Apr 22, 2026 10:13 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2026 01:02 AM by Magical Realist.)
"So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?
The answer – and, in a sense, the tragedy of life – is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
…As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES."---- Excerpt from "Hunter S. Thompson, Letter to Hume Logan, April 22, 1958."
I told my group once that I am not really into goal-setting. Invariably goals are things that I want to achieve just to compensate for how I'm living now. They are rarely anything like objective truths about who I really am as a person. I DID tell them that I am into having a vision. With a vision for yourself, you have a lot of flexibility and freedom for course-correction and updating and self-discovering. It's the difference between trying very hard to get somewhere specific vs just deciding to go in a certain direction and seeing where you end up. I headed far west and ended up in Oregon.
The answer – and, in a sense, the tragedy of life – is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
…As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES."---- Excerpt from "Hunter S. Thompson, Letter to Hume Logan, April 22, 1958."
I told my group once that I am not really into goal-setting. Invariably goals are things that I want to achieve just to compensate for how I'm living now. They are rarely anything like objective truths about who I really am as a person. I DID tell them that I am into having a vision. With a vision for yourself, you have a lot of flexibility and freedom for course-correction and updating and self-discovering. It's the difference between trying very hard to get somewhere specific vs just deciding to go in a certain direction and seeing where you end up. I headed far west and ended up in Oregon.