This is a very good piece. I would agree that if you index for aspirational friends you would likely be happier in the long run. Having a myopic view of almost transactional friendship can easily leave you totally alone if they have the same kind of loose ties/ambition centric value system.
On a high-level note how do you view ambition though and cultivating it? You are constantly in flux/changing in terms of your values, who you are, etc. should you ever optimize for ambition/focus on your current map of desires or should you mainly be kind of in a state of exploring/dive into desires sparingly when serendipity hits and it would be interesting?
Also the ambition centric model seems to optimize for mastery in a discrete area over progressive self development. The latter is clearly more robust. Do you view mastery in a discrete area still as kind of an important self actualizing tool on a personal level? Is mastery an overrated metric for happiness? Or is the issue more that the ambitious friends model is a crutch to lower the activation energy to work on a short term passion but that activation energy is not that high and is more of a function of self confidence/openness with your friends? How do you view riffing on ideas as well? I guess if you riff with a plurality of aspirational friends you are more likely to hit a means that makes you happy then if you pigeonhole yourself into one myopic lens. Should you not only try not to have interesting friends but not try to be an interesting person?
aspiration : ambition isn't exactly analogous to explore : dive deep into something. i think the main condition for living aspirationally is that you're pursuing something that will result in a shift/development in values (eg becoming a parent).
i think the main reason to live this way is to make sure your desires and worldview is intentionally cultivated instead of mimetically inherited or something you unknowingly adopt. once you've settled on values that you've aspired to yourself, it makes sense to become ambitious relative to those goals.
re: mastery - this is something i struggle with. the ultimate goal is (i think) to be happy. there are probably many paths to getting there, including broad self development and mastery in specific areas. maybe the most practical model to have is you want to be the best version of yourself possible?
i suspect that a lot of the motivation behind pursuing mastery is social signaling (it feels good to be the *best* at something) which probably isn't the best way to overall happiness.
re: riffing - wanna clarify that i don't think having "interesting" friends is bad (all else equal i would prefer it), only that our obsession and prioritization of it is not good. but for riffing, i guess it depends what your end goal is. if you have the specific goal of learning more, it makes more sense to discuss with friends with domain expertise. but if you just want to have a fun conversation, you can do this with anyone.
I enjoyed this article, thank you for writing it. It got me thinking about the reciprocal nature of a good friendship. Maybe we should spend as much time working on ourselves to be that good friend for the others we aspire to become friends with?
I really enjoyed this article, and it got me thinking about the reciprocal nature of a good friendship. Maybe we should spend as much time shaping ourselves to be that good friend for others?
This is a very good piece. I would agree that if you index for aspirational friends you would likely be happier in the long run. Having a myopic view of almost transactional friendship can easily leave you totally alone if they have the same kind of loose ties/ambition centric value system.
On a high-level note how do you view ambition though and cultivating it? You are constantly in flux/changing in terms of your values, who you are, etc. should you ever optimize for ambition/focus on your current map of desires or should you mainly be kind of in a state of exploring/dive into desires sparingly when serendipity hits and it would be interesting?
Also the ambition centric model seems to optimize for mastery in a discrete area over progressive self development. The latter is clearly more robust. Do you view mastery in a discrete area still as kind of an important self actualizing tool on a personal level? Is mastery an overrated metric for happiness? Or is the issue more that the ambitious friends model is a crutch to lower the activation energy to work on a short term passion but that activation energy is not that high and is more of a function of self confidence/openness with your friends? How do you view riffing on ideas as well? I guess if you riff with a plurality of aspirational friends you are more likely to hit a means that makes you happy then if you pigeonhole yourself into one myopic lens. Should you not only try not to have interesting friends but not try to be an interesting person?
aspiration : ambition isn't exactly analogous to explore : dive deep into something. i think the main condition for living aspirationally is that you're pursuing something that will result in a shift/development in values (eg becoming a parent).
i think the main reason to live this way is to make sure your desires and worldview is intentionally cultivated instead of mimetically inherited or something you unknowingly adopt. once you've settled on values that you've aspired to yourself, it makes sense to become ambitious relative to those goals.
re: mastery - this is something i struggle with. the ultimate goal is (i think) to be happy. there are probably many paths to getting there, including broad self development and mastery in specific areas. maybe the most practical model to have is you want to be the best version of yourself possible?
i suspect that a lot of the motivation behind pursuing mastery is social signaling (it feels good to be the *best* at something) which probably isn't the best way to overall happiness.
re: riffing - wanna clarify that i don't think having "interesting" friends is bad (all else equal i would prefer it), only that our obsession and prioritization of it is not good. but for riffing, i guess it depends what your end goal is. if you have the specific goal of learning more, it makes more sense to discuss with friends with domain expertise. but if you just want to have a fun conversation, you can do this with anyone.
I enjoyed this article, thank you for writing it. It got me thinking about the reciprocal nature of a good friendship. Maybe we should spend as much time working on ourselves to be that good friend for the others we aspire to become friends with?
I really enjoyed this article, and it got me thinking about the reciprocal nature of a good friendship. Maybe we should spend as much time shaping ourselves to be that good friend for others?