[HN Gopher] Show HN: Life calendar - use the concept of Memento ...
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Show HN: Life calendar - use the concept of Memento mori to embrace
every week
Author : chestercodes
Score : 93 points
Date : 2022-01-18 12:42 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (life-cal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (life-cal.com)
| gurjeet wrote:
| The OP is paid (else watermarked). I had made a crude version of
| this for myself some time ago [1]. It's available for free and is
| somewhat customizable
|
| The preview on the right seems to be blank, but if you click on
| the 'Download' link, it generates the PDF correctly/as intended.
|
| To get a sheet where you get to cross off everything on your own,
| just use 0 as the age in the input box.
|
| [1]: http://q.ht/life-in-weeks-on-one-sheet/
| bertr4nd wrote:
| This isn't exactly the same as a deathbed experience, but about
| two years ago I had a devastating lumbar disc hernia that landed
| me in the ER with such pain that I couldn't stand, or even roll
| over.
|
| I remember thinking that my biggest regret was that I had
| prioritized my job over my health. I'd stopped exercising and was
| overeating because my work was in a bad place and I was trying to
| scrape together every moment to make progress, and I'm sure that
| had a deleterious effect on my spine health.
|
| I resolved that going forward I would prioritize my health (and
| my family) over my job.
|
| I succeeded at maintaining those priorities for a while, and
| luckily my back healed relatively well. But I'll admit that job
| stress ramped back up, and as I felt physically better it was all
| to easy to shift back into the same old patterns.
| groby_b wrote:
| Slowly approaching the point of being... well, let's call it
| "mature" ;) ... I'd like to offer a slightly different
| perspective.
|
| When you're young, constantly focusing on your deathbed is
| frankly a waste of time. Focus on your friends. Focus on having
| experiences that make great stories to share with your friends.
| Enjoy life.
|
| Don't worry, as you age, you'll certainly focus on mortality. But
| I'm firmly convinced that having a full, joyous life always
| trumps striving for doing things you'll recall on your deathbed.
| Once I get there, if I feel loved, that will be enough.
| dddddaviddddd wrote:
| Great idea, but why the need to sign in!?
| alpineidyll3 wrote:
| Screw deathbeds. I'm just a guy looking for his ice floe..
| dhimes wrote:
| This is interesting. I once calculated the approximate number of
| weeks I had left to live and wrote it on my whiteboard,
| estimating my lifespan from family history and trends (+ 4
| years/generation for my family's men). I subtracted 1 every
| Monday.
|
| My wife thought it was pretty morbid. I never thought to
| deliberately punctuate each week, though. It was motivating at
| first, but wore off.
| druadh wrote:
| I love the idea and the simplicity, but that's all out the window
| as soon as I'm asked to log in. Remove the login requirement and
| you'll likely see more use! Good luck
| danielskogly wrote:
| The Kurzgezagt shop also has some nice "Calendar of your life"
| posters[0] based on the "What Are You Doing With Your Life? The
| Tail End" animation they did last year, which is again based on
| the Wait But Why article "Your Life in Weeks"[2].
|
| [0] https://shop-eu.kurzgesagt.org/collections/existential-
| dread...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXeJANDKwDc
|
| [2] https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't know kurzgesagt had them on their shop as
| well. I've ordered mine from the waitbutwhy shop after reading
| the blog post, which was pretty silly for a piece of paper to
| be sent to Germany. Oh well.
|
| Then I got stuck filling it out: Is week #1 (the square in the
| top left corner) the first calendar week of my birth year? Or
| is it the first week of my life? The latter makes more sense,
| but then it gets really tedious to translate timestamps for
| university graduation etc. (OP takes the birthday into account
| and offers month markers. Good idea.)
|
| The life calendar is now posted next to my desk, still empty
| half a year later. Once/if I get to filling it out, I should
| mark this long period of time where I have it but don't use it.
| Time flies.
| rvieira wrote:
| This may work wonders for others, but it would be terrible for
| me.
|
| This would make me think (obsess) about running out of time and
| on toiling to make a "legacy". I like the exact opposite, _not_
| thinking about mortality or legacy. This gives me the freedom to
| just enjoy every week and try to do things that make me happy.
| quaffapint wrote:
| You're not wrong. I get more stressed when I can't just think
| and live in the moment. Not that we should ignore the big
| picture, but life is the moment to moment. Trying to live like
| all we do is what people post on social media would just lead
| to a downward spiral.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| >> What have you done in the last week that you will remember on
| your death bed?
|
| Why would I need to remember ANYTHING on my death bed? It's not
| even clear that it will be a "bed". Climate change, nuclear war,
| next pandemic, political violence could kill me. Even if I am
| happy enough to have a "bed", I will spend my last minutes
| watching the transition and not giving a sht to my memories.
| yessirwhatever wrote:
| I read a quote today that I think is relevant:
|
| > "Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.
| Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of
| foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel
| of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes,
| apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die.
| Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make
| the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take
| care of itself."
|
| - William Martin
|
| The idea that one needs to do something memorable every week
| sounds like a recipe for disaster, burnout at a young age or
| depression. So no thank you, I'll take my ordinary life which is
| full of ups and downs.
|
| Sidenote: The fact that a sign up is needed to download a PDF
| makes me think that you're using this as a way to farm for user
| data and makes me distrust your intention.
| Fnoord wrote:
| So, I have a family. When I do something memorable in a weekend
| which involves social action (such as going to the zoo with the
| family, or a birthday party), I need to recover from it. I
| can't do something similar next weekend, I need to relax the
| weekend after. Maybe its the fact I am autistic.
|
| I don't fancy the life calendar stuff. I am very curious by
| nature, and curiosity I find the most important in 'doing'. I
| really don't need to stimulate that, just like I don't need
| psychedelics or weed to get open minded (been there, done it).
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I'm the same. I've attributed it to being a natural
| introvert. Extroverts seem to gain energy through social
| interactions, and can do one social event after another.
| Introverts seem to expend energy, and need a recharge
| between.
| auslegung wrote:
| I saw a tree yesterday. It was beautiful. The sun was close to
| setting, the sky was completely clear. The color of the sky
| went from a beautiful clear blue down to a very pale almost
| green color at the horizon, backdropping the tree. I may
| remember this the rest of my life.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Also remember none of those things would have been possible
| without you observing it.
|
| https://www.nsta.org/q-if-tree-falls-forest-and-theres-no-
| on...
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Mindfulness (what you're basically describing) does not
| conflict with memento mori. When you realize that this tomato
| could be the last tomato you'll be eating, having the
| conversation with your kid be the last conversation you'll be
| having etc etc you'll fully appreciate each moment in life as
| if it could be your last.
| krageon wrote:
| > Mindfulness
|
| Mindfulness is a product of an industry seeking to capitalise
| on the yoga pants (and later suits) demographic, to great
| success. Let's not legitimise it by using it as an example of
| healthy thinking, because it's not.
| wobblybubble wrote:
| Mindfulness is an English translation of the Buddhist word
| "sati" which Buddhists use to describe one particular
| quality of meditation. To dismiss it because some people
| have coopted it would be like, well, to dismiss the yoga
| tradition because of "yoga pants".
| Graffur wrote:
| Can we dismiss yoga for silliness anyway?
| SamBam wrote:
| Just because something valuable can also be exploited by
| greedy capitalists does not stop it from being valuable.
|
| There _are_ some legitimate reasons to be wary of the push
| for mindfulness -- for example, when it is pushed by
| employers to try and increase employee satisfaction and
| retention, in lieu of actually improving their quality of
| life -- but that certainly doesn 't mean the practice
| itself is bad.
| javert wrote:
| I think a death-centric way of thinking about life is
| unhealthy.
|
| The fact of death isn't what makes things valuable or
| meaningful.
|
| The fact that our time span to enjoy things is limited also
| isn't what makes them valuable or meaningful.
|
| The quote is describing much more than mindfulness. It's
| saying that values and meaning are right in front of us. To
| reduce that to mindfulness misses the value in what it's
| saying.
| bobthechef wrote:
| shantnutiwari wrote:
| The OP is talking about enjoying the small things in life,
| which is clearly not mindfulness.
|
| >> When you realize that this tomato could be the last tomato
| you'll be eating
|
| You're confusing Stoicism with Mindfulness.
| SamBam wrote:
| There is some overlap. There is the Buddhist practice of
| Maranasati (mindfulness of death, death awareness), which
| is very similar to the Stoic practice of remembering that
| death or loss can strike at any time. Similarly, Vipassana,
| or Insight Meditation, which is one of the forerunners to
| the westernized mindfulness meditation, includes a focus on
| impermanence.
| matwood wrote:
| > The idea that one needs to do something memorable
|
| I agree, which is why I try to view the little things as
| memorable. Laying on the couch with my dog or cooking for my
| wife is a little thing, but amazing and memorable. Doom
| scrolling, not so much.
| shawa_a_a wrote:
| I've recently incorporated exactly this into my journaling
| routine and find it a delight to look back on. At the end of
| the day I'll be sure to write down one or two perfectly run-
| of-the-mill, but joyful things that happened to me, or that I
| noticed that day.
|
| For example meeting a particularly friendly dog on the metro,
| a peculiar piece of graffiti, or just something a friend said
| that I found particularly funny.
|
| It's these small little moments that when stitched together
| over time that make up a "life well lived" in my opinion,
| much more so than setting large lofty goals or striving for
| doing "memorable" things.
| z5h wrote:
| Thank you for this comment!
|
| I'd like to add another detail, which is that people generally
| accept the idea that "deathbed perspective" is a highly
| privileged perspective, but with no real justification for this
| position. Here's a good article that questions this idea:
| https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-deathbed-perspective-consi...
| wnolens wrote:
| I always thought it was kind of silly to live your life so
| that for 1 day at the end of 80 years, you have some pleasant
| thoughts (assuming you are know you will die and aren't
| absolutely in miserable pain anyway).
|
| I get that it's more a heuristic for living a good life. But
| life is so uncertain and your goals subject to change
| _significantly_ every 5-10 years.
| BeetleB wrote:
| You don't need to wait till you're at your deathbed. You
| can do this assessment every 5-10 years. When you're past
| 40, you've lived quite a bit. You can look back and see
| what was worth it and what wasn't.
|
| For me, stuff I regretted wasting time on while younger
| (e.g. too many video games) bring back much better memories
| than doing things I (mistakenly) thought had more value.
| Quitting gaming in my early 20's was, in retrospect, not a
| great idea.
|
| But yeah, I agree with you somewhat. A lot of people who
| live to a fairly old age actually have said that if you
| live long enough, you'll realize that "nothing matters". So
| probably not best to put too much weight on their
| perspective.
| b0tch7 wrote:
| Sam Harris has a brilliantly balanced take on this subject:
| https://youtu.be/GL2uFYi86kk
|
| Memento mori doesn't mean every moment needs to be absolutely
| epic. But a mindful approach can alleviate daily stresses,
| concerns, fights etc. You're gonna die one day, so just relax
| and enjoy this moment, whatever you happen to be doing!
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| If you are into this, have a look at Timestripe[1]. It is done
| pretty nicely and well executed. I almost went into it but I
| didn't want to get stuck, and gave up on the tool but I do like
| the idea.
|
| 1. https://timestripe.com
| pegyong wrote:
| Reading that kind of opening statement makes me more become aware
| of what I do in my life.
| textcortex wrote:
| Well done! Stoics will love it :)
| davchana wrote:
| Around 2014 I came across this article of Wait But Why,
| https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
|
| Which lists the same things, same concept, but instead of a pdf,
| it gives you a jog of same grid.
|
| I personally used an excel sheet with first column listing my age
| in years, like 0,1,2, all the way till 90.
|
| First row has months spanning across four columns, so B1:B5 will
| be Jan, & so on till Dec. Last column has year in YY format, so
| it starts from 84,85,86 etc for total 90 years.
|
| First row & first column, i.e. headers are fixed view.
|
| Each of the actual cells are all light grey border, with month
| bounry (every 4th column) a bit darker grey. The overall
| boundary, 12x4= 48 columns and 90 rows have thick black border.
|
| All columns have vertical center text, and left aligned.
|
| All cells, columns, rows have exact same width height, not
| headers.
|
| Each of the month is roughly divided between 4 parts, 1 to 7, 8
| to 14, 15 to 21, & 21+.
|
| First entry simply says Born. On my birthday.
|
| Then school classes, they all start in April first week. First,
| Second etc.
|
| Then college.
|
| Some personal events, like birth of my siblings.
|
| Every time something major happens (like relocation), I change
| the background of those cells to another pastel color.
|
| Text left aligned, so overflow flows over to next columns.
|
| Someday I will make a blog post at davinder.net & will attach a
| blank all setup excel sheet, for no money :)
| ziggus wrote:
| I really like this idea, and have thought about doing something
| similar - glad somebody did it!
|
| However, why on earth do I have to sign in?
| stbtrax wrote:
| The thought of not having anything significant to remember a week
| by, and then thinking about how finite those are seems to depress
| me more than inspire.
| edf13 wrote:
| Same here... the whole idea of this depresses me! I couldn't
| bring myself to fill in the form to create the calendar1
| OJFord wrote:
| I feel the same way, and also about those apps people use to
| record a short clip or take a photograph every day. But I
| gather they are relatively popular, so what do I know!
| busymom0 wrote:
| Those short clip apps seem like an Instagram profile which
| has been converted into a video.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| I've been using one of those "short clip everyday" apps for
| the last 6 years. The only noticeable effect it's had on my
| life is that I have mundane/everyday/real-life footage of
| people/pets who have passed away unexpectedly. So when family
| members are looking for a way to remember them, they tend to
| ask me if I can dig up any of my "one seconds." It's a
| bittersweet job, but I'm glad I'm able to provide some
| comfort that way.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I know some youtube channels are basically "a week in my life"
| concepts. Seems to me trying to make a good video about your
| week, would motivate you to have an interesting week. Making the
| video would the reflective part. Seems to me it would work better
| than a calendar.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| This is really good!
| machinerychorus wrote:
| I made an Android live wallpaper with a similar premise:
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.machineryc...
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Being asked to sign in _after_ spending time to customise
| _anything_ , should be illegal.
| toyg wrote:
| Only if you lose such customizations; otherwise I actually
| think it's a Good Thing that I get to play without handing out
| an email address (or worse).
| distalx wrote:
| A couple of alternatives that don't require you to log-in.
|
| - https://memento-mori-calendar.vercel.app/ -
| https://www.bryanbraun.com/your-life/ -
| https://www.ekn.io/calendar/
| jfk13 wrote:
| If you're going to use terms like Memento Mori, please at least
| spell them correctly and consistently.
| chestercodes wrote:
| Oops, that's embarrassing, cheers for pointing it out :)
| [deleted]
| probably_wrong wrote:
| > _What have you done in the last week that you will remember on
| your death bed?_
|
| I will probably be murdered in my sleep by the person in charge
| of maintaining the code I'm writing right now. So, that.
|
| But more to the point: I write code, I like writing code, and I
| have embraced the fact that writing code makes me happy. At the
| risk of sounding like the comic book guy in the Simpsons movie, I
| will probably look back and say "I regret nothing". I never
| regretted the weekend nights I spent exploring the Web with my
| 56k modem, and I don't think I'll start now.
| jd24 wrote:
| Saving you a click: the site requires you to submit your email
| address.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Approaching the age of 40, I have to admit that I'll probably
| live a very boring and forgettable life.
|
| I guess I'll guide my son to find some passion early in his life,
| so that even though his life might as well be a boring one, he
| himself may have the luxury of regarding it as a slightly more
| interesting one.
| tmarice wrote:
| Love the concept, not so much the execution.
|
| The "Login after customizing everything" and "Pay to remove the
| watermark which renders the calendar useless" are borderline dark
| patterns.
|
| But on the positive, it gave me an idea to make my own version of
| this calendar, sans the money grab.
| jehb wrote:
| The watermark literally just fell off of the document when I
| opened it in Inkscape. Everything else (except the watermark)
| rendered there, so it was completely clean just by opening.
| (Sorry, OP.)
| mrleinad wrote:
| It can be removed using Acrobat too, so...
| trevormcneal wrote:
| - What you did that week ? - I tried to scam some people on the
| internet with some cheap pdf
| foobiekr wrote:
| I've been meaning to work on one that I can incrementally add
| to over time both historically and present day.
|
| I would really like to have one That has labels external to the
| life calendar itself poking into it like a giant cactus. I
| don't want to create want to go, I figure it'll take me a full
| year to actually populate the thing with the events that I
| either recapture by residing old photos, journal entries or
| otherwise talking to my wife.
|
| What can I say, I'm old and remembering important events isn't
| going to happen all at once.
| m_a_g wrote:
| Totally agree. Dark patterns making it to the front page always
| baffles me.
| iakov wrote:
| If you get to do it - let HN know. I like the idea but despise
| the dark patterns that author employed in his work.
| phtrivier wrote:
| That's nice.
|
| May I suggest you make it clear from the front page that the
| design costs 10$ ?
| trevormcneal wrote:
| Just to download a pdf...
|
| The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes: To
| provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage
| of our Service. To manage Your Account: to manage Your
| registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You
| provide can give You access to different functionalities of the
| Service that are available to You as a registered user. For the
| performance of a contract: the development, compliance and
| undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or
| services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us
| through the Service. To contact You: To contact You by email,
| telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic
| communication, such as a mobile application's push notifications
| regarding updates or informative communications related to the
| functionalities, products or contracted services, including the
| security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their
| implementation. To provide You with news, special offers and
| general information about other goods, services and events which
| we offer that are similar to those that you have already
| purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive
| such information. To manage Your requests: To attend and manage
| Your requests to Us. For business transfers: We may use Your
| information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture,
| restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or
| transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern
| or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in
| which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among
| the assets transferred. For other purposes: We may use Your
| information for other purposes, such as data analysis,
| identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our
| promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service,
| products, services, marketing and your experience.
| chestercodes wrote:
| Cheers for the feedback :) I used a free privacy policy
| generator, which in retrospect was a mistake as it is much
| broader than my intentions. If anyone is worried, no data will
| leave the identity provider service.
| foobiekr wrote:
| So fix your license.
| krageon wrote:
| > If anyone is worried, [...]
|
| The worry comes from what you can do. If you did not want
| this power you would not ask for the information and
| explicitly say you have power over it.
| leetrout wrote:
| Yea, but why do you even need an email if everything is
| running locally?
| ng-user wrote:
| Piggybacking off this comment to say, I made it 95% of the
| way to downloading the calendar before the "Sign in" button
| made me close the tab. There is no valid reason why I need to
| authenticate and provide you my account information to
| download a generic PDF, the juice ain't worth the squeeze
| imo.
| phgn wrote:
| I created my own calendar like this 2 days ago. You can mark all
| kinds of significant events you remember and see how they fit
| into your life so far. It's incredible how much things change
| over a few years time.
|
| Tip: If you're from the EU, A4 paper pages with 0.5cm lines
| perfectly fit 52 weeks x 36 years. No printer needed.
| vanka wrote:
| I did once a similar project, but for Mac only. The project was
| not successful at all, maybe I didn't market it properly, but it
| seems people don't know how to use it (it needs a lot of
| determination from a user).
|
| Now I'm thinking of pivoting this thing, maybe someone want to
| collaborate? The siteL https://motley.place, sorry but the intro
| video is in Russian.
| mrthrtrk wrote:
| Memento mori is not about creating spectacular moments that you
| will remember in your death bed. It's about being in the present
| moment and always doing your best as if it's the last thing you
| might be doing (knowing that your best changes day to day... see
| The Four Agreements from Don Miguel Ruiz, the fourth agreement).
| Stoicism is not about creating a memory, it's about living in the
| present moment.
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