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Comment by vintermann | Hacker News Reader

I also feel like they don't understand what self-destructive impulses are. Forgetting your wallet on your car and driving away? Seriously?

I think it's better captured by this line from a Tunng song:

    When I see land you will conjure up a storm

They clearly haven't seen self-sabotage in action if they think forgetting your wallet is it! Think more throwing away a long term relationship whose stability you've longed for all your life, or getting drunk on the day of your bar exam.

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I think about that article of the travel-blogger who admired Anthony Bourdain and her experience with self-sabotage. Partying out late at night in a sketchy unfamiliar country. Letting herself head home alone at 3 AM with her senses impaired just from a sense of not-caring clearly bordering on severe negligence. I've brushed on some thoughts the same and it's nothing like forgetting my wallet or keys, sometimes you're aware with what you're gambling and just don't really care about the outcome.

Her personal example was odd, but there are many other valid examples of destructive impulses cited by her (and Poe) in the essay

It stumbled there, but I think the author was just trying to capture the chilling feeling of recognizing something already beyond your control.

I also thought it was silly. It would be a bit like talking about Poe and then that time I was a little kid and saw the scoop of ice cream fall off and splat on the ground. Yes, I learned something about entropy. No, I didn't really resonate with the existential horrors of a good Poe story.

Now, maybe if I'd been halfway into an absinthe stupor when I dropped the ice cream, I might have been able to close the gap...

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