More people should aspire to live Deep Lives - especially those with high earning potential. It’s an aspiration that’s better for them, those around them, and our planet.
Deep Lives vary. Commonalities I’ve seen include: - intuitive, following subconscious impulses and interoceptive guidance - slow, immersed, engaged, varied, abundant - un-labelled / individual (pathless) - and rarely centered upon work - often centered upon family, or small communities - physical-over-digital (but not non-digital) - very low in extrinsic harm (& low-consumption)
People who live Deep have kids who come into adulthood thinking that love and attention for each other is normal, that helping the people around them is normal, that feeling awe at nature’s wonders is normal, that people are all different and that’s cool, that bliss is normal. AND, that making decisions which fuck up society & ecosystems for money / personal gain is ab-normal. that stress is abnormal. etc.
People who live Deep Lives have friends who see the possibilities. And meet others, some of whom walk off chatting - “I’d never thought of that”, “and with kids…”, “see, we could do that, but, like, on land”, “wow…silence“.
The thing is, living Deep goes against the countervailing trends in most modern societies. It means not following a lot of impulses which you have been taught are natural; effectively, you are re-defining what it means to be human. For you.
And that’s the crucial part - you don’t get to a Deep Life through fighting human nature, using AI to make decisions that sidestep human nature, or any other dystopian shit. You get there by either learning who you are and choosing to embrace that, or by recognizing that human nature is malleable, and choosing to encourage a deeper one in yourself. In reality, its a bit of both.