Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by thefaux 807 days ago
What is the deeper meaning of being a world champion fighter? I pursued a risky sport for many years myself until I was struck by the utter hollowness of it. How would my winning benefit anyone besides me? What was the purpose beyond self exaltation? How was this the best use of my short time on earth?

For me, I can hardly think of a worse use of a life than fighting for sport. There is not a single fighter on earth I would trade places with. Not one.

5 comments

It's inspiring.

When I consider how Naoya Inoue fought 11 rounds with a broken orbital socket I am profoundly inspired by the heart he demonstrated and his will to win - his focus and his skill to change strategy mid fight.

It's easy to handwave his ability to fight through pain thanks to adrenaline... until you try it for yourself.

It's inspiring to know just how much we can overcome ourselves if we want something enough.

You gotta be pretty far down the nihilism hole to wonder about the deeper meaning behind being a world class athlete.

My girlfriend was a martial arts trainer for a few years, and many of the girls she worked with cited Ronda specifically as their inspiration. They're not competing, this is a hobby, but they're doing it because they were inspired by people like Ronda.

I just envy their discipline...

I have to ask, what's your ideal life look like?

Sometimes the process is an end in itself. A constant focus on "what's this good for?" can turn into a toxic, hollow mindset itself. Taken to an extreme, everything becomes just a stepping stone to a final action of death, which makes the practice of living rather pointless. Oliver Burkeman has some good thoughts on how to get out of that mindset.
*As Saladin* Nothing... Everything.

What's the deeper meaning of getting heart disease and myopia by sitting at a computer learning how to be a good programmer?

What's the deeper meaning of doing anything? It's all temporary vanity. In a million years, even the Pyramids will have worn away!

It's all ships in bottles to keep us busily interested til we die. :D

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

What sport? Simply asking out of curiosity?