Kapil Gupta's writing can sound esoteric and inaccessible. However, his theory about 'prescriptions' puts light into the question of how to live life well. The answer, he asserts, 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 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 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,' and 'network with people.' Prescriptions like these are traps because they can lead to fixate on them without understanding the 'why?' Following prescriptions are not even fun. Who likes to follow instructions?
I was following the classic "go to school for 18 years, go to higher education, and get into medical school" prescription. One can 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 wanted to understand for myself how everything works, and I feel like my life has been slowly improving since I started to do this, i.e. stopped following prescriptions. This has come with pain resulting from realizing how much time was wasted and from undoing society's conditioning. 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.
Presciptions are not the answer to a well lived life because as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Similarly, David Deutsch, a physicist who has grown in popularity on Twitter, talks about the 'fun criteron,' which states that there are things that just feel fun. By fun, he doesn't just mean partying or drinking. He means something more nuanced, something that has to do with following your interests and doing work you are meant to do. Most of our lives are spent coercing ourselves into following a set path and routine 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.' They tell us to grind in order to be successful, but they forget to mention that the grind is enjoyable for them. So I think that if you want to become the best possible version of yourself, listen to yourself, take no ones word for it, and just do you.
Last Edited: January 30, 2025