If you go deep enough with this question you will face an abyss at some point.

It’s been shown infinite times that you can’t just sit and rationally figure out what do you wantin life.

There’s always some transcendental unexplainable element to it. Some would simply call it gut feeling, others would refer to religious matters, and some would spend the whole life building a philosophical theory around it. Which in the end will remain just another theory.

So either you stay on the surface like most normal people do and stick to simple, definable goals like family, carrier etc.

Or you embrace the fundamental uncertainty of life and go with the flow.

Or you combine both options together )

Which way do you go?

To be specific - my current goal is to earn “f.ck you” money and to move my family to a safe country.

Well see what comes next.

Trying to combine both )

A part-time remote job from a developed country. It would enable me to do what a I really want, it's just a step towards my real goal. So what do I really want? Well: taking care of my vegetable garden, code random useless stuff but somehow it brings me joy, just messing around with computers, spend more time with my fiancee like we used to do in college days.

I want to live, that means:

  - not being forced to work 2/3 of my time
  - being able to eat, drink, sleep, be warm at all time
  - being able to work on whatever I want, even if it's useless, especially if it's useless
  - being able to travel, meet people, have quality time with loved ones (meet more loved ones?)
  - not having stress, anxiety and chronic depression

Unfortunately, this requires a lot of money, and getting a lot of money requires either substantial inheritance (I will probably only inherit debts) or a shit ton of work, which is stressful.

Small note: in most (if not all) countries, you can refuse an inheritance if it's debts. Might be good to consider!

Well, it won't be only debts, there are some housing properties with it. And you can't refuse only part of the inheritance, either you refuse it all, you accept it all.

I should have said "mostly" and not "only" in my first message.

Freedom, respect, and the ability to understand things.

Freedom - I want a life where I am not burdened by pedantic obligations. I want to do what I want, whenever I want, on a whim. Easier said than done, but it seems being a software engineer gets me closer to this ideal than any other job.

Respect - I want people to treat me with respect and just be decent to me.

Understanding - I get a lot of joy out of understanding things. I get goosebumps, the warm fuzzy feeling, shivers down my spine, etc. This can come from work (recently happened while debugging and realizing a huge problem), or reading, or conversation, or even from video games (Outer Wilds recently scratched this itch for me in an awesome way).

If I can live a relatively free life where people are decent to me and I can continue to build my understanding of life, society, and the universe, I'll be very happy.

Unfortunately the "respect" portion is probably the toughest for me, as to get respect from certain folks you have to have external markers of success, like good job, house, pretty wife, kids, etc. I personally don't care too much about any of that shit, but it really gets me down when people are assholes to me, so I do strive to do well in these areas, if only to shut the haters up. I'm also only 25 so who the hell knows what I'll think even a few years from now.

> I want to do what I want, whenever I want, on a whim.

In ancient Greece this was basically a definition of a god.

Had the same feeling from Outer Wilds, great game! Never did get around to finishing it though, by the end it was insane how little time you had each loop to actually make progress.

I want to find place when’re I can generally be content.

Unfortunately there’s no way to know until you try something, and even then many things require significant time cost which is unrecoverable if I fail. That’s not a problem for something it takes a year or two to achieve, but if something takes 10 years or an indefinite it become as a concern.

Occasionally, I’ll get the thought that I should just settle down with whatever I can get now and make the most of it… then I try to imagine myself 20 years down the line and forget about that.

What about faster feedback loops for those 10 year horizons?

Here's a list:

- start a personal robotics startup.

- start a foundation to solve global poverty.

- write a video game where your enemy player is a neural network that slowly but surely learns how to beat you.

> write a video game where your enemy player is a neural network that slowly but surely learns how to beat you.

This has already been done: chess

There are way more games than just Chess that have been learned by AI, such as Go, Monopoly, Risk, etc.

But my point was a game where a neural network is trained by you, while playing against it. Preferably in an RTS setting during a long campaign.

I enjoy learning things and helping people.

I found that was what I wanted mostly from experience.

* Enough money/assets - so that I don't have to work for sustenance.

* Family (and friends)

Basically an healthy life from all perspectives.

Meet and discuss with people is my favorite way. I tend to not always want to do much if I am left by myself.

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” —William Faulkner

A pizza and 2 beers.

To understand God deeply, bring my ideas to life