
The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything - adambyrtek
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/19/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything?sc=tw&cc=share
======
grellas
I truly believe nearly everyone realizes that it is impossible to experience
all or nearly all of what is important to cultivate in one lifetime.

Beyond that, perception tends to be affected by one's age. When I was young
(e.g., in my 20s), all the possibilities of the world seemed open to me and it
was just going to be a question of what I would do first - I put everything
else into the category "I'll get to that when I have time." I had done a lot
to develop my talents and knowledge base, and in a range of areas to boot. But
my reading of the "great works" trailed off following college. Time was too
limited to get to most of them. But, some day, yes, I would do so. I had never
learned to play an instrument. But, when I had time, I would learn piano. I
had limited time to do non-business travel, but some day I would make it up.

Of course, "some day" one day comes and you quickly realize that many
unrealized hopes and dreams would never in fact be realized. And that includes
becoming cultivated in a range of areas. When this fact first strikes you, it
truly is depressing. For me, it was the first time in my life that I started
to feel "old" (feeling old is not so much chronological as it is a state of
mind). You become overwhelmed with the fact that you will never keep up with
all the new trends and you will never have the time to fill all the holes in
your knowledge base or to do all the things you dreamed of doing.

In time, though, I came to make peace with this sense of restlessness. Life is
too short to do everything but life is more than ample enough to do important
things, things that count beyond the mundane routines of daily existence. This
life is but a breath or, as my 100-year-old grandmother said shortly before
she passed on, everything that she had experienced to that point was "but a
blink." When you can get to that stage and say, "no regrets" for a life well-
led, you can have peace with your finite capacities and your finite existence
in this world. There is much that is beautiful to do in this life. You don't
need to do it all. You just need to do it well.

~~~
hopeless
I'm not one of those manic people with boundless energy. I was happy to put
things off til another day. There was always more time to get around to
doing/seeing/reading/watching/visiting whatever.

But after a car accident 3years ago I realised that there isn't necessarily a
tomorrow. I look at a beautiful sunset today and accept that I might not see
tomorrow's. And if I do, it won't be _exactly_ the same. I look at today's and
appreciate it, cherish it.

Some people see this acceptance of the possibility of death as a negative
thing. It is not. It drives me to make today count, knowing that I can never
get around to doing everything, but that what I do should matter to me. You
will not die with _no_ regrets but you should be able to minimise them. And it
isn't all about work, production or consumption -- often what I really want to
be doing is lying on the grass, watching the clouds drift past, as the kids
run around the garden jumping on me.

I found Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" to be hugely
inspiring: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning>

~~~
Kisil
I would vastly prefer not to die at all, and science is moving us in that
direction.

That said, I don't think death is necessary as a motivator to "make today
count." Today is a motivator to make today count. The living is the thing.
Every attempt I've heard to bring extrinsic meaning to life falls flat on
inspection. You have to chase what moves you, and that doesn't change as a
function of expected lifespan. At least, not much.

~~~
hopeless
Live forever? No, I wouldn't like that at all.

In many ways I think we prolong life without consideration for preserving the
quality of life. Losing my mobility or my eyesight (both of which happened to
my grandparents) would be a huge problem for me.

And perhaps some people can find that motivation for living for today but in
my experience most people can't. Even those close to me have not had the same
reaction to my car accident... it is not enough for someone to tell you or
show you how short life can be, you need to experience it.

------
Umalu
When I turned 40 I figured my odds of living another 40 years were pretty
good. I then figured that if I continued to read one book a week (my average)
for the rest of my life, I would read another 2,080 books. That sounds like a
lot but really it isn't, especially when one considers how many great books
there are out there that one hasn't read. Many more than 2,080! So now when I
consider reading another book I ask myself if it looks good enough to be one
of my 2,080. Many books do not make that cut. I think it's been a good filter
and I expect as I grow older, and I have fewer and fewer books looks left to
read, I will get even more selective in what I read.

~~~
breck
I used to try and read many great books. As I got older I started reading
fewer great books, many times.

I think nowadays each year I read about 50% new books, and 50% books I've read
before. I think you get more out of reading that way.

~~~
jacques_chester

        We shall not cease from exploration
        And the end of all our exploring
        Will be to arrive where we started
        And know the place for the first time.

------
pstack
I'm not much for repeating content. That's why I don't like to buy DVDs or
build a collection of things. Music is an exception, but as far as film and
books -- I have zero interest in experiencing the exact same content
repeatedly. I could not consume all the wonderful content in ten life times,
so I'm not going to short myself something that I have yet to enjoy, because I
have to read a book the fourth time or see a movie the tenth time.

My first thought in response to this actually deviated from the intention of
the topic. You see, I am constantly amazed at humanity. For all the stupidity
and evil, we have a capacity for overwhelming kindness, compassion, ambition,
and ingenuity.

Few days ever go by that I don't see something that makes me have a moment of
extreme pride in this species (and I wonder if other species from other
planets out there in the great beyond would share any of the same
appreciation).

Anyway, those thoughts are usually followed directly by the realization that
life is so painfully short. _Too_ brief. No matter what fantastic
accomplishments I witness in my few remaining decades on this blue ball, I
will miss out on everything that comes after. I probably won't be alive when
we discover other life in the universe. When we accomplish teleportation and
long distance space travel. When we have kick ass robots that we can have
conversations with. When we do everything that nobody can even conceive of,
today.

I wonder, would anyone take up the offer if it was given, to be in some sort
of stasis that allowed you to awake for one year every hundred years? You'd
miss out on all relationships and so much life, but you'd also experience a
year of life every century, well into the 31st century (and probably beyond,
if medical science could extend your life another forty years at some point,
there).

I'm tempted. I can't say I'd do it with absolute certainty, but I would have
to think very long and hard about the chance for such a prolonged journey.
Plus, I bet girls in 3011 are total sluts.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
If you can make it for a couple more decades, you almost certainly will live
long enough to witness a computer/robot passing the turing test.

~~~
pstack
I don't know that I will be impressed when that happens. Something tricking
you into believing it is sentient is interesting, but inevitable. I want to
live long enough that my toaster is an emotional roller-coaster.

------
gwern
The overwhelming amount of material has a number of implications; when I
realized just _how much_ stuff was out there, it occurred to me that this
implied a lot of things about people's true esthetic preferences and the
justifications for intellectual property. Ironically, I then wrote a long
essay on it:
[http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20esthetics....](http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20esthetics.html)

(I include a number of statistics on how much stuff, exactly. Skip down to
[http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20esthetics....](http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20esthetics.html#media-
shock) where the numbers go into the billions.)

------
jonnathanson
Certainly one way of looking at my time on Earth is to ask what I've consumed
and what I haven't. What I've read and what I haven't. What I've seen and what
I havent.

In some ways, the more motivating question for me is: what have I _produced_?
If time is an input, what is my output? I would hope that I'm converting time
as efficiently as possible into great output, though I know that's often not
the case. But framing my life in this way -- as the processing of time into
_something_ tangible -- keeps me focused, energized, and productive.

~~~
pstack
I spent most of my life being concerned with leaving some sort of
immortalizing legacy behind. Some great work or impact on the world that would
never be forgotten.

Then I came to the conclusion that I'm a tiny life on a tiny planet in the arm
of a huge galaxy in an infinite universe. That the entire planet - to the
universe - is no more than a speck of sand is to the entire Earth. That on
this planet, celebrities and accomplished scientists and creators will almost
all be forgotten in decades; certainly a hundred years. A few will last beyond
that. As the span of time grows, only a few names -- maybe Hitler, George
Washington, Ramses -- will live on for hundreds of more years. Even thousands.
And I'm certainly never going to amount to anything like those guys.

And, when it comes down to it, all of human history has occurred on this tiny
blue speck. Even the most monumental achievements and persons won't matter to
anyone outside the planet and almost none will matter even to those of our own
species who might continue on (assuming we aren't obliterated by some
catastrophe and have spread out into the universe).

So, I'm able to recognize that anything I accomplish will only have temporary
meaning and that the both the most awesome and hideous legacies of all time
will grow to mean nothing. So . . . why worry about my trivial actions? I'm
like a bacteria on a counter waiting to be sprayed with Lysol.

And no, that doesn't bum me out.

~~~
acangiano
How has this new perspective affected the choices you make in life?

~~~
pstack
The realization itself came to me when I was listening to Carl Sagan read from
_Pale Blue Dot_. For an unseemingly long minute, it took the breath out of my
body and when I finally drew it in again, the near obsessive voraciousness
with which I attacked certain things (often to the detriment of my own well-
being, in favor of some demented work-ethic) suddenly lifted. Just a bit at
first. But enough.

The most dramatic impact is that I stopped letting a project I started in 1997
(when I was 20) continue to suck me dry, like a vampire. I ran it far after
I'd entirely lost interest in it. Partially because I felt it was my one
meaningful contribution to _anything_ , so far. I started it in 1997 and did
every piece of work involved in it from building the servers to writing all of
the backend code and front-end presentation and dealing with users (it was an
auction site with a niche sub-culture twist and a screw-eBay and their fees
selling point). When you invest that much time (many thousands of hours) and
money and emotion into a project, you feel an obligation to maintain it. When
you know there are tens of thousands of regular users (100k, at the peak)
depending on it for socializing and even their income in some cases, you feel
obligated. And, like with bad relationships, the familiarity and all of that
invested time obligates you.

For me, it got to the point where I wouldn't read my email anymore. I wouldn't
post in my own forums. I wouldn't even visit my own site for months at a time.
I would rely on a script to ensure the site was up and responding, because
even just seeing the front page load filled me with anxiety and a degree of
loathing. I ran this for twelve years. The last six of them almost entirely
out of some misguided sense that I owed it to people. Or that I owed it to
myself (that ceasing it would somehow waste all of my personal investment in
it).

One day, I decided that was it. I had to cut the cord with the project and the
community and everything that it ever meant. I published a grateful thank you
and goodbye (sans the details about how I had come to loath everything about
it) with a notice that I would terminate it in three months. And on that date,
I simply pulled the plug.

I still have a workaholic mentality, where work is concerned. But at least my
every waking moment outside of work isn't spent dealing with users or
mediating conflicts between them or fixing bugs or feeling that I had to get
around to re-writing the entire code-base all over again. Or feeling that I
needed to respond to all the requests over the years for me to "sell my code"
to people by actually polishing it up and making it a product (I didn't).
Instead, I can read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, play a videogame,
or even just take a long nap. All things I rarely ever did the previous dozen
years.

Further, while I spent those dozen years essentially feeding that monster with
every ounce of leftover energy and not having the mental bandwidth left over
to ponder future ideas and ventures, I now have some free space and time that
allows me to pursue something new. I don't have anything yet. I never really
was a huge "idea" guy (that project was my only shining moment of brilliance,
to be honest). But, now, I _can_.

You can find the specific segment I refer to from _Pale Blue Dot_ , here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M>

And you can find the text, here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sagan)

~~~
donofrip
Thank you for sharing the passage. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of the
line "the earth is where we make our stand"--really dynamite stuff.

The notion of an individual immortalizing legacy is a very western notion. One
only needs to look at some of the great cornerstones of western literature to
see this, specifically The Aeneid and The Iliad both speak of glory and
historical remembrance. You don't see this as frequently in eastern culture.
Ancestry is important, but ancestry is less about individual immortality as it
is about continuing the family lineage--something that is much larger and more
important than the individual.

When my studies in philosophy shifted from a western focus and began to
incorporate eastern thought, I had a very similar experience. I realized that
my existence was insignificant in the grand scheme of things--something I had
really known before but perhaps never fully accepted. This is a powerful
thought because from this we can deconstruct our entire society and existence.
Some of my favorite western literature is from the existentialists. When you
begin to go down this road, however, you can come rather close to madness, as
many of the existentialists did. Rules of man and nature can be questioned and
dismissed as irrelevant. Life can become meaningless.

Oddly enough I seek out my favorite existential texts when I too am in a dark
place and feeling the solitude that a conscious and reflective life most
certainly brings from time to time. I find solace in the fact that others felt
this despondence and through pages and time the authors reach out with
empathy. That is what art gives us--a medium through which we can bridge the
solitude of existence and touch another being. That feeling reminds me that
the connection between beings is what life is about (at least for me)--a
moment of escape from our corporal prisons and a brief return the the
continuity of the universe. This I believe is fundamental to the human
experience, even if I don't understand the meaning of life.

I think I tend to be more of an absurdist than anything else. Interesting for
those interested: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism>.

Regardless, I believe one cannot go wrong in defaulting to this simple, folksy
wisdom of one of the great thinkers of our time: Whatever you do will be
insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mohandas Karamchand
Ghandi

~~~
dan00
"I think I tend to be more of an absurdist than anything else. Interesting for
those interested: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism.>

Thanks, nice find. I always thought I'm an existentialist, but no, I'm an
absurdist.

------
godDLL
I'm only 27 years old, but it is my firm conviction that 99% of stuff out
there is utter shit. Not just mediocre, not just unnecessary, but genuine
bollocks.

And I think that's fine. It's important we try new things before we completely
understand them.

My adrenalin levels are way up though, as I'm typing this. It sure doesn't
_feel_ fine.

~~~
bluekeybox
Worse than bollocks. 99% of stuff out there (even literature) is someone
trying to sell you something. Propaganda, in short.

------
JSig
While reading this, I kept thinking of the excellent Twilight Zone episode
"Time Enough at Last."

In it, The book loving protagonist survives the "end of the world" and, after
being all alone, is ready to kill himself. But once he stumbles upon the
library, he realizes he has the rest of his life to read whatever he wants. Of
course, things don't go as planned.

~~~
pstack
That episode always haunts me and it raised some other thoughts.

If you were the last person on the planet, would you still read and listen to
music? I mean, without being a member of a species and a society that
contextualizes you, does music even _mean_ anything to you anymore? Do
stories? If you're exiled on an island somewhere, you know that humanity
continues to hum along past your horizon, even if you're stranded from it. But
once it's eradicated - along with the whole ambition and possibilities of it -
do created works hold anything for the one remaining survivor?

~~~
norswap
Probably reading, watching movies and listening to music would be in your best
interest, as it would simulate some kind of dialog with a human being, maybe
it would prevent you from losing your mind.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And that matters why?

------
martinkallstrom
I thought this would be about the fact that all of us will miss the next
thousand and million years and everything that will happen on earth during
that time.

I'm not at all as sad over missing most of contemporary culture as I am over
missing what will happen beyond my life span. The technological marvels, the
scientific advances, the development of new ways of looking at what life
really means. The advent of new forms of life, perhaps alien or artificial,
which is so unlikely to happen during the flash of time I get to spend here.

In this perspective the article came across as very unimaginative and dull,
but I suppose that's only me.

------
jswinghammer
What's more sad I suppose is that what a few people have decided to be worth
reading is probably just a subset of what's actually great out there to
discover. I read a lot of classic literature and philosophy not working
through any list but rather trying to be less ignorant than I was yesterday.

I routinely go back to re-read things I've read before though. That's really
what defines what books I got something out of reading. I'm probably never
going to read Plato again if I have a choice in the matter but I'm currently
returning to Cicero and then reading Augustine of Hippo whose major works I
read years ago. I've also read the Bible more times than I could count.

Thankfully there aren't too many new computer books worth reading or I'd never
get around to reading these old books.

------
heliodor
Good points in the link. The only thing I'd like to point out is that the
author starts with the assumption that BOOKS are what we WANT to read. Just
because they've been the norm, does not make them the best method of knowledge
transfer. I'd argue that 90% of each book is fluff. Back in the day, Charles
Dickens and Co. were getting paid by the page, hence why all the classics are
lengthy. Add to that the fact that school essays come with size requirements
(a poor way of making people iterate on their thoughts), and we have a system
where size is king. We've gotten used to a book being 100 pages or more, but
knowledge can be transferred a lot more efficiently. Hacker News is one
example of a better method, which really brings us to the following
(incomplete) list of more concise writing methods:

\- Cliff Notes

\- Pamphlets

\- Blogs

Some people see reading as a leisure activity. I see it purely as a knowledge
transfer method, hence I prefer it to be concise and to the point. The only
argument I can think of in favor or lengthy books is that by spending more
time on the material, it sinks into your head better.

~~~
zipdog
Agreed, for many books. I'd also add the book digests (especially for
Management books), and then diagrams and charts, which can convey so much
more.

But on top of that, I think the framework/lens you have when you're reading
makes a big difference too. Biggest advantage of a Cliff Notes-style is to add
an opening paragraph saying: this author was writing in a time of social
change X or common belief Y, and most of this book addresses their concerns
related to that (many of which were unfounded).. or something.

On your last point: I think reading as leisure is a wholly worthwhile pursuit
in its own right - tacitly feeling the experience of the world through another
perspective - though I'm not sure I'd need to read more than a book a month
for this

~~~
heliodor
It would be great if each book came with a hierarchy of summaries. A 1000-page
book would have a 100 page summary, a 10 page summary, a 1 page summary, and a
single paragraph summary. Whatever the right factor is: 3, 5, 8, or 10. If you
like any given part, you can go down that branch and read the details.

------
mmcconnell1618
I realized long ago that the rate of change in technology makes it impossible
to have a significant knowledge of something as varied as computer science.
There are so many avenues to explore from electrical engineering to
manufacturing to compiler design, languages, HTML, UX, design and color theory
and that's just the surface. It is sad that one person can not possibly have
the time to experience all aspects of their craft but it means that
specialists become unique and important players.

~~~
hartror
Which is why it is an important ability being able to find, understand and
implement stored knowledge. I mean "ability" in that it is both a human
learned ability and an ability of our tools.

Books did this for a long time. Printing improved books by distributing the
data cheaply and widely.

But humans also used books as tools to create more and more data. So pretty
quickly the data grew to the point where everyone has the data but you cannot
see the forest for the trees.

So now the killer app for knowledge is no longer distribution of the data but
contextual searching of data.

------
coop11
For better and for worse, the tools that have come along with the information
revolution foster what seems to be a much broader, yet more shallow
perspective.

For example, lets consider the fact that it takes .19 seconds to find
someone's personal distillation of Darwin's Origin of Species. I can now get a
summary of one of the great scientific discoveries in less than 1000
characters and be back to reading Facebook updates without blinking an eye.

I didn't read a single word from the original work. I never touched on the
years of toil, thought and research that become obvious only after you hear it
in Darwin's words. To draw a relevant analogy, its like we are adding layers
of abstraction to information. Wikipedia is just the high-level, interpreted
view that hides all the nitty gritty details we don't need to worry about
anymore. So how often will we need to dive into the inner-workings in the
future?

The question becomes is this satisfying? Is it "good enough" to just read the
cliff notes? I hate to say it but I think yes. We will end up with an
increasing number of "instant experts" who know a little about a lot. And the
craftsman - the true specialists - will probably just fade away with the rest
of the irrelevant details.

~~~
dman
Recent developments allow for efficient consumption of small replicas of big
ideas. However if youre seeing life through these summaries and replicas then
I think youre losing the work ethic required to create the big ideas.

------
te_chris
Reminds me of Umberto Eco's response when asked why he kept such a vast
library and how many had he read: He responded (paraphrasing) that "the key
wasn't how much I've read, but how much I've yet to read and learn".

As far as I'm concerned abundance is great because there's just so much to
learn and be surprised by in the world!

------
davidrupp
This is _exactly_ what I've been thinking recently about computer science /
programming. There's just so _much_ to read / learn / practice / improve. Nice
to have it put in perspective. Gotta learn to surrender more.

------
bambax
> _Let's do you another favor: Let's further assume you limit yourself to
> books from the last, say, 250 years. Nothing before 1761._

That's the wrong way to go!! Start with Aristotle, rather, and read only books
that have stood the test of time. What would be the point of reading every
Kindle "space opera" priced at $0.99?

If you read all of Plutarch, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Cervantès, you're
fine, really.

~~~
xyzzyz
I read some books of them and did not like them. I am not so much into reading
great books as I am into reading books I like. Wasting many hours of my
precious time reading books I do not enjoy only to feel smug does not sound
like a particularly good idea for me.

~~~
bambax
The authors I mentioned are thoroughly enjoyable, they're not Kant or Hegel...

Also, in order to know whether you like something or not you have to
experience it. You may not like reading (as opposed to watching movies for
example), but if you do enjoy reading you cannot not like Plutarch for
example?

~~~
xyzzyz
The thing is, _you_ may enjoy it, but _I_ not so much. I read Shakespeare and
Montaigne and they had not impress me as much as some recent hard s-f did. I
_really_ like reading books and I _see_ that Dostojewski's, or Hemingway's, or
Kafka's etc books are _really good_ , because I have read enough books in my
life to be able to distinguish good writers from bad ones to a certain degree,
nevertheless reading their books does not give me as much pleasure as reading
hard s-f sometimes does, and this is the reason I read books at all -- to feel
good. Some people may (and surely do) take pleasure in deconstructing
classical writers to pieces, or learning from them what was the zeitgeist back
then, or finding hidden senses, but all these things are not for me. That's
why I don't think that "you should read authors XXX and YYY, because it is
good for the development of your literary taste" is a wise thing to say -- it
surely may be, but this may not be the point of reading.

~~~
bambax
> _"you should read authors XXX and YYY, because it is good for the
> development of your literary taste"_

I'm not sure "literary taste" matters much (except for certain professions:
(English) teachers and writers mainly), but you yourself seem to be quite
happy to have developed one: _I have read enough books in my life to be able
to distinguish good writers from bad ones_.

But I don't agree that the point of reading is to "feel good".

There are many ways to "feel good" and if I had to list them, I'm not sure
reading would make the top ten — I'm positive it wouldn't make the top five.

To me, the point of reading is to learn something: either something about the
world or something about human nature.

Therefore, a good book is a book that contains _new_, genuine information; and
that's why I think that starting with the classics is a good idea. "Classics"
are where new information was first created, and that's why they became
classics.

------
gambler
I think I read a lot. I also keep a list of the books I think everyone should
read. That list includes around 20 titles right now. Twenty out of much, much
greater number. Moreover, it seems that the rate at which new books are added
to the list is slowing down.

The article is a typical NPR piece in that the unproven, unexplained
assumptions that the author makes in the process of writing are by several
orders of magnitude more significant than the thesis of the text. The thesis
seems to be "there are lots of books, and you won't read them all". The
assumption is that all books have equal value.

Frankly, if someone believes that any book has equal value to any other book,
I wouldn't much care about that person's take on literature. To me, it's akin
to listening to a "mathematician" who says that all proofs are valid.

My point is, the number of books that I would really miss reading is very
finite and manageable. My problem isn't in reading them all, but in finding
them all amidst the ever increasing amounts of garbage.

~~~
robertk
The obvious question: what is your list?

~~~
fagiano
In "Genius" Harold Bloom lists 100 authors. I trust his judgement more than
mine so I'm slowly working my way through his choices.

------
aforty
I'm going to sound really illiterate but who reads two books a week? I read a
ton, as most programmers do but I read perhaps one or two [fictional] books
PER YEAR.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
You may want to reconsider when you read. When reading non-fiction, I find
reading for just enough time to get a clear idea of a concept that is being
described to me allows for better integration and aha! moments during the day.
So, I find it beneficial to read them when my life is busy.

The fiction books seem to be needed, for me, to not exhaust myself on non-
fiction. The best time for me to read these is when I am less busy and have
down time.

~~~
aforty
I don't find myself exhausted by non-fiction and I also don't consider coding
text books/articles/tutorials/documentation to be "books". When I say books I
mean fictional texts. I find myself exhausted by fiction while I read, it
feels like such a waste of time to me to read something that holds little to
no value to me in the real world so it really needs to be an author that I
like, thus only one or two books a year. I know many people are going to
disagree with me but I just don't see the value.

------
scotty79
I don't miss so much all the things of today as all the things of tomorrow
that I will never see the glimpse of.

It saddens me whenever I think about this for a moment. Only hope is that
humanity achieves singularity before I die which is in my opinion not likely.

------
AngryParsley
Excellent article, although it seems to assume that the average quality of
content has stayed constant over time. I don't think that's the case. Take
music, for example. In the past, we were limited in the types of sounds we
could make. Nowadays, with the help of computers, musicians can create any
sound they can imagine. A similar thing has happened with television and
movies. Technology has allowed a wider range of content to be created. It's
also made it easier to create high-quality content.

~~~
brandall10
Interestingly enough, if you read The Beatles Anthology they make the case
that they were so good _because_ they had little else to do.

When we talk great composers, you might argue about Beethoven vs. Mozart vs.
Bach... but would you throw anyone from the last 100 years into the mix?

~~~
muhfuhkuh
"would you throw anyone from the last 100 years into the mix?"

Carl Orff, John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer.

For more individual achievements, Zack Hemsey for "Mind Heist" (aka the song
from Inception) and Clint Mansell for "Lux Aeterna" (aka the Requiem for a
Dream song).

~~~
autarch
_< doublecough>_Copland, Barber, Ned Rorem, James MacMillan, Britten, George
Crumb, Joseph Schwantner, John Adams, William Bolcom, John Corigliano,
Dominick Argento, Charles Ives, ...

There's a lot more to modern composition than film music and Carmina Burana.

------
csomar
When you think of it, the human spirit is a combination in the human brain.
That is, you can create a human inside a computer. You'll just need powerful
and may be crazy processing power. Now if we figure out a way to read the
human brain configuration and data, and then transfer it to another body (the
same body as the person) that you constructed it biologically, you can make
the same person alive again.

I'm dedicating my whole life in an attempt to live again.

~~~
yason
_the human spirit is a combination in the human brain_

Is it? How do you know?

~~~
csomar
A huge number of neurons interacting with each other giving you the ability to
see, sense, hear... With a network that loops and give you illusion of your
existence. The human spirit is just another human invention that was made to
explain the human existence. I don't find actually any clear definition to it.

~~~
Panoramix
Yes, but the actual _being human_ is the result of a long time of evolution of
the physical human body i.e., there are no indications you can recreate a
human mind without having a human body attached to it. This is in fact a tough
question in philosophy and cognitive neuroscience (see mind-body problem).

------
narrator
If you want to miss as little as possible, find the most advanced technical
material you can possibly find that interests you and read all the pre-
requisite material until you can read and fully understand it. That way, you
take the most direct path to at least having the tools to understand
everything that interests you.

------
jroid
<http://robertjhastings.net/>

The true joy of life is the trip, not the destination

------
gordonc
Oddly enough, the more I read the more I become convinced that this may
actually not be the case. Technology and our ability to effectively process
information is growing at an exponential rate – of course, so is the amount of
information.

But logically, there will be a point in the future where the output of
humanity in an hour will be greater than the sum total of all human knowledge
prior to 2012. Some fans of the Mayan calendar say this date is December 21st,
2012. Kurzweil says more like 2045. Really hard to say, IMO. But still, if we
have the power to create that kind of information then we'll have to be able
to take in a lot more, so I'm not too worried about missing everything. I'm
just concerned about the information pertinent to my health, career, and loved
ones, which is quite readily available thanks to sites like this.

~~~
billybob
"...there will be a point in the future where the output of humanity in an
hour will be greater than the sum total of all human knowledge prior to 2012"

How much of that output is celebrity gossip and tweets about coffee and
coverage of gadgets that will soon be forgotten?

I'd say much of the "increase" is just us putting into writing the kind of
daily chatter that ancient people didn't bother to write down. It just
increases the noise-to-signal ratio for future historians.

~~~
nickpinkston
Certainly you must be right that noise is increasing faster than signal, but
signal is still growing massively if you look at research being done, etc.

Also, not to be ignored, as stated, is our ability to find knowledge is making
the filtering process far better than before.

Sure, an ancient library didn't contain a lot of celebrity gossip, but good
luck finding what you need amongst the available works - sans anything but the
librarian's best remembrance of what a book contains and its value.

------
orblivion
Consider the alternative for a moment: You can read everything. So can
everybody else.

Sortof boring in the end, isn't it?

------
yason
I fully trust that I will bump into things, ideas and people relevant to my
life without explicitly sorting through nearly everything or filtering out the
crap.

I've found that it works well. It also converges: by not filtering out crap
I'm not in contact with crap and I see very little if any crap in my life. And
whenever I find a new thing, most of the time it truly is something wonderful
and comes up pretty much at the right moment when I'm most receptive to it.

I would feel very anxious if I kept thinking and worrying myself about what I
might be missing.

------
driekken
Great works (be they books, movies or art) should be treated the same way life
is: as one more step on your journey.

Overplanning will make your choices too selective, thus making you
knowledgeable in some areas and totally ignorant in others (most of them).

Underplanning will make your journey unfocused, conferring you some knowledge
on everything, but not much else.

So, I guess we should strive for a balance, but what this balance represents
is distinct for everyone.

------
Tycho
I think saying 'think of all the wonderful books I won't have time to read' is
a bit like saying 'think of all the great wine in the world I'll never get a
chance to drink!' It's something to enjoy in your liesure time, you don't need
to worry about consuming it exhaustively. The only sad thing would be if you
never had any liesure time at all (you missed all your opportunities to have
some).

~~~
fagiano
It's leisure I think.

------
BasDirks
Without exaggeration I can say that one line of Proust is worth more _to me_
than 99.9% of all books out there. I am all for being open to "different
experiences" (ie. reading outside the classical canon), but I have learned to
be picky.

Experience is not about quantity, it's about those magical moment when your
world expands in a violent flight, and about learning to love the world in new
ways.

------
becomevocal
And to think I'm going to miss out on something I'll never know because I've
read something about missing so many things.

------
alecco
There's just too much out there. Try to make things that replicate
(subjective|probabilistic) good in the universe. Also this:

<http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/>

(It applies beyond academia, too)

------
bostonpete
_Nothing before 1761. This cuts out giant, enormous swaths of literature..._

I don't think it cuts out all that much. I would assume that the number of
books published before 1761 would be a tiny fraction of a percentage of all
books ever published.

------
JoeAltmaier
I've often wondered if we have "enough". Enough movies, enough books, enough
poetry. More than several lifetimes' worth.

Why not stop? Replay from, say, 1910, in an infinite loop. Nobody would
notice, and we could all get on with other things.

~~~
zacharypinter
I think Hollywood has caught on to this idea :)

------
pmsaue0
"But what we've seen is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a
very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can't
change that." Powerful

------
teyc
I've just been discussing this point with my daughter a couple of weekends
ago. The same I suspect applies to all the cool programming languages I wanted
to learn.

------
kingkawn
Imagine all the things that are as of yet unknown that we will miss. This
dwarfs the knowable to infinity.

------
nazgulnarsil
why would I want to bother trying to exhaust the sphere of possible human
experiences before the heat death of the universe when there is a much larger
space of possible modes of existence?

Oh I guess this article was written by someone who plans on dying :p

------
FiZ
Now I feel much better about missing Mad Men.

------
brianstorms
And the ironic fact is that I'm going to miss almost everything in that
article because it is presented as faint grey text on a white background.

TB;DR

(too bright, didn't read)

------
paganel
As far as classical literature goes, if you're read Balzac, Stendhal and
Tolstoy then you've read them all. Problem solved :)

~~~
fagiano
... and the two giants of western literature Shakespeare and Dante. We can't
gloss over Joyce and Proust. And "Don Quixote", surely we can't miss that.
Maybe Milton. Montaigne? And the Greeks, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides at
least. Molière and Goethe...

------
ares2012
Very well said. Great article.

------
robertk
Time marches without apology.

------
dools
Forget books, I feel this way just about The Simpsons.

------
michaelochurch
A friend of mine (raised Jewish, but deist/agnostic) came to the conclusion
that the most reasonable cosmology is one in which each person reincarnates as
_every_ human ever to live before passing on to the next world or becoming a
god. This probably rules out free will, but it gives hope that, maybe, we _do_
get to experience at least the entire human world... we just don't have the
luxury of perceiving it all at once. It also solves the karma/ethics problem
neatly.

This is a tough realization, in any case. Even a million-year lifespan
wouldn't help, because all of the books we were reading now would be likely to
fade if we were to live another million years. As humans, we're innately
finite in all sorts of important ways (e.g. attention, memory) that have
nothing to do with lifespan.

I have to agree with the people who've said that "it's the journey, not the
destination". It's all we can control, and it's what we actually experience.
As a deist and Buddhist, I've often wondered why God wanted us to evolve in a
world where lives are so short and death happens all the time, instead of one
in which humans could get a more reasonable 10,000 years (or process
information and experience 100 times faster, which would have the same
effect). It's infinitely frustrating and reminiscent of Sisyphus (probably, in
fact, a Greek metaphor for the reincarnation of the spiritually lazy, noting
that ancient Greeks did believe in reincarnation) but it also has a certain
beauty to it: getting to go through childhood and to re-learn all of the great
things in this world again, and again, and again.

~~~
rgraham
If you choose to believe that the world was created by an all-good, all-
knowing God then you must believe that the world God created is the best
possible of all worlds. God would be capable of nothing else in that scenario.
Whatever your beliefs I've always thought that was an interesting concept to
illuminate 'what if' discussions.

~~~
run4yourlives
>If you choose to believe that the world was created by an all-good, all-
knowing God then you must believe that the world God created is the best
possible of all worlds.

What?

Since when does an "all good, all knowing" entity get backed into a corner
where it itself relinquishes free will? Said God could have easily created
this world with the intent that it is far from perfect for a very specific
reason. The pain one assumes in this world is evil and horrible is only
accurate if one also assumes that it has no further purpose.

It's like saying that all the difficulty in learning to ride a bike could not
be allowed by a truly loving parent. That's clearly false.

~~~
rgraham
I think you missed the point.

If the pain is to a higher purpose that in itself provides for a greater good
(like riding a bike) then the net effect is a better world. The operative idea
being that pain and struggle allow us to become better.

God didn't relinquish free will here, but he can't or won't choose to make a
shoddy world. It wouldn't be all-good or all-knowing. For a better explanation
reference C.S. Lewis.

~~~
run4yourlives
>then the net effect is a better world.

A child riding a bike can only see the failure and difficulty of learning, not
them winning the Tour de France. If we are all in the process of learning,
would we even know a "better world" if we saw it, and is a "better world" the
outcome that matters?

