Really good post, encapsulated my thoughts in a way I haven’t been able to verbalize to anyone, my parents especially. It seems as if it’s almost better (for your mental state at least) to live life unaware of the shit conditions of modern post-secondary education, but we’re here now and there’s no turning back. Hypothetically, if one had to go to college and get a degree if it guaranteed they could takeover the family business, would you recommend missing out on 4 prime earning years for it? Asking for a friend.
sounds like a great plan to me, all the benefits zero downsides. i wish my friend had a family business and not just a family history of working for the state
I counsel young people not to rush into college. Saying it is only 4 years is being generous. Most colleges are happy with a 4-year graduation rate above 50%. For many, it is 5+ years and crippling debt. The way colleges are these days, it’s like 5+ years at a expensive resort hotel. It’s less about the education and more about the fancy gym, food court, and social opportunities. Find yourself some college recruitment material and look at all the luxury amenities they are pushing to get students to enroll. Before you know it, you graduate and find yourself in a tiny apartment, eating ramen noodles, being straddled with debt, and in a dead end, soul sucking job wondering what the hell happened.
For me, nothing than medical studies came into question after school, although I‘m not that interested in science, but I knew that humanities wouldn‘t get me anywhere. Good financial prospects, but it’s 6 years of hell and still I‘m sometimes worrying if it’s the right choice. Please Mr. Egg Man, would you tell me go?
medical school is a sound investment especially if you have psychopathic tendencies, but i think your attitude is a lot healthier than the people who get into it from a sense of urgency and blind careerism (craving social status and authority)
I feel like that one is harder to have a concrete future goal about other than abstractly "making it", but I also know absolutely nothing about it. I personally wouldn't because I don't believe there is a way to reform the way our world currently works, and I'd be stuck feeling like I was enabling the dysfunction. But if you have a plan, sure, it's probably free money
Yeah this has honestly always been my number one underlying problem.
I’m very good with words and think I’d make a fine lawyer, but having taken on a good amount of legal experience, I know I’d either go half-insane practicing asabiyya in the most “neutral” high-paying jobs, or become a “right-wing” (politics/wedge issues/corporation defense) lawyer and know that I’m profiting off being ineffectual controlled opposition. I know bureaucracy is evil and lawyers benefit from more of it, even when they’re “defending” the productive elements of society— I’ll be actively endorsing the system by contributing to the illusion of pushback against the absolute certainty of the growing regulatory state.
Maybe I should be a doctor… they always need more people who can deal with bureaucracy.
EDIT: Rereading your post I feel I missed part of the point... being a man is, as you said, about strategically maximizing your value, aka orienting yourself towards others (your family) and giving up on the child's desire to change the world. Let's hypothetically say I have little debt. Maximizing value could mean putting maximum effort towards my current course. Ah well, perhaps my soul will content itself with the knowledge that loveless, barebones compliance brought down the USSR...
> As a man you don't have a personality or an identity. Life is not about becoming a certain person. Or a certain “character”. Life is about resource management.
I needed to read this about three years ago. Or four or five or six. I’ve done pretty well since then as regards resource management but knowing this would’ve helped to anchor me a lot. Not sure if I would’ve been ready for it though.
Going through male adolescence was experiencing the candy turning to ashes in my mouth. All the things I found interesting and entertaining as a child slowly ceased to be interesting and entertaining, and I didn’t understand why and I was terrified. And yet I kept going back to them expecting them to be interesting and entertaining, to try to MAKE them interesting and entertaining, like how they used to be. I thought that something was broken in me for no longer “getting” those things. Maybe that’s what you’ve been talking about with the “returning to the scene of the crime” stuff.
I remember being on the phone with a friend and trying to explain to him what I felt. It was like, there was nothing in me that declared, this is who I am. I think that’s called an ego. It seemed like everyone else had that and I didn’t. I guess maybe they’re all just pretending — and even if they aren’t, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all just masturbation: wanting to desire instead of actually desiring, signaling to the world that one has an identity by displaying to it the accidents of that identity as a proxy for achieving something concrete that the world historically has happened to associate with that identity. Actually my entire problem was me caring about how I felt about anything — or, for that matter, how anyone else felt. This paragraph is vanity and a striving after wind and I’m going to delete it.
I realized at some point shortly after college that I didn’t play video games to have fun, but to be good at them, and thereby to maintain an identity as a “gamer” or whatever. Now I play games strictly to have fun, and (incidentally) only on occasion. It’s a much better relationship.
At a certain point, you realize outside death and the afterlife, this world and its worldly ways are inescapable. You watch movies, play video games, read books to be entertained or feign understanding, all to move away from the global village and people talking, but you can't. You want a noble purpose like to fight for your nation, but you have none. You want to become more spiritually inclined, but it's all filtered through the internet and it's memes. You want to become religious and follow the Laws of God, but your close ones will think of you weird. You want to repent, but keeping the integrity of your soul is hard in this environment. You want to be a programmer, but nobody really understands it and you get made fun by the only thinkers you admire. You want to be a homesteader, but it's illegal. You want to write, but all writers are gay.
At a certain point, you realize the only solution is the most extreme one, and that time is assuredly ticking away. The "Go" you tell yourself doesn't need to arrise from a positive outlook, it can arise from dread or hopefully a Fear of God. At least that's how I will when you put it all clearly like this.
In 20 years when the boomer petroleum engineers are all retired or dead, you will be able to make so much money. You will likely be beyond cancelation; or, if cancelled, you can take your skills across the Pacific Ocean. Or, better yet, you'll be able to start your own business empire and then use it as a platform to achieve lasting glory.
Really good post, encapsulated my thoughts in a way I haven’t been able to verbalize to anyone, my parents especially. It seems as if it’s almost better (for your mental state at least) to live life unaware of the shit conditions of modern post-secondary education, but we’re here now and there’s no turning back. Hypothetically, if one had to go to college and get a degree if it guaranteed they could takeover the family business, would you recommend missing out on 4 prime earning years for it? Asking for a friend.
sounds like a great plan to me, all the benefits zero downsides. i wish my friend had a family business and not just a family history of working for the state
Appreciate the insight Egg, I’m sure my friend will as well.
I am the insane schizoid that is your friend.
I counsel young people not to rush into college. Saying it is only 4 years is being generous. Most colleges are happy with a 4-year graduation rate above 50%. For many, it is 5+ years and crippling debt. The way colleges are these days, it’s like 5+ years at a expensive resort hotel. It’s less about the education and more about the fancy gym, food court, and social opportunities. Find yourself some college recruitment material and look at all the luxury amenities they are pushing to get students to enroll. Before you know it, you graduate and find yourself in a tiny apartment, eating ramen noodles, being straddled with debt, and in a dead end, soul sucking job wondering what the hell happened.
For me, nothing than medical studies came into question after school, although I‘m not that interested in science, but I knew that humanities wouldn‘t get me anywhere. Good financial prospects, but it’s 6 years of hell and still I‘m sometimes worrying if it’s the right choice. Please Mr. Egg Man, would you tell me go?
medical school is a sound investment especially if you have psychopathic tendencies, but i think your attitude is a lot healthier than the people who get into it from a sense of urgency and blind careerism (craving social status and authority)
Thoughts on law for same reason?
I feel like that one is harder to have a concrete future goal about other than abstractly "making it", but I also know absolutely nothing about it. I personally wouldn't because I don't believe there is a way to reform the way our world currently works, and I'd be stuck feeling like I was enabling the dysfunction. But if you have a plan, sure, it's probably free money
Yeah this has honestly always been my number one underlying problem.
I’m very good with words and think I’d make a fine lawyer, but having taken on a good amount of legal experience, I know I’d either go half-insane practicing asabiyya in the most “neutral” high-paying jobs, or become a “right-wing” (politics/wedge issues/corporation defense) lawyer and know that I’m profiting off being ineffectual controlled opposition. I know bureaucracy is evil and lawyers benefit from more of it, even when they’re “defending” the productive elements of society— I’ll be actively endorsing the system by contributing to the illusion of pushback against the absolute certainty of the growing regulatory state.
Maybe I should be a doctor… they always need more people who can deal with bureaucracy.
EDIT: Rereading your post I feel I missed part of the point... being a man is, as you said, about strategically maximizing your value, aka orienting yourself towards others (your family) and giving up on the child's desire to change the world. Let's hypothetically say I have little debt. Maximizing value could mean putting maximum effort towards my current course. Ah well, perhaps my soul will content itself with the knowledge that loveless, barebones compliance brought down the USSR...
> As a man you don't have a personality or an identity. Life is not about becoming a certain person. Or a certain “character”. Life is about resource management.
I needed to read this about three years ago. Or four or five or six. I’ve done pretty well since then as regards resource management but knowing this would’ve helped to anchor me a lot. Not sure if I would’ve been ready for it though.
Going through male adolescence was experiencing the candy turning to ashes in my mouth. All the things I found interesting and entertaining as a child slowly ceased to be interesting and entertaining, and I didn’t understand why and I was terrified. And yet I kept going back to them expecting them to be interesting and entertaining, to try to MAKE them interesting and entertaining, like how they used to be. I thought that something was broken in me for no longer “getting” those things. Maybe that’s what you’ve been talking about with the “returning to the scene of the crime” stuff.
I remember being on the phone with a friend and trying to explain to him what I felt. It was like, there was nothing in me that declared, this is who I am. I think that’s called an ego. It seemed like everyone else had that and I didn’t. I guess maybe they’re all just pretending — and even if they aren’t, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all just masturbation: wanting to desire instead of actually desiring, signaling to the world that one has an identity by displaying to it the accidents of that identity as a proxy for achieving something concrete that the world historically has happened to associate with that identity. Actually my entire problem was me caring about how I felt about anything — or, for that matter, how anyone else felt. This paragraph is vanity and a striving after wind and I’m going to delete it.
I realized at some point shortly after college that I didn’t play video games to have fun, but to be good at them, and thereby to maintain an identity as a “gamer” or whatever. Now I play games strictly to have fun, and (incidentally) only on occasion. It’s a much better relationship.
Charming and excellent as usual.
At a certain point, you realize outside death and the afterlife, this world and its worldly ways are inescapable. You watch movies, play video games, read books to be entertained or feign understanding, all to move away from the global village and people talking, but you can't. You want a noble purpose like to fight for your nation, but you have none. You want to become more spiritually inclined, but it's all filtered through the internet and it's memes. You want to become religious and follow the Laws of God, but your close ones will think of you weird. You want to repent, but keeping the integrity of your soul is hard in this environment. You want to be a programmer, but nobody really understands it and you get made fun by the only thinkers you admire. You want to be a homesteader, but it's illegal. You want to write, but all writers are gay.
At a certain point, you realize the only solution is the most extreme one, and that time is assuredly ticking away. The "Go" you tell yourself doesn't need to arrise from a positive outlook, it can arise from dread or hopefully a Fear of God. At least that's how I will when you put it all clearly like this.
Word for word, this meant a lot to me. Thank you for posting this.
My recommendation would be to study petroleum engineering. No one else in the West is studying it these days: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-06/the-dawn-of-esg-is-decimating-ranks-of-new-petroleum-engineers
In 20 years when the boomer petroleum engineers are all retired or dead, you will be able to make so much money. You will likely be beyond cancelation; or, if cancelled, you can take your skills across the Pacific Ocean. Or, better yet, you'll be able to start your own business empire and then use it as a platform to achieve lasting glory.
This is, unironically, one of the best articles I've read all year. Cheers Egg Man.