Not a reference to gambling, but in the sense that life is a constant gamble, sure why not gambling. Constantly trying to take it one step further: Add one more sound, earn one more dollar, work one more minute, eat one more French fry.
Is it hubris? Greed? Pure delusion? Utter confusion?
Why, is it hard to quit, while you’re ahead?
There’s actually a word/phrase for it. When someone gets a big raise and immediately upsizes their life. Bigger house, new car etc so that big raise just basically put them right where they were in regards to debt. Treadmilling. The debt treadmill.
People do it all the time. Big win then go right into debt. It’s what lottery winners do a lot. That and forget about their taxes.
It’s loneliness and sadness and trying to fill an empty hole with “stuff”.
There’s this literal castle in town where I live here in California, well, half a castle… The story is this guy won the lottery and started building himself a castle, right off the highway on his property, and then ran out of money halfway through. Burned through however many millions he won and it stood incomplete and like, not at all majestic. I don’t even know if anyone ever bought it or it got torn down, I haven’t been out that way in a few years but this thing stood through the majority of my childhood and through my adulthood, I assume he was off working at whatever job he quit when he won the lottery, half a castle none the richer.
Treadmilling, that’s great.
It is easy to lose sight of the fact that winning often changes the game.
Becoming popular is different than maintaining popularity. And popularity can end due to circumstances beyond your control.
If you are aware of this dynamic, you can manage your risks in various ways. If your thing is highly risky, then you need to be very good at risk management.
From a standpoint of human motivational psychological self preservation, do you have an opinion on why we ignore the instinct for self preservation to take it one step further beyond the point of reason or logic? Or is it just inherent to the human condition, without foundation or explanation? I agree it’s easy to lose sight. I was working on something delicate with power tools and the sun went down and my instinct was to keep working even at my own peril, because I was almost done and I had to force myself to stop. I knew there was no benefit in finishing today, but I literally had to tell myself “this will be much worse if you don’t stop now.”
Sounds ridiculous to put work into things and then leave them to poor risk management yet people lose that battle constantly. Any perspective?
To be clear, I’m not looking to have my own motivations explained to me, I’m just thinking in general, because usually it’s a higher risk scenario than messing up a corner on an MDF template. People lose castles and shit.
I also wonder if luck is another product of delusion or if it’s miscategorized and has more to do with innate instinctual risk management. Seems to at times, run contrary to the concept of managing risks yet some people are undeniably lucky.
It is definitely a thing that people do, myself included. Managing fatigue is critical any time you are working with dangerous tools.
I think “luck” is just a way our mind draws attention to good experiences. If you tag your best experiences as lucky and review them, you may find commonalities that allow you to repeat or enhance your “luck”.
the potential of finding that magic moment
”Money can’t buy you love, or happiness, but it sure pays for the accessories” - some random dude on some random forum
I’m kinda the opposite. I’m fine quitting before I’m ahead.
That 80/20 rule. That last 20 better pay off 4x in the end.
let me borrow a pen and ten dollars and see your betting slip.
A good horse does not jump higher than it is needed.
We could learn from horses…
What does it say about humans that we keep horses blinkered?
I only do sure bets. Some people call it a con or setup, I call it the follow through on the 20.
I quit before I even start. I’m waaay ahead of the game.
Success is having what you want and happiness is wanting what you have.
Humans in the developed world are largely living an illusional, delusional existence.
Show me how to live? Bah…
Also, what you’re describing has a name: the Hedonic Treadmill
a zero sum game.
The R-complex. “Grab it while you can, while the time window still exists”
Was picking my 5 year old up from after school football yesterday and it’s funny seeing how many people are kitting their little 5 year olds out in over £100 worth of gear. Gear they’re gonna be grown out of in 3 months, fucking shin pads, on fucking 5 year olds! But you know, gotta make sure everyone can see how well they’re doing…
The village I live in has been growing at a pretty serious rate over the last 10 years and there’s been a real influx of “aspirational” middle class people. Their lives look fucking horrible. It’s a constant mystery to me how people can afford all the shit they’ve got, but somewhere along the lines the words materialism and vanity just seem to have ceased to exist. Nobody round here seems to just be stopping and smelling the roses, all too busy chasing more stuff they can’t pay for so everyone can see how well they’re doing.
Marx warned us about this kind of materialism and how it alienates us from each other and isolates us in a prison of our own desires, but it seems nobody was listening. Too busy looking at themselves in the window of their Audi 6000 SUX to notice.
