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Comment by a3_nm | Hacker News Reader

> what do I want to see grow? What do I want to build?

The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, unless you managed to build something successful by the time you die, then your work will die with you and nobody will care.

The article makes the tempting assumption that progress is monotonic, and that the work that you do will eventually find its use. I don't think this is right -- the vast majority of stuff ever created gets thrown away or forgotten. In this sense, you are running out of time: you have only so much time left to accomplish something which will really survive you.

(Note that this applies to intellectual achievements, not so much to building a family and the like.)

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That's very difficult to predict, though! There is some correlation with short-term success, but not that great correlation; there are plenty of people "famous in their day" forgotten 20 years past their death, and a substantial number of people whose work only seemed important in retrospect, or after it was recontextualized by a later writer who somehow dug up some obscure work and took a liking to it. I have a minor personal hobby of translating encyclopedia entries from the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, the main German-language biographical encyclopedia of the years 1875-1912, into the English Wikipedia, and it's amazing how the space that the writer of the time saw fit to devote to a person often correlates badly with a 21st-century assessment of the person's importance.

Of course, that doesn't quite tell you what to do about it. I personally tend to lean towards, do something that seems interesting to me, with the caveat that I also need to eat. I'm not as worried about making a name for myself 500 years from now, although "seems interesting to me" probably includes some part of that evaluation in it (things that seem likely to outlast me probably get a boost in my personal evaluation of interestingness).

your work will die with you and nobody will care

You should care, while you are alive. Whether your successors care or not is optional, and frankly is their problem, not yours.

There are many recorded instances of work that was generally ignored by the creator's immediate successors - or even by contemporaries - but was eventually appreciated decades, even centuries later. Classic examples: Bach's fugues went terribly out of fashion even during his lifetime; Shakespeare's biography is obscure mainly because his works went through a period of obscurity; Mendel published his work to no acclaim whatsoever, went on to have a completely different non-science career, and died before other scientists (two of them simultaneously!) discovered his work. Johannes Vermeer, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson...

Other artists were hailed as legends during their lifetime and then promptly forgotten. Maybe they will remain forgotten. More likely some will be rediscovered next year or next century. Make what you want to make. Let the future take care of itself. It probably won't listen to you anyway.

Good advise. The takeaway from your advise is that you should make sure that your work can be discovered in the future several decades or hundreds of years after your death. Contributing to a reputable science journal is a good way to make your work last for a long time.

Or making your content public domain and spreading it as widely as your marketing skill can.

I like this quote by Isaac Newton

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Sums up the futility and the selfish enjoyment of a life of intellectual pursuit for me.

I read it as saying that throughout his life, he continued to experience child-like wonder at the richness of the world, and is trying to be humble about the size of his contribution to history. YMMV.

I think my interpretation wasn't well put. I also see the child-like wonder, but what it does the most for me is remind me that even someone as great as him feels insignificant compared to the marvels of nature, so I don't need to stress if I don't get everything. I may be lucky to find one smooth pebble or touch an interesting shell.

'Nobody will care' is missing the most important person's opinion - your own!

I don't agree that most stuff created gets thrown away or forgotten, especially in the sphere of intellectual achievements.

We live in the age of the internet, or as I think of it - 'perpetual memory'. Storage is cheap, communication is free, search is instantaneous and context is being built through sites like Hacker News, for example.

So the real question is, in my opinion, are you proud of your choices? Are you proud of how you spend your time? Do you meet your own standards? Do you want to attach your name to your work, your intellectual achievements?

If the answer is yes, how can it not make you happy? We live in an age where our needs for food and shelter are easily met (at least in the US), and we can afford to pursue the higher elements of our hierarchy of needs. If we achieve self-admiration, then does outside validation even matter?

Adopt the Egyptians approach, pass it down the generations. "Son, I have this water engine here.." or "Daughter, I have this water rocket here.." etc.

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