billyb

Self-obsession is the ultimate luxury good. And never forget that luxury is a compression algorithm. I am deeply grateful for what I have learned through the lives and outputs of these men--I’ve been introduced to many thinkers and concepts and modalities that have, and will continue to shape my onward journey in life. That said, I think just as with all things, we tend to mistake the menu for the meal, we turn so many lessons into aesthetics and identity, we hunt for belonging and status in a vacuum of actual social interaction. We listen to people we don't know in our headphones or alone in our cars, who we look at as successful, and then mimic their behaviors, alone in the gym, or writing our blogs, or practicing our guitar, so that we might be good enough that one day we might be able to share our bodies and music and lives with others. Even more than this cohort, I'm worried about a future being projected and mimicking the boring lives of those in silicon valley and austin and other american cities. Places where people live alone in big boxes, in new clean clothes, only to get in to their car (another box), to go to their office to work alone, or to the gym to be alone in their headphones, or to the sterile white clothed restaurant where you can look around at other people but never actually interact. The dream of designing a life of convenience where everything is delivered and done for you, where someone else is raising your children, and all so that you can 'change the world' with your optimization and 'purpose', which in the end is really just separation. The current American Dream is to achieve separateness and it is very easy to sell by these men and so many others.