Inspired by Jacob Kishere of SENSESPACE
Ask “Where Will I Take My Life?” Not “What Will I Do With My Life?”
The second question suggests we have wasted our time, while the first suggests we have built something we can share with life and others.
Perhaps especially around their thirties, people can sigh, “What am I doing with my life?” An easy answer to this question (which feels like an answer) is starting a career that incurs status and a good paycheck, which almost suggests that Capitalism might want us to ask, “What am I doing with my life?” — for this primes us to participate in the system. But this is a mistake, for it can suggests that only “having a career” is doing something, and second it can suggests that we haven’t really “done anything” with our life until employment. “What am I doing with my life?” might make me sound clueless. And if I’m a fool, who am I to think I shouldn’t start a career that incorporates me into Capitalism? (I should sign up tomorrow…)
Anyway, we might be setting ourselves up to be miserable if we wonder, “What am I doing with my life?” — the inquiry implies that we are yet to do anything, as if our life is yet to start. Have we just been zombies for the last two decades? That is how we can be lead to feel, and it is certainly possible that we haven’t used our time as well as we could have (though that might depend on what we do today, for though the facts of the past can’t be changed, the meaning of the past can always be changed by what we do today). But “not being optimal” isn’t the same as “doing nothing,” and yet the popular question regarding “what are we doing” suggests a lack of any substance whatsoever. Sure, asked directly, people know this isn’t what the inquiry means, but subconsciously this is how the question can dwell in us. And since perhaps everyone feels like they aren’t living up to what they could be living up to (which perhaps can always be the case, seeing as actuality is always limited compared to possibility), then this might mean that everyone feels like they are “doing nothing” (no wonder people feel so depressed and hopeless…).
I
We have all lived lives that no one else has lived, and we are all unique gatherings of experiences that can be found so gathered anywhere else in the universe. We are a point which no other point will be like. No, it doesn’t follow that if we are special as such that we are thus valuable as such, but it should be noted that we all start with a kind of monopoly, a certain “one-of-one”-ness — the question is only, “What will I do with myself?” (a better dwelling-question). We all have lives and “selves,” and every moment we are acting and doing. When we ask, “What am I doing with my life” we are doing something with our life. Time is now. We all will do something with our lives, and yet the question (“What am I doing with my life?”) suggests it’s possible not to do something with a life. We are, and we are doing: the question is rather where are we taking it?
Regarding life, I would say that three categories we must take seriously due to the socioeconomic system are Money, Time, and Health. If we have time and health but no money, that can be a problem, but if we have money and time but no health, that’s a problem too. We must do well in all three, and I would consider say that learning how to “be wise” is an example of “learning how to use time well” and learning how to be “mentally healthy”; I would say learning “financial literacy” is learning how to not be in debt and have control of our time; and so on. I could go further through how I think things which matter to me fall under at least one of these categories, but my point here is only to draw attention to the fact there isn’t “just one area” in life that we have to do well in (say “making money to pay bills,” as can be the impression of the Capitalist system). If we sacrifice our time and health for money, according to a metric where money is the only metric, then we will be very successful as we lose control of our health and our time. However, I think “life itself” is a thing in which all three are needed, and thus we fail “the metric of life” if we only succeed in terms of money. But if we’re following and exceeding according to a metric where only money matters, then by all “rational inspection” we are thriving — which suggests the importance of the right metric (we can “succeed” as we die).
I would say that it’s easy to get the impression from life that there is a single entity we need to do well in, say a career, and that we can determine if we are “doing something with our life” if we succeed in that metric (we are naturally prone to “monometrics” as we are prone to “monotheories,” as discussed in “Monotheorism” by O.G. Rose). Metrics are destiny, so if we choose the wrong metric, we will end up in the wrong destiny. This is why we need the right metric, one in which Health, Time, and Money are considered as valuable. And I’m of the opinion that it is easier to fall into asking, “What am I doing with my life?” when we only live according to one metric, for it is easier to miss one metric. But if there are three prime metrics, then we have a better chance of hitting one of them and thus feeling like “we’re doing something with our life.” Furthermore, three metrics is far more dynamic and must be thought of as interplaying in more complex ways, thus following three metrics it becomes easier to think in terms of “Where am I taking my life?” — the better question.
II
One of the reasons a lot of young people may not be “thriving” according to the metric of Money is because they have spent a lot of time thriving in the areas of Health and Time, say in learning how to be “full human beings” or explore more creative and entrepreneurial endeavors (they focus on “Unplanned Thinking” vs “Preplanned Thinking,” as I’ll often discuss regarding Ivan Illich). None of that is easy, and they have indeed been “doing something with their lives,” but not according to “an exclusive metric of money.” According to that metric, which please note favors older generations (the older one is the more likely they have wealth), the young have “done nothing with their live,” and so if the young ascribe to that metric exclusively, they will likely “have to” reflect on themselves as “wasting their time.” This can lead to hopelessness and even depression, a feeling which can drive the young into who knows what.
None of this means Capitalism is necessarily bad, but it does mean “a single metric” likely is, and if money alone is a sign of good choices and success, then our world will be one full of money at the expense of time and health. (Please note that no one is likely to say direction that “only money matters,” but practically that is how people can live.) Money matters, and Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty, so I don’t mean to claim otherwise. However, it does seem to conflate the question of “How do I make money?” with “What am I doing with my life?” We are made to feel that we can determine if we are using our time well based on if we have a career, which I should note doesn’t mean we are just making money, but doing something that others understand as us using our time well. That’s paramount: if we are doing something that others struggle to “get,” it feels like we are “wasting our life.” And Capitalism provides a sense of “comprehensibility,” for ourselves and others, which in turn makes us feel like we are “really doing something” (when perhaps we are only excelling according to a single metric).
It is one thing for us as individuals to not assess our lives according to a single metric, but if everyone around us makes “the mistake of a single metric,” then it becomes remarkably difficulty to not live like everyone else. When we make money (for example), people understand what we are doing and value it, but when we are focused on “quality time” and “health,” they may look at us and say nothing. This means living according to multiple metrics requires us to face existential anxiety, the very feeling of which can be interpreted that we shouldn’t live according to multiple metrics. In this way, we must fight anxiety and accept “incomprehensibility” to live (as Deleuze understood).
Furthermore, it is easy to blur “comprehensible” with “doing something,” and yet often the most valuable and unique things are things which aren’t “comprehensible” (as Ivan Illich understood). Thus, if “comprehensible” and “valuable” are conflated, we are likely to live in non-creative world in which “the same” repeats. We will be understood by others, but what value will there be in acceptance?
III
Dr. Todd McGowan, along with Žižek, discuss how it is mistaken to believe that Hegel sees no possibility of improvement or change thanks to philosophy. It is famously quoted how “the owl flies at dusk,” suggesting that philosophy always begins too late, and though there isn’t entirely wrong, Dr. McGowan at telosbound noted that for Hegel we change the future by changing how we interpret the past, not by planning the future. In this way, we can say Hegel sees philosophy as in the role of “vision” over “planning,” and basically is saying that we should not ask, “What should I do with my life?” but instead ask “Where will I take my life?” The second question requires us to “interpret” what our life is and means, while the first suggests we need to put together a plan and “make our life.” Hegel is in the business of vision, and he taught that we change our lives by changing how we see them. How we see our life determines what we bring into the future and what we are capable of doing in the future. Interpretation is practical, and in fact it is more practical than plans. Plans do not ask where we are, only where we are going, and it is impractical to think we can reach a place if we don’t know where we start.
If we believe that money is the main metric for determining success in life, then we interpret life according to that metric and practice accordingly. If we think money, health, and time are all valid and equally important, then we likewise interpret life according to if we are meeting these metrics well, and so practice and live our lives accordingly. Hegel’s point is that if we have the wrong metrics, then we will interpret the success or fail of our lives according to that metric, and if this is a bad or incomplete metric, that means it is possible for us to interpret ourselves as successful when we are failing or lacking in areas of importance. Furthermore, changing our metrics will change how we interpret ourselves and our lives, and this will change what sort of life we think we must “bring into the future.” Thus, for Hegel, there is hardly anything more radical than changing how we interpret ourselves and our worlds. Interpreting the past is how you change the future; planning for the future can be how we fail to live it fully.
The world never tells us in our experience of it that it is constructed out of quantums, composed of many dimensions, and that it is not fully described by traditional Physics: we ourselves must arrive at these understandings and then choose to believe them and/or decide on their implications. In this way, the notions of “The Absolute Choice” are ready apparent for all: to live is to live deciding what it all means. Interpretation is action and in which action occurs. Similarly, we must decide our metrics (our hermeneutics), and if we choose to live in a world where money is the main metric, this will be the case, and we will “bring unto ourselves” a world where this only continues to be the case. If we decide though that time, money, and health all matter, then we interpret the world in a manner that makes this thus. Metrics are always hermeneutically consequential, and thus our metrics shape how we interpret our lives. Choose well.
Metrics are means of interpretation, and so failure to see life in terms of the right metric is to fail to interpret and understand ourselves in light of life versus our ideas of life. We are social creatures, and thus can often deal with money; we are all in bodies, thus deal with health; we are all in spacetime, thus deal with time. These are realities, and if we do not take them seriously, we cannot interpret ourselves rightly. Thus, we should ask, “Where will I take my life?” and ask what constitutes it instead of “What will I do with my life?” for life is not primarily planned but interpreted and envisioned. We waste our life not by failing to plan for the future but by not interpreting and skillfully improvising the future into life.
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