Ask HN: What kind of life do you dream about?
Personally, my aim in life - my dream life - is to live a slow life. Own a small house somewhere in the woods. My days will be filled with writing and reading. What about you?
Well, I'm curious now, can you share more about what you're looking for? =)
Something worries me though. I've seen before a pattern that happens, when people have big ideas and see a lot of connections between different things, leading to personal breakthroughs in things like physics/math, where it's then hard to find an an expert to look at your ideas. Your post reminds me of that a little.
I can say that for other people in the past, the point where it went wrong is that the devil is in the details, and by connecting many fascinating things together without knowing the math, you can find beauty in things without having the hard fundamental to confirm whether it's real or an illusion.
>I feel like I'm most likely falling into a self bias trap
My instinct is that, in the kindest way possible, this should be a big concern. To be honest I'm someone who likes reading criticism (because I'm far from perfect), so I realize this might come across as criticism, but I mean it positively and constructively.
I think I also share a lot of the fascination that you talk about for things like quantum mechanichs, cryptograhy, complex and deep topics. (I'm also bilingual, another coincidence!) But the more I learn in these deep areas, the more I understand how deep the subject the really is, and how easy it is to think you understand the broad picture of something, without really understand the details (and all the subtlety really is in the details!).
>Bottom line is I need to nail down specifics to focus on and produce project results
I would look at it this way. There's a lot of people in this world, we might pass eight billion today. That's important, because we can look at the kind of patterns people have tried in the past, and we can see where they ended up.
Crucially, it's impossible to know whether a big idea works without diving deep (otherwise everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn't _be_ a big idea). But it _is_ possible to see the more general pattern of people attempting to see connections between many different things, that are hard to precisely articulate.
There's a very dangerous trap in chasing interconnections of fields with a surface understanding (as opposed to deep details-level understanding), because you can spend a lot of years faster than you'd think and wake up at the end with little to show for it. With the feeling that you have found something but without anything very concrete.
If you have something specific and detailed that you have questions about, I'm good at diving into details in a couple of the fields you've listed (though I'm not an expert, and I'm not always entirely immune to overconfidence either.. caveat emptor).
HOWEVER and this is important: I think you could likely avoid a lot of hardships by trying for a while to stick closer to boring ideas than breakthrough ideas, with the goal of growing enough experience to be able to see the flaw in other people's breakthrough ideas. If you can't see the mistakes other people are making, you can't see the mistakes you are (potentially) making, and this is how people fall into the trap.
Cryptographers have an important lesson & rule: anyone can invent cryptography that they can't themselves break. In cryptography, in quantum-adjacent fields, in high-energy physics, a lot of people come with breakthrough ideas and it is fascinating to see why they went wrong (if they didn't go wrong, we would be using their ideas!). This is genuinely a pattern that happens a lot, and that you really want to pay attention to. I cannot underscore how important it is to not fall into the same trap. You don't want to be a quantum 'crank', or a cryptography 'crank'. People have spent many years feeling misunderstood, and their ideas were never recognized in the end. Some have grown old with nothing. You should really want to understand why, so that it doesn't happen to you.
Take care, and stay suspicious of bias. Everyone has them. The easiest lie to sell if from a person to themselves.
I do need to focus on a few (grounded and realistic) things at a time, as mentioned these topics are deep, singular topics in each of these fields take lifetimes of learning and espert experience, successes and failures. My primary focus (intruige) in regards to quantum theory has been based around the recent Nobel regarding Bell inequalities and the resulting experiments and the results. It has been something I have pondered for over a decade and have seen some co formations that I have an ability to at least ask some of the right questions with confirmational responses based on foundational and experimental research. Again realizing my own bias in truly knowing I understand these topics fully. My proposal, related to quantum physics/theory, has to do with our current perception of time, biological shortcomings in terms of synaptic delay, observation/experimentation and localization. Specifically around localization of time, i.e. Quantum clocks and superposition, perceived local time is only consciously calculated through and at the time of observation, again I'm being vague in scope, as the topic is very in depth and am limited in articulating my question fully in this format. Clocks in this regard may be extrapolated as interleaved non local waveform functions, hence my question regarding synaptic delay at the time of observation as well as measurement and how we measure, what experimental tools we utilize etc as well as relative field dynamics, elementary interaction, photon, phonon interaction, relevant things we have learned from CERN in regards to Higgs-Boson and the shortcomings of our understanding related to expected mass of particles resulting from those experements. I don't want this to get too tangential, just outlining where my current foci and interest lies in these fields. I am looking into Quiskit as a jumping off point regarding quantum computing.
I live in a small house somewhere in the woods. I have 40 acres, a house, a woodshop, a nice "man shed", and several more small buildings for animals and equipment---and I bought all that for $60,000 in the Ozarks.
The slow life doesn't need much to sustain it after you buy your place; maybe it's time to jump off the cliff.
Things I've been doing lately: enjoying our first snow last night. Doing things by a kerosene lantern (because I like lanterns). Wandering the woods...I found a "deadhead" a couple of days ago in great shape. Baking bread. Planting fig trees in my garden. Watching the sunrise. Drinking warm cups of hot cocoa. Making some holiday gifts in my woodshop, with wood harvested from my land.
I'm missing someone to share it with. Add someone to the above: that's the kind of life I dream about.
Good luck to you!
Last year I just used bubble wrap and plastic, but a lot of the smaller branches died.
That said, I don't think he does anything. They need watered the first growing season, if there's not enough rain, and that's it. They grow well here with no insect pressure, climate issues, etc.
Our winters are mild, and we rarely get below-zero temps. Usually a couple overnights each year.
Sigh wish I could do that. Going to be next life.
You can always visit the wilderness. No need to live here.
But I sympathize. I have many other lives I'd like to live, as well.
I have a lot of antler already for projects, so I intend to leave it how it is. It's pretty cool looking.
No specific plans, I guess.
- my 6yo son's school, which is an amazing fit for him
- proximity to my wife's family
- comfortable weather all year round
- not standing out by being Asian
- easy access to Asian groceries
- 10 mins' drive to Costco
I would love to have a room per hobby/craft. Needing to pack/unpack and setup/teardown stuff like the sewing machine creates a mental barrier to using them. I can't just quickly fix something on a whim. Second order effect: each time I use the sewing machine I need to relearn somewhat.
- There is a very close school here, as I happen to live in the tiny area that has the school for a pretty big region. They have very few students (graduating classes of 10-20). I'm not sure how good the school is, but I knew a second grader who tested 99.9 percentile on the Iowa standardized test. So it's at least passable? I think schooling is a big rural concern, for sure, but worth the tradeoff of getting to grow up in a place like this. There's much to learn that isn't in a textbook.
- [Comfortable weather] There's other regions, of course. I don't love the summer here, but I like the 3 other seasons. And in summer I just travel and work inside more. It's not even the heat, it's the bugs in this region. Ticks, mostly.
- [Asian] You would stand out here, but wouldn't be receiving any hatred or anything. The man I bought my property from married a Filipino woman, and she had a daughter who went to the little school here. They didn't speak much English when they arrived. Anyway she loved the school, and married locally and had children. They all still live very close; they moved away when I bought this place, and moved back after a couple of years. No groceries in this county for you, though, sorry. No stoplights, either, so you can imagine why niche businesses don't spring up. That goes for all niches. We have farm stores, dollar stores, grocery stores, gas stations, and that's about it. Dry county, too.
- [Costco] That's kinda nice, but then you're 10 minutes from Costco, and for me, that eliminates a lot of why I like to be out here. You can wander all around my property and all you're going to see is trees, wildlife, mountain views...and my stuff. There's no towers, homes, roads, billboards, vehicles, radios, any of it, unless you choose to bring it here. That said, I own a business in town, and I commute usually once per week, so I can do my shopping while I'm there.
- [Room per] My county has no building code, so you can build whatever you like out here. That's cool. I do stuff like this. I have an area for leatherwork, an area with my sewing machine, my woodshop. Fly tying in a spare bedroom. A home gym. Etc. That's one of my favorite things. If I ever have a family out here, maybe I'll stick the kids' bedrooms in a separate building once they're 10 or so.
I visited SF in 2020, right before COVID. I had a great time. Very interesting city. I do love cities, too, but they don't feed me like this place. In another life, I'll be an almost-anonymous resident of a massive city, one unimportant detail. In contrast to out here, where I'm the only one who can affect any change.
What are you sewing? I'm about to make a tipi cover on a Singer model 128 (a treadle machine).
I partivularly liked "You can wander all around my property and all you're going to see is trees, wildlife, mountain views...and my stuff."
I'm not sewing much. I bought the sewing machine to reinforce the knees on all my son's trousers, and haven't used it for much else.
> The slow life doesn't need much to sustain it after you buy your place
That's exactly what it's stopping me, being able to afford a place.
For me, the place I bought reduced my expenses. My rent was more than my mortgage ($625/month). That rate was high because I only took a six-year loan, and paid it off quickly.
I had previously been paying $850 in rent.
You can have a very similar setup close to civilization, it just costs a lot more.
For instance, in my region, acreage might go as little as about $2000/acre still. But when you get close to town, you might pay 10k/acre or more, even "out here." Town meaning a county seat or something, not a metropolis.
Anyway, I chose it because it was remote. I can still get USPS and UPS deliveries, though, so Amazon is on the table. I relied on it heavily in the beginning; I find I don't have to buy many things now.
That's what's stopping me. I was effectively retired before I had kids. Unfortunately, I want certain things for the people I love:
- My kids to be close to their grandparents (and my wife to be close to her parents), who live in the most expensive metro area in the country and aren't likely to move because their other child now has a home & job here.
- My kids to have good schools where they'll get the academic & cultural base they need to be successful in STEM or business fields, should they choose to go that route.
- My family to not be an outcast because of their race. (I'm mixed-race and so am not going to fit into racial categories no matter where I go, but my kids basically look Asian and it's important for my wife to be around people near her.)
- My wife and I to be close enough to keep up our old friendships.
- Given that I've got to work to afford #1-4, being able to do so in a field that I'm good at, with people that I enjoy working with and a work culture that respects me.
Community and relationships create entanglements. If you are willing to optimize only for your own happiness, you can often reach a significantly higher happiness bar then if you have to compromise for the people around you. Unfortunately, it also means you are optimizing only for your own happiness, which creates its own form of unhappiness.
I'm a bit of a loner so it's easy for me to be out here. I visit my dad about every week, and that's plenty. My mom lives 1200 miles away, so I guess I have to choose. I don't actually have kids yet, so less of a concern at this point. I'd really like to find someone compatible with this lifestyle, but I would be willing to give it up under the right circumstances. My favorite thing out here is the freedom, and I can approximate that in many other places.
[Outcasts] I think the fears of racial tensions are mostly over-hyped. I'm not saying you'd never run into some overt racist out here, but the population density here is 8.8/sq mi. Compared to the 18,635/sq mi in San Francisico and I don't know...the odds seem greatly reduced, even if the racists are 10 times more likely (which they aren't IMO). I've only met good people so far, in my 7 years here. You get to choose where you interact, and so I've chosen places like Scouts, the school, and a volunteer group that protects our national river here. Great people in all 3 places. That said, it's very homogeneous in my particular county. I'm sure there's differences across the country, though.
[Friendships] I've considered moving over friendships. One, actually. I just don't want to move "back home" (Florida). I visit that friend for almost a month per year, though.
[Work] Yeah. I also worked remotely from here for a few years, and that went well. But there's no way I could have an office job & commute here. No way.
Your last paragraph is on the nose, and I'm definitely struggling with that. It winds up making me feel tied to several places and pulled in many directions. I also have diverse interests/hobbies/talents that do the same.
Anyway not trying to change your mind. I like the 8.8. And honestly I agree with all your points. Maybe my life will be wildly different if I meet someone. I better hurry up, I'm about to age-out!
At this point in my life, I would just like to be a friendly NPC that helps open doors for other people.
I want a lab, with a machine shop, and the ability to fabricate anything, like Dan Gelbart. I'd just spend my days making stuff, perhaps trying to build a semiconductor fab fab like Sam Zeloof is doing. (Yes, machines that make fab lines)
I want a personal megawatt, with which I could extract metals from the dirt in the back yard, or whatever.
At this point, however, I'd like to just have a situation where people can ask me questions that they are stuck on, and I can dig back into all the things I've learned and read, and seen, and pull out some answers that can help them. And maybe get paid to do that, so I can buy a few toys.
Cheers.
Thanks for the pointer. This person is awesome and I just subscribed to their channel.
In one side you seem so smart. but seem like a person that will throw things because they were not "approved".
But as is with everyone and I am sometimes like this too I am replying to you.
If you have long covid -> https://covid19criticalcare.com/treatment-protocols/i-recove...
"But stranger this is fringe/conspiracy/lunatic"
Just follow it. I would add NAC(600mg then 1200 on 3day) and niacin(WITH flush) on first line. but do as you feel like.
worst case scenario you will have a diarrhea for one day and smelly farts.
Do it for two weeks.
The difference now is I sit by a fire in a field watching the moon, typically with a mug of tea or a glass of red wine, listening to the deer and the crickets until the baying of the coyotes gets too close, giving deep consideration to questions pertaining to reason and existence. Then I write them as glib comments on HN. I can do anything I want, and yet still I do this. It's really pretty good. I highly recommend it. Stop dreaming and just change.
and are you sad to be outside the great game, so to speak, that maybe less smart, and certainly far less virtuous men will outcompete you on by merely showing up?
I'm a woman trying to figure out the different natures of men that are drawn to go live in the woods, it's really hard to tell apart the Walden types from the Kaszynski types
(as I rambled about here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32681450)
and come to think of it, neither of those men had children... maybe there's a tiny sliver of deadness in both those ways of being, idk
That's very funny, but presumably you could just find one and figure it out? They have to come into town at some point for food, gas, liquor, and maybe ammo or the steakhouse. At least the ones who do come in, you don't have to worry about; the ones who don't ever come in, perhaps one should.
I've put my email in my profile if you still want to say hello
P.s. there were no google results for your username but I kinda suspect "ihoafw" likely stands for In Hopes Of A Future Wife, not sure how I feel about that on a 3 year old account ;)
- Own a cabin and some acre of lands in some not too remote woods (so still accessible to city hospitals)
- Half of time spent on family life such as outing with $wifie and watching sky using telescope with $son; Half of time spent on learning hardware and low level programming and such;
- Maybe also learn some surviving skills, nothing too fancy and physical demanding. And own a couple of dogs and cats;
- Extensive travel to urban locations (e.g., Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Rio, HK, Melbourne) and less traveled routes or experiences (e.g., Central Asia, Patagonia, Trans-Siberian Express). Some trips of a few days, some longer stays, 2 weeks to 2 months.
I would prefer to have 3-4 houses in strategic cities, but can do with hotels. I know a journalist, quite famous, but not quite a household name yet, who owns houses in Paris, NYC, Italy, SF.
My main house would be near a big city, maybe NYC, maybe Buenos Aires. A small compound like the one Nicolai Hel, the protagonist of the novel Shibumi, owns in the Basque Country? It's intriguing. The most intriguing house I have seen in my life was in Havana, Cuba, in the neighborhood of Vedado. Almost all open air, shades of red everywhere, light, flowy curtains separating the spaces.
- I would love to write and have my work published. Mostly not about current events, but short stories, "thoughts" about life, travel and other cultures. In magazines and periodicals, with articles and thoughts sometimes collected in a book
- I can't help but train and practice martial arts, sports or movements. This must be included in my ideal life
- I would like a main partner and a network of companions around the world.
A little more about material stuff. I would not be interested in owning cars, motorcycles, boats, watches. But I do like fine tailored clothes.
Maybe children. But would I spend 11 months at home? I doubt it.
I'm not interested in fame, I like more the idea of reinventing myself every year.
Basically, I would like to live like a nobleman of the 19th century, including the occasional archeological discovery.
It's the life of someone who just can't commit. I get the fantasy but I think the reality is hollow.
But I am sure I would have a lot of fun, as I myself am living a similar life now, though scaled down in breadth and ambition.
But making it my home base would be in the context of the life I am talking about. If I must work, like unfortunately I still have to do, Buenos Aires is a way less attractive destination for me, since not many companies are allowing remote work from down there (my company does not, although I can move freely in the US) and there is the usual visa problem. And it is also quite far away from everything, it is, geographically, similar to California, which is far away from most locations I am interested in (East Coast, Europe, Far East Asia).
Working a job where I make the decisions rather than implementing someone else’s poorly made decisions. Spending time with my friends regularly. Dancing with my kids and showing them all the fun things there are to do.
I have little interest in reading or writing. Rather spend it making something with my hands, playing with kids, or spending time with my wife.
All of these things looked very possible about a year ago. Now they’re looking extremely distant now that I’m divorced, penniless (lost 90% of NW), and generally looking like it’s not going to change anytime soon.
Just like when people say "people are so different now; everyone's so <X>"
What bullshit. Everything is the same, except the observer's ever increasing age with respect to others.
My parents just can’t fathom the idea that I‘d do more with and for my kids than the bare minimum required. And I don’t think that’s entirely an individual change, but rather a generational one, too.
I think the trick is to design the 90% to work based on realities, not fantasies. We think that moving to bali, surfing every day, drinking coconuts and participate in ayahuasca is somewhat extraordinary or can sustain our connection to it long-term, but thats not really the case. Every place, every fantasy has a trade-off and is usually short lived.
So coming back to `present`. Its fixing our daily life that is desperately needed in order not to dream of that 2 weeks bahamas escapism. But I suppose that is what is meant here as slow life and how can we design it... unfortunately still haven't found the answer to this.
Buy an acre close by to grow vegetables on to eat and share, I'll do this after I pay off my mortgage.
Exercise more, I'm lazy and I'm trying to get up earlier to exercise and play video games before my wife and daughter wake up.
Do a 4 day work week to spend more time growing vegetables.
I'd love to figure out what area of the technology stack I enjoy most, for now I'm a full stack engineer looking into backend engineering as a primary focus. Not systems level, but business logic level, and not frontend I'm a "that's good enough" guy, not a perfectionist. I'm learning Go.
Other than that I'm good I think. My work compensation vs responsibilities are perfect right now, I don't want a promotion. I like where I live, close to both of our families, hospitals, schools, and entertainment. Weather could be better but it's not the worst.
I’d like to be able to work as a computer scientist doing research based on my interests. I’d also like to be able to work on open source projects. I also want to occasionally teach part-time at a university, teaching courses in programming languages, AI, and operating systems. I’d like to do these things in such a way where there are no “publish-or-perish” pressures.
Right now I’m figuring out how to make this happen before I get too old to enjoy it; I’m in my early 30s.
Have all my previous debts paid off and in the clear so every paycheck goes towards investments, savings, and likely mortgage for a while
My current 2 year old dog living 10 more years minimum
Find a long term SO at some point. Not interested in kids but marriage would be on the table if they wanted it
Having my current fully remote role actually work out long term
I’ve been loving studying Ancient Rome. At the very least I’d like more time just to tear through the growing shelves of books I’ve bought aspirationally. Maybe I’d try to do a D.Phil one day but I suspect that would be stressful and pure vanity.
Ultimately I just want to eliminate stress. I think I still have a couple of startups left in me after this one but I’d love to pursue them as projects in my own time, the primary aim being my own curiosity not other people’s demands.
After getting burnt out in tech startups 3 times I made a change. Sold 95% of our worldly possessions in order to have the flexibility to live anywhere. I get to spend my days drawing, writing, creating info products, and helping people get unstuck.
Sometimes all we need to do is look at what we have, figure out what we want, and get rid of the rest.
That's it, I suppose. I can't really think of anything else.
Nothing against plans and visions but the hollywod-esque "dream" is not good.
Tonight we will feast and be merry! Tomorrow we die!
Less pain is always good to have but that aside I want to do what I want now. I may slip on banana or something and die tomorrow, it isn't guaranteed so why spend time dreaming of it when I am living now and today? The me in the future might want different things than me now as well.
Day dreaming is for children. Life, now, is for adults.
- Geographical autonomy: living in places for 2-3 months (usually when tourist visa expires). Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal and moving around every quarter. Stay longer if the country allows and it feel incredible there. (I'll never have enough of burrata).
- Working part-time: I still love the sense of community within healthy environments and common goal. I think its an invaluable experience when 10-15 smart people come around and try to achieve a shared goal. The energy is addictive. Unfortunately this has been taken into the extreme and exploited by many companies but I had this experience once, going from 0-1 with a bunch of great people, becoming profitable and never looking back again.
- Tinkering the other half of the time: creative exploration is something that I believe everyone should do. In my case I want to be spending my free time on activities such as learning to code, writing, designing, non-profit activities, volunteering, teaching etc.
- Be close to physical activities: whether its an ocean with surfing waves or a snowy slope for snowboarding and skiing, these environments enable to do other things aside of going to the gym. For instance in Singapore it's common to play basketball/tennis with friends so enables to do more fun physical exercise in groups. Germany has the same with football.
- Be part of a good community: whether its physical exercise, mens health, indiepreneurs or just a supportive network of people all tackling similar issues in life and at the same stage.
- Have one proper home and one summer escape location: if I would every own a home, that would be an emotional purchase and always something to come back to.
- Be close to my folks or at least have an option that doesn't take 16 hours: I live on the other part of the world and after 3 years of covid it made me kind of sick to think that I spent 7 days out of 1000 with my family.
These will obviously change, I noticed that we constantly re-invent ourselves every 6-10 years given that one path closes and another starts based on our interests and curiosities.
I guess thats it, funny when always thinking about it - the above seems quite realistic without the need of a $1B exit outcome. I guess humble beginnings kind of ground the expectations and if it sounds unambitious, it would be amazing enough for me. Different person, different story I guess...
A planet that isn't abused and sucked dry for old fashioned resources. Care given and respected rather than for profit.
Harmony where conflict is low and that those with the riches always don't win.
Where corruption is tackled and the criminals who sought the most extreme crimes are punished to the full extent.
It’s a realistic scenario if we find good income that can be done remotely.
I would love to hear people's stories of successes and failures!
I'm a man with a one track mind. So much to do in one lifetime, not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies. So I'm living it all and I'm giving it all.
\o/