First off a little disclaimer: These are quasi-philosophical thoughts, but mostly incoherent ramblings written by a human being without much life experience. These are not meant to be taken seriously, and are subject to change in the future.

There is this ’long-proverb’? Story, I guess, floating around the internet about a conversation between a fisherman and a businessman and their different approaches to life.

This blog post, by author Paulo Coelho, might be the source, or just a re-hash, but the gist of it is that the fisherman lives a life of fishing till they’re satisfied, getting to do whatever they want, spending time with family, being their own boss, etc.

The businessman, upon hearing this, encourages them to ‘grind’ on their fishing business and expand, with the end goal of getting rich and then finally getting to do whatever they want.

sidenote: I’ve read The Pilgrimage by Coelho a couple years ago, and the journey his speaker goes through is quite something, especially for a naïve teens that don’t know anything, but his writings do seem worthwhile if you’re into fictional spiritual journeys and swords that don’t get used although they should probably be taken at face value.

I was reminded of the above conversation whilst sitting beside a friend of mine playing Minecraft.

They were playing in a rather leisurely fashion, just mining for the sake of it, with their inventory incrementally accumulating bits of iron ore (or raw iron as they like to call it now… sigh). They’d had that Minecraft world for about 4 in-game days (about 1 hour of play-time), and were still un-armoured, un-protected, just roaming around caves.

I was slightly irked upon seeing this. I’m more accustomed to the play style in which, immediately upon dropping into a New World, one starts punching trees, mining stone, and, to put it bluntly, invading villages to enslave the villagers as soon as possible, and ensure that one can obtain the best armour, best tools and weapons in the game, as fast as possible. This involves hours of ‘grinding’ in which one must repetitively fell trees with their (t)rusty iron axe, replacing it and planting new trees to fell and once more turn into stacks of sticks to trade with those poor trapped villagers until one has amassed enough emeralds and XP to get their desired equipment.

I tried bestowing unto them the virtues of settling in a Minecraft village, and going through the grind that is the villager trading process, to come out of it with multiple iron farms, mob farms, raid farms, etc. and villagers that can provide me a full set of perfect diamond armour and tools. I tried to explain that it was a waste of time to go through the old process of trying to find diamonds in the caves.

Instead, they were rather content with exploring these caves completely exposed, their fate at the hands of the zombies, creepers, and skeletons that lay within.

My argument was that, at the end of the grind, they would be well equipped to go into the caves and have fun. Why on the blocky flat earth would anyone choose to not have the best, shiny, gear while spelunking, and instead choose to risk the scary event and inconvenience of getting blown up and losing all their hard-earned items.

Their response hit a little close to home, “I’m doing that already you buffoon!”.

And then I realised that they were like the fisherman from that old proverb and I, the businessman, pushing them to go through that grind only to have the same end goal.

Now, of course, the end goal is nominally the same for both in that, at the end, both want to have freedom over what they do and how they spend their time. However, one aspect of nuance I think escapes the story is that material comforts vastly differ. Also, I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of fishermen, at least today, are not enjoying such a comfortable life with enough time to spend with their family and play the guitar.

Through ‘grinding’, ‘slogging’, ‘working hard’, or however you prefer to call it, for better gear, or more money, you’re likely to get a better quality of life, and come out more comfortable at the end, compared to the proverbial fisherman.

Sure, the fisherman has their freedom, but only in the simpler things. In way of creature comforts and material things, they get very little.

All that rambling, or as we now call it, ‘yapping’, does make one ponder, whether it be about how one should play Minecraft, or how one spends their 70-80 years of life (maybe even 150 to 1500).

Right now, I’m at a point in which a lot of things are changing in my own life. I’m barely an adult and I’ve almost graduated high school. As of the date of writing this, I’m not even certain which college I might be going to in less than six months (about 10 more days before I get those almighty decisions).

It’s quite strange, after having lived for the past decade with almost monotonous certainty in what’s next, I no longer know what awaits me ahead.

A lot of people, old and relatively old, have offered me varying pieces of often unsolicited and conflicting advice – “you should do x!”, “x is a waste of time, better focus on y instead!”. I’ve also been cornered into answering various questions from my juniors, and if my experience speaks to anything, I think people mostly give advice based on what they regret having done or not done, or just what they think might have been better rather than actually knowing anything for certain.

I’m not even quite sure what I want to do in the future. Thus far, I’ve been quite content with just messing around at home; poking and prodding at different pieces of technology or reading or fragging aliens rendered by my GPU or watching people fragging aliens on larger screens. At school, I throw the occasional 3-pointer and laugh at (often crude) jokes with friends, and sometimes even study! I guess it is cliché to say that but I’m really not sure what I want to do. I’ve only lived for a little while, and most of that time I wasn’t even sapient! There might be something that I haven’t tried yet, something that I could end up enjoying so much that I’m happy to grind away at it for a 100 hours a week, but I’m definitely not sure what that is right now.

A part of me is nervous, but it’s also exciting to not know. Within the uncertainty, there also exists hope and scope for near-infinite possibilities. Will I end up like the fisherman? The businessman? Or something of my own making? I guess sticking around for the long haul is the only way I’ll find out.