Professional poker player. Love learning and improving. Intrested in game theory and psycology. My biggest passion is parkour wich I´ve practised since 2007.
Oliver
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Meaning

First I want to say that Ikigai is my favorite book all categories. I love your ambition.

In the book you´re talkning about how happiness not is your goal, how you´re trying to act as if you emotions didn´t matter and come up with your meaning in your life in a rational way. "Im on Team Human. I want to see our species thrive and grow".

If emotions didn´t exist, why does it matter for human species to survive and expand? What makes growth of humanity more important than other species? What makes something positive or negative without emotions? 

You think that happiness is a bad goal because it´s only serotonine and dopamine in the brain. What makes living beings with the name "human" on different objects called "planets" flying around in space a good goal?

Not saying you´re right or wrong, just want to hear your thoughts. Some people say that soccer only is a bunch of people running around and kicking on a ball. Any activity can be intresting or nonsense depending on how it´s looked upon. Maybe it´s the same with goals.

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Sweden. Startups. Lifestyle design. Philosophy. Self-improvement.
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It could be argued that evolution is the will of the Cosmos. Aligning yourself with evolution is thus a way to act as an agent of everything. But I think that kind of thing has to be grokked, not just spoken and thought.


(I'm not claiming to grok it myself yet.)

I face things that scare me.
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I'm not Sebastian, but like any upstanding introspective member of postmodern society, I've put some thought into creating a coherent personal/universal philosophy for why I should get out of my comfortable-as-fuck bed each morning.

I've decided that while emotions shouldn't rule my decisions and I should make a best-faith effort to act rationally and morally, emotions will incent me to behave a certain way. Basically, I try to ignore my id entirely in the short term to reap the greatest long term benefits. Put another way, I prioritize life-satisfaction over pleasure. So I'll work hard all day instead of playing Dustforce, so that I can achieve as many of my goals as possible.

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How do you determine which values to live by?

Hi Sebastian,

Found your blog a while ago via HN; you seem like someone who has either though these questions through carefully, or would like to.

You mention "good" a lot in your writing, and allude to values which you ostensibly find good. How do you determine which values are the ones to live your life by, and having determined them, at least in part, are they set for life? If not, does changing them devalue them?

Unless you base your values on those of some specific culture or society, you are picking and choosing anyway. Why not just become a complete hedonist? Even if you delay gratification, you are still a hedonist if what you do is for yourself. And if not for yourself, for whom?

Staying consistent and meaningful in any sort of value system other than hedonism seems impossible. The sole value you might take could be happiness–"whatever makes me happy is good"–and the only problems you might have would be balancing short-term satisfaction and long-term satisfaction. That is unsatisfying to me from a philosophical angle, and a pragmatic one: because it's not how society likes us to think, it is harder to get along with the rest of the tribe.

My Definitive "Meaning Over Happiness" Post

Mike Radivis just asked asked some good questions on "Chase Meaning, Not Happiness" -

How do you measure meaning if not in terms of happiness? Aren't things that create more happiness for a longer time for a larger number of individuals better than those things who lack those qualities but are proclaimed to be personal achievements anyway? Does the scope of happiness make happiness meaningful to you or not? What are achievements good for if they aren't good at facilitating happiness? Imagine you wouldn't experience any pleasant or unpleasant emotions and would have to decide rationally what to pursue (assuming that is possible at all). Then what you want to do with your life? (Another way to formulate this question maybe would be to ask what's your grand strategy in that situation.)

I'm quite interested in your answers. I like that your blog posts are so outspoken. It's just that the message of this post is hard for me to grasp, as I'm pretty much utilitarian in my thinking.

Good questions. I'll go through it line by line.

How do you measure meaning if not in terms of happiness?

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