The fundamental sadness of billionaires

The struggle with perfectionism is hardly unique. I myself gave up on way too many things just because I haven’t met my own expectations. This, to a degree, isn’t necessarily bad. It makes me get better at my job which in return provides me better opportunities. But it also makes me miss out on things I’d really like to do, be it drawing or learning the piano. Because at this moment, I’m so shit at both things, that every single attempt to learn and improve is frustrating enough to just make me stop.

Sure, we all know that hobbies are actually supposed to be fun and you haven’t to be good at it. Nobody will judge you if you aren’t, who cares? Well, not nobody. You yourself will always be your hardest judge and realizing this will help you take the first steps to work on these problems. I think almost every person figures this out in their late twenties, thirties (or later, this isn’t a race!)

But billionaires aren’t most people and the thing that basically all of them lack is the ability to reflect their own behaviour. I recently got reminded of this by a Mark Zuckerberg interview where he said:

»In terms of strategy games, the one that I’m more likely to want to be the best in the world at is Civilization,« said Zuckerberg. »I think at some point I should do like a Twitch stream of me playing with someone because I’m pretty convinced that I’m close to Grandmaster status. I’d be surprised if anyone in the world could beat me at«

I love Civilization. I have been playing it since Civ II and I invested countless hours in the series. And you know what? I’m still not very good at it. Even after two decades or more playing it. And I don’t care. I still love every hour of it and ever since the announcement of Civ VII I’m hyped as fuck.

But not Mark Zuckerberg. Nevermind the fact that his moderators and AI training staff in the global south can’t afford gaming PCs or even if they could they wouldn’t have time to invest thousands of hours into a single game. What I’m talking about is that he isn’t playing a game. He is mastering it. Like he does with his MMA thing. Or his ugly ass new clothing line.

And it’s not just Zuckerberg, it’s also Elon Musk or everybody’s second favourite billionaire Mark Cuban (sorry, Taylor Swift got you beat.) These people don’t have any fun in their lives. Hell, Elon can’t even fuck for fun, he has to save the human race by fathering children. They never had the fundamental human experience of personal growth. The realization that there is more to life than being the best at everything. That some things can be done just for fun.

Not that I will cry any tears for the poor billionaires who are missing out on human experiences. Those I’ll save for my next attempt do draw something on my iPad.