Live Fully, the Age of Emptiness (Jo Nam-ho)

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I watched a talk about the emotions and thoughts people feel these days.

After graduating and stepping out into society, my emotions and thoughts have been all over the place, constantly shifting.

I often felt emptiness and loneliness, and found myself wondering what the point of living even is.

Lately I’ve been watching a lot of Elon Musk interviews. In one of them, he says something like this:

“There are more than enough problems in the world to solve, but the goal of life can’t just be to solve problems.”

“The sole purpose of life can’t be problem-solving. Life needs something that inspires you—something that gives you a reason to want to open your eyes in the morning.”

These days I try hard to stay conscious of what I actually want to do.

I’m not someone who consciously likes things, so when I’m asked whether I like something, or why, I struggle to answer.

So I end up recalling things I did in the past and how I felt at the time, and the person I am now defines the “me” of the past—getting to know myself through that process.

Thinking this way takes a lot of time, and since I’m currently job hunting, spending that much time on it—when I’m neither building up my skills nor writing applications—makes me anxious.

The same thing happens when I’m hanging out with friends or just lounging in bed. This anxiety creeps up any time I’m spending time that doesn’t contribute to some goal.

Whenever this anxiety grows, I feel that same emptiness and loneliness I mentioned earlier, and I lose my reason for living.

Putting anxiety into words burdens the people around me, and it comes back at me even stronger. So when I feel anxious, I try hard not to voice it. At times like that, I remind myself to cherish who I am and what I already have. But I don’t think living with these feelings is a healthy way to live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0O4YHZLIAY&list=LL&index=12&t=637s

This talk puts into words exactly the parts I’d felt were unhealthy about my life.

I mentioned Elon Musk earlier, and the context around intrinsic motivation lines up with what he said.

Purposivism = extrinsic motivation
Presentism = intrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation isn’t healthy. But the era of high growth made it look like it could overcome the downsides of extrinsic motivation. It shortened the time gap to reward and pushed past the limits of reward. Still, the side effects of extrinsic motivation never went away. It was a sick, unhealthy kind of competition.

The era of high growth is over now, but it lasted far too long. Most people are still chasing extrinsic motivation.

All you need to do is spend your day driven by intrinsic motivation and feel fulfilled.

Intrinsic motivation means doing something purely because you want to, not for the sake of some goal.

The moment you start thinking about growth, you stop growing. The more you dwell on this, the more trivial and empty each day feels.

“This world has way too much ‘ahead.’ You need a goal to move.”

“I did my best, but there’s way too much ‘behind.’ What does anything I did even mean?”

Live without before or after.

I used to think that words like “youth” and “being young” weren’t really about age.

Being fully immersed in the moment, diving in without hesitation, savoring and enjoying the present—that’s what youth is.

Life isn’t about accomplishing something.

Life doesn’t need to have a purpose either.

Paradoxically, once you find a purpose, everyday life starts to feel even emptier. Goals like “save up X hundred million won” or “hit a salary of X.”

And so much of our daily life has nothing to do with any purpose—eating, cleaning, exercising, showering, commuting, going to the doctor, and so on.

And if that purpose fails, does that mean my entire life up to that point gets invalidated? A life lived for a goal is ultimately just empty.

Live Fully!

From now on, when I eat, I’ll just eat. When I watch YouTube, I’ll just watch YouTube. When I watch TV, I’ll just watch TV. When I drink coffee, I’ll just drink coffee.

I want to single-task and savor each thing, one at a time.

And always cherish myself, and the people and circumstances I get to enjoy.

I think this is the basic strength that life needs, and the foundation for making each day feel full.