[pdimitar]

Rich people getting bored and unhappy is 200% on them and them only. I know of no less than 7 separate things I'd lose myself into -- all related to inventing stuff -- that I actually would be afraid if I'll be giving my wife enough attention. That's how active I would be if I didn't have to worry about a job and a salary.

I know other people like myself as well, some more obsessed and downright hyperactive even.

People lose themselves in material items and status. I want to buy stuff so I waste less time on things I don't enjoy -- washing machine is the perfect example. I want computers because I can program my ideas. I want an electronic workshop corner because I want to get into that and experiment. I want an air fryer because I have high cholesterol and want to experiment with healthier cooking. Many other good and valid examples exist.

Don't lose yourself in material items. Status does not exist. Decouple your money-making scheme from other people perceiving you as having "status". Important thing is for the number in the bank to keep increasing, everything else is a distraction. As long as you're not harming people, kidnapping kids or raping anyone then by all means, go crazy getting rich by doing legal stuff.

My observation from the 8 rich people I knew in my life is: they got lucky, they succeeded too quickly, they have ZERO direction in life, they have no clue what to do with their free time. They got miserable not even 2 years into it.

To me they are weak and uninteresting people whose only impressive trait is that ONCE in their lifetime they managed to combine two and two together and called somebody at the right time (and these opportunities were more often than not created for them; they didn't initiate them).

But of course, "pull the ladder after yourself" and all, we know it. They are weak and uninteresting but they don't want competition and they have the tools in their hands to ensure that's the case.

It is how it is apparently. I'll fight to become rich as much as my personal limitations allow me and I am likely to fail but at least I won't ever complain about "having too much" or "the moment you have it it's no longer wanted".

Meh. Get some imagination!

---

Oh, and that article sounds like paid propaganda: "you actually don't want what you think you want, be happy with what you have". Oh yeah? Well I'll be happy if I work 20h a month for the same money as now. And healthier. I can't. Then bugger off because your article does not help with anything.

[plastic3169]

You are right it’s 100% on them to sort their life out. Like your 8 acquaintances I think most people are very unsuited for riches atleast until they adjust. Also almost all people think they themselves would be great managing that situation. It’s like imagining you will be great parent before you have kids. Or the famous quote, Everybody has a plan before they get punched in the mouth.

Life change like that affects your whole life from there on 24/7. In a way you cannot actively decide how you will act. You will probably fall back to your inner default way of reacting to things, but your life is subtly changed.

The things that were great passions when you always lacked time to properly get in to them might turn out to be just another job when you start doing them more. Holiday trip might mean nothing if your not having a break from anything. Ventures in easy mode without risk might feel stale. All consumption is pointless anyway. Maybe all tinkering is as well? Etc.

[pdimitar]

Getting a vacation when you have no job indeed sounds funny and meaningless, yes, but we also need a change of scenery every now and then, regardless of our level of wealth. It's a basic and universal human trait.

And maybe I'll get tired of the tinkering I want to do now (but can't). I'd still like to find out if that's the case.

There are creative pursuits that can take a lifetime however. Eventually you will find and choose what to consume you.

My main point is that there is a subset of humans who can never be bored. And it seems that it has no intersection with rich people. If that's indeed true (which I doubt; the world is not so black and white) it would be interesting to find out why.

In the end, we all need meaning and some struggle. Shame that most rich people choose to struggle over petty stuff like who has the most expensive watch or who will sleep with the youngest legal boy/girl on that party, or whatever else that signals status.

Shame on them that not even one of them tried to become Ironman or Batman.

[plastic3169]

Here’s hoping we make it to the otherside and can reflect back to this with experience.

TBH I’m sure there are people who have no trouble with these things. It is just common to read experiences from rich and famous in which they say that it is actually quite tricky to live that life (sandwhiched between the obligatory platitudes about how lucky and priviledged they are)

[zackmorris]

My main point is that there is a subset of humans who can never be bored. And it seems that it has no intersection with rich people. If that's indeed true (which I doubt; the world is not so black and white) it would be interesting to find out why.

During the pandemic, I found out that my superpower is that I can't get bored, I just dissociate. And I've noticed that wealthy people tend to prune off possibilities rather than explore them like I do, in other words, they never seem to daydream, but live in the hard reality of making difficult choices almost dispassionately, without imagination.

I had one bad day with covid where I couldn't get off the couch due to headache and dizziness, and felt an odd inclination that I wanted to play video games, because I couldn't. The last time I had felt an impulse to do something from inside was around 1992 (had a bunch of life-changing events the year after, and then went off to college and career). Ever since then, mostly the entirety of my life has been spent reacting to and dealing with external demands. So the feeling of motivation, however brief, was like tasting nirvana or glimpsing the sublime. Guess I'm still trapped in the 90s.

Anyway, I've spent so much of my life in that state of superposition that I solve problems almost automatically. People tell me anything at all, and my mind races through the branches and edge cases, arriving at the solution before they finish speaking. Like I solve problems in parallel, while others seem to do it serially. This is what I think the term neurodivergent is getting at.

The downside is that I don't perceive the difficulty of the problem, only the friction and artificial barriers preventing me from implementing the solution. Everything feels so contrived or even sabotaged (the theme of The X Files) that sometimes it feels like living in a nightmare where we all do everything the hard way by design, which is why I struggle so profoundly in a world designed for neurotypicals.

All I need is a minimum of time and resources to get ahead of the daily grind to get real work done. But those are the things that I can never seem to have. Because the people who favor tradition over outside the box thinking have the wealth. Which keeps us all stuck in a 20th century economy like The Matrix. Rich people seem to want to be the Merovingian, not Ironman or Batman.. at least that's how they present themselves as influencers, titans of industry, tech bros, etc.

But at the end of the day, I'm learning to let all of these preconceived and self-limiting beliefs go. Wealth is a construct, as are the generalizations we use to lump individuals together into stereotypes. Which means we hold the key to changing our own mindset. There's a power in surrendering to the unreachability of a logical solution and shifting to the reality/timeline in which it's already been solved. That's what magical thinking and manifestation and The Secret are about. I'm straying into the metaphysical now, but anyone who is self-aware or conscious or woke can do this. It all starts with meditation and bringing the outer reality into balance with the inner reality by reconnecting with the divine. But it's a red/blue pill thing, nobody can prove that it works or disprove it, we all just have to try it for ourselves.

I liked your response to my other comment, but figured I'd reply here. We're below the fold anyway now, but your insight deserved another.

[lexapro]

>I know of no less than 7 separate things I'd lose myself into

Consider yourself lucky then. Privileged even. Money is not the only privilege there is.

[pdimitar]

In this case it's bittersweet, sadly. Can never muster the time or energy to devote myself to them because working for the man is way too tiring but also inescapable...

And yep I'm grateful that I have a curious nature.

[zackmorris]

The one thing I can't have is rest. I have approximations of rest: coping, procrastinating, dissociating. But the fantasy of achieving rest is something that I've had to let go of, like Sisyphus.

After multiple boom-bust cycles and returning to the land of the living after burnout, I feel that the world's problems are caused by people who have too much either being unwilling or unable to empathize with the struggle of others.

It's not that I'm jealous of the rich. In fact, I have no real use for money other than to get left alone.

And it's not that I'm lazy. In fact, my education, experience and work capacity allow me to take on high workloads.

No, the central crisis for me is that my standard of living depends on taking from others. If I want to eat well, wilderness has to be cleared, someone has to pick the food, animals will die. If I want to live well, trees have to get cut down, fossil fuels have to be extracted, people will die mining and refining minerals. All that I do, all that I am, places additional burden on someone else.

So I've decided to live modestly, working just enough to keep a roof over my head and drive a vehicle so that I can meet the minimum demands of civilization. If I could, I would give it all back and live in a state of ultimate gratitude and peace.

But the wealthy don't do that. They just keep taking more and more and more, giving little or nothing back. Reaching a position of power only to deny it to someone else. Perhaps the ultimate sin besides taking another's life.

Profit means that someone didn't pay high enough wages. Inheritance means that resources were stolen from one generation for the next. Philanthropy means that someone didn't pay their taxes, so we had to.

Once you've hit rock bottom and see through the veil of illusion, wealth accumulation becomes a repugnant thing. The thing separating one from the divine. The thing that perpetuates the suffering we were born into.

The eerie part is, for all that I've experienced and learned, I know that this analysis of the status quo is not the final answer. I have not really had an epiphany. We all arrived here to incarnate as humans and experience the full gamut of suffering and bliss. We have philosophies and religious traditions glorifying suffering, even calling it noble and pious.

But I've struggled for so long that it's all I have really known, to the point where I've lost sight of how to improve my situation. But what about the people who have achieved success, who do have the means to make things better? Where are the wealthy people who demand shorter work hours, more automation and time off, more shared prosperity and even UBI? Surely there is at least one willing and able to speak out and step up.

[pdimitar]

> The one thing I can't have is rest.

Story of my life. Get here for a virtual hug!

While I'd not be as spartan and ascetic as yourself I too 90% identify with your quote: "I want enough money to be left alone". I definitely will want a few dozen things I don't have now but I am also very convinced I'll know when to stop.

> No, the central crisis for me is that my standard of living depends on taking from others.

This can very easily spiral into extremes. Even Buddhist monks, to whom all life is sacred, laugh at those among them that don't dare weeding out the monastery garden lest they kill a worm while doing so. No disrespect to you meant, in fact I very strongly relate to you, but you do sound like you want to minimize harm in a way that's just not realistic and will end up burning you out in a different way compared to what you experienced working for the man.

I don't lose sleep over the fact that me ordering a $6.70 item from AliExpress maybe stimulates a guy running a sweat shop to keep exploiting people. I am not responsible for that and even if I have tilted the scales slightly here and there in my life I still view all of that as a fair transaction: if they couldn't offer it at that price then they wouldn't. But they do, so I order it and consume it after.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

With that being said, I'll always agree that we need to learn to consume the minimum because the way humanity is living right now is absolutely not sustainable and it will bite future generations super hard. That much is true. But I don't order napkins from AliExpress, no, so I am excused for wanting to try a curious novel (to me) shaver or buy my girlfriend a butterfly-shaped hair pin. Simple pleasures that hopefully harm nobody.

> But the wealthy don't do that. They just keep taking more and more and more, giving little or nothing back.

As another commenter here said: most people are not fit to be rich. They get rich too quickly or too easily and then realize they have no purpose, no hobbies, no goals, no struggles, so they spend the rest of their lives desperately trying to fill the internal void with material items which ironically they are well-aware will never gonna happen but feel trapped and hopeless so they keep trying anyway.

...Or date other rich people, which fails even more spectacularly.

...And they love pulling the ladder after they climbed it.

> But I've struggled for so long that it's all I have really known, to the point where I've lost sight of how to improve my situation.

Time for the next virtual hug as I am almost the same. I'll hit 43 next month and I am already dead-tired of all this circus and all the dumb charades and pretenses. The only thing that truly keeps me going is the absolute angel of a wife that I have, whose optimism and positivity are kind of contagious, and I want to show her a better life for both of us. Maybe along the way I'll find self-love as well, who knows.

> Surely there is at least one willing and able to speak out and step up.

I hate generalizing people so I am pretty sure benevolent rich people exist but (a) they are part of a much smaller group and them speaking up might actually be very harmful to them because others in the same group might actively sabotage them and (b) I completely understand somebody who fought for their life not wanting to spend the rest of it fighting for other people's lives (I know that if I make it I'll be one of the most anonymous rich guys you could think of).

You do get tired and burned out after all. Fighting with your own life is quite enough, and then some more even. You and I understand that pretty well.