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It is a little scary to realize that your life/story may not be uniquely valued by many many people (although it's far to early to conclude that for certain). But that doesn't at all mean that you can't live a life that's valuable to you and be uniquely valued by people you value too.

"There’s this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what’s immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what’s right around them is unimportant. And that’s why they’re lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you’re just a kind of an object. You don’t count. You’re not what they’re looking for. You’re not on TV [haven't founded a startup/haven't built a famous app/changed the world].

But in the secondary America we’ve been through, of back roads, and Chinaman’s ditches, and Appaloosa horses, and sweeping mountain ranges, and meditative thoughts, and kids with pinecones and bumblebees and open sky above us mile after mile after mile, all through that, what was real, what was around us dominated. And so there wasn’t much feeling of loneliness." - Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_




What a beautiful quote, thank you for sharing it. I recently got the book, but hadn't the time to read it yet. Your comment is a deal breaker!




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