Seminal Moments

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Spartan26
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Seminal Moments

Post by Spartan26 » Sun Jul 25, 2021 5:00 am

I'll preface this topic by saying I don't think it's smart to dwell on the past. However, self reflection can be beneficial to one's future. I'm curious about your stories and how you came to them. What have been some watershed moments of your life? Looking back, what actions or decisions did you make that greatly changed the direction of your life, life view, or development? How big were these moments at the time? Can you measure or speculate how different your life would have been if you didn't act or if chose differently?

Conversely, and here's where one can get into trouble, are there any key times where you wish you had acted or chose differently? Did you ever try to correct a previous decision or indecision or action? What were the results?

Were there any moments where you thought the decision was going to be much bigger than it actually turned out to be?

How far back would you go in your life to change a (in)decision or action that you made? If you could choose one moment to do-over, what would it be to have the greatest lasting impact?

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Utisz
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by Utisz » Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:23 am

In terms of moments I could control, I would say that opting to take the degree I did in college, as well as applying for and taking the job in Chile, were two major forks in the road. Choosing the degree (Electronic and Computer Engineering) was a bit arbitrary, and more based on the university/city I wanted to go to, and what I did not want to do, rather than being a particularly well-informed decision. I guess I had more of an idea of what I was doing when I applied for Chile.

Also giving the okay to my girlfriend to take her cats with her to Chile.

starla
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by starla » Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:05 am

I remember around five or six years old thinking in regards to my mom “I do not want to be that kind of person.” My mom's an ESFJ.

Leaving Ohio for college was a good call. Leaving Ohio for any reason is a good call.

Went to an INTPc meetup in 2007. That’s still going well.

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Spartan26
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by Spartan26 » Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:26 am

This was set up by another decision I made that I may get to later, but it's a bit harder to prove direct correlation. I had finished a long-term temp assignment for some financial services company and then got a call on my machine to start another assignment later that week, on a Saturday. I can't remember what day my last gig ended but I wasn't going to take it. The pay wasn't good and I really didn't need the money and it was for some firm I had never heard of. I think my last day was on a Weds, cuz after having Thursday to sleep in and devote to some creative work, I decided to call back on Friday and accept the gig. Or, they called me to follow up. Can't remember. Anyway, it turned out to be the entertainment dept of a somewhat prominent, yet purposefully lowkey investment bank. They just wanted some human robots to input numbers from these tonz & tonz of volumes of notebooks of financials to do a film-side library valuation of a music & film conglomerate. They brought like 5-7 people in to work 5 days to get the data input for modeling. None of that did I know or really understand at the time. What I did know was that there were some errors in the raw data. I didn't know all the titles or what any of the contracts were but there were some illogical increases of revenue that I could see based on a previous job I had at a production company. I can't remember what actually came of that. I know they had us stop working on those and go onto something else. It made me kind of the hero for the day. They ended up keeping me around for a couple of months, then gave me a permanent offer and created a position for me.

I learned so much at that job. Totally invaluable. There was a guy there from a foreign country who was a real film buff who intro'd me to a buncha titles I never would've learned about. I got insight into film slate financing, what elements to look at when selecting comps, understanding about deals & negotiations, and then there's this whole other side of money, status & people that I can't really begin to unpack.

This may've been the first time I really felt like and/or treated like an INTP in a work situation. I think at times it was a little confounding but ultimately I'm thankful for some of the protection that isolation brought. Though dating-wise, I don't even know what I was or wasn't thinking. I'd definitely like to hit the reset button there. Overall, I got to do a lot of things there. It paid well enough that I could go to a lot of sporting events, like get great seats, go to the opera or other performing arts events and bolster my music & CD library. Some good investing insights as well. It wouldn't be until years later but I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten my first studio job without my time there. When I think about how close I was to not taking that assignment...I know my whole work history was altered. I know my perspective would be different without having seen a bit behind the curtains. I'd like to think I'm more culturally well-rounded. While it wasn't like I had anything lined up for an expected path I thought my life would take, I know that was a life changing gig for me.

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SomeInternetBloke
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:53 am

:popcorn:
Utisz wrote:
Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:23 am
In terms of moments I could control, I would say that opting to take the degree I did in college, as well as applying for and taking the job in Chile, were two major forks in the road. Choosing the degree (Electronic and Computer Engineering) was a bit arbitrary, and more based on the university/city I wanted to go to, and what I did not want to do, rather than being a particularly well-informed decision. I guess I had more of an idea of what I was doing when I applied for Chile.

Also giving the okay to my girlfriend to take her cats with her to Chile.
"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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Madrigal
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by Madrigal » Wed Jul 28, 2021 9:19 pm

It's funny because my parents made me miss a year of schooling after graduating from high school at 15, because they said we were too young to choose a career. I still don't fucking know what I want to do when I grow up. :D

That year my twin and I missed was a year dedicated exclusively to French. Interestingly, that's what most benefitted me work-wise later on, and probably influenced me politically as I began to read existentialist quasi-Marxians like Beauvoir and Sartre before university.

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to lament decisions that were made consciously. At the risk of sounding deterministic, it's likely one did not have the capacity to choose otherwise at that time, for objective or subjective reasons. There were some turning points and some apparently serendipitous circumstances I can point out in the past, which affected the path I took, but I think I would have ended up on that path sooner or later. I was predisposed to seeking out certain things.
Utisz wrote:
Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:23 am
Also giving the okay to my girlfriend to take her cats with her to Chile.
:ph34r:

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SomeInternetBloke
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Re: Seminal Moments

Post by SomeInternetBloke » Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:44 pm

Off Topic
the medical term seminal vesicles came to mind upon reading the title a first time
"My favourite song from one of my favourite albums, Nena asking you to please, please let her be your pirate. So smooth and joyful, I have to listen to it three times if I listen once" - ashi

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