Anti-ambition: is it self-denial or self-preservation?

So the sage will be neither extravagant nor violent.

windows i have open: funding application, ilx.

well yeah. a lot of people interpret "doesn't want to do ethically dubious things towards an end of corporate greed and mad money" as "anti-ambitious," as if that's the only way one can be ambitious.

Damn straight!

people like fidel castro were ambitious, i suppose. not that i'm bigging him up. i think a lot of people are ambitious in the 'moral crusade' sense.

Personal goals/experiences? Such as having read x number of books by the end of the year, etc. That's not really a status thing unless you're the type of person who has to keep talking about it.

(xpost: Gawd, people who go on and on and on about the number of books they read a year are FUCKING TEDIOUS and need to be killed before the anti-ambitious.)

depends how much money. after a while, you don't... really... NEED any more.

Yes, they are worse than almost anybody.

Wealth, status (fame is just a type of status, really), salvation, spiritual growth, intellectual growth, artistic growth, hedonism, philanthropism (in the broader sense), environmentalism, and family.

That is my comprehensive list of possible ambitions.

maybe not "before," but otherwise otm.

It's just that of all the ambitions, I find it hardest to imagine anyone sitting there at the end of their life thinking: "Well, thank God I spent as much time and effort as I did amassing all those possessions, because in the final analysis, that's the most important thing."

Ambition for wealth as an end in itself = dud.

xposts

Hmm. What about doing something just to soothe one's self? For example, I don't really strive to write compositions or create music but I just get a sort of artistic itch that needs to be fulfilled and after it's done I feel much calmer. So essentially, I'm doing it to please myself, but in a therapeutic sense instead of just finding a way to pat myself on the back. Would that constitute as ambition?

More than fair. In turn I'd object to the idea that NOT owning a house means you are some kind of willful slave to the system and some loser who can't take charge of your own affairs. (I'm not saying anyone here says that, but I am saying that's often the strong subtext I sense -- again, around OC in particular, and that could mean a skewed vision -- in pitches, ads, financial offerings, etc.)

see, if i buy a house, i don't wanna have to think about selling it. i want to, like, LIVE in it. put my roots down there. not have to move (which would be one nice thing about owning, as opposed to renting). some people are too eager to get a financial "return on their investment" before they've even bought the place.

I need to work on being my own life-trainer, J: I feel like I've come to believe all this stuff lately, which is good, but I'm still working on putting it all into practice. The two things that started me thinking a lot about "ambition": (a) freelance writing, where as soon as you sit back and start thinking stuff sucks and you could do better, some voice in the back of your mind should go "well then you should pitch them, you lazy idiot," and (b) fiction writing, where a dozen MFA students can talk shit and be brilliant all they want, but it's the ones who bother finishing books and getting agents who are going to get published.

it's the ones who bother finishing books and getting agents who are going to get published

Finishing books has been no problem for me, my friend, but I will admit the 'getting agents' part has been frustrating when even the agents who say they want to hear from you just send back 'thanks but we've got too much to look through already' notes in turn. I'm not giving up but I *am* highly preferring other ways of getting their attention through work I've done...

Well, as noted by Walter, really it's all down to the person and preference. My folks, for instance, are home-improvement fiends, and very good and practical ones at that -- they enjoy spending both the time and the money.

i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be able to putter around with interior design, little construction jobs, things like that, but that's all cosmetic, and too much of "upkeep" is drudgery like keeping pipes working and making sure termites aren't eating the foundations.

Well, oddly enough, I feel like something like that last point *has* happened with the writing, but I'll not explain in a public forum (might be easy enough to guess, though). Part of the problem has also been the feeling that this has been a transitional year, and that I've put my foot forward -- in many different areas, not just writing -- only be essentially told to wait. The result has been a building frustration all around, thus leading to alternate things to dig around with. But when friends I know are successful or rewarded in their own fields and I feel stuck, thus the grating. Mind you, I know where and how I am lucky -- good friend Stripey has had a truly awful and truly frustrating year on that front, so strictly speaking I should count my blessings (even if she owns a home and I don't, y'see. ;-) )

Obviously, but I reserve the right to not listen when their "we're so much better off buying" becomes a sales pitch for the National Association of Realtors. Every geographic market is going to be different, and in retrospect I'm glad I never pulled the trigger on a mortgage. To be fair, I'm happier flitting about from place to place and would rather not have the long term drag of dealing with a house and/or permanent residence.

I absolutely agree. I didn't mean to imply that but my defensiveness probably gave that impression. I think people on both sides of the rent vs. buy issue can get extremely defensive -- the renters feeling like they're under intense sales pressure or are somehow losers, and the owners feeling the need to justify their decision while being faced with all of the financial pressures involved in home ownership. My house hasn't given me any kind of extra status in life and has actually caused some weird friction with people who don't think I look like the type of person who should own a house.

On some other thread recently, jaymc freely admitted that he's not a very "ambitious" person, and I agreed that I'm the same way. But jaymc is not a lazy person, and is not in denial about many things, at least not as many as the thread question implies. He's not exactly avoiding life. The man hosts a variety show, fer chrissakes. He plays in a band. So what if he doesn't want to buy a house? He wants to be good at something, for whatever reason -- maybe for personal satisfaction, for something to be proud of, for approval, I won't pretend to know.

And I'm the same way. Maybe not as social, but I understand. I know this about myself: I don't like failing. And I've done it enough to know that I don't like it. With every passing day, my resolve becomes stronger to make myself proud of myself. I don't care about getting ahead, I really don't. Jody's comment about how being poor and miserable is OTM, and I know that tune too, and I'd like to not be poor. But mostly I'd like to feel like a competent member of society. That's my ambition. I am not capable of rationalizing away the fact that I have no real career because careers are for money-grubbers. That's something that people who are both much smarter and much lazier than me tend to do. I try, goddamnit, and often I just plain fail. My ambition is to not fail quite so much.

NB I could Jaymc as "active" in kinda the same sense of "ambitious." Band, variety show, writing criticism, blogging -- this is all the kind of active involvement in stuff you like that lets you accomplish stuff and puts you in position to maybe make something "bigger" of it, should you care to. This is the whole thing about "ambition" -- it doesn't necessarily mean trying to instantly take over the world. It can mean just doing your thing as well as you can, which at least puts you in a position where it can grow naturally into something serious. (Twenty years from now, Jaymc is the TV variety-show Oprah, saying "it started small, but I just kept at it, and what do you know...")

Which fields are these, N.? :)

Jody, my best friend (same age as me) just finished paying off his 30-year mortgage in 13 years, the bastardo. And that 13 years included totally chucking his first career and going back to school to become a massage therapist.

Yes. Yes they do.

Yeah, after living here for several months our neighbor attempted to build a fence on our lot. When we protested he said "oh, I thought you guys were renters." My old boss used to make a lot of strange, pointed comments about it as well.

Anyway, to tie this back into ambition...uh, let's see. Well, it's a very personal thing isn't it? To criticize another person's ambition or to be anti-ambition just seems like jealousy. If you are really free from the desires and ambitions of the world in a completely zenlike way then you probably don't even think or talk about the concept of "ambition" ever, let alone pass judgement on the dreams of others.

xpost...
it freaks me out when people who are younger than i am become homeowners. wtf??

Yes, that's exactly the attitude I was referring to above.

uh.

it's not an "attitude," it's a reflex reaction. it's just strange... admittedly there's a little envy that people who are younger than i am have their shit together in such a way that they can make such "adult" moves.

uh, what?

I always wonder what's going on behind the scenes with people like that... maybe they're running a giant debt (in addition to the mortgage). A former co-worker (way younger than me) bought a house, but couldn't take a vacation or really buy anything else for at least ten years.

that would kill me. it's not worth the compromise just to own a house.

Nabisco, did you really need to specify?!

Why do people think others want to hear about how much money they made selling their house? And why is it socially acceptable for people to discuss such topics? I feel like it is this rampant one-upmanship gone amok.

But similar conversations occur among friends, I think. It seems to be more socially acceptable to talk about how much money you made from your home, than it does to talk about, how much money you have invested, how much you make, how much you've saved, etc. I think because it has this element of chance, of play, people can talk about it under the guise of, look how lucky we got, but it's really just a veiled way of saying, look how much money we are getting. Maybe it's like the version of SAT scores for adults.

doing nails seems to be a pretty easy way to make money. and the korean nail salon near me gets loads of business, so i wouldn't say they're struggling. i see your point now.