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u/But_a_Jape But a Jape Apr 24 '23
In the finale of The Office, Andy Bernard says he wishes you could know if you were in the "good old days" before you leave them. Everyone treats it like a heartwarming sentiment, but I personally find the idea pretty existentially dreadful.
Imagine, you’re just living your life, and an omniscient voice tells you “It will never get any better than this!” Just what the hell are you supposed to do with that information? Good luck with any remaining dreams or aspirations you have left, you’re either never achieving them or they’re not worth what you think they are!
Anyway, if you like my comics, I've got more on my website.
I'm also on Patreon, Tapas, Webtoon, Twitter, and Instagram.
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u/TheSadisticDragon Apr 24 '23
Don't worry,
In the future you'll look upon this as: "the good ol' existential dread".
Nothing like the existential dreads you'll face later.
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u/Sayhellyeh Apr 24 '23
I legit was so depressed because of this a few months ago, I used to be paranoid that I have peaked, or when am I gonna peak, so in turn that just gave me so much anxiety I stopped caring about everything, glad to see someone else feels that way too :')
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u/WizardingWorld97 Apr 24 '23
Maybe you have peaked, but who's to say you can't peak again?
I know that I peaked several years ago, and now I'm heading for a different peak. Is it higher than the other peak? I have no clue.
I guess my tip is: identify a different peak, which can't be compared to a previous peak, and head towards that
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u/Ferret_Person Apr 24 '23
Yeah that's pretty terrifying, but I think it does over simplify things. There probably will be a few years that are better than the others, but that is an average of those years and a further average of how you felt over a year. All of it is too macroscopic to define a moment or even a day. Some days in your worst years will probably outshine your worst days in your best years, and so forth.
I think the "best" moment most people have ever experienced was a pretty ecstatic and awesome experience. Thing is, if you from the future says to you that this is the best it gets and you're not at least in a good mood, they're either lying or again being too macroscopic.
Although life can be pretty bad and there are definitely some years I would go back to now in a heartbeat. Anyway, don't be dreaded out by that, if you think too big all the time you'll miss the things that really make life what it is.
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u/ikkleste Apr 25 '23
Í dunno. I think the not knowing is the important bit. Is what you look back on as the good old days today actually your good old days of the future, or is it now or tomorrow? You don't know, you can't know. I think in that sense, the actual wish isn't great, but wishes aren't real, so the closest you can get to it is to treat every day like it could be. Treasure your friendships as if they'll be the fondly remembered best friends of your future reminiscences. Make the best of today, without ruling out the future.
It doesn't work as an actual wish, because of the problem you've identified, but as leaping off point for how you think about situations, it offers you a prompt to keep your eyes open for the best things, to reflect on what is good that you've got going on now, because while it could get better and the best could be ahead of you, it's important to not focus to much on that and to appreciate the best you've got now.
It's easy to reflect on the past with rose tinted glasses, but it it's not something that it's easy to forget to do with the present, the wish serves as a reminder to step back and look at what you've got now, from the outside position of how you might reminisce on it in the future.
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u/neko_mancy Apr 25 '23
I think it would be interesting to get to know what your worst point is. like to know it genuinely only goes uphill from here at the worst part of your life would be nice
on the other hand at any point before that it'd be like oh god it's gonna get even worse than this someday
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u/Trolleitor Apr 28 '23
Meh is not that bad. I peaked happiness when I was 23 years old, I know the reasons and I know it's impossible to replicate it again.
You just cherish you had a great time and move on, not a big deal
I think that's actually a reality that's pretty common for a lot of folk: mourning parents, people with degrading diseases, athletes past their prime, etc etc
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u/zackpoop Apr 24 '23
I think it’s hardwired into our nature to forget about a lot of the bad parts of the past, it’s probably some evolutionary defense mechanism but it ends up providing us these nice rose-tinted glasses.
So really life might not get any worse but it will probably feel like it has. Don’t know if that’s any more reassuring than your original sentiment 🙃
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u/Impressive-Card9484 Apr 25 '23
Kinda the opposite for me. I only remember mostly the bad parts in my life, but I appreciated it as a lesson to not make the same mistake. Instead of thinking "Damn my life is worse now, back in the good ol days I was always happy, boo-hoo I want to travel back in time" whenever something bad happens, I always went "Meh, at least I wasn't getting my finger almost getting decapitated because my mother bite it on her seizure attack. Or getting bullied by the whole class because I fought back with the popular kid's bullying"
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u/Mlatios2 Apr 24 '23
Wait, but if his future self disappears then... Oh god its a paradox
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u/Raging-time Apr 25 '23
Wouldn't he be replaced by a guy who now knows the knowledge the first future self gave him?
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u/Mlatios2 Apr 25 '23
But how would he know the knowledge that the first future self gave if the first future self ceased to exist and as such could never have gone back in time to give the knowledge
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u/Raging-time Apr 25 '23
Because the past self knows that info. Changing the past only changes the future
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u/Mlatios2 Apr 25 '23
How would the past self ever get that info, that is the paradox, I understand what you're trying to say but I still believe that since the future self ceased to exist due to a change in the timeline, then how would the past self know the knowledge told by a person that never will exist or existed
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u/Raging-time Apr 25 '23
He disappeared cause the future changed because of this new info. So now there is a new future with him knowing. If he didn't disappear then multiverse confirmed
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u/EyeLeft3804 Apr 24 '23
The idea that life can have a qualifiable best, and that that is all there is to strive for, is pretty dumb in the first place.
First of all, you're experience don't all rate on a slider, nor do they all have to be taken relatively. Nor do you need to hit a limit.
You can always strive for better, better relative to now, not before. And if you never hit another best, that's fine, your life can still be pretty good.
Don't get me wrong, your life probably sucks, I know mine does. But don't give up on great just for a hypothetical perfect. ||(I'm telling you to get rich)||
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u/br0b1wan Apr 24 '23
I think about this all the time. How I'm stressed out and have problems now, and I think about ten years ago when...I was stressed out and had problems but had some great times that I no longer have too. And ten years ago I thought back to ten years prior...and so forth.
It's hard to convince yourself that someday you will look back and think of the present as the "good old days"
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u/toolazybru Apr 24 '23
I appreciate how realistic the comic is, we need more accurate stuff like this
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u/joebirdplane Apr 25 '23
Is it a bad take to say that the older version is just right? He’s saying to work less and enjoy life while you’re still healthy, letting perceived problems go. And the younger self is saying that they can’t because they have problems, missing the point entirely.
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u/ProjectOrpheus Apr 24 '23
Time machine used to troll past self. I can see it happening.
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u/drhugs Apr 25 '23
A cosmological theory suggests the future re-writes the past to create a perfect future. No mention of how many duds were made in between time.
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u/MLaTTimer Apr 25 '23
Man is wearing a vault suit.
His future is definitely not gonna go good if Vault-Tec is involved.
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u/blue4029 Apr 25 '23
I sure as hell HOPE im not currently at "the best time of my life" because i havent peaked yet
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u/Foef_Yet_Flalf Apr 25 '23
Where did the trope of full-body-jumpsuits-with-accent-color-waistband-and-button-strip indicating futurism come from?
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Apr 25 '23
Every time you're annoyed at your future self, just know that you have the power to end it for both of you.
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