You weren’t meant to sit in front of a computer all day either

A lot of what Paul Graham writes in his latest essay appeals to me. Freedom to pursue ideas, freedom to fail and try again, freedom to achieve. But at the same time I look across at my 25 weeks pregnant girlfriend and realise he is writing to kids with little or no responsibility but to themselves. Which is fine but it isn’t for everyone in every situation. At the same time it doesn’t mean we don’t all have a choice between being a cubicle dwelling drone and an active member of a healthy group.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Shog9 8 months ago 1 point
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It's an appealing idea, and certainly nothing new...

Here in the Rockies, as with many former frontier areas from Alaska to Australia, there are no shortage of tales of those entrepreneurs who came looking for just the sorts of freedoms that you describe and Graham lauds. Those Mountain Men were of the rare sort who will seek out those freedoms in spite of even the most terrifying obstacles, and their many unmarked graves are a testament to their success in obtaining at least the second of them.

Of course, the savvy ones soon figured out that the ability to eat regular meals and wake up in a strong, bear-proof shelter can be rather more appealing than the freedom to freeze to death on a lonely chasm somewhere. And, sorta like Graham, they stopped while they were ahead and set up a trading post to aid those that came after. Or, depending on your perspective, coax them into trading their achievements for sustenance.

Thinking of yourself as a lion is a nice ego trip. But we're not lions. We do work best in cooperative, specialized groups. And Paul, i'm sure you can correct me on this if i'm off-base... but i suspect that if an impala tries to pretend it's a lion, this illusion would be quickly and brutally shattered. ;-)

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