someone asked me something like this at a party recently:
“what gets you excited in the morning?"
"what gets you out of bed and motivated about life?”
at first i thought it was some kind of trick question but after about 30s of deep introspection i just said
“having a good time!”
he looked at me kinda puzzled and said it was a non-answer to the question
but honestly, i dont think it is. i hate the idea that we always need to intellectualize our pursuits and goals
i think a major point of spending years discovering and going deep into your interests is all about developing happiness heuristics. you develop an intuition over time about what makes you happy, what drives you, what you wanna spend your time doing that will ultimately leave you with a smile on your face.
some (most?) people dont do this and end up incredibly disinterested in most things, with no hobbies or interests beyond going through the day and avoiding being unhappy. there is a huge diff between avoiding unhappiness and actively seeking happiness
like, i wake up, i know what i like. i try new things, i do things that bring me joy. ive spent time with people that make me happy and actively spend more time with them.
its like all the compelexity in your life eventually “compiles” down into a simple binary question: you good?
but people dont wanna hear that! there’s a lot of pressure to ascribe deeper meaning to everything. im not saying im a nihlist, and im not saying im strictly a hedonist either, but i feel like whenever i take a step back it feels like we’re creating a big production around the simple questions
just having fun might sound self-interested but aren’t most things at the end of the day? [insert tangent about the illusion of altruism here]
of course my ambitions are rooted in loftier, more abstract goals. i wanna contribute to my field. of course i wanna make things that help people
but sometimes i just wanna have a fuckin good time!!