Comment by olau

3 years ago

It would perhaps be wise to try to practice deriving happiness from something other than the seeking out of novelty.

Like picking up an instrument and start practicing more advanced music than the pop song of the day. That's really a long-term game.

Programming can be another such activity. I mostly stopped reading programming books some years ago, but I find that deliberating over the meta-game of programming, i.e. not how do I specifically solve this problem, but more how do I structure my solution, how do I simplify it, how do I reduce the problem itself to its core, how do I write the actual text, variable names etc., in such a manner that it is self-evident what is happening. That is truly a long game too. There's even a skill to the deliberation itself - too much deliberation is counterproductive.

I read somewhere that the philosophy in the antiquity defined being good not as based on absolute moral values of say unselfishness, like giving food to starving children, but on simply being really good at what you do. Perhaps that's from a realization of what actually makes people happy? Like the old carpenter expertly fixing a troublesome door while softly whistling to himself, a human being in inner peace.

12 comments

olau

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bmj  3 years ago

This is a good point, and, interestingly, I think the author of the original post would agree. He clearly (in 2016) still enjoys his work, and seeks to be excellent at it. He's just come to the conclusion that he can both do that, and not have computers and operating systems and programming be the sole focus of his life.

FeepingCreature  3 years ago

> Perhaps that's from a realization of what actually makes people happy?

I just want to comment on the irony of praising a philosophy that focuses more on abstract virtue rather than an absolute metric of goodness, by noting that this increases happiness.

glouwbug  3 years ago

Do you have more on this philosophy of being good? I’m interested

  • nonrandomstring  3 years ago

    I think that's a reference to the Greek notion of Arete.

    To be a good person didn't mean moral good, or excellence in one area like art - it meant being a great as an "all round person who lived their life to the full and exercised all human powers". The art of being a great _person_. You didn't have to be amazing at any one thing but, for a Greek citizen one should able to:

    Farm, hunt and cook a good meal

    Master a sword or bow

    Sail a boat and run a race

    Tell a good story, write a poem

    Make love well

    Climb a mountain

    Do math or argue philosophy

    Care for the old and young

    Tell a convincing lie

    You get the idea. Today we are highly specialised creatures, pallid by comparison. We get others (services) to do most of our real living for us, so we can concentrate on specialised wage slavery and use the money to buy back vicarious living under the heading of "leisure".

    Notice my last example - which illustrates the this excellence is separate from any moral conceit of the "good person".

    • mechanical_bear  3 years ago

      This is the Greek concept of a polymath. Also mentioned by Robert Heinlein in Time Enough For Love:

      A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

      4 replies →

    • nrclark  3 years ago

      TBH that kind of sounds like a notion that would have been held by somebody with a lot of leisure time. I can't imagine that your average dairy farmer would have been particularly good at swords, math, or poetry.

  • frogulis  3 years ago

    Unfortunately I don't have a direct reference for you, but I'm pretty sure Aristotle talks a bit about this sort of idea in The Nichomachean Ethics. Something like "be a good human in the sense that a tree or a machine is good". To him, contributing to ones community and participating in (Athenian) politics is the highest good for the learned person.