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by mashygpig 1212 days ago
It seems really prevalent in western societies (America in my experience at least) have a strong culture of career growth. If you’re not getting better paying positions then what are you doing?

I think a lot of people will claim they do this to have wealth reserved to be able to spend their time how they choose in the future, but they seem to me to just get lost in the cycles of wealth accretion and forget to live the life they have.

A friend recently told me that he wanted to stagnate more in his career and grow more in his life, and I think that’s a sentiment that should be shared more.
2 comments
detourdog 1212 days ago
The problem I see in my western society is that career growth and personal growth are separated.

An individual falling into this divide will always feel conflicted. Unfortunately in todays climate with no social safety net for the individual few may have the privilege to hear their inner voice.

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mashygpig 1212 days ago
Definitely agree. Christopher Alexander's "A City Is Not A Tree" [0] speaks to this separation too in the context of our physical spaces (based on your comment I sense you may be familiar with this idea). It feels that western society promotes separation by default.

[0] http://en.bp.ntu.edu.tw/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/06-Alexan...

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detourdog 1212 days ago
I learned of him a year or so ago and bought:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_Synthesis_of_Form

My memory is that it rang so true I didn't need to read it. I'm knee deep(decades)in trying to define an aesthetic for "Technology" so that it can be judged as a media. To put it another way a process for judging technical implementations based on universal human needs.

I will check out your reference.

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mashygpig 1212 days ago
That's neat and makes me feel that if you independently came to similar thoughts then there is some universal thing here to uncover/define. Would be interested to hear more about your thoughts/journey if you have them written up somewhere!
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detourdog 1211 days ago
I'm a big believer that humans share a social sub-conconcsious. The ideas I'm sure come from a long Train of utopian modernist designers ideals.

Funny enough I think I finally cracked something critical last week here.

https://boards.core77.com/t/how-does-one-measure-the-aesthet...

I have been practicing sharing ideas on HN and Core77 in effort to start an honest effort.

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JohnFen 1212 days ago
> If you’re not getting better paying positions then what are you doing?

Working to live rather than living to work.

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