What It Means to Free Yourself From the Modern World

In 2020, Naval Ravikant posted this iconic tweet:

Made with Tweethunter.io

This is not necessarily a complete philosophy; but, as Naval has said himself, merely a simple reminder and framework for viewing life in a unique way that helps him focus on maximizing freedom and happiness.

I’m revisiting this topic again because I’ve recently been thinking about it in a different way.

A Real and Artificial World

In life, we play certain games to “make it through society” There’s the going to school game as a child and adolescent. There’s also the money-making game that all adults have to deal with. There’s the social media game — racking up the most likes and clout. And then there’s the career game, with its own version for each industry. And of course, you can’t forget its unbelievably cringy brainchild — the LinkedIn game.

It’s often easy to get caught up in a game without realizing it. If you think deeply enough, going to school, making money, succeeding in a ‘career’; fashion, literal games like sports — are nothing but artificial pursuits at the end of the day. They are what you would call societal constructs that we ourselves have built around ourselves to make life more comfortable, abundant and less boring— in many ways they activate primal drives that are seldom tapped into…