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by badpun 1376 days ago
> Second there are times you can't go all in on one shot (lack of resources, risk of death, or simply not knowing which path). You have to chunk your progress.

I believe his philosophy was to ignore those issues (lack of resources, risk of death), because if you start thinking about them, you'll never venture out, but instead spend your whole life preparing.

2 comments

I mean, flowery language aside clearly there are plenty of circumstances when ignoring constraints and doggedly pursuing your goals will definitely lead to failure. We don't live in a universe where willing something makes it so, no matter how bad we want it. To achieve things we must have a healthy mix of modeling our external universe and and basing our decisions on that vs. ignoring that internal modeling process and just giving it a go.

But none of that fits in a poem, so I get it.

I guess we lost that sense in modern life. But we used to be more acquainted to risks and venture before. Nowadays we can't think about risks precisely because we don't know our limits.
> But we used to be more acquainted to risks and venture before.

I think it was so because the regular life had very little to offer. I mean, I would probably try my luck on a pirate ship, if the alternative was back-breaking work and being hungry half of the time. But nowadays, why take risks, when there's a regular coding job is a sure path to tons of comfort and pleasure?

Sure but even modern comfy life is not guaranteed to give you all you need. And you're stuck wondering what to do. I'd bet solid money that a lot of people are unhappy because they lost that sense. It mirrors who you are deep inside, and often the cost (unless degenerated) are worth the benefits.