"Chase Your Dreams" = BAD ADVICE NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR.

why do so many people fall into the trap
of preaching that you ought to chase your dream here on YouTube I think it's something you say relatively rarely in real life or it's something you'd say with great trepidation in real life I do not think you would casually tell somebody you know face to face even if you don't know them very deeply oh you want to be an actor or an actress chase your dream like even if it's someone who's just a classmate of yours someone you know in a kind of shallow and passing way at a minimum you might judge them based on their appearance and you might already have reasons to say maybe you shouldn't chase that dream you can judge them based on their appearance based now you know them and you can judge their dream maybe being an actor isn't the best dream for this person maybe you know that right away um people usually ask me about you know heroes have had in my life people have looked up to people have respected they're normally looking for for you know an author a famous author a famous intellectual figure maybe a movie star they're normally not asking what people have known face-to-face but sometimes people ask me did I have any role models that come was there a particular professor you know I don't know friend uncle grandfather was there anyone who who positively inspired me or or guided me in these conversations was there anyone who ever advised me to go to and chase my dream home as so many people do here on YouTube I think I can say I might be a very different person if I did have that kind of positive contact whether through books through writing or through people on you face to face but I didn't and I mean part of my ultra cynicism my overt nihilism doubtless links to that experience I had and it's not really growing up you're not talking about childhood I think you're really talking about the last couple of years of high school and then the university period of time that's when you're really talking to people about your dreams talking to people about your plans to the future seeking advice and in my case your being disappointed again and again with the advice you get the format we have here on YouTube it's very different if I'm replying to a specific email I've received a specific message within patreon from patreon supporter specific written comment I may give one person advice I had a guy writing to me lately and he was talking to me he was asking for advice about vegan activism a political activism given the fact that he's confined to a wheelchair is a very serious disease innate condition he can't walk and he can't drive a normal car unless the car has been specially modified for him to drive it um so his approach to activism is different because he has a physical disability he's also a university student so you know he's a relatively highly educated person he's still in university etcetera the advice I give him is even just with that little bit of information you know what do you think do you think I'm stupid enough to come on here and make a video and say Oh chase your dreams if you know someone in a wheelchair what if their dream is to be an actor well yeah there are a very small number of jobs for someone's confined to a wheelchair to be an actor if someone is confined to a wheelchair and they want to be a political activist and veganism I was trying to give him meaningful advice where I talked about okay there are some forms of activism you can do and there's some form of activism you can't do and some of them are underrated and some of them are overrated let's let's really sit down and talk about and that's all I know about I've never met him we haven't talked by Skype he just sent me an email saying oh yeah he also said he was poor so he he's broke he has no money he's a university student so he doesn't have a lot of time and he's confined to a wheelchair he's been vegan for five months but he's really highly motivated to get involved enactment so beautiful there's a wonderful email to get I was very happy to reply to him but something about the format of speaking to your imaginary audience and trying to give advice that's equally valid for everyone in your audience that seems to lead people down this path of preaching that you should chase your dreams and it's very rare to hear someone questioning that paradigm to chase your dreams paradigm um Lord Jamar who's a former rapper or former hip-hop artist who these days mostly comments on hip hop culture rap and what-have-you I remember Lord Jamar questioning it in a totally different political context but he said what if my dream was to be a revolutionary you know for a guy he's in Kies yoga he's a black man from a certain generation that very much is in transition in terms of civil rights in terms of the status of African Americans and I think when he was younger he did I mean he's speaking about himself pretty directly what if my what if his dream is to lead a violent revolution and try to found a new Republic start a new society start a new country you know I don't know if he specifically was a was a black separatist african-american separatist but anyway um he's alluding to his own youth of being involved with radical politics of various kinds what are you gonna do are you just gonna say chase your dream is usually because that's what you identify as that's how you imagine yourself that's what you should do with your life um in my case when I got to the end of my university education I had narrowed down my research interests and chosen my path of the future and I was pretty well focused on Cambodia now I met one of my brother's if you haven't been watching this channel on time I have approximately a hundred brothers my father had a ludicrous number of children and this was in fact the first and last time I ever sat down and had a face-to-face conversation of this particular brother so this brother I had met him before for five minutes oh hey hey we should meet and have coffee and then this was when we met in that coffee and then a system we never spoke even once which was his choice I tried I tried to state there's this relative but this was the only conversation I ever had with this particular brother and you'll see why I mentioned this particular brother of mine he is gay so of all my brothers he's the only one who actively identifies this game which is goes sure if you have enough kids sooner or later I think there is there is some statistical inevitability if you have enough kids some of them are gonna be gay I don't this brother of mine he's gay and when he was asking but what I was doing in the future that time I was basically already done University I was like all right I'm I'm packing up and moving to Cambodia and you know I had this combination of historical interest in language interest in researchers I had totally down-to-earth reasons for moving to Cambodia it wasn't it wasn't that I wanted to be a movie star that might be a viable goal if you want to go to Cambodia and work in the movie industry especially at that time but I mean there was nothing you know there was nothing as extravagant as wanting to become a movie star or want to become a famous singer or anything like that but I said yeah these are my reasons I want to go to Cambodia and do this kind of work and working langston and I remember his response was one that wasn't it wasn't just dismissive I was gonna say it was 100% dismissive and contentious really what it was he was simply completely certain I would never do it he's wrote says oh no that's not gonna happen no no you're not gonna do that you're gonna yeah you're gonna give up on that dream and just move it like in no time you're just gonna forget about it he didn't even think I would try and fail he just thought I'd I'd never go to him oh yeah like this would never happen cause I think he I think he'd been to Cambodia on vacation I don't know anyway he'd traveled around he'd been around the world on vacation I don't know whether or not he'd ever actually gone Cambodia but he was just completely dismissive that and I remember looking it up so this is someone who has the same DNA that I have but who's never met before I asked have you met me this is my own brother but like what makes you think you know who you're talking to hey like what thinks you know well what makes you think you know the depths of my risk aversion what why would you think like why would you think this is unattainable for me you know um I mean it's true at that time on the one hand nobody said chase your dream and on the other hand nobody provided me with down-to-earth useful advice no buddy and I talked to all my professors it's actually worth or fighting one of my professors in this department was an alcoholic very self-destructive alcoholic and was hard to take what he said seriously another professor he was a professor of Asian Studies etc he had never been Asia never got an airplane never traveled ever did humanitarian so he had no real-world experience just more recently at University of Victoria I also had a lot of professors where they were in that sense disconnected from reality it doesn't mean they're bad people some of them I really liked as people who I was talking to one of them about my my future education and and career options and he was telling me to go to business school in Beijing or Shanghai and I had to look at him I had to look at him and say have you met me he'd know me that for more than a year but what I actually said was not have you met me I said um you've read my CV you've read my resume are you forgetting what kind of guy is described by that resume slightly more polite you know why do you think I would go to a business school and get a diploma in business management in Beijing or Shanghai and why do you think they would want me there if a guy like me shows up in one of those places I think most of those people know pretty soon I'm not the next Donald Trump except in a sense of course I am but you know I'm not one of those guys that's not my but it's not my culture snow majors and so on um you know I can remember also I've been in that position of giving advice to others and sometimes it's been people who wanted to go into the theater you know it's such a different thing to look into someone's face even if it's the first time you've met them even if you know nothing about them and say chase your dream when your dream may be self-destructive it may be destructive toward others um it may be unattainable it may be all too attainable it may be that it's not ambitious enough I mean how how many people you know where their dream is to basically waste time play video games how many people you know who just fundamentally lack ambition because even that advice chase your dream sometimes is there's not a lot of chasing and there's just a whole lot of dreaming going on and for some people like my own brother in that story your dream whatever it is is just inconceivable to them they can't you know they can't imagine it so any advice or encouragement they give is is meaningless um it's not my place to tell people not to offer advice on the Internet I think that you know what what I've really got to say here is you should discipline yourself if you're on YouTube to always give advice speaking from a specific set of circumstances and to a specific set of circumstances so I got this letter from a guy who's confined to a wheelchair I don't know what that's like I've never been in a wheelchair I've never worked with a disabled that's not my it's not my area of expertise I'm not gonna speak as an expert on that but he's asking me questions but some things I know about some things I can offer advice on and I can say okay here's what I understand about your situation based on when he told me here's my experience my background my perspective here's what I can tell you coming from that because as I say again and again I really am biased by my experience if I had chosen to become a specialist in the Muslim world in Arabic and languages related to Arabic dialects of Arabic my whole perspective on politics would be different today and I would be emotionally invested in a totally different set of examples if I had chosen to specialize in Haiti in Central America the Caribbean or Latin America my perspective would be different it is true in ways both shallow and profound just even the selection of examples that I directed my attention to have biased by perspective when we're talking about something is totally different as ecology the Green Party veganism etc and they bias me if someone wants to talk to me about their dream you know their dream whatever it may be so I do think the cure for advice itis here on YouTube the cure for chase your dream itis I think it is you over use the term keeping it real what it really means this context to keep it real to keep it real your argument should proceed from specific experience and to specific experience and try to avoid too many glorious generalizations on the road in between