I like to think I've been reasonably successful at becoming the person I used to want to be
That's a very good feeling. Of course not everything in life has played out exactly how I wanted, and there are always regrets about paths not taken
But ultimately I had an idea what I wanted from life and I mostly have it now
I had to make compromises on a lot of things, but it was worth it to get this far
I don't live in the city that I wanted to settle down in, but I own my own house where I live now
I had to leave family and friends behind in my hometown, but I have met new people and I have a new family where I live now
I don't work in my dream job, but I have built a solid career
I think the past me would be really happy to know what the future held for me, even if it did mean I am not that same person anymore
Edit: This is maybe a bit off topic but I think the recent cultural focus on "identity" (as in, "who am I") has been kind of negative for people
What worked really well for me was not getting wrapped up in "who am I" and instead focusing on "who do I want to be"
I've seen many friends and acquaintances fall off and become
miserable because they got mired in their identity (both sexual and otherwise).
Meanwhile I am one of the most successful people I know of from the people I grew up with. Actually, I'm one of the most successful people in my entire country (top 3% based on income, anyways)
Maybe it's a privilege to not have to worry about "who am I", but I really do think "who do I want to be" is just a much better approach. It's something you can actually take action to achieve
It does seem that who you wanted to be was just you plus a bunch of stuff. I guess most people think of who they want to become personality-wise but maybe it's just me.
> It does seem that who you wanted to be was just you plus a bunch of stuff
My knee jerk reaction to this was "how can anyone be anything but 'just who they are'". I think I get what you mean though. Many people dream much bigger than what they are actually capable of accomplishing. Maybe that was my real advantage. I've always been pretty grounded, and I've never really dreamed bigger than I could accomplish.
It may be that by not dreaming big I'm not reaching the absolute fullest potential I could, but it also means I accomplish many of the things I set out to do which is also a good feeling
I'm a firm believer in building strong foundations before reaching for the stars, and I guess my path somewhat embodies that
> I guess most people think of who they want to become personality-wise but maybe it's just me
Again I sort of think a lot of this boils down to people not having a good sense of their own capabilities. If your goals and your capabilities aren't aligned, you're very likely to crash out imo
> cultural focus on "identity" (as in, "who am I") has been kind of negative for people
> many become miserable because they got mired in their identity sexual and otherwise
I think one factor is that we're always looking for a balance between doing what we want and doing what's right. When they're not the same in someone's conscience, they look for external approval that what they want isn't wrong or bad or harmful, so they can keep doing it. Especially sexually.
There's also virtue signalling as a way to get social credit, which is also usually geared towards getting something that you want, but with it either being not justified or not earned.
Not to criticize you but just in general: does it make sense to live up to a desire dreamed up by a 4-year-old. Is it more pure? Or just naive? Why is it any better than something that an adult or present you wants? In what ways can it be worse to be dictated by a child?
In a way this is a tension between an individual and society. Children dream of big impossible things, while archetypical grown-ups just want a paycheck and a house, with a few weeks of vacation. The extent to which we abandon childhood dreams is an indicator of how much we were crushed by society (or "real world").
Carl Jung investigated this with his "puer-aeternus" (the child that was promised) and "senex" (old man) archetypes. A really interesting read, if you have time for that. In essence I think he advocated a balance, where one starts at childhood, becomes a cynical grown-up and then re-integrates his childhood fantasies back into his character, but now in a less naive and wiser way.
That's cultural bias right there. It happens only if you tell them to dream impossible big things. If you don't teach children that astronauts exist, they will likely dream to become their teacher or the janitor at school, especially the friendly, nice ones.
I won't do a better job defending Jung's ideas than the man himself in his works, but just as a friendly reply: yes, but according to Jungs theories - these are archetypes - meaning all people have a combination of one _and_ the other. There might be people who refuse to grow up and stay in a kind of perpetual childhood with a failure-to-launch and never finishing their own projects (a good book about that is "The problem of puer aeternus"), and there are also children that grow up too quickly and start being cynical and sarcastic with a know-it-all attitude, and belief that nothing is worth doing and the world is going to shit. The actual human beings are a combination of those archetypes. So an astronaut is a cultural input, in the same way that saying that you have two hands is a cultural input, but what is different is the inner attitude - do you see a lot of potential to the point that you cannot make a decision between several choices, or do you see barriers and feel a loss of meaning. Again, a healthy combination is "best".
When I was four years old I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle when I grew up, so I may not be the best "former four year old" to ask. Disclaimer: I didn't grow up to be a Ninja Turtle. I didn't even become a Ninja, or a Turtle. Absolute failure to live up to my four year old dreams
But when I was a bit older I knew "I want to do something with computers", because my family had a windows 3.1 computer and I liked to play games on it. Of course at the time I had no idea what anyone even did with computers. I also had no idea that in the future every single job that exists would be "something to do with computers"
I started taking computer classes in high school which got me into programming, because I wanted to make games. This is a pretty common pipeline for Millennial programmers I think
After that I went to a local university and took Computer Science. Luckily I was just dumb enough to stick with it the whole time and get a bachelors. I say dumb enough somewhat ironically. Obviously doing a BSc in Compsci takes a bit of smarts, but I had friends who became convinced they were too smart to bother with a degree, and all of them who dropped out to pursue their own path without the degree are much worse off than I am now
Anyways, after my degree I no longer wanted to work in games. I wanted to work in embedded systems. Turns out there weren't many opportunities to work in embedded systems in my local market so I got into web dev. Like I said, not my dream job, but I'm very good at it and it has been a really successful career.
So I guess to summarize:
Yes I was pretty lucky to somewhat choose a direction when I was young, even if I didn't know more than "work with computers".
However the dream path still wasn't exactly a straightforward arrow from Ninja Turtle to Web Dev. At every single step it felt like I was compromising on my dreams.
Turns out that compromise can be really good though
Yes. I just wanted to be a scientist when I was four years old. Real life happened and graduate school has not managed to come around yet, but it is not too late for me to go back (only 33 years old). But being a DevOps engineer is far better than some of the alternatives that could have been me. One day I will finally get to that childhood dream.
part of being is evolving... some (if not all) of the things you wanted as a child are largely influenced by your parents/surroundings/... as you move through life and make your own path I would think that I would want my path to be carved by my own experiences/desires/... and my eventual person that I am (which is ever-changing) be made of clay that is molded vs. built by bricks when I was a child
Interesting contrast with me - I never bothered with such questions, absolutely nobody from my peers did when growing up well into 20s. Eastern Europe raised way more normalized individuals (for their own purposes) than free world did who were not supposed to ask such questions (nobody stopped you from doing so, but you had to come with it on your own as inspiration was scarce).
Never projected any solid path, took every day as it went and just (rather well) recognized those crucial moments in life where choices are made that massively affect rest of the life. What to study, how hard to study, where to move (or not) after university, partners, if and which job to change, if and where to move further etc. But it was always just focus on now and maybe next step at most.
Anyway the path I ended up taking I wouldn't make up even in my wildest dreams. Surpassed expectations massively of all folks that knew me, be it peers or family. And overall it wasn't hard at all for me, but for others who would like to jump to last (most successful) moves it would be, since they didn't go through all those steps I did before.
Moved between 3 countries within Europe (nobody from my peers did that, max 1 and settle - nothing special on its own, but I came from very settle-asap environment). Increased my salary of Java dev cca 30-40x compared to first full time job with cca same role, ending up in maybe top 0.1% within Europe (I know, not SV, but still), while still just 100% employed (actually 90% now with 50 paid vacation days, what a deal). Living in more beautiful place than I imagined existed, in society I am proud to be part of that never ceases to amaze me (Switzerland). Backpacked the world in remote 3rd countries when most folks I know went for sunbathing at nearest beach. Picked up passions that nobody I knew back home did like climbing, alpinism, diving, ski touring, paragliding and so on.
Started very low, so far ended rather high. But it can all easily come crashing down like house of cards, well aware of that. Had a big paragliding accident last year, both legs broken, still some consequences. Good for yet another perspective alignment. Have properly wonderful small kids, thats main focus now. With kids, they take over life so effectively I don't have time nor even will for such questions. So focusing on now, and maybe next (small, not physical rather financial) move.
Am I person I used to be? Hell no I am completely different person, from core up to the rest, better, more resilient and tolerant, vastly more knowledgeable about people and world, yet always learning (ie this site is amazing for that, there is no topic not worthy learning)
Indeed it is extreme privilege and lack of adversity that would allow "who do I want to be" to be the dominant driver of personality. Most people have to amputate parts of themselves and go actively against their identity everyday to make modern ends meet. This is the basis of "Dysphoria" and cognitive dissonance when talking about the focus on identity
I was bullied relentlessly in elementary school, I got into fistfights constantly
My family didn't have a ton of money, we were very blue collar. My dad worked his way up to manager at a tool store. I am not some guy who went to an ivy league. I took student loans just to attend a local community college because I could not afford to relocate to a good university even though I had the grades. I just didn't have scholarship tier grades. I wasn't getting a free ride anywhere
I had some privileges, for sure. Having a loving family that supported me is a big one. Having the intelligence and just enough work ethic to be successful in school.
But man, I worked evenings in fast food jobs during high school to afford a car because my family absolutely could not afford to buy me even a clunker
Edit: And I needed this car desperately, because there was no nearby transit I could use to eventually get to college, nevermind getting to other, slightly better part time jobs
Like there's privilege, I acknowledge but maybe dial it back from "extreme privilege"?
You are the one who said top 3% earner. I didn't mean it disparaging, but you were coming across as a bit "let them eat cake" most people concerned with identity because it's an everyday struggle to make identity fit reality and most people have way too much to lose to risk rocking the boat . So you die a thousand little deaths everyday so you can no eat and pay bills then have a rich guy online post your comment lol .
Not to minimize but most of your adversity is "normal" almost everyone has had these struggles and they are also easily paved over with money. Also telling how it is all past tense. you described a normal "middle class " childhood through the economic collapse of the 2000s.
> You are the one who said top 3% earner. I didn't mean it disparaging, but you were coming across as a bit "let them eat cake"
I can see why you would get that impression, but what do you want from me here? From my perspective I have worked very hard to get to this place
For context, I started out 15ish years ago making ~28k USD/year as a junior software dev. I suspect this is pretty low for most people on this forum, even as a junior?
Now I make ~98k USD as a senior software dev, 15 years later. I suspect that is much lower than "top 3% of earners in Canada" sounded like? Edit: For context this would 'only' put me in the top 13% of American earners. I suspect many people on this forum do much better than I do, and the top 3% of American earners make my income look like a joke
I don't think I fit the archetype of "rich guy posting online" that you have projected on me. I do really well for myself yes, within my country and within my context, but I'm not exactly the Bezos of Canada.
> most people concerned with identity because it's an everyday struggle to make identity fit reality and most people have way too much to lose to risk rocking the boat
It is way harder to make reality fit your identity than it is to modify your identity to fit reality
> Also telling how it is all past tense. you described a normal "middle class " childhood through the economic collapse of the 2000s
By strict definition it was lower class, not middle class. But yes, lower class in the 90s and 00s was much more comfortable than it is today, you're right about that
This passage is from a book I read with my kids, in the "Mysterious Benedict Society" series. I like the way it describes how we become, in a sense, an accumulation of our selves, past and present. I also feel that way about some long-term friendships and other relationships.
> "And do you know what Nicholas said? I remember it plainly. He said that he doesn't believe that we become different people as we age. No, he says he believes we become _more_ people. We're still the kids we were, but we're also the people who've lived all the different ages since that time. A whole bunch of different people rolled up into one -- that's how Nicholas sees it. And I can't say that I disagree. How else to explain that sometimes I want to run and jump the way I used to -- but can't anymore -- yet at the same time enjoy sitting with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in a way you couldn't have paid me to do as a boy? Well, it's a wonder."
Here's another way this rings true. When I look at my wife, to whom I've been married for 17 years, I don't just see her as she is now. I see her as she has been ever since I've met her. I am married to a 44-year-old and a 24-year-old, and a woman of every age in between.
Loosely related talk from Hank Green a number of years ago whose thesis is basically that you don't owe your past self's dreams anything. It's kind of hard to summarize further, but I really like it:
It is weird, but I distinctly remember when I lost the unconditional happiness I had since I was a child. It never came back and I miss it. It is not like I am not happy, it is just that it depends on many factors.
I also distinctly remember having a late afternoon sit to think very hard about my future, with a conclusion of 'this is just about the end of childhood, it's time to start becoming an adult with some hard responsibilities' result. I was 12 or 13, and there was absolutely no pretext for doing that. For a long time, I assumed many people had this direct kind of enlightenment, but now I think the opposite. So I'm not the same person I used to be due to simply having the drive to change for the better and correct my bad assumptions.
Emerson may or may not have said “ I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
I have a four year as well and we go on grand adventures in the mountains and all over really. I think about this quote and decide that I’m shaping my kids spirit, their courage, their confidence regardless of if they’ll remember it. Beyond that in the present we experience joy and curiosity and laughter and life! It’s silly to lament childhood amnesia because I dont aim to catalog things and check things off a list but experience a fun and interesting life with my family.
Actual memories blur together with synthetic memories constructed from old photographs, and stories told by others.
These days it's really easy to accumulate synthetic memory material in the form of thousands of photos and videos. My kids are covered that way. The hard part is still having access to them a generation later. At least the sparse material from back then survives as fading photographs in a physical album. Not so sure about the flood of material accumulating on people's phones these days. Mine lives on reliable backups but I figure once I'm gone all that digital data will bit rot like everyone else's.
As for "same person"? Of course not. Both body and mind change over time as you accumulate life experiences, both good and bad. It's a continuum of change. I'd have quite a bit of stuff to tell my 30 year ago self. Don't know if he would listen.
I have a thought to share here: photography has changed. It’s not just that we don’t necessarily make photo albums the way we used to, but also that the actual choices we make when taking a photo and the way we behave when someone is taking our photo has shifted.
These things tell stories that reinforce certain narratives. You think your kids are covered but how? When do take a photo? Which ones do you dump, which ones do you look at later?
It’s a weird uncanny synthetic memory thing when OS AI sorts through photos as well.
Anyways, I don’t think younger me would listen either.
Absolutely true, of course. You don't take pictures of the disasters, you take pictures of the stuff you feel good about, that you want to remember. This reinforces the existing "golden glow of nostalgia" tendency. But has that ever been different in photography?
A mind game that I sometimes play: Think of a particularly pleasant "golden glow of nostalgia" memory (or set of photos), and then fill it in with surrounding detail. Not stuff that you remember exactly but context. The boring or even annoying stuff. What if that were recorded too? Why, then browsing around in old recordings would be no more interesting than leading one's current life. Nostalgia, whether in the mind or in recorded media, filters down to the "worth remembering" highlights for a reason.
One of the glass or diamond based storage technologies really needs to take off. What we're missing right now is something matching HDD/SSD in capacity but providing very long term endurance of the "it's been in a box in the attic for 50 years" type
CD-R was thought of that way, but wasn't really stable in the long term at a usable price point.
Even in cases where the physical media survives, the issue remains of continued availability of working hardware to read the media.
This might get better in the future though. We seem to be reaching the end of technology's exponential growth phase (famous last words, I know). Perhaps the pace of change will slow and standards will start lasting longer as a result.
There is a surprising amount of detailed childhood memories you may be able to retrieve by making a prolonged, conscious effort. I would guess that many people who say they don't have very many childhood memories have never taken e.g. 30 minutes of concentrated effort to really try to retrieve them. Here's what worked for me: imagine my childhood apartment, and mentally move along it, very very slowly, stopping in every part of every room, mentally examining every piece of furniture, etc. Of course it won't work for everyone, but for me memories associated with specific places just flooded in, I was very surprised at how many there were. I'm sure there are other methods as well. I think basically it involves trying a bunch of different "keys" that may be a match to "values" stored in memory.
I'm not even sure what the concept of "person" means anymore. Am I in the same body? Not really, most cells have been replaced by newer ones. Am I taking relatively the same volume and shape in space? Yes, my body, despite all the new cells, still looks more-or-less the same (bar the gray hair and other changes). Am I the same "I" and "me" I used to call myself? I don't even know if my memories are completely accurate to see if how I thought of myself in the past is the same as now. And I've been wondering who's the person that says/thinks these things (like in this comment) for over a decade now...
I might be just a super advanced neural net (like a language model) with self-reflection and so many self-doubts.
I would take the existential dread a step further: am "I" even the same person I remember being yesterday?
I seem to be a conscious entity, and I have access to the physical memory store in my brain, but am "I" actually going to survive falling asleep tonight? Or am "I" like a fire that gets extinguished, with a new one to be lit in my place tomorrow morning, using the same pile of half burnt logs?
The old sci-fi/philosophy teleportation question addresses this with the concept of physically destroying and reconstructing a body, but I don't know if we need near magic tech to elicit the problem.
We turn our conscious selves off for periods of deep sleep every day (or two, or three... but there is a definite limit). Do we really survive this transition?
These are actually some of the preliminary contemplations on emptiness (sunyata) and non-self (anatman) that are done in Buddhist lineages. Each school does it slightly differently -- maybe ngondro in vajrayana, study of the heart sutra in zen schools, etc. -- but generally you meditate looking for a permanent thing you can call self until you realize there isn't one.
When I was first starting my practice I found Thich Nhat Hanh's translation of the heart sutra [1], Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book on anatman [2], and the four thoughts from ngondro [3] to be the most insightful.
If your family put good values into you, then hopefully you as an adult are a reasonable evolution from the child version of you - you are manifesting those values in your own ways, appropriate to your environment.
I recently was at a Gala for a Rabbi, who wasn't born religious. His secular parents were there, and he thanked them for teaching him to always seek truth and to priories that pursuit. The pursuit itself took him to a different area (they are secular, he found truth in Judaism) but he was still operating on their parameters, just took them to a logical conclusion for himself.
Similarly, I think a 5 year old version of myself would not be too disappointed with the 44 year old version of myself, because to a large extent I then and now share my family's core values.
At the same time, you evolve in response to where you are. So for example I always knew I wanted a family, but I had to "grow up/evolve" to be someone that my someone like my wife would marry, and evolve again was we had 1, 2, and now 3 kids. Am I a different person as a father than as a single guy in NYC? Yeah. Is it a natural evolution - perhaps a richer manifestation what was always potential? Doubly yeah.
The other thing is - we have a lot more room to evolve aspects of ourselves, even as adults. For example I've personally always been very upfront, very intense, very intolerant of fuckups. All these things have ameliorated as I became a father - not because I betrayed some aspect of my personality, but because underlying that intensity was a deep care about the outcome, and with little kids, something different is required to attain the outcomes.
So things you think are "you" - you zoom out and just see as tools, and then realize that other tools are more appropriate to pursue your actual values.
Analogously from fatherhood, being a leader of larger and larger organizations has similar effect. The deep intrinsic set of abilities and behaviors that made me a rockstar engineer IC, is not the same as what makes me successful as a product leader. So as I step into these different roles, I have to figure out what's not working - and to figure out if that's really "intrinsic parts of me" that are in the way, or is there a perspective that lets me change those things while remaining true to myself.
So again thinking back to my 5 year old self, did I have what it takes to be a good father/leader? Obviously not. But I had some value of "not sucking at those things when I become them, and evolving in response" somewhere in there. So when I encountered those things, it wasn't a betrayal of self to evolve.
My oldest kid is almost 5, and I am realizing how much you get to shape some of their values/ideas. For example if I don't let them watch TV/videos, I always say "it's because this stuff doesn't make you smarter. But we watch certain things because they do make you smarter." It's less to win an argument about a particular TV moment but more to create a life long memory "dad always cared that we did things that made us smarter" kind of thing. I am sure my kids will end up in plenty situations I can't possibly anticipate but there's hope that "which one will make me smarter" is one lens they'll use to decide in their own evolution.
I find it funny that this has a paywall for the article, but on the same webpage it offers thevfull audio. I guess I am the same kid as before, trying to find loopholes.
It paints a picture of us constantly reshaping our identities, but how much of that is truly up to us? I feel like our choices are shaped by things like family, upbringing, or biology, are we really free to evolve, or are we just rolling with a preset script?
Yes, for sure we are limited by our biology. Someone born crippled will never be an olympic body builder. Someone born stupid will never be a math researcher.
And of course we have a lot of inputs like family, upbringing, schooling, culture, etc which all shape us
However, humans are capable of being inputs into our own system as well. It is not easy, necessarily, but I do strongly believe that we are capable of shaping our own identities as a result of being able to be our own inputs.
We can also choose to relocate, change friend groups, change careers, whatever else we need to do to change our external inputs as well
Of course we are limited by physical reality and limited by things like money and opportunity, our intelligence and aptitude and such, but as long as we can find something within our capabilities, we can shape ourselves into it
For example, I am nearly 40. I have ice skated my whole life but never used to play ice hockey.
I'm never going to play in a pro league, I'm already too old even if I was phenomenal somehow. But it is well within my capability to join a beginner old timers league and play with people my skill level if I want to
Even if there is a preset script its very hard to see it, given the variety of identities and different environments people get thrown into. Even people who are extremely similar can end up leading extremely different lives.
Just anedata, but the earliest memory I can recall is from when I was 3, by the time my brother was born. But it's too fragmentary. From 6-8 onwards I can recall much better what was like being me by then.
Anytime I think of myself 5 years ago, I always think that I used to be an imbecile. And that is a good thing, because otherwise the logical conclusion would be that I am still one.
Or, as someone much smarter than me once said, "When I think of all I have said, I envy the mute".
I'm sure my nephew got it from someone else, but recently told me, "if you don't look back at yourself five years ago and cringe about something, you're not making progress."
I'm the opposite. I feel like the core essence of me has mostly stayed the same. I've picked up more skills and learned a lot from life experiences. But it's more like getting new clues to a mystery than a change. In other words, the core processing stayed the same but new facts arose.
For the first time in my life I have actual regrets. Which is strange and new. But again it's not like what I wanted to have happened changed.
I still can be but at some point I recognized that my personality and behavior was driving people away from me and also it made me miserable to be that way. I made a conscious effort to change
Actually, this is somewhat also related to the idea I posted elsewhere in this thread, about being inputs into our own system.
When I wanted to stop being so miserable to be around, I set a goal for myself: "I am going to try to make at least one person smile every day"
I don't think I managed to every day, but it made me take note when I did make people smile. It felt good, partly because I made someone else happy, partly because I was accomplishing the goal I set for myself
I think it was a very key component of becoming a happier person myself
> The question of our continuity has an empirical side that can be answered scientifically.
Wait, what? Doesn't the Ship of Thesseus apply to our character just as much as to our body? And if so, doesn't that make it a philosophical question, and absolutely not scientific, as character is immaterial?
Can’t read beyond the paywall but right of the bat it starts with the (to me) mistaken claim that one needs memories of something to have that something shape your character. Why do people believe this?
No, took the wrong drug. Entered psychosis, saw myself of who I was to be in a mirror. Family pulled me out of the psychosis and I swore to never be that person. 10 years later, I have my own apartment, have stability and more of a solid personality.
It hurts to change oneself but so glad I am not in the place I was before.
I like to think I've been reasonably successful at becoming the person I used to want to be
That's a very good feeling. Of course not everything in life has played out exactly how I wanted, and there are always regrets about paths not taken
But ultimately I had an idea what I wanted from life and I mostly have it now
I had to make compromises on a lot of things, but it was worth it to get this far
I don't live in the city that I wanted to settle down in, but I own my own house where I live now
I had to leave family and friends behind in my hometown, but I have met new people and I have a new family where I live now
I don't work in my dream job, but I have built a solid career
I think the past me would be really happy to know what the future held for me, even if it did mean I am not that same person anymore
Edit: This is maybe a bit off topic but I think the recent cultural focus on "identity" (as in, "who am I") has been kind of negative for people
What worked really well for me was not getting wrapped up in "who am I" and instead focusing on "who do I want to be"
I've seen many friends and acquaintances fall off and become miserable because they got mired in their identity (both sexual and otherwise).
Meanwhile I am one of the most successful people I know of from the people I grew up with. Actually, I'm one of the most successful people in my entire country (top 3% based on income, anyways)
Maybe it's a privilege to not have to worry about "who am I", but I really do think "who do I want to be" is just a much better approach. It's something you can actually take action to achieve
It does seem that who you wanted to be was just you plus a bunch of stuff. I guess most people think of who they want to become personality-wise but maybe it's just me.
> It does seem that who you wanted to be was just you plus a bunch of stuff
My knee jerk reaction to this was "how can anyone be anything but 'just who they are'". I think I get what you mean though. Many people dream much bigger than what they are actually capable of accomplishing. Maybe that was my real advantage. I've always been pretty grounded, and I've never really dreamed bigger than I could accomplish.
It may be that by not dreaming big I'm not reaching the absolute fullest potential I could, but it also means I accomplish many of the things I set out to do which is also a good feeling
I'm a firm believer in building strong foundations before reaching for the stars, and I guess my path somewhat embodies that
> I guess most people think of who they want to become personality-wise but maybe it's just me
Again I sort of think a lot of this boils down to people not having a good sense of their own capabilities. If your goals and your capabilities aren't aligned, you're very likely to crash out imo
> cultural focus on "identity" (as in, "who am I") has been kind of negative for people
> many become miserable because they got mired in their identity sexual and otherwise
I think one factor is that we're always looking for a balance between doing what we want and doing what's right. When they're not the same in someone's conscience, they look for external approval that what they want isn't wrong or bad or harmful, so they can keep doing it. Especially sexually.
There's also virtue signalling as a way to get social credit, which is also usually geared towards getting something that you want, but with it either being not justified or not earned.
Not to criticize you but just in general: does it make sense to live up to a desire dreamed up by a 4-year-old. Is it more pure? Or just naive? Why is it any better than something that an adult or present you wants? In what ways can it be worse to be dictated by a child?
4 year old me couldn't wait to grow up so that I could have a red sports bike and a hot girlfriend.
I now have red sport-touring bike and a beautiful wife so, mission accomplished?
In a way this is a tension between an individual and society. Children dream of big impossible things, while archetypical grown-ups just want a paycheck and a house, with a few weeks of vacation. The extent to which we abandon childhood dreams is an indicator of how much we were crushed by society (or "real world").
Carl Jung investigated this with his "puer-aeternus" (the child that was promised) and "senex" (old man) archetypes. A really interesting read, if you have time for that. In essence I think he advocated a balance, where one starts at childhood, becomes a cynical grown-up and then re-integrates his childhood fantasies back into his character, but now in a less naive and wiser way.
> Children dream of big impossible things
That's cultural bias right there. It happens only if you tell them to dream impossible big things. If you don't teach children that astronauts exist, they will likely dream to become their teacher or the janitor at school, especially the friendly, nice ones.
I won't do a better job defending Jung's ideas than the man himself in his works, but just as a friendly reply: yes, but according to Jungs theories - these are archetypes - meaning all people have a combination of one _and_ the other. There might be people who refuse to grow up and stay in a kind of perpetual childhood with a failure-to-launch and never finishing their own projects (a good book about that is "The problem of puer aeternus"), and there are also children that grow up too quickly and start being cynical and sarcastic with a know-it-all attitude, and belief that nothing is worth doing and the world is going to shit. The actual human beings are a combination of those archetypes. So an astronaut is a cultural input, in the same way that saying that you have two hands is a cultural input, but what is different is the inner attitude - do you see a lot of potential to the point that you cannot make a decision between several choices, or do you see barriers and feel a loss of meaning. Again, a healthy combination is "best".
When I was four years old I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle when I grew up, so I may not be the best "former four year old" to ask. Disclaimer: I didn't grow up to be a Ninja Turtle. I didn't even become a Ninja, or a Turtle. Absolute failure to live up to my four year old dreams
But when I was a bit older I knew "I want to do something with computers", because my family had a windows 3.1 computer and I liked to play games on it. Of course at the time I had no idea what anyone even did with computers. I also had no idea that in the future every single job that exists would be "something to do with computers"
I started taking computer classes in high school which got me into programming, because I wanted to make games. This is a pretty common pipeline for Millennial programmers I think
After that I went to a local university and took Computer Science. Luckily I was just dumb enough to stick with it the whole time and get a bachelors. I say dumb enough somewhat ironically. Obviously doing a BSc in Compsci takes a bit of smarts, but I had friends who became convinced they were too smart to bother with a degree, and all of them who dropped out to pursue their own path without the degree are much worse off than I am now
Anyways, after my degree I no longer wanted to work in games. I wanted to work in embedded systems. Turns out there weren't many opportunities to work in embedded systems in my local market so I got into web dev. Like I said, not my dream job, but I'm very good at it and it has been a really successful career.
So I guess to summarize:
Yes I was pretty lucky to somewhat choose a direction when I was young, even if I didn't know more than "work with computers".
However the dream path still wasn't exactly a straightforward arrow from Ninja Turtle to Web Dev. At every single step it felt like I was compromising on my dreams.
Turns out that compromise can be really good though
Unfortunately no
Although I may have to make a point of this sometime now, just for kicks
Yes. I just wanted to be a scientist when I was four years old. Real life happened and graduate school has not managed to come around yet, but it is not too late for me to go back (only 33 years old). But being a DevOps engineer is far better than some of the alternatives that could have been me. One day I will finally get to that childhood dream.
part of being is evolving... some (if not all) of the things you wanted as a child are largely influenced by your parents/surroundings/... as you move through life and make your own path I would think that I would want my path to be carved by my own experiences/desires/... and my eventual person that I am (which is ever-changing) be made of clay that is molded vs. built by bricks when I was a child
Interesting contrast with me - I never bothered with such questions, absolutely nobody from my peers did when growing up well into 20s. Eastern Europe raised way more normalized individuals (for their own purposes) than free world did who were not supposed to ask such questions (nobody stopped you from doing so, but you had to come with it on your own as inspiration was scarce).
Never projected any solid path, took every day as it went and just (rather well) recognized those crucial moments in life where choices are made that massively affect rest of the life. What to study, how hard to study, where to move (or not) after university, partners, if and which job to change, if and where to move further etc. But it was always just focus on now and maybe next step at most.
Anyway the path I ended up taking I wouldn't make up even in my wildest dreams. Surpassed expectations massively of all folks that knew me, be it peers or family. And overall it wasn't hard at all for me, but for others who would like to jump to last (most successful) moves it would be, since they didn't go through all those steps I did before.
Moved between 3 countries within Europe (nobody from my peers did that, max 1 and settle - nothing special on its own, but I came from very settle-asap environment). Increased my salary of Java dev cca 30-40x compared to first full time job with cca same role, ending up in maybe top 0.1% within Europe (I know, not SV, but still), while still just 100% employed (actually 90% now with 50 paid vacation days, what a deal). Living in more beautiful place than I imagined existed, in society I am proud to be part of that never ceases to amaze me (Switzerland). Backpacked the world in remote 3rd countries when most folks I know went for sunbathing at nearest beach. Picked up passions that nobody I knew back home did like climbing, alpinism, diving, ski touring, paragliding and so on.
Started very low, so far ended rather high. But it can all easily come crashing down like house of cards, well aware of that. Had a big paragliding accident last year, both legs broken, still some consequences. Good for yet another perspective alignment. Have properly wonderful small kids, thats main focus now. With kids, they take over life so effectively I don't have time nor even will for such questions. So focusing on now, and maybe next (small, not physical rather financial) move.
Am I person I used to be? Hell no I am completely different person, from core up to the rest, better, more resilient and tolerant, vastly more knowledgeable about people and world, yet always learning (ie this site is amazing for that, there is no topic not worthy learning)
Indeed it is extreme privilege and lack of adversity that would allow "who do I want to be" to be the dominant driver of personality. Most people have to amputate parts of themselves and go actively against their identity everyday to make modern ends meet. This is the basis of "Dysphoria" and cognitive dissonance when talking about the focus on identity
Adversity is what drove me, not what held me back
I was bullied relentlessly in elementary school, I got into fistfights constantly
My family didn't have a ton of money, we were very blue collar. My dad worked his way up to manager at a tool store. I am not some guy who went to an ivy league. I took student loans just to attend a local community college because I could not afford to relocate to a good university even though I had the grades. I just didn't have scholarship tier grades. I wasn't getting a free ride anywhere
I had some privileges, for sure. Having a loving family that supported me is a big one. Having the intelligence and just enough work ethic to be successful in school.
But man, I worked evenings in fast food jobs during high school to afford a car because my family absolutely could not afford to buy me even a clunker
Edit: And I needed this car desperately, because there was no nearby transit I could use to eventually get to college, nevermind getting to other, slightly better part time jobs
Like there's privilege, I acknowledge but maybe dial it back from "extreme privilege"?
You are the one who said top 3% earner. I didn't mean it disparaging, but you were coming across as a bit "let them eat cake" most people concerned with identity because it's an everyday struggle to make identity fit reality and most people have way too much to lose to risk rocking the boat . So you die a thousand little deaths everyday so you can no eat and pay bills then have a rich guy online post your comment lol .
Not to minimize but most of your adversity is "normal" almost everyone has had these struggles and they are also easily paved over with money. Also telling how it is all past tense. you described a normal "middle class " childhood through the economic collapse of the 2000s.
> You are the one who said top 3% earner. I didn't mean it disparaging, but you were coming across as a bit "let them eat cake"
I can see why you would get that impression, but what do you want from me here? From my perspective I have worked very hard to get to this place
For context, I started out 15ish years ago making ~28k USD/year as a junior software dev. I suspect this is pretty low for most people on this forum, even as a junior?
Now I make ~98k USD as a senior software dev, 15 years later. I suspect that is much lower than "top 3% of earners in Canada" sounded like? Edit: For context this would 'only' put me in the top 13% of American earners. I suspect many people on this forum do much better than I do, and the top 3% of American earners make my income look like a joke
I don't think I fit the archetype of "rich guy posting online" that you have projected on me. I do really well for myself yes, within my country and within my context, but I'm not exactly the Bezos of Canada.
> most people concerned with identity because it's an everyday struggle to make identity fit reality and most people have way too much to lose to risk rocking the boat
It is way harder to make reality fit your identity than it is to modify your identity to fit reality
> Also telling how it is all past tense. you described a normal "middle class " childhood through the economic collapse of the 2000s
By strict definition it was lower class, not middle class. But yes, lower class in the 90s and 00s was much more comfortable than it is today, you're right about that
Good for you
This passage is from a book I read with my kids, in the "Mysterious Benedict Society" series. I like the way it describes how we become, in a sense, an accumulation of our selves, past and present. I also feel that way about some long-term friendships and other relationships.
> "And do you know what Nicholas said? I remember it plainly. He said that he doesn't believe that we become different people as we age. No, he says he believes we become _more_ people. We're still the kids we were, but we're also the people who've lived all the different ages since that time. A whole bunch of different people rolled up into one -- that's how Nicholas sees it. And I can't say that I disagree. How else to explain that sometimes I want to run and jump the way I used to -- but can't anymore -- yet at the same time enjoy sitting with a cup of coffee and a newspaper in a way you couldn't have paid me to do as a boy? Well, it's a wonder."
Here's another way this rings true. When I look at my wife, to whom I've been married for 17 years, I don't just see her as she is now. I see her as she has been ever since I've met her. I am married to a 44-year-old and a 24-year-old, and a woman of every age in between.
Being 50+ and married for 20 years, I really like that outlook. Thanks for sharing!
Loosely related talk from Hank Green a number of years ago whose thesis is basically that you don't owe your past self's dreams anything. It's kind of hard to summarize further, but I really like it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPtopvsxmZY (the main part starts about 5 minutes in, some salty text)
>you don't owe your past self's dreams anything.
I still struggle with "disappointing" my early 20's self. He might cringe at some things.
It is weird, but I distinctly remember when I lost the unconditional happiness I had since I was a child. It never came back and I miss it. It is not like I am not happy, it is just that it depends on many factors.
I also distinctly remember having a late afternoon sit to think very hard about my future, with a conclusion of 'this is just about the end of childhood, it's time to start becoming an adult with some hard responsibilities' result. I was 12 or 13, and there was absolutely no pretext for doing that. For a long time, I assumed many people had this direct kind of enlightenment, but now I think the opposite. So I'm not the same person I used to be due to simply having the drive to change for the better and correct my bad assumptions.
Emerson may or may not have said “ I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
I have a four year as well and we go on grand adventures in the mountains and all over really. I think about this quote and decide that I’m shaping my kids spirit, their courage, their confidence regardless of if they’ll remember it. Beyond that in the present we experience joy and curiosity and laughter and life! It’s silly to lament childhood amnesia because I dont aim to catalog things and check things off a list but experience a fun and interesting life with my family.
That's why we don't value photos that much in my family. The point is to actually _live_ a good life, not _remember_ it.
You don't have to choose between one or the other, though.
https://archive.is/20250423192741/https://www.newyorker.com/...
Actual memories blur together with synthetic memories constructed from old photographs, and stories told by others.
These days it's really easy to accumulate synthetic memory material in the form of thousands of photos and videos. My kids are covered that way. The hard part is still having access to them a generation later. At least the sparse material from back then survives as fading photographs in a physical album. Not so sure about the flood of material accumulating on people's phones these days. Mine lives on reliable backups but I figure once I'm gone all that digital data will bit rot like everyone else's.
As for "same person"? Of course not. Both body and mind change over time as you accumulate life experiences, both good and bad. It's a continuum of change. I'd have quite a bit of stuff to tell my 30 year ago self. Don't know if he would listen.
I have a thought to share here: photography has changed. It’s not just that we don’t necessarily make photo albums the way we used to, but also that the actual choices we make when taking a photo and the way we behave when someone is taking our photo has shifted.
These things tell stories that reinforce certain narratives. You think your kids are covered but how? When do take a photo? Which ones do you dump, which ones do you look at later?
It’s a weird uncanny synthetic memory thing when OS AI sorts through photos as well.
Anyways, I don’t think younger me would listen either.
Absolutely true, of course. You don't take pictures of the disasters, you take pictures of the stuff you feel good about, that you want to remember. This reinforces the existing "golden glow of nostalgia" tendency. But has that ever been different in photography?
A mind game that I sometimes play: Think of a particularly pleasant "golden glow of nostalgia" memory (or set of photos), and then fill it in with surrounding detail. Not stuff that you remember exactly but context. The boring or even annoying stuff. What if that were recorded too? Why, then browsing around in old recordings would be no more interesting than leading one's current life. Nostalgia, whether in the mind or in recorded media, filters down to the "worth remembering" highlights for a reason.
One of the glass or diamond based storage technologies really needs to take off. What we're missing right now is something matching HDD/SSD in capacity but providing very long term endurance of the "it's been in a box in the attic for 50 years" type
CD-R was thought of that way, but wasn't really stable in the long term at a usable price point.
Even in cases where the physical media survives, the issue remains of continued availability of working hardware to read the media.
This might get better in the future though. We seem to be reaching the end of technology's exponential growth phase (famous last words, I know). Perhaps the pace of change will slow and standards will start lasting longer as a result.
There is a surprising amount of detailed childhood memories you may be able to retrieve by making a prolonged, conscious effort. I would guess that many people who say they don't have very many childhood memories have never taken e.g. 30 minutes of concentrated effort to really try to retrieve them. Here's what worked for me: imagine my childhood apartment, and mentally move along it, very very slowly, stopping in every part of every room, mentally examining every piece of furniture, etc. Of course it won't work for everyone, but for me memories associated with specific places just flooded in, I was very surprised at how many there were. I'm sure there are other methods as well. I think basically it involves trying a bunch of different "keys" that may be a match to "values" stored in memory.
I'm closer to remembering who I am than ever before, does that count?
I'm not even sure what the concept of "person" means anymore. Am I in the same body? Not really, most cells have been replaced by newer ones. Am I taking relatively the same volume and shape in space? Yes, my body, despite all the new cells, still looks more-or-less the same (bar the gray hair and other changes). Am I the same "I" and "me" I used to call myself? I don't even know if my memories are completely accurate to see if how I thought of myself in the past is the same as now. And I've been wondering who's the person that says/thinks these things (like in this comment) for over a decade now...
I might be just a super advanced neural net (like a language model) with self-reflection and so many self-doubts.
I would take the existential dread a step further: am "I" even the same person I remember being yesterday?
I seem to be a conscious entity, and I have access to the physical memory store in my brain, but am "I" actually going to survive falling asleep tonight? Or am "I" like a fire that gets extinguished, with a new one to be lit in my place tomorrow morning, using the same pile of half burnt logs?
The old sci-fi/philosophy teleportation question addresses this with the concept of physically destroying and reconstructing a body, but I don't know if we need near magic tech to elicit the problem.
We turn our conscious selves off for periods of deep sleep every day (or two, or three... but there is a definite limit). Do we really survive this transition?
These are actually some of the preliminary contemplations on emptiness (sunyata) and non-self (anatman) that are done in Buddhist lineages. Each school does it slightly differently -- maybe ngondro in vajrayana, study of the heart sutra in zen schools, etc. -- but generally you meditate looking for a permanent thing you can call self until you realize there isn't one.
When I was first starting my practice I found Thich Nhat Hanh's translation of the heart sutra [1], Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book on anatman [2], and the four thoughts from ngondro [3] to be the most insightful.
[1] https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-... [2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/selve... [3] https://www.shambhala.com/videos/mingyur-rinpoche-on-the-fou...
Whoaa [exhales] Like, is anything, like real? [takes bong rip] …
No, agreed, you’re like a neural net, it’s why they decided to call them “neural”, right? Because they resemble how brains work, correct if wrong.
I’ve wondered same thing. Hoping I haven’t said anything too stupid over the years.
Discussed a bit at the time (I think):
Are you the same person you used to be as a child? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33828278 - Dec 2022 (6 comments)
Just answering the title: God, no. And current me looks back at previous me with _very_ mixed feelings.
If your family put good values into you, then hopefully you as an adult are a reasonable evolution from the child version of you - you are manifesting those values in your own ways, appropriate to your environment.
I recently was at a Gala for a Rabbi, who wasn't born religious. His secular parents were there, and he thanked them for teaching him to always seek truth and to priories that pursuit. The pursuit itself took him to a different area (they are secular, he found truth in Judaism) but he was still operating on their parameters, just took them to a logical conclusion for himself.
Similarly, I think a 5 year old version of myself would not be too disappointed with the 44 year old version of myself, because to a large extent I then and now share my family's core values.
At the same time, you evolve in response to where you are. So for example I always knew I wanted a family, but I had to "grow up/evolve" to be someone that my someone like my wife would marry, and evolve again was we had 1, 2, and now 3 kids. Am I a different person as a father than as a single guy in NYC? Yeah. Is it a natural evolution - perhaps a richer manifestation what was always potential? Doubly yeah.
The other thing is - we have a lot more room to evolve aspects of ourselves, even as adults. For example I've personally always been very upfront, very intense, very intolerant of fuckups. All these things have ameliorated as I became a father - not because I betrayed some aspect of my personality, but because underlying that intensity was a deep care about the outcome, and with little kids, something different is required to attain the outcomes.
So things you think are "you" - you zoom out and just see as tools, and then realize that other tools are more appropriate to pursue your actual values.
Analogously from fatherhood, being a leader of larger and larger organizations has similar effect. The deep intrinsic set of abilities and behaviors that made me a rockstar engineer IC, is not the same as what makes me successful as a product leader. So as I step into these different roles, I have to figure out what's not working - and to figure out if that's really "intrinsic parts of me" that are in the way, or is there a perspective that lets me change those things while remaining true to myself.
So again thinking back to my 5 year old self, did I have what it takes to be a good father/leader? Obviously not. But I had some value of "not sucking at those things when I become them, and evolving in response" somewhere in there. So when I encountered those things, it wasn't a betrayal of self to evolve.
My oldest kid is almost 5, and I am realizing how much you get to shape some of their values/ideas. For example if I don't let them watch TV/videos, I always say "it's because this stuff doesn't make you smarter. But we watch certain things because they do make you smarter." It's less to win an argument about a particular TV moment but more to create a life long memory "dad always cared that we did things that made us smarter" kind of thing. I am sure my kids will end up in plenty situations I can't possibly anticipate but there's hope that "which one will make me smarter" is one lens they'll use to decide in their own evolution.
Of course not. Why would I want to be? I didn't know then what I know now.
"im more like i am today than i was" - my grandpa, to everyone, every time hes asked how he is, forever
No, but I am certainly a product of all the people that I used to be.
Heraclitus summarized it 25 centuries ago: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
I find it funny that this has a paywall for the article, but on the same webpage it offers thevfull audio. I guess I am the same kid as before, trying to find loopholes.
https://archive.ph/tlRGI
It paints a picture of us constantly reshaping our identities, but how much of that is truly up to us? I feel like our choices are shaped by things like family, upbringing, or biology, are we really free to evolve, or are we just rolling with a preset script?
Trust me, we are more free than it might seem
Yes, for sure we are limited by our biology. Someone born crippled will never be an olympic body builder. Someone born stupid will never be a math researcher.
And of course we have a lot of inputs like family, upbringing, schooling, culture, etc which all shape us
However, humans are capable of being inputs into our own system as well. It is not easy, necessarily, but I do strongly believe that we are capable of shaping our own identities as a result of being able to be our own inputs.
We can also choose to relocate, change friend groups, change careers, whatever else we need to do to change our external inputs as well
Of course we are limited by physical reality and limited by things like money and opportunity, our intelligence and aptitude and such, but as long as we can find something within our capabilities, we can shape ourselves into it
For example, I am nearly 40. I have ice skated my whole life but never used to play ice hockey.
I'm never going to play in a pro league, I'm already too old even if I was phenomenal somehow. But it is well within my capability to join a beginner old timers league and play with people my skill level if I want to
Even if there is a preset script its very hard to see it, given the variety of identities and different environments people get thrown into. Even people who are extremely similar can end up leading extremely different lives.
Silly article but, I really miss having the slow news days that made them so common.
Just anedata, but the earliest memory I can recall is from when I was 3, by the time my brother was born. But it's too fragmentary. From 6-8 onwards I can recall much better what was like being me by then.
Anytime I think of myself 5 years ago, I always think that I used to be an imbecile. And that is a good thing, because otherwise the logical conclusion would be that I am still one.
Or, as someone much smarter than me once said, "When I think of all I have said, I envy the mute".
I'm sure my nephew got it from someone else, but recently told me, "if you don't look back at yourself five years ago and cringe about something, you're not making progress."
When I regret not saying something, it's almost always something nice.
When I regret saying something, it's almost always something mean.
I'm the opposite. I feel like the core essence of me has mostly stayed the same. I've picked up more skills and learned a lot from life experiences. But it's more like getting new clues to a mystery than a change. In other words, the core processing stayed the same but new facts arose.
For the first time in my life I have actual regrets. Which is strange and new. But again it's not like what I wanted to have happened changed.
> Anytime I think of myself 5 years ago, I always think that I used to be an imbecile
5 years ago I thought I was an imbecile, but now I know it for a fact that I am :)
No for real though. It's a cliche but 5-10 years ago I actually thought I knew everything, now I know just how much I don't know
I've always thought it was pretty arrogant to think you know everything.
These days, I know less than ever!
Yes I absolutely used to be very arrogant
I still can be but at some point I recognized that my personality and behavior was driving people away from me and also it made me miserable to be that way. I made a conscious effort to change
Actually, this is somewhat also related to the idea I posted elsewhere in this thread, about being inputs into our own system.
When I wanted to stop being so miserable to be around, I set a goal for myself: "I am going to try to make at least one person smile every day"
I don't think I managed to every day, but it made me take note when I did make people smile. It felt good, partly because I made someone else happy, partly because I was accomplishing the goal I set for myself
I think it was a very key component of becoming a happier person myself
I am not the same person as I was yesterday! I have wild swings of personality!
That sounds like song lyrics.
> The question of our continuity has an empirical side that can be answered scientifically.
Wait, what? Doesn't the Ship of Thesseus apply to our character just as much as to our body? And if so, doesn't that make it a philosophical question, and absolutely not scientific, as character is immaterial?
Can’t read beyond the paywall but right of the bat it starts with the (to me) mistaken claim that one needs memories of something to have that something shape your character. Why do people believe this?
I don’t see same being good or bad and it could be one of them depending on who you were.
No, took the wrong drug. Entered psychosis, saw myself of who I was to be in a mirror. Family pulled me out of the psychosis and I swore to never be that person. 10 years later, I have my own apartment, have stability and more of a solid personality.
It hurts to change oneself but so glad I am not in the place I was before.
No, thank ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
This is a philosophical article, not clickbait.
It can be both.