February 18th, 2023: Greetings from Austin. I’m winding down some of my work this week and starting to shift into preparing for baby mode. Two or so weeks to go…I’m quite excited. +I’m hosting a live Q&A accessible to paid subscribers in Find The Others on Tuesday. You can
I think you raise an interesting point about not having a set replacement plan for the yay college vibe.
Made me think about the way my parents raised me and the way I’d like to raise kids one day, and notice that even when I see all the issues with the College/ Financial Stability optimization, I still prioritize that for its appearance of certainty,
Congratulations on the upcoming baby phase. Enjoy these last few weeks of quiet. Because as awesome as your world is today, its going to tilt on its axis once you become a parent. And I'll DM Angie because I have so much to share on the college, the sabbatical, etc etc. Great edition Paul.
It's very true that people get stuck on scripts. This is probably the fastiest way to unhappiness: to have your life determined by ideas that don't belong to you, to live a life that you "chose" but in which you had no agency. A midlife crisis is simply the realization that the life you have lived is not the one you want to live, your spouse you chose not with attention, the things you have not the things you truly want.
We get stuck in a certain picture. The life we think we have to live fills up the whole field of vision, and we can't see around the corner. That is why I wanted to choose a partner who could understand the point of leaves, of silence by a body of water, with the ability to quietly watch a turtle. The spiritual connection I have with my partner allows us to transcend our daily lives over a cup of tea, and to surmount our thoughts, take a look at them, and, free of stress, realize that we are "not able to get over ourselves."
Happiness is something that we can easily believe in, however, it can only come to those who can see it. Once you see it, you have it. But you cannot show people it if they don't have the eyes to see it.
This was a great essay at the decision between private vs public. It’s something I’ve been thinking about lot recently as my friends have been having children. I could go on about my thoughts on it, but I have my own bias having gone to public schools and having a positive experience. When I was a kid, I hated Montessori preschool and begged my parents to put me in public school with my sister. It’s hard too because the American school system (public and private) are very inconsistent in quality.
I also want to note that I have a very rich friend who was telling me about how miserable her 5th grade son is and how he was stressed about the process he was navigating to get into a new private school and I asked my friend, sincerely, “Does he know what public school is? Like... does he know there is a parallel system where a school just takes him? No application process?” And my friend replied, with all seriousness, “I don’t know.” So when you talk about the scripts people follow, hers was so strongly oriented to “only the best for my kid” and she was rating that only against an academic-rigor metric and not on a happiness or quality of life measure. These scripts and this panicked sense of securing the best for our kids lest we or they fall down the economic ladder has such a strong grip on us.
When I worked in London, a friend wanted his kid to go to a top private pre-primary-school kindergarten. In the application, they had to put the drawings of the kid, and he told me he and his wife had practiced with their kid for weeks so that the drawings were good enough. There is something deeply disturbing if we start to put pressure on people from the age of 3-4 years old.
But it's just a continuation of what you describe in the post: competition over a scarce resource that is artificially made to be scarce for status purposes.
I agree with you about the lost of values of a liberal arts education and using that time to learn about the good life. I had a great experience at my small, 4-year liberal arts college. I was a Philosophy major in a small program, So my professors and I became great friends 😂 I learned a lot from my classes.
Like you, my goal isn’t to set up my son for an elite college. I do hope I can pass on a desire to learn and a pursuit of the good life, whether that’s in a liberal arts college or in a trade school.
Huckleberry app is awesome in tracking things. Also consider a spreadsheet/Notion simple database with daily quick logs. And audio recording of yourself in the small moments of quiet during the first days, weeks, etc.
I’m not going to dunk on rich New Yorker money anxiety, either, but I do want to say how funny the illustration is. The clinging to one another and the sadness in their eyes looks like the way photojournalists capture people in refugee camps.
> Instead, I’ve learned how to aim at empty space - the unknown unknowns and be okay with it. Too many of us are convinced that this is a risky way to live life and I suspect that if we believe this, we will likely pass this vibe on to our children. So how am I thinking about school and education for my children? I don’t know.
The trajectory of college/university was already majorly shifted 3 years ago, let alone anyone born now. You've already prepared yourself to fend against the mimetic desires of the current educational culture.
Moontower Meta is doing some work on helping HS kids
See also, "plans vs situated action", a concept taken up by computer folks
I think you raise an interesting point about not having a set replacement plan for the yay college vibe.
Made me think about the way my parents raised me and the way I’d like to raise kids one day, and notice that even when I see all the issues with the College/ Financial Stability optimization, I still prioritize that for its appearance of certainty,
Congratulations on the upcoming baby phase. Enjoy these last few weeks of quiet. Because as awesome as your world is today, its going to tilt on its axis once you become a parent. And I'll DM Angie because I have so much to share on the college, the sabbatical, etc etc. Great edition Paul.
Will share this with my late thirties cousin who had a baby last year - thank god
Parenting the Pathless Path
Progeny of the Pathless Path-ers
It's very true that people get stuck on scripts. This is probably the fastiest way to unhappiness: to have your life determined by ideas that don't belong to you, to live a life that you "chose" but in which you had no agency. A midlife crisis is simply the realization that the life you have lived is not the one you want to live, your spouse you chose not with attention, the things you have not the things you truly want.
We get stuck in a certain picture. The life we think we have to live fills up the whole field of vision, and we can't see around the corner. That is why I wanted to choose a partner who could understand the point of leaves, of silence by a body of water, with the ability to quietly watch a turtle. The spiritual connection I have with my partner allows us to transcend our daily lives over a cup of tea, and to surmount our thoughts, take a look at them, and, free of stress, realize that we are "not able to get over ourselves."
Happiness is something that we can easily believe in, however, it can only come to those who can see it. Once you see it, you have it. But you cannot show people it if they don't have the eyes to see it.
This is banger. I’m shocked nearly half of parents said it’s not at all important that their kids have kids.
This was a great essay at the decision between private vs public. It’s something I’ve been thinking about lot recently as my friends have been having children. I could go on about my thoughts on it, but I have my own bias having gone to public schools and having a positive experience. When I was a kid, I hated Montessori preschool and begged my parents to put me in public school with my sister. It’s hard too because the American school system (public and private) are very inconsistent in quality.
I also want to note that I have a very rich friend who was telling me about how miserable her 5th grade son is and how he was stressed about the process he was navigating to get into a new private school and I asked my friend, sincerely, “Does he know what public school is? Like... does he know there is a parallel system where a school just takes him? No application process?” And my friend replied, with all seriousness, “I don’t know.” So when you talk about the scripts people follow, hers was so strongly oriented to “only the best for my kid” and she was rating that only against an academic-rigor metric and not on a happiness or quality of life measure. These scripts and this panicked sense of securing the best for our kids lest we or they fall down the economic ladder has such a strong grip on us.
When I worked in London, a friend wanted his kid to go to a top private pre-primary-school kindergarten. In the application, they had to put the drawings of the kid, and he told me he and his wife had practiced with their kid for weeks so that the drawings were good enough. There is something deeply disturbing if we start to put pressure on people from the age of 3-4 years old.
But it's just a continuation of what you describe in the post: competition over a scarce resource that is artificially made to be scarce for status purposes.
I agree with you about the lost of values of a liberal arts education and using that time to learn about the good life. I had a great experience at my small, 4-year liberal arts college. I was a Philosophy major in a small program, So my professors and I became great friends 😂 I learned a lot from my classes.
Like you, my goal isn’t to set up my son for an elite college. I do hope I can pass on a desire to learn and a pursuit of the good life, whether that’s in a liberal arts college or in a trade school.
Huckleberry app is awesome in tracking things. Also consider a spreadsheet/Notion simple database with daily quick logs. And audio recording of yourself in the small moments of quiet during the first days, weeks, etc.
I’m not going to dunk on rich New Yorker money anxiety, either, but I do want to say how funny the illustration is. The clinging to one another and the sadness in their eyes looks like the way photojournalists capture people in refugee camps.
> Instead, I’ve learned how to aim at empty space - the unknown unknowns and be okay with it. Too many of us are convinced that this is a risky way to live life and I suspect that if we believe this, we will likely pass this vibe on to our children. So how am I thinking about school and education for my children? I don’t know.
The trajectory of college/university was already majorly shifted 3 years ago, let alone anyone born now. You've already prepared yourself to fend against the mimetic desires of the current educational culture.
Moontower Meta is doing some work on helping HS kids
See also, "plans vs situated action", a concept taken up by computer folks
https://twitter.com/mostlynotworkin/status/1408903455905705987 (see article link in the tweet)