Comment by nonameiguess

Interesting to effectively see Jean Paul Sartre being brought up here. As verbose as he was, though, I do agree with the framing. Putting aside the fundamental physical paradoxes and incoherence of free will, at the level of subjective experience, every action ever taken is a choice, possibly between extremely shitty options, but a choice nonetheless, and owning that is the only way I've ever found to stay sane about life.

That said, I'm not sure about the novelty thing. I'd rate the greatest long term project in my life as being staying fit, athletic, and healthy as I near 50, in spite of some horrible injuries and setbacks, and remaining thus far in a reasonably happy marriage. In both of those pursuits, novelty is almost the anthesis to success. People program hop and never improve, and substitute one-night stands and serial cheating for any form of lifelong relationship. To me, it is just habit-formation and basic discipline, trying to always remind myself what truly matters. Heck, it's probably even fear as much as anything else. I know I'm going to be hurting terribly in my 60s and 70s if I'm alone and unhealthy, regardless of what else I may have achieved, and if I wait until then to try and cram lifetime pursuits into a single decade, it'll be a lot harder than simply starting in my 20s, doing a little bit every week, and sticking with it in spite of how much of a grind it might be at times, because I know how much it will mean to future me and I have to make the choice that future me matters just as much as present me.

In contrast, I'm not convinced that consistently uploading a lot of videos to YouTube is all that important, but of course this guy is free to have his own priorities.