Quote, "The whole grandiosity posturing exists to mask his low self esteem due to his failed life."
On the contrary, you need to believe that I'm unhappy, and you need to believe that I perceive myself to be a failure: the possibility that I could be happy with the life I've led (and that I'm happy with the life I'm leading right now) is extremely disturbing to you —it challenges whatever sense of pride you take in yourself as an exemplar of conformism. The idea of "a failed life" has to be measured out relative to some specific goal that the person was trying to achieve: not everyone wants to be a medical doctor.
You (AvgWebIntellectual) are the one who needs to believe that I regard myself as a failure: it's just impossible for you to accept that I could see myself as successful relative to the reasonable expectations I had for what the outcomes would be —and relative to a reasonable estimate of the size, scope and intensity of the efforts I made.
Why would I be unhappy —for example— with the outcomes of my "career" as a rapper? With just a little bit of effort I learned to express myself in an entirely new art form (satire set to music, etc.). Why shouldn't I be happy (or absolutely delighted) with the outcomes of that experiment? I see musicians who have labored in obscurity for decades with none of the rewards for their creativity that I so easily attained. I didn't have the expectation that I'd be the next DMX: rap music was a creative challenge that I took on with reasonable expectations —and so I'm reasonably delighted by the outcomes.
Do you realize how little work it was for me to write Future of an Illusion? And I am totally delighted with the outcomes. Again, why shouldn't I be?
So, further, why would I have anything to blame others for? Why would I have anything to make excuses for? It's crucial to your worldview (not mine) that I must now be bitterly regretting my "failure" —but that is only a failure relative to the life that you want to live, and your life is not one that I'd be interested in living. I am not in a position of making excuses or shifting blame: I'm proud of the book I wrote, and I'm proud of the satirical rap songs I recorded —both with remarkably little effort— and I know that they offer an interesting message for the few who are sophisticated enough to be interested.
Perhaps you wind up wristwatches at a factory every day and you believe this is the meaning of life: that simply is not my philosophy.
Perhaps you need to believe that every man who shirks his duty to earn as much money as possible by winding as many wristwatches as possible is overwhelmed with feelings of regret: that is not my experience. On the contrary, every single man I meet who insists there is some ineffable satisfaction that can only be found through conformism and drudgery turns out to be miserable —and in most cases they readily admit that they're jealous of the life I've lived. It used to seem to me absurd that so many people with PhDs told me they envied me, but let me tell you: now, I understand.
I don't want to be a medical doctor. I don't want to be a lawyer. I don't want to be interviewed by the C.B.C. in a blue business suit. I am absolutely delighted with who and what I've now become.
And, again, notions of success are relative to reasonable or unreasonable expectations: how could I have expected to impact the fate of the vegan movement more than I did, starting from a bunk bed in Kunming?
When I was in China, busy learning Chinese, I put a very small amount of effort into recording monologues in my spare time, and look at the outcomes! It's absolutely wonderful, and I'm in a position to be pleased without any resentment or complaint whatsoever.
To perceive me as a failure presumes I was aiming at something very different: if my dream had been, for example, to study with Peter Singer and gain a university credential in "veganology", then what I've done would be a disaster relative to that goal —but I'm a genuinely anti-establishment person. I despise Peter Singer, specifically, but I also despise any career path of that kind. I'm not being deprived of anything I'd desire behind that door (that a few people like Peter Singer hold the keys to).
This has been talked about in recent podcasts: it isn't true that I wish I could have gotten a PhD in Anthropology, Buddhology, veganology, or anything else of the sort —I look back at the people I've known who were on those paths and I feel so glad that I didn't end up like them. I am in the position, now, of understanding very deeply the worthlessness of the careers I formerly pursued, even relative to satirical rap music!
