Break the Simulation

simulation: a two year old jumps on a coffee table you tend to get told that the world is the way it is you got a wall full of coffee tables and your calculating you into your career choice sometimes you just have to be fearless enough that you call life was made up you can build your own things that other people can use

A motivational video alternates between Kanye West and Steve Jobs discussing how people are taught to accept the world as fixed, represented by an absurd wall of coffee tables. The punchline is the call to be fearless, break the “simulation,” and create things that change how other people live. It is shared as an inspirational reaction to conformity, career anxiety, or wanting to build something original.

A simulation, a two-year-old jumps on a coffee table and someone says, that's a coffee table, don't jump on that. When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is. By the time you're 40 years old, you've got a wall full of coffee tables. And your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much. Calculating you into traffic, calculating you into your career choice. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. Sometimes you just have to be fearless enough to break the f***ing simulation. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. That's what I mean when I say simulation. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. Just place the thought out there that everyone's not thinking about. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.

• @jemalloc / 1727 2024-08-17