When I first read Kapil Gupta's philosophy, I couldn't understand what he was saying. He just sounded unnecessarily esoteric. I decided to revisit his writings recently, and now I think his theory about what he calls 'prescriptions' puts light into the question of how to achieve success in life. And the answer is that there is no "How To" for that. Prescriptions - which can be thought of as "How To's" - are well intentioned but they don't work. They only work in a narrow sense. For example, a doctor prescribing you antibiotics for lyme disease is going to work to treat the lyme disease. But after the disease is cured, you are going to ask 'what now?' Thus prescriptions are too glib and they don't capture the full truth. Unfortunately, they are everywhere and it's easy to just hop from prescription to prescription in life, living a shallow existence. Some examples include 'work-hard', 'get a degree', 'network with people.' Prescriptions like these are dangerous because they can lead to fixate on them without understanding the 'why?' Following prescriptions are not even fun. Who likes to follow instructions? Will talk more about this in the last paragraph.
I was following the classic "go to school for 18 years, go to higher education, and get into medical school" prescription that is often prescribed to first generation immigrants like myself. You certainly can live this way - it doesn't break the laws of physics to live this way. But by taking this life path for granted, I felt something was missing in my life. In the back of my head, I was thinking, "why am I doing this?" and "is this the only way to live?" I realized the prescription was replacing my genuine desires and curiosities. Since the pandemic, I started to question everything which has lead me down the paths of entrepreneurship, philosophy, science, and even understanding sexual energy. I just wanted to understand for myself how everything works and take no ones word for it. I feel like my life has been slowly improving since I started to do this, i.e. stopped following prescriptions. Ironically, I realized I love health (and technology) and will be applying to medical school - but this time with a real understanding of why I want to go into medicine in the first place. This journey of self-discovery has been hard because there is social pressure to conform and avoid pursuing the truth. How one does not follow prescriptions? I think we all have an inner compass. We seem to have a voice in our head that is telling us something, but we are too often scared to hear what it has to say.
So presciptions are not the answer. As Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." What does this have to do with David Duetsch? Well, Deutsch talks about something called the 'fun criteron,' which states that there are some things that just feel fun. By fun, he doesn't just mean partying or talking to girls, although there is a time and place for that in our lives. Duetsch also means something more nuanced, something that has to do with following your interests and doing work you are meant to do. I think most of our lives are spent following prescriptions and then revenge procrasinating on the weeknights and weekends. The fun criterion is the solution to this. I just don't believe that the successful people in society - Elon Musk, Tom Brady, Joe Rogan - were following a guidebook to get to where they are. All the truly successful people seem to be following their unique interests and not following any 'how to's.' So if you want to be successful, listen to yourself, take no ones word for it, and do you.