Comment by ElongatedTowel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ElongatedTowel | Hacker News Reader

You're asking for plans, but I'd like to tell you what actually happened for me. As someone who did this in the past for far too long I've seen the darkness that emerges. I'd rate myself 2/10 in terms of willpower and 8/10 in terms of can-always-find-something-interesting. I probably handled it better than most people would (never ended up unshaven for weeks in a yellowed wifebeater), which to be honest frightens me whenever the topic of not-having-to-work comes up.

A bad day might have looked like this:

1. Get up at 11AM.

2. Eat for an hour while watching some Let's Play/V-Log or listening to some podcast.

3. Start reading blogs and learning which after an hour turns into reading bullshit that leaves my brain a day after.

4. Play guitar for two hours.

5. Play videogames for two hours. If lucky with people over skype (the tiniest amount of social interaction for the day)

6. Repeat the eat-watch-routine

7. Lift weights for an hour

8. Repeat the eat-watch-routine

9. Reddit/HN

10. Get bored by the general Reddit/HN and read the weird subreddits instead

11. Do what I call the horny-but-jerking-off-in-5-minutes-is-too-fast routine which I guess releases quite the potent mix of endorphines because I might end up sitting there for an hour with my pants open

12. If nothing good comes up I use my useless amount of private torrent tracker invites to find some porn I've never seen before (which becomes increasingly rare). If I'm too lazy to do that I just browse around and might come across some weird shit like Japanese women squirting milk on each others out of their ass (I guess that's pretty tame in comparison). Not that it matters, my mind is sometimes so numb, I could jerk off to a car accident

13. Lament for an hour where my life has gone while doing Yoga and stretching to bottle up some memories

14. Play a poker freeroll and lose

15. Refocus and write 20 lines of code for a project that I'll never finish in a hundred years

16. Throw a coin. Heads I shower, shave and promise myself tomorrow will be the day everything changes. Tails I contemplate suicide again.

17. Cry myself to sleep if bottled up memories come to light

At the end of the day I'm a better guitarist, one step closer to beeing jacked and one step closer to insanity. That must be the reason why some rockstars are complete lunatics.

I am almost sure that you don't have wife or kids. If you did, most of the stuff you listed will become redundant to you. I hear you though. Been there (brief period) while I was single.

It's kind of a vicious circle. I wouldn't even play videogames (something I enjoy very much) if I had a girlfriend because I would value the relationship and time spend far more.

But at the same time it was pretty much impossible to find a partner while living such a life. No one finds you attractive. Maybe good enough for one night, but not for a relationship.

People say you shouldn't rely on other people to provide you happiness. But a relationship would have added so so much to my life.

What was your life situation then? Were you independently wealthy or just basic income (as the author suggests)?

Were you looking forward to something? How did you break the circle?

I guess I was what Japanese people call Hikkikomori (I'm not Japanese though). Pretty much a combination of my parents providing for me and living without any luxuries whatsoever (guitar was borrowed, computer is over 8 years old, no other possessions of value) that made it possible.

What did I do? To be honest, nothing. The only difference now is that I have a job and subtract those hours and I can fill the day with just the more meaningful pastimes on that list. No time left to squander.

I'm not much happier, but of course now I'm an accepted part of society, or is it rather that I'm now indifferent to society?

I was looking forward to things, but the things further away in the future felt so far away (and some still do) that procrastination build a wall around them. I always reached for immediate pleasure. Some of those pleasures are worth something (playing guitar, riding a bike, or as someone commented below just beeing at the beach), but of course worthless to society.

The more distant things I was looking forward to? Finding something I really enjoy doing for more than just a few hours, a real passion. Someone to share my time with. Love.

But as society dictates that you need to provide for yourself those things are unreachable as they either are impossible to reach if you commit to having a job due to having no time, or they are unreachable because you provide of no worth for a partner, or society in general. It even strained friendships even though it didn't affect those "friends" in any way I can imagine.

Heck, that's why its even a bit funny to me because now I'm "okay" in every way, but I'm still the same person. A women might fall in love with me, people accept my, my family accepts me, but the core of my personality is still the same. And because that is the truth I might end up the same if I ever had no job (or wouldn't need one). I guess getting rich (which won't happen but who knows) would be my downfall.

A friend who stayed in touch with me despite all this always said I had so much time to do whatever I wanted, yet I never done anything of value. And my answer to this is, time doesn't really matter. Willpower, passion, sacrifice, those things push you forward. The people who achieve the most don't have 32 hour days. They don't need them because they don't waste a minute.

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