I’ve come to see that if you don't do real things in life, you start becoming crazy and start worrying about petty bullshit, gossiping about other people's lives instead of paying attention to your own, etc.
That's why remembering your eventual death is so important: it cuts through all the bullshit in life and allows you to focus on what matters.
Real things must be contrasted with dealing with inner complication, i.e. bureaucracy, i.e. bullshit work. Painting a portrait is real, working on a powerpoint presentation for your office job is bureaucratic. Building a house and maintaining it are real, signing paperwork is bureaucratic. Cooking food is real, taking care of your health is real, spending time with a loved one is real.
Then you have activities that are bordering on both. For instance, driving a car is in many ways real, but it's also incredibly unreal because of much it tends to promote dissociation, how it reinforces your place in life as an incredibly dependent consumer who is totally helpless when it comes to providing for your own needs.
So I guess the more important distinction has to do with agency. Working on things that matter to you - as opposed to obeying orders from someone else on what you should do - and approaching them in a way as to directly impact the world, in a way that is felt and not just abstracted.
It's sort of crazy that we have to talk about the importance of doing real things, yet it's incredibly clear to me that it is a rare thing for someone to arrange their life around. Because work has never been bullshit than in our times. Speaking of which.
Go back to the list of blog posts
2024-04-13