I was watching a video on the recent achievements in the Tetris community, and my mom came up and watched over my shoulder for a bit. There was a moment in the video where the narrator was talking about the moment Blue Scuti reached the game's killscreen for the first time. Years of effort, countless hours of practice, chasing something that people thought was literally impossible for decades, and then he fucking does it. This is a seriously cool and inspiring story, right?
"Does he get paid for that? You can't spend that much time on something if you're not getting paid."
Are you telling me you literally can't imagine wanting to do something just to do it? That you can only imagine spending effort if it's to chase a cash prize or a wage? That you can't imagine the desire to just... be the best at something, or achieve something before anyone else? I love that woman but a lifetime of being in the system has burned out a critical part of her brain - she can't imagine having a job and not spending all of your free time sucking up to management for a promotion, she is exactly the person all of the "hustle grindset" bullshit influencers and motivational speakers try to turn you into, and i swear to god if she hadn't worked for the government her whole life she would have gotten in on the ground floor of an MLM and made a shitzillion dollars.
It's so fucking depressing.
When I hear comments like that, I like to imagine that there's a wistful sentiment at the core of them: "it must be nice to have the freedom to pursue an esoteric goal with no economic incentive, and it's too bad that people can't generally do that and get by in the world".
It's almost certainly too optimistic, but as someone who used to say such cynical things, I like to imagine that others are on the same journey.
Yeah that's definitely a nicer interpretation of it. idk in the moment the comment seriously bummed me out, it's a real generational gap in my experience - if I tell a millenial that I really don't care about getting promoted they totally get it, but anyone older (especially my family entirely made up of liberal striver types) and they start going on and on about how I need to add more things to my CV.