just live it for 60 years?
Why did Frodo Baggins, or Bilbo Baggins for that matter, ever leave the Shire in the first place? For all they knew, the troubles of the world would never find them in their remote little slice of luscious green paradise.
One reason is that, as you’ve probably heard me write about before, humans crave adventure. That’s not some ironic line or some religious principle that I’m casually throwing about. Even though the call to adventure is a deeply religious concept, which is no accident.
Some people’s call to adventure is simply jostling and climbing in the corporate world, trying to get as high as they can among the other monkeys. Some people don’t find that satisfying, but some do. To each his proverbial own.
Some people want to start a business, change the world, or build something. But most everyone wants to do something.
To put it another way, we crave doing something that will make demands of us and surprise us. The mundane is nice, but only once we’ve earned it first. And we earn it by going on an adventure and risking everything. Or at least risking something. Earning a prize that can only be granted internally, from ourselves to ourselves.
We can only enjoy something like “retirement” once we’ve earned it first. That sounds dumb, but it’s true. It sounds like capitalist brainwash, but it’s not.
Some people, like Tim Ferriss describes in The Four-Hour Workweek, have a capacity to build their lives as they go and enjoy every moment of it. To exist without structure and still find ways to discipline themselves; still find ways to usefully exert themselves on something. But most of us do not have such discipline and such cavalier ambition. And that’s perfectly fine. We have to admit that to ourselves. Most of us, at the very least, need to give ourselves to a job.
Imagine you were able to go drink margaritas on the beach for the rest of your life. That would be fun for about one day.
Especially if you’re young. Because that makes use of zero of your skills, talents, time, or spirit. It leaves you without any sense of accomplishment. It leaves you utterly hollow.
When you have a day off, it can be enjoyable. You can spend some time on that book you want to read. You can spend a few hours on your hobby or with your partner or your kids. You can indulge in some relaxing but demanding yardwork. Or you can sit around and do absolutely nothing. And it’ll be nice.
But if you have 4 or 5 days in a row of nothing to do, sitting on the couch from sunup to sundown, you will become miserable. You will not become free, you will not become careless. You will become miserable.
Same thing goes if, like Tim Ferriss, you manage to “retire” early and travel the world — but each place you go, you have nothing to commit yourself to other than sightseeing and finding a great local place for lunch. Again, you will be miserable after about 2 weeks. Because being a tourist is not a commitment. It’s an indulgence. It doesn’t ask anything of you.
We feel like shit about ourselves if we do nothing with our day. That’s not cultural, that’s biological. Our body and mind do not want us doing nothing unless we have earned that nothing.
Our lifetime, the whole thing, is just like that single day, but on a larger fractal. Retirement is great, but only for those who are old enough and/or wise enough to enjoy it.
There are exceptions. There are people who genuinely have no ambition for anything other than peace and quiet or nature or whatever else. And that’s fine. Some people are made that way. And there are also people who have tons of ambition but have already become wise and carefree, and maybe even very successful, at a young age.
There is no rule about when you reach the point of being able to enjoy it, or when you reach a certain level of wisdom. It doesn’t come at a certain age.
A funny thing about life is that you can do more and earn it faster. But you cannot wish yourself into it.
There’s an appreciation problem. A grass-is-greener problem. The grass can indeed be greener on the side of being done and having a simple life, but only once we’ve had to deal with enough bullshit to make us sure we’d appreciate it first. There comes a point when you have longed for something for such a long time that you do truly learn to just enjoy it when it gets here. That’s a hard thing to accomplish, but it does happen.
And it comes through the pain of not having it for most of the time you’ve wanted it. The same way that Christmas feels like a miracle for poor kids, and a letdown for rich kids. The poor kids have spent the entire year wanting what’s under the tree. The rich kids will be thinking about the next thing they want on December 26th.
When you break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and within two months you’re dating someone new, you’re very unlikely to have made any lasting changes to how much you’re willing to put into a relationship. Two months is barely even long enough to be unhappy. Let alone to take serious inventory of yourself and make big changes. To learn how to appreciate something more, to seriously reflect on what went wrong and do something about it.
Something curious from my own life is that I study philosophy but I kind of hate it. Philosophy, to me, is the art of becoming unhappy in more and more sophisticated ways. To have your head filled with deeper and deeper ideas, more and more questions… none of which have a real answer. None. It’s deeply unsatisfying.
So why do I do this to myself?
The same reason I write, I guess. It’s not because I have hopes of being a best-selling author or getting a book deal. It’s not because I plan on having debates with the greatest minds of my generation. It’s because I have nothing better to do. It’s because if I don’t do something useful and challenging, I will lose my fucking mind. And writing is a pretty natural fit for me, so I might as well.
And because through writing, or studying philosophy, surely I’ll pick up a few useful things. And become a better and wiser man. There’s dignity in the labor, and in the learning. And that sounds better than sitting around watching every show on Netflix and getting nothing out of it.
That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the reading or the writing. Because I do enjoy it. I deeply enjoy it. Even though it’s difficult and demanding. Even though some days I don’t want to.
There’s going to come a day when I want to live in my own Florida, or my own Shire, and forget about the troubles of the world completely. Selfishly, that’s what I want. That’s what I already want.
But before I get there, I have to fill the middle of my story with something. And it might as well be something with some upside. Something that makes me useful to other people. I’m going to be 60 eventually, no matter what I do — I might as well be 60 and wise. I might as well be 60 with some interesting stories.
Drink some water in a remote fishing village.
JDR
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” - Jackie Robinson
‘There is dignity in the work, and in the learning’. I said something recently to my son about the question of whether to cheat on an assignment - there is value in the work. To your point, that value is dignity, a sense of accomplishment, confidence, and hopefully slivers of wisdom. Great piece.
Lovely observation that we begin and end in simplicity with time on our hands and low demands from life.