We are chunks of self important jelly staggering about on the surface of a tiny nugget of rock in a second rate solar system.
Sol's system is ~ four billion years old
We have been “Ourselves” (Anatomically modern) for ~200,000 years
Countless people have lived and died, and you are but one member of our endless shoals.
When you die, that's it, no second chances, no refunds.
There doesn't really seem to be any objective final point to it all. However there are definitely better and worse outcomes and journeys.
Let's try to define a positive direction to travel
Be aware that the more positive you are in a category the easier it is to maintain or improve your position and that the reverse is also true.
In rough order of importance with a rough descriptor
The only goal is of course Maximize your utility:
To do this make positive trade-offs between utility categories, ideally trading away surplus.
As a rough set of examples:
Demonstrate your ability to provide utility to others, bonus points if you can consistently do so.
The more social capital you have with a person, the more likely they will do things for / with you. Ideas to increase social capital:
So yeah, you have obtained all the utility you desire in all categories defined above?
Well done! You have reached Nirvana.
Warning, due the unstable nature of utility you will not stay satisfied without continued effort!
Welcome to the eternal fight, the war to beat the final enemy, the struggle against entropy.
The struggle to get what you want and keep it. It's not a zero sum game, enjoy the journey.
That should keep you busy! ;)
Eat a good lunch, grow a carrot, have a good conversation, make a baby laugh, go for a cold shower, splash about in a pool, write down your thoughts on paper, walk a comfortable distance, try a new food, try to eat the same food for as long as you can, cook something, learn something, read a book, play a game.
Hunt down Eudaimonia, help many others a little, help one or two people a lot, make a thing, make a system, start a business, get involved with some hedonism, serve a cause.
Social capital exhibits powerful network effects. Each connection potentially links you to their entire network. High social capital in one relationship often makes building capital in others easier - people trust their friends' friends. The value of your network grows non-linearly with its size and the strength of connections within it. However, maintaining these connections requires ongoing investment that scales with network size.
Improvements in one category often automatically generate gains in others. Better epistemic accuracy leads to better decisions across all categories. Improved health provides more time and energy for everything else. Skills stack and combine in unexpected ways. This creates compound returns - gains that generate more gains. The challenge is identifying and investing in these self-reinforcing cycles.
Many utility improvements exhibit threshold effects - points where gains become self-sustaining or even self-amplifying. Enough wealth eliminates financial stress, freeing mental resources (improving mental health). Sufficient skill level makes further improvement enjoyable rather than tedious. Adequate social capital creates opportunities without active seeking. Reaching these thresholds can shift you from scarcity spirals to abundance loops."