>>But it does make you feel as if you need to be all-in

Hmm, this is a bigger point than I think you make it out to be. (?)

It's something that's pained me for a long time too.
I'll ramble a bit...

I think part of the problem, in my case at least, is that the world programmed me to think that I need to be all-in.

"All-in" to me means I have to get the Lexus yacht and the Garmin smart marine watch, and all the _stuff_ that comes with that, if I want to partake in this activity. If I want to enjoy its pleasures.

"All-in" to me also means that this activity (in this modern form) and its ecosystem and community has been structured (by that massive industrialized complex) such that if I don't go all-in, then it wouldn't work. The real action happens when you go all-in.

From another angle, if I had the luck of realizing that I can do sailing with a simple Hobie Cat, with a friend, on the local lake. I'd still have to overcome this very difficult impression left on me by the marketers of the Lexus + Garmin + Goodies that a simple Hobie Cat wouldn't be good enough to bring a very broad smile to my face. They would want me to sit with the all-in image in my head. They would want to suppress the simple option.

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which then is where we can look at your other statement:
>>>The velocity of relevance seems to have altered significantly.

You cannot just go all-in today and be set. you need to do it every year, "new" updates, upgrades, all sold by the same marketers in such a way that the previous models just seem not usable anymore.

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Reading again, I also see
>>>it does make you feel
you see, thats what they want!

>>>it does make you feel as if you need to be all-in

so they want to create the idea that being behind, being a noob (the "perpetual state" as you put it) is a bad thing. Or maybe rather, they know humans (as PG says were in the old days required to overcome noobness to survive) so it's built into us. marketers exploit this to get you to buy again and again.

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which brings us to philosophy. The stuff I've come to realize sit even underneath the above statements.

See, philosophers tells us that happiness already exists inside us. Right now. Right here. Inside.

If you could be made to believe it is outside, then you could be told 'one of the things' out there might be the one for you. Which implies, you'd have to try out a lot of stuff to hopefully find it between the options. Which gives you the idea that if you get something, and it doesn't work, you just gotta try something else. But what you don't know, the trick, is that none of it will fulfill.

Also, problem for a capitalist world is that, if you know happiness is inside, then you have no reason to seek it outside of you.
If you're not seeking it outside, and you feel it inside, you won't be open to suggestions of products that might fulfill this suggested feeling of emptiness.
Which means they can't sell you anything, and thus not take your money.

So, ask yourself then, how much of how our society is built, its structures, how we're educated, deliberately avoids helping you to find the happiness inside, and deliberately pushes you to seek for it outside of yourself.

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being a noob i think then is not something we should seek in all cases. when learning , yes definately.

but ito happiness, being in the moment and enjoying it as it is, is all you need. no noobness attitude.

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ok, ramble done. I may've gone way beyond your comment, but you triggered something, and I enjoyed it , thanks!