BigHatLogan

Maybe for the general public, but the posts that are written here are USUALLY written in good faith, not snake oil marketing. I just personally find it tired and played out, similar to how on Reddit I frequently see people adding things like, "in my / your opinion, <insert statement that is obviously an opinion." Yes, yes, we get it. If I say The Last of Us is the best game of the past 10 years, it is obvious that that is my opinion. We don't have to be so dull with our language. The corollary here is that if a founder writes about how he or she found their first 100 users, it should be obvious to anybody on HN to apply some discretion instead of assuming this is now a universal truth applicable to all startups until the end of time.

Nicely said. While I do think being realistic about things is overall good, I'm not a fan of the pessimism / cynicism that I see in startup culture. Anytime somebody says, "Here is how I did X", it's immediately flooded with "survivorship bias", "born rich", and all the other tired responses. While those may be true, pointing them out on their own is boring. Like Paul Graham has said in the past: Is this the most interesting takeaway? I find the "survivorship bias" and related responses to be a cover for admitting you don't want to take a risk, do the work, put yourself out there. Which is fine, but just say that upfront alongside the survivorship silliness. We are all aware that startups have low success rates. /rant

Beautifully said. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant and condescending that so-called rational, educated people today will gleefully throw out centuries (if not millennia) of knowledge because they (justifiably) take issues with some of it. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater comes to mind. I'm not particularly religious, but there have always been aspects of religion that I've admired and aspects that I've disliked.

Your local Crossfit gym and book club, I promise you, are not adequate replacements for traditional recurring weekly gatherings, where it's normal (and expected!) to share what's on your mind, what's troubling you, what you are grieving over, what you are celebrating, etc. I've found that the quality of discourse here is much higher than the standard, "Did you watch Succession last week?", surface-level discourse at many of these alleged replacements.

And then, like you mentioned, they embark on a decades-long quest, only to end up at more or less the place they would've ended up otherwise. Or they find themselves completely lost and wayward.

I don't have a prescription here, but complete rejection of something seems almost as dull and narrow-minded as total dogmatic acceptance of it.

Two come to mind. "Travels" by Michael Crichton, and "Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man" by Steve Alpert. Both are good, but neither is exceptional. But their different approaches to storytelling have been important.

Fantastic. I haven't seen Neon Genesis, but this is how I feel about The Godfather. Every few years I rewatch the film, and different aspects of it stand out to me. I agree with you that I think this is one of the hallmarks of something good.

Nice read. Quite touching that his father genuinely tried making a connection to his son, despite the distance, both culturally and physically.

I subscribed to the New Yorker recently, and I have to say that it's been nice reading more long-form content that has an ending. There are just a few stories everyday, and every week there's a new issue to read through. And of course the decades-long backlog of stories, profiles, and journalism to go through.

A little late to the thread, but two come to mind:

Hoop Dreams (1994) - Explores inner-city poverty through the eyes of two young boys in Chicago who want to use basketball as a way to escape their environment. I haven't seen it in a long time, but my biggest takeaway from it is how narrow the bridge to "success" can be for some. If you grow up in a well-to-do upper middle class environment, you can make a shocking number of youthful mistakes, yet still get saved by your parents, school, society. Others really only have one or two chances to make things work.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2013) - A must-watch if you're an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki movies. Goes into his creative processes; how he thinks about his work, the world at-large, etc.; and his long-standing friendship with his producer, Toshio Suzuki.

This strikes me as tremendously sad--how a city can go from lively, productive, and engaging to something else entirely in such a short time span. The writer speaks positively about the Beirut of today. I won't pretend to know anything about Beirut, but is it really "lovelier" (author's word) today than it was back then?

It's a cliche at this point to wonder whether the same thing can (or will?) happen in the United States, but I still found myself thinking about it nonetheless while reading the essay.

Fantastic book. The stories about the slot machine players who wear black pants so that they can urinate without being noticed was shocking, to say the least. They are so addicted to the machines that they won't even get up to use the restroom.

The phrase he used, "playing to extinction", very much reminds me of what's happening now across most entertainment categories, broadly speaking (autoplay, loot boxes, slot machine-style gaming content, etc.)

Well said. I'm not sure which method is "better" (maybe a society's overall productivity increases if children leave the home, but I don't know if this is "good" for the individual or not), but this does seem unnatural.

However, I didn't feel this way during high school. I spent eight hours there during school itself, and then two or three hours afterwards playing sports with my friends. My memory is a little hazy, but I don't recall spending a lot of time with my parents even back then. But for some reason it feels different today, even though I actually think I spend more time with my parents today (I usually visit them on weekends).

I wonder why that is. Maybe it's because high school (for some of us, not for everyone) is largely spent with your friends, so your "social needs" are more readily met, versus at your typical rank-and-file corporate environment.

Anyways, I'm rambling again. I agree with you though fundamentally: this arrangement seems unnatural, and suboptimal too.

Wonderful story--thanks for sharing! I love stories like this.

Maybe off-topic: But did you run into any difficulties landing your first job after finishing your MS in EE? I'm tempted to pursue something similar, but I worry about ageism and other factors when going into the job marketplace at that age in a brand new field. Would love to hear more about your experience.

Thanks for the response! Haha, love that you got the naming reference.

That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private.

Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.

Any advice for how to do this? E.g. do people join Discords that they're interested in and then start chatting (Where do they even find them?)?

I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.

I didn't know that about Japan. I was born overseas but have been living in the US since I was three, so you're correct--definitely a US perspective. The capitalist slant is interesting too but I don't know if I totally agree with it...I suppose it's possible.

I think my point is less about where you physically live and more about how you prioritize your time and focus.

Wow! Thanks for sharing--that really does strike me as unusual, coming from my US perspective. How did your friend date while living at home? I'm genuinely curious--having a hard time understanding how this would work (but I also have overbearing parents...).

That makes sense. Are you at all concerned about not getting promotions as quickly in the future, or being more easily replaceable, etc.? I guess I'm under the "up or out" mindset, especially in tech with the ageism factor. I would love to do exactly what I'm doing right now for the next 30 years, but I don't know if that's possible--that mindset keeps me on the train, so to speak.

Yeah, that is indeed a complicated situation. I'm glad you and your brother navigated through it, and that it seems you have reconciled some of your feelings towards him. Life really does zoom past--"Time just gets away from us."

Thanks for the reply, and for sharing your story. I smiled at the description of Estonian men--I know a few Eastern Europeans myself (I think Estonia falls under Eastern Europe?), and your description is completely accurate. I'm glad you and your father had a warm relationship.

I have a question for you: Do you wish you had stayed on the career train? Maybe not completely, but at least not getting off of it entirely? I am on the career train right now (not married, no children) but am wondering if it is "best" to leave if/when I start a family. Part of me feels like that would be nice, but the other part of me worries about providing materially for my [future] family, including my parents, who are not so well off financially too. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, whether you have any regrets over it.

Nicely said. I've been thinking about this a lot too--how contextual advice is. Even if you and your father had a wonderful, sterling relationship, it would be odd if you spent the majority of your time with him when you were 22. I hope I'm not making too many assumptions here, but many (most?) 22-year-olds are probably {working, in college, in the military, doing something where family is not the main priority}.

That's fine and expected, and I would even go so far as to say that's optimal. 22 is when you should be making friends, studying, working, doing [harmless] stupid things that get you in trouble, etc. Spending time with your family on weekends or holiday--and certainly catching up with them over the phone if you live far away--is excellent, but different parts of your life, different seasons of your life, call for different things.

As you get older, you should "come home", so to speak. I don't mean literally, although that would be perfectly all right, but metaphorically--probably more check-ins with your family, more holidays with them, etc. But if you're 22 and spending New Years Eve with your best friends, I think that is more than acceptable.

Good luck Tolexx!

Finding the first job is always really stressful, and I really hope you find what you are looking for.

Happy New Year!

I really like this idea of "becoming" / "embracing" versus trying to achieve a specific end. As the adage goes, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

I'm trying to do something similar. I have this terrible habit--that I suspect many, many people also do--of thinking that "future me" will be far more capable than present me, that in one year I'll be less anxious, more courageous, less fearful, more outgoing, etc.

(On a smaller time scale, people who struggle with kicking bad habits do the same thing, myself included. I will tell myself, "starting tomorrow, I will once and for all stop {drinking too much soda, eating too much}!" Tomorrow-Me is Hercules, with the willpower of Zeus and the indomitable spirit of a world-class athlete. Of course I end up spending tomorrow drinking soda like a fish drinks water, only to tell myself that "tomorrow will be different.")

Inevitably what ends up happening is that one year from then I'm still the same person, and all I have done is kick the can down the road on so many opportunities--the party I didn't go to because I didn't know anyone; the lunch I made an excuse to skip because I was embarrassed that my old friends were farther along in life than I was (whatever that even means); the interview I turned down because I "wasn't ready yet." While doing these things, I told myself that some indefinite period from now, I'll be this perfect human who is ready to do all of those things, and that right now I'm a flawed person who isn't ready to do those things just yet.

But that perfect human never came to be, and the flawed human is what remains. It's tautological to say this, but nothing changes if nothing changes. I won't be magically courageous or outgoing one year from now if I don't actually embrace the nervous and shy person that I am today. And I hope that if I embrace it, accept that I'll fall and stumble, and try to make little progress along the way, then one year from now I can look back and say, "I'm still not a perfect human and never will be, but I'm satisfied that I did ___."

Well said. I've been thinking about my "information diet" a lot recently, and I've been wondering what I've gotten out of it. I spend so much time on HN, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit--to the tune of well over ten thousand hours over the past few years, and that's a conservative estimate.

After all of that, I still want more and more, but I'm not sure what exactly I want more of and I don't know if I've gained anything from it in the first place. I don't even feel particularly satisfied visiting any of these sites--usually some mixture of frustration, anxiousness, or some other negative emotion. Occasionally I'll find an interesting thread here, a funny Reddit thread, or an informative Youtube video, but the "hit" goes away relatively quickly, I forget all about it, and minutes--sometimes seconds!--later I'm craving the next hit.

That's my long way of saying: Yes, I agree with you and with this advice. Put the phone down after hitting the end of Page 1. Don't refresh the page every few minutes. Don't aimlessly open tab after tab with articles and videos you'll "eventually" get to (I have over five hundred tabs open right now on this laptop). There's no end in sight, and the road itself hasn't been too satisfying either.

An article that came in at the right time.

I have been feeling really down lately about how my life has turned out, which sounds a little ridiculous and self-indulgent given how much I earn in my day job. I'm really grateful for it, and grateful to remain employed, but I live in San Francisco and am a stone's throw from friends and former coworkers who are swimming in the ocean while I'm playing in the kiddie pool. In fact, just yesterday I found out that a former classmate of mine is the co-founder of a startup that recently raised between $10 and $20 million.

I know intellectually that I'm also in a fortunate position at a fairly sizable company; I know intellectually that he has a long road ahead of him and success isn't guaranteed (so my sizable company earnings might look better in the long run); I know intellectually all of these things and more, but I also have to admit that I still feel awful about it--jealous, for sure, and maybe even a little resentful.

Lately I've been thinking of a small idea to build, but then I think to myself that there's no point to doing so--scrounging together customers (if I can even manage to) only to build something for a handful of people, etc.--why bother?

I don't have an answer, but this article helps.

Ah, interesting! I know quite a few people who took a similar path--started off in the academic math/physics/statistics route but winded up doing programming as a career. Thanks again for sharing the story. "Mathematical functions dancing across the screen" is a phrase that will stick around with me for a bit.

Great story--thanks for sharing! It's interesting how the unexpected, serendipitous moments can have such downstream effects on our lives!

Just out of curiosity: what did you end up studying in university? And how come you didn't study computer science / programming despite acquiring an interest for it earlier in your life?

Thank you--you're too kind. Yes, this feeling is a strange one, unique and universal all at once.

I wonder why I haven't pursued it again after all these years. It would just require driving a few hours out of town, nothing too crazy. Like another commenter here mentioned, it would be good for all of us, especially we who work in front of screens all day, to do this more often.

EDIT: Your username is excellent haha.

Fantastic! The sense of dizziness--you don't expect that when you see the night sky but it's a very real feeling.

Thanks for sharing.

Your comment reminded me of a similar experience I had almost eight years ago. I went camping in the desert with a few friends of mine, and in the evening we slept inside these caves that looked out into sky instead of into the horizon--as in the cave entrance was vertical instead of horizontal.

In the evening, from inside the caves, I laid down and looked up and felt a sensation like the one you're describing--"weightless" is definitely the right word. It felt like I was looking into infinity, a literal ocean of stars. The cave was completely pitch black except for the opening that looked out into the sky. I don't have the right words to describe it, but I felt like I was almost pleasantly "falling" into that opening and out onto the star field, despite literally laying in the dirt in the middle of cave in the middle of nowhere.

I quite literally am not smart enough to conjure up the right words for how I felt--and still feel about, all those years later--but I felt this odd comforting sensation that the universe is much larger than me and here I was just sitting in its cradle.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried meditating before but, if I'm being honest, have never really given it a proper and earnest effort. Neurotic is definitely the perfect word to describe how I feel most of the time, so maybe this will finally be the kick-in-the-ass I need to give this a shot.

The cemetery exercise is interesting. How long do you find that it helps you for, if that makes any sense? Suppose you're frustrated about something that happened in the morning--let's say something "innocuous" in the grand scheme of things, like the wind knocking your fence down--do you find that seeing the cemetery takes a little bit of the edge off? And if so, for how long?

Smiling at people and helping them--I love that! Sometimes in the mornings when I get Starbucks, I'll do the "pay it forward" thing, where you end up paying for the person next in line. I don't know how ubiquitous this practice is, but I'd say once a week someone does it for me at Starbucks, so I try to do the same. I've found that it puts a pep in my step for the next few hours, similar to your smiling and helping people.