Discovering Programming at the Darkest Point in My Life | Hacker News Reader

Discovering Programming at the Darkest Point in My Life

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28 pointsdvektor9 comments

I’ve heard many stories like this, over the years, as a result of some of the “extracurricular” stuff I do.

I have also seen people come from nothing, go to obscene wealth, then end up right back on Skid Row again.

If you'd be so kind as to share, I'm very interested in any common threads you may see in the people who ultimately crash back down. I grew up in pretty extreme poverty, got a big break of sorts, and I do my best to avoid ending up back where I came from.

Well, in my case, I’m dealing with recovering drug addicts.

With addicts, the formula is pretty simple. You relapse into using (including alcohol), you crash and burn. Often, in spectacular fashion.

When recovering, the organization I work with, has tools that give an unfair advantage in the Game of Life. Keep on the path, and things can go amazingly well. Stray off, though, and there’s hell to pay.

I’m not especially comfortable, saying much more, in public. It’s a very sensitive and controversial topic, and folks tend to get a bit … extreme … when discussing it.

For me it was a rapid rate of win after win but without schooling a fancy piece of paper and a prison record I found it hard to work outside of crypto. Ontop of that before I was regularly taking my meds it was win win win - then a swift fall back to the bottom. I’ve been building the whole time but now I’m stable I’m hoping the wins feel more like what they should.

You’re just right though countless people I’ve seen make it big and end up dead shortly after. Money not earned is money quickly lost. Part of the earning it is what builds your character enough to handle it imo

Another big factor, is that, once folks "arrive," they haven't dealt with the demons that kept them down. Their success was a temporary reprieve, so the demons come roaring right back out. Only this time, they have much more of a toybox.

I’d like to hear the story on how you went from sleeping in your car to riding jet skis in Dubai by presumably playing the drug game, if you’re at liberty to blog about

I read it as he went to jail for drugs and then probably bought some Bitcoin at the right time and now has a lot more money than he did before.

Yeah jail for dealing but I was never a trader I’m p bad at it honestly. I used mastering ethereum to learn solidity and the EVM which was wildly outdated by the time I got out and nothing compiled so I learned Go at first and started contributing and getting onto the core team for certain projects. The money from contributions and eventually the job was too much for a person who’d never had to do a lot of illegal things to see the same so it was a little wild to me

I’m the writer not OP but I was homeless on the streets from around 16-19 then after I left prison with my book knowledge on how to code I started contributing to a open source crypto project and kinda got mad lucky. Many trips to Dubai Water skiing and skydiving then had another episode with my bipolar and ended up literally giving away my bags. More stable now but was both a metaphor for the insane highs and lows mentally but the crazy things a guy fresh out of jail with a new will to do something productive did before I got stable

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