
Ursula K. Le Guin on “Spare Time” - jobbagy
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/01/24/ursula-k-le-guin-spare-time/
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nickbauman
I think what Le Guin is expressing tacitly that most of us _adopt_ meaning
into our lives. We fall in love. We get religion, we have kids, we are
dedicated to our vocations, etc. Creative people _create_ meaning for their
lives. This is hard work requiring extreme skepticism and bravery (which
ultimately can be very lonely): each idea must pass a battery of psychic
litmus tests to be considered valid. It's exhausting. But this sort of way of
life is the ultimately most fulfilling, I think. Most purposeful. Note: I
don't really do this my own life, I feel like I have too many _adopted_
meanings in my life that crowd out this process and lack the fundamental
courage to really do this.

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codemac
I really like a recent thing I read about adult development from Robert Kegan.
These go in order in his model, and these are kind of adult development levels
to "achieve".. which of course itself leads to a discussion of Kegan's work,
but here are the interesting ones for adults:

\- socialization - your identity is based on your social context, and the
society around you

\- self-authored - your identity is based on what you've carved out for
yourself, and you are in control of it outside of your social constructs.

\- self-transformation - your identity is not your own! You see identity as
something as movable and constructed as many other objects in your life.

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TeMPOraL
I feel like going through those "levels" in reverse, increasingly being pushed
from "self-authored" by to "socialization", through the usual pressure to
conform to what everyone else is doing. It's annoying, to say the least.

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hashkb
Ursula was such a boss. Dry humor and insight... the best combination.

She would disagree with a lot of what HN finds important. We (tech industry,
SV, whatever) could stand to incorporate more ideas along her line of
thinking.

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Parcissons
Agreed, true insight like hers would be valuable. People who have no stakes
theire, just reflecting from a unbiased outsider perspective. No cultural or
counter-cultural pushing to reach whatever results fit ones current
perspective.

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asdfgadsfgasfdg
Parcissons you are shadow banned.

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lazyasciiart
No they're not.

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asdfgadsfgasfdg
Yes they are. Every single other one of her posts for the last month is flag
flagged - and this one is only not killed because I vouched it. Turn on
showdead and view her comments. (NB if she has written to HN and got the
account un-banned before you do this the posts will probably be un-killed.)

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hawktheslayer
Jeff Bezos often talks about acting now so as to minimize regret when you are
80. Interestingly enough this article says that 80 is a magical number for
life reflection. Probably not a coincidence knowing Bezos.

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yters
Seems like a weird thing to optimize for. The amount of time you'll feel
regret before you feel nothing is pretty minimial.

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hawktheslayer
I think it's just a trick to live a more reflective life in general and to
have your higher powers (i.e. cortex) to win out more often over your lower
self (i.e. lizard brain)

