Perhaps the problem is not ambition itself, but the source of it. Ambition driven by comparison often feels endless. Ambition driven by meaning seems to have a very different texture.
For me it’s all about where someone is moving from; what is motivating them. Ambition tends to be associated with the personality. And the personality’s desires for status, approval etc. mission as this level is, I agree, suspect.
And i think there are deeper levels of mission. I think people can be moved by a sense of what their soul is here to contribute, or how life wants to move through them to create. This looks very different to the contrivances of the personality and is often very inconvenient for it!
I think what makes the cult of ambition more attractive is that society has grown to a point where if you actually just chase what "feels right" to you, it's really easy to end up consuming frivolously without ever producing anything. Sometimes this looks like 8 hours of tiktok a day, but sometimes it can also look like reading books and Substacks to learn more about the world (without ever doing anything with that knowledge). That makes it really easy to feel like the reason you're not producing more is because you're doing the easy thing of consuming, and the way to overcome that is to either cut out consumption more (willpower-maxxing) or want to produce things more (ambition-maxxing). I don't think either are that effective, but I don't disagree that it's better for most people to produce more than they consume.
The primary fault of individualism isn’t that it limits one’s ambitions to their individual capacity and resources. The fault is in their developing an inability to design frameworks of communal uplifting in which energies are pooled, because individual success requires a less successful “other”.
Thank you for writing this article, it connects with what I am constantly thinking about.
To break free of this practicality that leads to success, reason, and material abundance, and to reconnect with the engine of life within you is not unlike the journey Jesus took in the desert when he rejected Satan's temptations.
Matthew 4:3-5, KJV
And when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”
I'm also reminded of Chapter 57 of the Tao Te Ching:
The more restrictions and prohibitions there are,
The poorer the people will be.
The more sharp weapons people have in a country,
The bigger the disorder will be.
The more clever and cunning people are,
The stranger the events will be.
The more laws and commands there are,
The more thieves and robbers there will be.
Therefore the sage says:
I do not act,
And people become reformed by themselves.
I am at peace,
And people become fair by themselves.
I do not interfere,
And people become rich by themselves.
I have no desire to desire,
And people become like the uncarved wood by themselves.
"Just focus on the rules in the outside world"---this is the dictum for all those aspire to become a mature adult. It is to see past the inner magic you've been carrying within you since your childhood and to unceremoniously contort your body and mind to the necessary logical movements which, as reason dictates, lead to success. But to look past the magic within you takes you away from the force of life which is the engine of all movement in the first place. The true core of motivation is here, not from of the *allure* of life being waved in front of you like a carrot on a string, *separate* from you and permanently outside of you, but from the true force of life itself, which is readily available to you. All you need to do is have the courage to get in touch with it.
If I accept that there's something wrong with this life force within me, because of some persuasive reason that I hear from some mature and practical adult, my soul erodes from neglect. As we age, we gradually begin to accept this erosion in favour of what is practical and allow our souls to sag like the skin on our faces, because to live otherwise appears to mean living like a dreamy child or a rebellious adolescent. This would be, of course, unbecoming, immature, and a big turn-off to employers and coworkers in the serfdom of regular life. But to live otherwise is what we're called to do, as much as we can, because this is what it means to connect with what truly matters.
Perhaps the ancient sages were speaking of precisely this ancient life force and they viewed it as something we all shared. Some called it God. This does not seem unreasonable, due to its invisible but seemingly miraculous power it confers upon those who embrace it.
The issue too is that when everyone is studying the SAME test, then everyone ends up essentially building the same thing. Unfortunately for us, this pressure from investors (and, ironically, audiences too) leads to a much narrower range of what’s possible (leaving everyone worse off, and stifling innovation at the industry-wide scale)
Good take. It seems funny to try to 100x ambition because when that urge comes from a place saying "I should be more ambitious", it already tells you it's not coming from the real you.
Perhaps the problem is not ambition itself, but the source of it. Ambition driven by comparison often feels endless. Ambition driven by meaning seems to have a very different texture.
Yeah,
For me it’s all about where someone is moving from; what is motivating them. Ambition tends to be associated with the personality. And the personality’s desires for status, approval etc. mission as this level is, I agree, suspect.
And i think there are deeper levels of mission. I think people can be moved by a sense of what their soul is here to contribute, or how life wants to move through them to create. This looks very different to the contrivances of the personality and is often very inconvenient for it!
I think what makes the cult of ambition more attractive is that society has grown to a point where if you actually just chase what "feels right" to you, it's really easy to end up consuming frivolously without ever producing anything. Sometimes this looks like 8 hours of tiktok a day, but sometimes it can also look like reading books and Substacks to learn more about the world (without ever doing anything with that knowledge). That makes it really easy to feel like the reason you're not producing more is because you're doing the easy thing of consuming, and the way to overcome that is to either cut out consumption more (willpower-maxxing) or want to produce things more (ambition-maxxing). I don't think either are that effective, but I don't disagree that it's better for most people to produce more than they consume.
Yes. Exactly.
The primary fault of individualism isn’t that it limits one’s ambitions to their individual capacity and resources. The fault is in their developing an inability to design frameworks of communal uplifting in which energies are pooled, because individual success requires a less successful “other”.
Thank you for writing this article, it connects with what I am constantly thinking about.
To break free of this practicality that leads to success, reason, and material abundance, and to reconnect with the engine of life within you is not unlike the journey Jesus took in the desert when he rejected Satan's temptations.
Matthew 4:3-5, KJV
And when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”
I'm also reminded of Chapter 57 of the Tao Te Ching:
The more restrictions and prohibitions there are,
The poorer the people will be.
The more sharp weapons people have in a country,
The bigger the disorder will be.
The more clever and cunning people are,
The stranger the events will be.
The more laws and commands there are,
The more thieves and robbers there will be.
Therefore the sage says:
I do not act,
And people become reformed by themselves.
I am at peace,
And people become fair by themselves.
I do not interfere,
And people become rich by themselves.
I have no desire to desire,
And people become like the uncarved wood by themselves.
"Just focus on the rules in the outside world"---this is the dictum for all those aspire to become a mature adult. It is to see past the inner magic you've been carrying within you since your childhood and to unceremoniously contort your body and mind to the necessary logical movements which, as reason dictates, lead to success. But to look past the magic within you takes you away from the force of life which is the engine of all movement in the first place. The true core of motivation is here, not from of the *allure* of life being waved in front of you like a carrot on a string, *separate* from you and permanently outside of you, but from the true force of life itself, which is readily available to you. All you need to do is have the courage to get in touch with it.
If I accept that there's something wrong with this life force within me, because of some persuasive reason that I hear from some mature and practical adult, my soul erodes from neglect. As we age, we gradually begin to accept this erosion in favour of what is practical and allow our souls to sag like the skin on our faces, because to live otherwise appears to mean living like a dreamy child or a rebellious adolescent. This would be, of course, unbecoming, immature, and a big turn-off to employers and coworkers in the serfdom of regular life. But to live otherwise is what we're called to do, as much as we can, because this is what it means to connect with what truly matters.
Perhaps the ancient sages were speaking of precisely this ancient life force and they viewed it as something we all shared. Some called it God. This does not seem unreasonable, due to its invisible but seemingly miraculous power it confers upon those who embrace it.
Thank you for writing this. Always a wonderful experience having someone re-arrange loose thoughts I had about something in the full picture
The issue too is that when everyone is studying the SAME test, then everyone ends up essentially building the same thing. Unfortunately for us, this pressure from investors (and, ironically, audiences too) leads to a much narrower range of what’s possible (leaving everyone worse off, and stifling innovation at the industry-wide scale)
Living long the hustle culture.
Good take. It seems funny to try to 100x ambition because when that urge comes from a place saying "I should be more ambitious", it already tells you it's not coming from the real you.
I have a life mission
Highly suspect