Because an unexamined life is not worth living, I look back at the just-ended year and draw lessons for the next. I also mention my best songs, movies and books from 2022.
1. Do hard things, mess around.
My biggest lesson in the past year was to do things, to get out of my bunker and do something in the real world.
Most of us have learned so much about the world; we have read philosophy books and listened to the wisdom of our parents and YouTube gurus. But to the extent that all this knowledge is only sitting in our heads, we cannot experience the beauty of experiencing truth metaphysically.
Take, for example, the idea that budgeting and saving money is good. Most of us go through our lives holding this with the reverence akin to that ascribed to truisms. Yet, we start taking budgeting and saving money seriously only after we survive a catastrophic near-bankruptcy thriller, the result of which imparts the importance of budgeting and saving in an unprecedented manner. That is what I call the metaphysical experience of truth.
Okay, sincerely, beyond this idea that seems too imaginary, do things because you will appreciate your strengths and identify the aspects of your life in which you need to improve. Simply put, your amount of learning is directly proportional to the amount of messing around you do [I know I just paraphrased a popular video here, lol].
2. See the big picture through the lens of today
The big picture idea is very appealing and seductive; a gas station for our generation’s obsession with instant gratification. Most of us spend the year living lives we hate and then take two or three days at the end of the year to soothe our frustrations by overdosing on the instant gratification of writing down ambitious goals we will never really commit to pursuing. Who doesn’t relish being more prosperous, healthier, and more accomplished at the end of 365 days? A pessimist, one of my friends, will say. Beautiful as such big-picture views of life may be, they are sand castles if we do not see them through the lens of our daily lives.
Seeing our goals through the lens of the present day can help us leverage the compounding effect. The Wizard of Omaha famously says that life is like a snowball; the important thing is to find wet snow and a really long hill. Do you get it? If not, forget about it.
The point is, you don’t need much to start with, all you need is the discipline to keep rolling down the hill (being consistent) and a sufficient amount of time, and you can almost achieve anything - I didn’t say you can flatten the earth, but you get it.
3. Learn to do boring things
The sad thing about being consistent is that it will get boring, hmmm, very boring. To be consistent, you need to learn the art of doing boring things (that doesn’t mean you should be boring, even though it’s an achievable goal if you so desire).
Many of us make the mistake of thinking that only certain things can be boring. We hardly realise that what draws us to the things we claim to love is primarily superficial. It’s like Machine Learning. Everyone wants to be a Machine Learning expert till they realise the amount of boring Statistics they may have to learn.
Most of our goals will be the same. The idea of the achievement’s final product or the sight of a master at work may be empowering and seducing, but the paths we may have to tread may not only be tedious but also very, very boring. Mike Tyson once said that although the day of the fight is the most exciting part of a fighter’s life, a good fighter is sculpted in the monotonous training routine.
If you are always chasing a high or only doing things when they make you instantly happy, hmmmmm, you get it. Learn to do the boring things because they are indispensable on your path.
Remember the idea of compound interest, and the Wizard of Omaha, the Wizard of Omaha’s buddy, Charlie, says only an idiot interrupts compounding without serious cause. Will you be an idiot because something is boring?
4. Don’t forget your humanity
I will have to use a strange interpretation of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Macbeth to make the point here. Some of us are like Macbeth; we have received a reliable prophecy that we will achieve some greatness in our lives, so we pursue greatness at the expense of everything, even our humanity.
Don’t get me wrong; it is noble to aspire to greatness. But if in so doing, you forget your humanity in the process, you have Macbeth’s fate as a precedent. If you think that you will work hard and be successful despite your humanity, then in the words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, you will end up as a very spiteful person. What will a man gain if he wins the world and loses his soul?
My year taught me to appreciate people more, prioritise my relationships, and create time for love and tenderness.
My new idea of a good life is that it must be a quest for objectivity and rationalism driven by love and the ability to feel and cherish intense emotions. To use the exact words of Bertrand Russell, “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge nor knowledge without love can produce a good life”. A good life is indeed to love, to feel, and to work.
5. Contemplate your life
Many people go through their lives without any form of contemplation. Oh yes, it is possible to achieve such a feat; indeed, it is the easy way out. As recorded in Plato’s Apology, Socrates dictates that the unexamined life is not worth living. He could not be farther from the truth.
If you do not contemplate your life, you will spend years trying to live a life that your society and the world dictate. Is there an easier way to guarantee a miserable life? I doubt. Well, in some bygone or future eras, living a dictated life could be an antidote to sadness. I highly doubt that the confusion of our age makes for such an antidote, for to borrow Tyler Durden, we are the middle children of history. If we do not contemplate our lives, they will become our great depression, and we will be left with no purpose or place.
What is life to you? What matters and what does not? How do you want to live your life? Although these questions (and their close cousins) rarely have a definite answer, when appropriately explored, they can lead one to a life of gratitude and groundedness that is rare in our age.
OFF-TOPIC
I know these are not part of the lessons. But I just couldn’t resist the urge to share with you some of the things I loved in 2022.
Books
- A Certain Idea of France, by Julian Jackson (I first read this book in 2020, but I loved it so much that I came back to it this year).
- Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The Practice of Groundedness, by Brad Stulberg
Music
- Handel’s Messiah, by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
- Love don’t cost a dime, by Magixx
- Symphony No. 2 Gustav Mahler, by the Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Gilbert Kaplan
Movies
- Top Gun: Maverick
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- The Most Reluctant Convert
Favourite quote
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Happy new year!