Ouch.
> I understand what it means when people say life is to short.
I'll bet, that's the kind of thing that will make this a background feeling almost continuously.
> But is life is too short to use your wealth and power to help solve the problem you acknowledge there is?
Well, PG is - in his own way - doing just that. He made quite a few people quite wealthy and he wasn't exactly obliged to do so. After all the first exit he had was one where he could have comfortably lived for the rest of his years without spending a single micro-second on the problems of others.
> That sounds like a weird idea.
It is, and I don't think that idea is actually present in this essay or any of the others. Horses for courses, PG is good at what he does and uses his wealth in the way he thinks best matches his skillset. Contrasted with say Zuckerbergs fairly hollow 'letter to my daughter' I frankly much prefer the PG variety, though of course I already had quite a different opinion about those two individuals before either of them wrote a line.
> Most of PGs essays aren't controversial they are more informative. Why is life too short for that?
He's not saying he won't write more essays. He's saying that he's going to be more in fire-and-forget mode, engaging the audience on his terms rather than feeling that he has to respond to each and every person out there with an axe to grind and an internet connection. I'd say more power to him.
So given that I won't go into the second part of your comment because I think you derailed somewhere right at the beginning making the rest not really relevant.
Hence the 'bullshit' line.
Other than that what other controversial essays have he written? Maybe one other?
But is life is too short to use your wealth and power to help solve the problem you acknowledge there is? That sounds like a weird idea. Most of PGs essays aren't controversial they are more informative. Why is life too short for that?
If anything PG is a thinker and a good one at it. He doesn't get everything right (who does) but he is a smart enough thinker to be able to develop his thinking.
You can read his essay in three ways.
1) Life is too short, I don't like writing essays about things that interest me anymore.
2) Life is too short, I just want to kick back and enjoy my family and the money I have.
3) Life is too short.
No matter how you turn it around I fail to see why he would give up writing something that he surely enjoys doing. Especially when you have the power to actually get people to take you serious. (Perhaps thats the problem?)
So why should life be too short for that? Only PG knows. But I think he is proving that either some of the "conspiracy theorists" in this thread are not wrong, or some of his critiques of his last couple of essays are not wrong either.