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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

I often have this weird fear that I wont accomplish anything in my life like it is some sort of personal failure.

Meanwhile I'm able to write about game ideas, code them, create some characters and story and background, even though it doesn't lead to anything since it's more of a hobby, but I fail to make it into a job. I love to think, create, try to design little things, and honestly that's the best pleasure I have.

In the end, I don't think I'm really unhappy. Nihilism is a good way to cope with my own reality. I don't think people who fill their time with a job to kill the boredom are doing themselves a favor. The philosophy of contributing to society to gain money, quality holidays and entertainment seems weird to me.

I always wonder: when their week is over, where do people find refuge? Sports, hobbies, entertainment? I just don't understand how people can think about leaving this world without having something that is really their own. How do you live when you're just a consumer? What happens if you lose friends? In my own conception of life, I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves.

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>I always wonder: when their week is over, where do people find refuge? Sports, hobbies, entertainment? I just don't understand how people can think about leaving this world without having something that is really their own. How do you live when you're just a consumer? What happens if you lose friends? In my own conception of life, I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves.

Everyone reading this will be dead in 90 years. We are stranded on a giant rock spinning through frozen space.

At the end of it all there will be nothing but the heat death of the universe. Nothing and nobody will survive.

There is no larger purpose. There will be nobody alive to remember any good or bad deeds you may do.

Fortunately, you have the choice to either be depressed about it, or try to enjoy as much of it as you can while you can.

I enjoy listening to and producing music and playing sport. Also enjoying nature and peace and quiet. I like nice food and spending time with my partner.

I love my life, except work which to me is an unfortunate necessity. I just try to maximize my enjoyment and that makes me feel alive.

> At the end of it all there will be nothing but the heat death of the universe.

I'm as non-religious as they come, but I often wonder about this. Any time I spend even a little bit of time thinking about this stuff, I always find myself turning to the thought that, if that truly is all there is, then why does anything exist at all? Like, even on the level of energy/matter. My brain just can't get past the logic of, if there truly isn't anything here at the end beyond a dead, near-infinite void, wouldn't it have been cheaper and simpler for literally nothing to ever exist? Why go through the hassle of all this matter creation?

It's just a really stubborn blocker for me. I get sort of stuck there and kind of throw up my arms and get to living as if some of this must matter somehow. I'm not saying it does. But the fact that matter exists, as opposed to there just simply being absolute never-nowhere-nothing, keeps me questioning.

For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident.

Or perhaps our universe it all there is, and it doesn't expand infinitely, but will begin a pullback at some point leading to a new big bang.

Or maybe we're just simple 3d beings, and the universe is really multi dimensional. Or even more mind boggling, we're just a simulation.

None of the above explains what is outside, nor does it answer your question. What I'm trying to paint, is that we will probably never know. But we do know that being happy feels good, so just focus on that, because that is the meaning.

>For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident.

Is that true? I thought the whole reason they came up with dark matter was that the universe was expanding faster than the amount of detectable matter inside it would suggest.

That's dark energy. Dark matter would slow down the expansions of the universe, and they came up with that to explain the rotation curves of galaxies: they're flat- all the stars in e.g. the Milky way go around the center in the same amount of time- but that shouldn't be the case going by just the matter we can see. Ergo, dark matter.

I think the trick is to reverse your thinking. Looking for answers to existential questions outside ourselves is just a rabbit hole leading to more questions. I'd love to be proven wrong, that would make things a heck of a lot simpler. But this is like the dreamer asking himself where all the dream stuff comes from and why it's there, making up all sorts of theories about the dream universe and dream black holes or even dream gods. I think reality is very similar. You cannot solve problems with the same thinking used to create them.

> if that truly is all there is, then why does anything exist at all? (…) wouldn't it have been cheaper and simpler for literally nothing to ever exist? Why go through the hassle of all this matter creation?

This assumes purpose, intent. Yes, it might’ve been more logical to not create anything, but the processes that initiated creation didn’t reason, they didn’t think “what makes more sense”, they happened randomly.

But even it there was an objective behind creation, that might have just as well been “to see what happens”, same way some people keep ant farms just to watch them — doesn’t make the ants’ existence any more meaningful.

Why does everything need a reason?

Nobody really knows enough about what could happen on timescales that large.

We've invented dark matter to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe because we don't have any proof of why that is happening.

One thing is clear to me though, and that is that both Earth and the universe will outlive me.

So no matter what happens to the universe, it's not my problem and I'm back to, "it's my choice whether I just sit here depressed about my imminent demise, or just forget about that which I have no control over and just try to enjoy myself as much as I can".

> I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves

For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. Nature doesn’t play around :)

> For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children.

This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement. It may be satisfying and fulfilling, but it is in no way an "achievement".

If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

However, if that child cures cancer because you provided them with opportunities and assisted them in a way that allowed them to flourish, you have done a tremendous job. I do agree that giving birth being an achievement for people seems sad. It is almost like wining in a medal in a middle school where everyone gets a medal and being proud of it for the rest of your existence.

And what if they cure cancer and you haven't actually given them opportunities or assistance? Or what if they don't cure cancer? Did you not raise them sufficiently well?

> This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement.

The GP didn't say “having children”, so even to the extent one agrees with this claim it's a non-sequitur.

> If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

Perhaps. Certainly, if that's your greatest contribution to your child, you've done very little as a parent. But when people say that someone's greatest achievement is their children, they probably don't mean giving just giving birth to (or fathering) them.

Raising a productive, kind, and compassionate human being is very hard, and very much an achievement. You reduce it uncharitably by claiming it's simply 'birthing.'

> You reduce it uncharitably by claiming it's simply 'birthing.'

Isn't that exactly what it has become? Right now we are struggling with a massive environmental catastrophe, which is largely caused by overconsumption.

One of the best ways to fight that is to simply have fewer consumers [0], yet somehow that's something barely anybody even dares to talk about because we can't take from people the "freedom" to keep birthing more off-spring for no other reason than self-gratification.

It's not like we are a species on the brink of extinction like we direly need those additional bodies. Right now it looks like we are having way too many bodies to actually keep busy with meaningful work, a problem that will only become that much worse as automation makes even more manual jobs redundant.

In that context, I consider this urge to have biological off-spring the epitome of egoism. There's plenty of orphans out there who would be glad to be living in a family that cares. Why not give them a chance instead of adding yet another body to the problem because it has some minor DNA similarities?

Yes, adopting in most countries is a difficult process, I know that, I still think it's the much more responsible choice than insisting on biological offspring.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...

>I consider this urge to have biological off-spring the epitome of egoism

Lol, I mean, yeah. It is. It's a biological imperative to recreate yourself.

It might be controversial to mention, but isn't there an underlying feeling of "us versus them"?

Consider the movie Idiocracy, where the high-IQ couple decided to put off children until they were unable to conceive - contrasted with a trashy man who had dozens of children with many different women.

Do you want the world you live in 20 years from now to be one with people like you or unlike you? Regardless it reduces to people being selfish, but I dont think it's inherently wrong to want to raise children into upstanding citizens.

What are you talking about? Birthrates in developed countries are below replacement rates. If anything, in developed countries, more people should be having more kids.

If you want to decrease the number of consumers, here's what you do: Go to every developing country in the world and speed up its movement aping the western development arc so that it gets more money, suburbia, feminism, etc. Until everyone's miserable, alone, and nobody's having kids, like in Europe, Korea, or Japan.

> What are you talking about? Birthrates in developed countries are below replacement rates. If anything, in developed countries, more people should be having more kids.

I believe that you have to look at that from a global perspective as the climate change also doesn't stop at borders and globally birth rates are still way too high. The proper solution would be to stop trying to keep "foreigners" out of the rich, western countries, so that people from countries with high population growth can migrate to countries with shrinking population. That'd be a win-win situation for everybody.

Well, someday when people get old they’ll appreciate having young people to take care of them. Young people who’s value generation pays for their healthcare in retirement. We won’t solve every problem — of our own creation or otherwise — in one generation. Raising thoughtful, compassionate children takes hard work. A lot of people focus on the negatives of children — more population, crying on flights. They don’t consider that those kids will literally be in the pilots seat in 20 years.

Though it may not be an "achievement" (something above average), I would not go as far as to say "you have failed as a person".

Here is another perspective: Having children and providing for them is actually a huge contribution to the society. At the end of the day, we want to keep our knowledge (understanding of the universe, etc) afloat. And the only way to do that is by having children and educating them about it.

You might not consider giving birth to a child an achievement (not sure I even agree with you there), but for many people the work they put into raising their children and the ultimate impact that those children have on the world can far exceed the impact of any software project.

Try it. You will fail.

It is way harder (to do it right) than anything you can imagine.

Raising children is the quintessential grinding stone in life. You're right, there's nothing quite like it, and each child is a near-constant reminder that you need to be flexible in order to teach and to learn.

Having children is immensely satisfying and fulfilling. It's challenging, time consuming, expensive, and productive. All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children.

The vast, vast, majority of humanity will never accomplish anything that will rival raising children well. The remainder are those who invent, discover, build, and market those things that let us live and have children better.

>All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children.

And all the failures.

There's already too many people on this planet for it to be sustainable.

I absolutely agree that not everyone needs to have children. I'd go as far as to say most people don't need to have children. However, how do we go about changing this?

We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

That being said, I'd love to promote the idea that your children are not just your responsibility but mine as well. It is such a primitive tribal idea that I find it strange people are offended by it because it is "socialist".

Personally, I am OK with waves of forced mass sterilization but I understand, because human nature, it will be just as poorly implemented as any war draft so I can't promote this idea.

>We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

That ridiculous and frankly insane expectation of constant growth is the reason we're in this mess in the first place.

Also, a "rapidly shrinking population" has never happened so who knows what the effects might be.

>Personally, I am OK with waves of forced mass sterilization but I understand, because human nature, it will be just as poorly implemented as any war draft so I can't promote this idea.

I wasn't suggesting either genocide or mass sterilization, but lets not go too far the other way and pat ourselves on the back too hard for simply making more people, and making vapid statements like, "All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children".

Those billions of accomplishments are rapidly destroying the only planet we have, so clearly on average every extra person is a net negative.

I haven't had children myself so the effects of all those accomplishments won't be my offspring's problem when I'm dead.

Replying to myself because I found this interesting, so someone else might as well:

>We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/world-population-ch...

Especially interesting/scary is the "World population since 10,000 BCE" chart.

I don't think a rapidly shrinking population is the problem that we are likely to experience.

Look at Japanese, Korean, and European birthrates. Look at the birthrates as a function of how 'developed' a country is. The trend is clear- as countries develop, they die. They stop having kids. Even the US, I'm pretty sure, is below replacement rate- without immigration, their population would be going down. If you want to stop population growth and kill off the human race, do whatever it is Japan, Europe, Korea did to themselves and people will stop having kids.

As one who grew up reading sci-fi such as Asimov's, I would strongly hope that we go ahead and colonise the universe soon. There's a lot more space out there. And perhaps eventually we could live in a simulation a-la Greg Egan.

> if your greatest achievement is continuing the specie and leaving a legacy you have failed.

Ah ok.

99.9999% of people's life achievement die with them the second they pass away.

If you don't make it to Bach's level of achievement you'll be forgotten instantly. Enjoy simple things, life is beautiful without setting bs goals, play music, draw, dance, do some woodwork, who cares you'll most likely suck at it compared to the masters, just enjoy the process

> If you don't make it to Bach's level of achievement you'll be forgotten instantly. Enjoy simple things, life is beautiful without setting bs goals, play music, draw, dance, do some woodwork, who cares you'll most likely suck at it compared to the masters, just enjoy the process

My experience has been the complete opposite. There are teachers whose memory I still cherish to this day because of their tender yet firm touch in guiding my growth. That's just one example. People scarred by their parents play out their issues on other people, multiple people are affected in that case. There are many other examples of actions whose repercussions are felt long after the actor's death.

Does it even matter that one gets remembered by a few more centuries (if mankind's lucky) before we destroy ourselves (or ultimately by the Sun boiling the planet) rather than after one's grandchildren or so die?

Yes, as much as anything matters. Quoting the titular Angel: "if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do".

We ourselves create meaning in our lives, and our doing so is subject to memetics, like most everything else. I would argue that the desire to do acts that affect others and be remembered through them is a pretty clear leader in this memetic race.

Depends what the possible futures you're envisioning are. If some crazy hive-mind/brain-upload/matrioshka brain/turn the universe into computronium future happens, what you do now could influence part of the course of that.

I don't get the 'either we destroy ourselves, or the sun explodes'. If we don't destroy ourselves now, there's no way humans just stick around in the solar system till the sun explodes- at one point, some civilisation will invent brain uploading or general AI or something, and then they'll go and eat the Galaxy. It's either that or total extinction. I can't envision a very likely future where humans survive for Billions of years as-is.

Either way, the universe will undergo heat death. So on very long timescales nothing will be left. Also, we don't have "billions" of years on the planet, more like 1 billion tops. Life on Earth is on its final stretch.

LOL. I would still call it an achievement, just because of the huge amount of work it takes, in multiple domains be they personal, interpersonal, professional and so on. And for some people, parenthood is the thing that spurs them on to achieve in various ways. But I know what you're getting at - it's not a particularly unique achievement, not especially helpful to the planet (understatement), and so on.

I just feel like I have to come to this poor comment's defense. Yes raising children is hard, but we've been doing it successfully for all of humanity. Our entire evolution has geared us towards having and raising children.

To another responder's comment: "To many, their children are their greatest achievements". True, but a majority of people will not achieve anything great. A kid is like a participation trophy for life.

There's a line between totally dismissing the difficulty of raising children and the holier-than-thou attitude many parents have with regards to their parenting abilities. I do not envy people who have nothing to say about their own passions except their children.

> A kid is like a participation trophy for life.

I think you’re the one in this thread with the holier-than-thou rhetoric. You and the other commenter are the ones trying to minimize the work of childcare. Don’t make like it’s the other way around.

Your statement is grossly nauseating to me. Your children are absolutely an achievement a testament to what kind of person you are.

> In my own conception of life, I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves.

Then you must ask why those who have accomplished their dreams (doing what they want) still feel lost. I know many.

The real question is: what can complete the emptiness that I feel?

The answer is simple: Nothing! There is no emptiness -- stop imagining one.

Do what your heart desires, experience life, create stuff, change the world as you wish, but remember, oh my friend, you are not just this!

There is nothing we own and everything we leave behind after death is also temporary. Time changes everything, so why not think of our day as the unit of life that we get in the morning and ends at night? What I accomplish that day is what counts for me.

>I often have this weird fear that I wont accomplish anything in my life like it is some sort of personal failure.

Completing a big project, setting a new weight lifting or running PR only leaves me feeling empty. I've come to realize fulfillment, for me at least, is in the journey; accomplishment is merely a memento.

I have exactly the same feeling. It always felt alien to me people talking about feeling good after finishing some project, unless the thing was so painful that they're glad it's over. What is exciting to me is actually the challenge of the problem-solving.

> Meanwhile I'm able to write about game ideas, code them, create some characters and story and background, even though it doesn't lead to anything since it's more of a hobby, but I fail to make it into a job.

I am feeling sort of stuck in a loop with this, and constantly feel like a failure about it. Part of me thinks I should give up on the idea altogether and I would just be a happier person. But I don't know if I could do that if I were being completely honest with myself. Not that this helps you, just putting it out there :)

I've made steps to make my project happen, I don't know where it will lead, but trying and being serious about things matters to me.

I don't think giving up is a word I would use. I'm thinking about my project in very safe manners so it cannot fail. As long as I'm conservative about my ambitions and as long as the project holds and has something other don't, it is worth pursuing.

In a way I've already abandoned it a million times because I had to do other things. So to be honest, the only way is forward, all I can do is making it. There's nothing to throw away, only things to make.

It's not really giving up, it's trying to forget about a project, but that's just not possible. I don't think I could change my tastes and abilities or have another project to replace this one.

Now if I had something else to do I would pursue it, but in the end, I think I'll always go back to my project.

I recently read Sapiens. The author discussed how the Agriculture Revolution tied humans down into boring and less rewarding agriculture societies. Perhaps after thousands of years running freely in the wild, humans got bored. They needed to find higher callings. This was when religion started.

It seems like humans are now at the same junction. After getting all stuff we need, we are lost again. We have less children for economic reasons in the same way hunters did. Having and raising children is ironically the simplest way to find meaning in life.

> I always wonder: when their week is over, where do people find refuge? Sports, hobbies, entertainment? I just don't understand how people can think about leaving this world without having something that is really their own. How do you live when you're just a consumer? What happens if you lose friends? In my own conception of life, I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves.

Personally I'm happy to be with myself. I spend most of my idle time reading, talking to my loved ones and reflecting on my days. I'm not sure if I call myself just a consumer because I don't enjoy going out to drink, try new restaurants or purchase things I have no need of.

Regarding what happens if you lose friends. Keeping your friends close to you takes effort. I try to stay in touch with my closest friends and take interest in their lives.

Lastly, I have no desire to leave an imprint on this world as my own creation. What I do desire the most is to create an impact in the lives of people I do care about. So far this impact is limited in sharing my thoughts about philosophy, science and society.

> I often have this weird fear that I wont accomplish anything in my life like it is some sort of personal failure.

It's not a weird fear. It is rooted in the expressive individualism of our age, which strips us of tribal identity and tells us that we can be whoever we make ourselves. Both for better and for worse.

The worse of the latter is that if we do not make anything of ourselves, it is our fault. This is perhaps a little more true today than it was in ages past, but we feel it to be a near-absolute truth where it was barely thought of once.

I feel the same thing. It is neither strange nor unexplainable. It is one of the little-spoken downsides of modernity.

Welcome to the wonderful globalised utopia of 2019 in which shared culture has been deliberately destroyed and genuine, wholesome, worthwhile, spiritually nourishing experiences and a sense of community are replaced with empty consumerism and anomie.

I've tried to get into anomie repeatedly. So many great programmers seem to love it, so I feel like it might help me code better. But I just can't do it. There's so little substance. It's as if the appeal of 99% of anomies is some pathetic, parainfatuatory relationship between the (male) viewer and the (female) characters, and the worldbuilding and story are total afterthoughts. And it's not even like they fully leverage the sexual appeal; it's just endless teasing and beating around the bush. It's very strange.

anomie /ˈanəˌmē/ - noun - lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.

anime /ˈanəˌmā/ - noun - a style of Japanese film and television animation, typically aimed at adults as well as children.

I've just read about anomie, it doesn't seem like it's a bad thing.

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