Desire-Driven World
This blog post was translated by Mistral
A friend asked me, do you think friends are important? In today’s society, what is the weight of friends in our lives? Answers vary among different age groups. It depends on what we are doing and whether we need many friends. At times we need friends, at times we don’t. This hinges on our desires and whether we need friends in the process of achieving our goals. For someone like me, constantly networking and entrepreneurship, friends are extremely important. For someone like me, who only thinks about making a living and is content, a few true friends are sufficient. All of this depends on my current desires. This world, in essence, is a world driven by desires.
Human nature is self-centered, always for oneself. I spend most of my time thinking about myself: what I want to do, what I want to be, how I can reach my goals, and what makes me happy and enjoyable. Others are the same. Although we live under the same roof and cooperate little, we still focus on our separate selves. Even when we cooperate, chat, divide household chores, or sleep, we are equal, doing so for our own benefit. When someone needs help, I will lend a hand if convenient, making it a pleasure to help, a way to gain happiness in this tough society.
People have various desires. We do many things for these desires, driving this world. Sometimes we sacrifice everything for our own desires. However, if we are fulfilling someone else’s desires, there must be adequate compensation, feedback, and a positive attitude for us to serve them. People are selfish. I am selfish, but half of humanity is more selfish than I am, and they do it better.many cannot truly agree and practice “one cooperation, lifelong friends.” Such people are rare. After cooperation, not everyone becomes a friend. What is a friend? What makes someone a friend? Will they like and comment on my posts? Will they help me out in difficult times? Will they lend me money? Will they introduce users or customers to me?
I have come to realize that in our world, in our society, in the world driven by money, in the world driven by desires, in the increasingly self-centered world, we should not have the concept of friends, this concept is fading away. More importantly, we should understand the driving forces of this world’s desires.
We live in the internet age, our interactions with friends and classmates may not be as frequent as with our favorite bloggers, celebrities, or internet idols. Friends may not be willing to lend us a few hundred dollars, but we are willing to spend a lot of money on things we love. My wife can spend several thousand to ten thousand on things she loves, yet she may not be willing to give me such a large red packet. I am the same way.
Life is so realistic. Hahaha. People prefer fair transactions and dislike being taken advantage of. People often don’t even like fair transactions, they prefer to steal and take advantage. There is no benefit to doing things that bring no advantage, and not everyone will like or vote for something just because it costs money, let alone if there is no money involved.
Similarly, when I write articles, I should not think about how to contact friends for emotional connections, but rather consider how to satisfy their desires. Friends’ desires for articles are what? Information, knowledge, emotional comfort, and encouragement. If I want my articles to be more popular, I should understand what the desires of this society are and write articles that satisfy these desires. I should target which type of audience and do what content to meet their desires. I discovered that friends can be summarized as friendship. We were discussing human emotions. Friendship seems less important now, along with love and other emotions, human emotions are less important, what’s more essential and eternal is desire. Desire drives the world, unchanging.
Society has undergone many changes. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, families were important, population growth was important. The larger the family, the more likely to produce a talented person. The more people, the greater the power, and there were advantages in village disputes. The more people, the more arable land they obtained. However, the more people, the smaller the per capita arable land, which easily led to famine, drought, and the increase of refugees. If there was a rebellion, one could rally along the way and form a powerful force, causing social unrest. I learned this from the book “Population: China’s Sword of Damocles,” which also mentioned Marx’s book “The Population Principle.”
In the past century, society underwent many changes. In the past ten years, mobile internet brought about significant changes to the world.
I have observed that our generation and the previous one have many differences in making friends. Our parents’ friends were mostly those they had known for over twenty years. After the age of thirty, they probably didn’t make many new friends. They rarely posted on social media, and their relatives and friends were too familiar, with little to post. However, we young people born in the 80s and 90s are still posting on social media. Our parents and their friends, when they meet, chat, help each other, and gather for festivals.
I, however, found that not posting on social media made life equally dull, so I started posting on social media. Gradually, I thought that everything could be completed in social media. I didn’t want to bother anyone, I didn’t know who had time to chat with me, I didn’t know who still cared about me, and I didn’t know who could help me. I found out by posting on social media. I discovered that the boundary between meeting in person and meeting online had become very blurred, and many friends who had not met me gave me a lot of help.1. There are many situations. Logically speaking, we should first trust, respect, and treat friendly towards every person. Then, we hope they do the same for us. We should distinguish how to treat each friend, familiar friends should be treated familiarly, and strangers should be treated politely.
Yes, perhaps in this era, we no longer value this way of getting to know people through meetings as much. In the internet world, we care about each other’s lives and deeply resonate with each other, maybe this is more important. Meeting someone is just a way to get to know them. In the internet world today, there are many ways to get to know someone.
Even after breaking up, boyfriend and girlfriend may delete each other. Maybe we don’t place that much importance on whether we are in each other’s WeChat contacts. Yes, these things seem less important compared to desires.
Our relationship with someone depends on whether we mutually fulfill each other’s desires. I am a boss, I recruited someone online, and we mutually fulfill each other’s desires and satisfy each other’s wants, so our relationship is good. My friendship is good, but we do different things, and if we don’t contact each other for a long time, the relationship will fade.
After experiencing many things, I have become more willing to stay in my comfort zone. Accommodating people is tiring, and there will be various misunderstandings. I cannot participate in people’s desires, and I feel insignificant. My family members often cannot understand each other. I write articles, I make videos, I express myself freely, and if not many friends listen, it seems irrelevant. I have become less responsive to criticism and negative opinions, because I believe I have not done anything wrong, only that I have my thoughts and personality. I admit it, I cannot change myself, I am just this kind of person. This world, there are many people, chatting, interacting, cooperating to make money, playing, we just need to find a part that acknowledges ourselves. There is a business philosophy called selecting customers based on values. I sometimes say at home, speak fewer criticizing words, fewer negative words, I don’t want to hear them. I am this way, there are more people who have weaker habits, morality, intelligence than me in this regard. If someone doesn’t respect themselves but only differs from me, we should accept them. I am this way, many people are also the same. They don’t accept me, which means they don’t accept countless people. This will inevitably bring troubles. I am relatively independent, so give me as much independent space as possible, avoid interference, and minimize cooperation as much as possible. However, family members still need to be accompanied frequently, so I think we both need to adjust our attitudes and accept each other, live in harmony.
Turning to desires, when it comes to desires, we have to earn money. Paul Graham gave Y Combinator an slogan, make something people want. Entrepreneurship is about creating something to satisfy people’s desires.
I began observing my desires. During my school days, I wanted to get high scores and be the first to get into Tsinghua University or Peking University. During college, I wanted to learn a skill, develop a hobby, find an internship, and fall in love. At work, I wanted to improve my skills and gain recognition from my colleagues. After starting a business, I wanted my business to be successful and influence many people, with both wealth and fame. Now, I have tried many things, calmed down a lot, and have a sense of disillusionment. Simply put, I am currently looking for something to do, and as long as I can earn money to support my family, that’s enough. For an adult, earning money to survive is an unavoidable theme.
Earning money is about satisfying people’s desires. When I observe people’s desires, I find that they all want my money. Advertisements all over the world, advertisements in my friend circle, and TikTok’s monetization methods all aim to attract followers.
When I find that a desire of mine is more important than money, I will use money to exchange it. Money is a measure of value. When I can’t get it for free, I will use money to obtain it. When I find that using money is more cost-effective than my own effort, I will use money to obtain it.: Man’s money is hard to earn. This is because men have to support their families and bear more burdens within the family. Men’s lives are rougher and simpler than women’s, who pursue the finer things less. This also depends on how people earn money. If earning money is hard, then one is more reluctant to spend.
A family has risks, and risks often fall on men, such as family members getting sick. Men are more cautious with their money, jokingly telling my wife that any of my money should be looked at for a decade before spending. I boast that my money is the hardest money in the world to earn because I strive to have no desires. With so many family expenses, one must consider the family.
How to become a rich person. Although I have never become one, I have done various things and worked hard to earn money. Simply put, work hard and fully satisfy others’ desires. When we are fully focused on earning money, we don’t have time to spend money. Spending money is also an investment for earning more money in the future.
I realize that people living online are becoming more and more self-centered. All feelings are no longer important. I only want to immediately fulfill my desires. The search boxes of various applications are becoming increasingly important because they are filled with desires.
This is a world driven by desires, the easier and quicker one can fulfill their desires, the better. Modern life and the internet make people lazy, and the younger generation is becoming more free and self-centered. People are becoming more and more craving for immediate feedback, and people are becoming less patient.1. Friend circle, became a world for people and their fans and friends. The nature of each friend circle depends on their desires. What people do and want to do determines the shape of their friend circle. Our relationships with friends depend on our desires and how much we and they need each other.
Once I realized this is a desire-driven world, every time someone approaches me, every friend circle I see, I sometimes ponder what desires it reveals. If these desires are strong, then there’s an opportunity to make money here. Sometimes I openly charge, help friends recruit or do something for a fee, which makes them feel at ease asking for help.
Realizing this, let’s think, what are the desires of the 14 billion people? What are my desires in my many years of life? Serving a small portion of people with genuine desires might sustain us.
It may seem that people only exploit each other. Love and empathy, compassion, and altruism are also human needs. As more and more people become well-connected, their spirits become rich and they start to be selfless, giving. This world is becoming more self-centered, and love, compassion, empathy, and trust are becoming increasingly precious. However, people are too smart, and bosses of influencers and netizens can leverage this to earn people’s hearts. With the lowest prices and various benefits, they sell things, truly helping people save money, which is a genuine expression of love.
I’ve talked a lot, maybe my understanding is one-sided, maybe just a 90s perspective of the world. I put my thoughts down, clarify them, and gain some feedback in the process. This is a world driven by desires. This world seems unpleasant, yet it’s not that bad. Such is this world, such am I, and many are the same. We can also say this world is wonderful, a world so rich and colorful.
As we begin to discern the desires of every person, we seem to have gained a deeper understanding of this world. This is a desire-driven world, and this world is becoming more self-centered. What will the future bring? This world is becoming more intriguing.