On Sunk Costs and Persistent Metaphors
It all started about ten years ago with reading a book or article about "sunk costs". I kept admonishing myself for creating sunk costs, i.e. pursuing a new personal interest at the expense of something better or more interesting.
My first foray into deeper subjects grew out of the typical philosophy classes in college, then to of all things, Dianetics. But I didn’t stay there (who would?): I kept branching out intellectually.
Knowledge is innately fractal (branch-like) in nature. (See corollary with the "embedding" (sinking/burying) of musical influences in one's creative life.
We shouldn’t fault people for the things they like in youth that have carried over into adult life. For Trump, it was geometry-architecture-real estate-money-celebrity. The pursuit of money and celebrity is where it goes off the rails--or stays in the one track you’ve sunk your costs into--even in creative pursuits.
We've been expanding as a nation for fifty years based on polyglot ideas, and have spent equal amounts promoting these ideals (ironically based on one language) around the world. Is nation-building a good or bad sunk cost? It depends on which metaphors, self-stories and nation-stories we use, any of which can be sunk costs. Are we stuck on a track (rut), or are we branching out (roots deep into soil--a good kind of 'rut')
Observe how you use language to describe your life. Those words ultimately make the story, even without literally or figuratively "writing" them.
My first foray into deeper subjects grew out of the typical philosophy classes in college, then to of all things, Dianetics. But I didn’t stay there (who would?): I kept branching out intellectually.
Knowledge is innately fractal (branch-like) in nature. (See corollary with the "embedding" (sinking/burying) of musical influences in one's creative life.
We shouldn’t fault people for the things they like in youth that have carried over into adult life. For Trump, it was geometry-architecture-real estate-money-celebrity. The pursuit of money and celebrity is where it goes off the rails--or stays in the one track you’ve sunk your costs into--even in creative pursuits.
We've been expanding as a nation for fifty years based on polyglot ideas, and have spent equal amounts promoting these ideals (ironically based on one language) around the world. Is nation-building a good or bad sunk cost? It depends on which metaphors, self-stories and nation-stories we use, any of which can be sunk costs. Are we stuck on a track (rut), or are we branching out (roots deep into soil--a good kind of 'rut')
Observe how you use language to describe your life. Those words ultimately make the story, even without literally or figuratively "writing" them.
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