altotrees

People often ask me if I worry about tearing muscles/sore joints when I run, ride my bike or lift weights. In college, I kind of worried about those things, but now sitting in a chair from 8-10 hours a day makes me worry way more about heart health/blood pressure, etc.

I just kind of hope to offset all of that sedentary time in front of the monitor, and indeed do hope that all this activity benefits me down the line, be it muscle elasticity, heart health, lung function, whatever.

Read about Boom a few days ago, thought this could be a cool idea years into the future, with the right backing.

Today, realize that most things happen a hell of a lot faster than I expect.

Life can be really hard sometimes, a fact that was lost on me when I was younger. I surrounded myself with friends who had big goals and dreams, starting companies, becoming VC's and the like. They claimed they didn't have time to be depressed, and that they were "killing it" no matter how things appeared to the outside world. I thought I was wrong to feel down and hopeless, like I was the only one feeling actual negative feelings on a daily basis.

A few years later, having lost two of those friends to depression and seeing others abuse various substances to blunt their feelings, I no longer feel crazy. I feel smart that I went and got help when it felt unbearable, rather than try to fight through it. I think American, and tech culture in particular, are still really hard places to discuss depression and the issues surrounding it. Thanks for the article, and all these insightful comments. These things need to be talked about.

Really interesting. It seems like Jake is trying to preserve the version and attitude of skateboarding that he remembers from his youth. I often wonder how he views changes in The City, and the way things are going. A great read.

I completely agree. I spent lots of time, especially after the Paris attacks, reading about Daesh, and the origins of their beliefs. The Atlantic article you mention is a fantastic primer on this very complex and hard-to-digest topic.

Many people seem to view doing this kind of reading and learning as some kind of gesture that is sympathetic to those who commit such acts. I will never understand how wanting to be educated on the history of a group automatically means you are siding with them ideologically...but I am from the midwest and left quite a few beliefs I will never understand.

Being a single person who does not cook often, this would be a fantastic idea to see come to fruition.

On the other hand, as a person who skews toward the overly-cautious, I would be concerned about the lack of sanitation inspections, servsafe certifications and other safeguards that commercial kitchens adhere to. Also, how could you be assured that Mom is not in a dire financial situation, re-heating her special curry to sell at a marked-up price - a special curry that went bad several days ago.

Law-, permit- and zoning-wise, I am not sure of what would need to be done. It is an interesting idea for sure, albeit one that would take some serious planning.

I have some very distinct memories of my Junior year of high school. One was a trip to San Francisco, which impacted me greatly. I also remember sitting in the summer sun, reading every article I had collected about Sean Fanning and Napster (I gathered all of the relevant tech/lifestyle magazines at the library).

I was already well-aware of the sweeping changes technology was making in the world when I found Only The Paranoid Survive on my uncle's bookshelf. I think it was that book that really hammered home how quickly things were changing, and really astounded me, teaching me a bit about technology, a bit about business and a ton about inspiration and drive.

Whenever I hear Andy's name, I nostalgically return to that summer, a time filed with learning and stretching my perception of things. This news makes me very sad, but also is making me return to that place. I feel lucky to have been around the same time he was.

Today is the first time since 9/11 that I can remember hearing the news of a terrorist attack and not being gripped by panic. I guess the Boston Marathon Bombings, Paris Attacks (Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan both) shootings and other events have kind of led me being in an oddly calm state when I hear news like this now.

This is not the way I want to feel. If you would've told me around 8:30 a.m. on September 10th the way things would be changed, I couldn't have fathomed it. I was sitting in my high school Spanish class, trying to get the attention of a girl who probably doesn't even remember my name now. But things changed and I kind of came into my own with those changes, growing up, going to college, getting one job, then another. It became normal.

Data is the buzzword now. I eat it and breathe it every single day. I work with collections of numbers and information. These are the same things that keep us safe from attacks - collections numbers and information. The NSA and others rely on it. For every attack we hear about, I cannot even venture a guess on how many are thwarted.

Given that numbers and information are critical tools in trying to prevent future tragedies, I struggle with the same question we all do: how much is too much? What do I want to let the government know about me? About my family? About where I travel and when? Is there an inevitable trade-off between safety and privacy?

I think abut these things at work, at home, while driving. It seems now that we are facing a new breed of terror that has evolved, even since 2001. It is calculated yet seemingly random, completely lawless yet in their eyes the only lawful way to live, more violent, vile and sadistic any other terrorist cell I have heard about.

So you would think, given the way I feel about this new iteration of terror, and the struggle I have with personal privacy questions, I would've been paralyzed with anxiety this morning, seeking meaning, trying to configure a strategy in my head for how the governments involved will deal with it and prevent future attacks.

But I did not feel or do those things. I poured my coffee and walked out the door. Of course I feel horrible for the poor innocent lives lost, but as far as worrying and obsessing about it, I just cannot. This is not how I want to feel. I fear that my not panicking signals attacks like this as a new normal for me, something my 17 year-old self never could've or would've wanted to imagine. Thanks everyone for sharing thoughts and insights on this, I think it is helping me process yet another attack in my own way.