[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?
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Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?
Everyone seems so busy building or learning the next big thing, but
is anyone else working on _absolutely nothing_ lately? If not, why
not? Optional reading: I've always been a curious person,
interested in learning new skills and finding fun and useful ways
to apply them. I don't know much, but what I do know are things
I've set out to learn purely out of interest. Any success in my
career has been mostly luck, and being somewhat articulate in a few
key areas of IT. But not only has my professional life become
monotonous and unchallenging, my drive for novelty and improvement
in my personal life has also diminished greatly. In other words, I
seem to have lost that curiosity. That drive to learn and apply new
things. I'm not sure why this is, but my initial suspicion is that
the lack of fulfillment I've experienced in the last ~5 years or so
has left me feeling like continuing down the same path is a bit of
a waste of time at this point. It all just feels as though it
amounts to virtually nothing. To be completely honest, I _am_
working on something, but that something is myself. Working through
personal issues has all but completely taken priority over any
external endeavors and consumed what little energy I have, which
isn 't necessarily a bad thing, but a healthier balance would
probably be ideal. Anyone else from HN in a similar place?
Author : g4zj
Score : 389 points
Date : 2024-01-13 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| Sometimes I worry that I'm not doing things because I've finally
| officially become "burned out."
|
| But I also read an article this week that said "unstructured
| time" is part of a healthy and relaxing weekend routine.
|
| Either way, I think it's a good idea to make sure you're
| exercising, getting lots of sleep, and eating healthy, energizing
| foods.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I'm working on things. Just, things I subconsciously devalue
| because they're not new/hard/valuable enough. So when people ask
| me what I work on I often answer 'nothing much' back even though
| those same people would find what I'm actually doing to be as
| hard as most jobs - which is not that much but enough. Enough is
| what I should answer, and maybe you too.
|
| Everything will work itself out, these years will turn out to
| have a hidden purpose, or you'll eventually die and it won't
| matter either way. If we avoid any major moral failures till the
| end then we're ahead of the curve, friend. We did our part.
| bitzun wrote:
| I love your sentiment. I've been fighting off the intrusive
| "when people ask me" thoughts to eliminate the absurd
| hypothetical shame/embarrassment. I think it's improved my
| life.
| thierrydamiba wrote:
| This is also the curse of expertise. To most people in tech,
| uploading a weather dataset for one zip code and making a site
| that spits out predictions for the weather the next day is
| trivial.
|
| It would not be an impressive project to people in industry and
| it would not impress most hiring managers. To quote you, it
| would be "nothing much". For most people who aren't in tech,
| this project sounds pretty cool and is very much something.
|
| Easy to get lost in the sauce when you spend all day soaking in
| it.
| tesdinger wrote:
| I would think it is impressive, but I wouldn't find it
| impressive enough if it doesn't beat the established methods
| of forecasting. I don't start anything because I doubt it
| would meet my standards of being not pointless and
| superfluous.
| ploum wrote:
| I'm working on a lot of things which, when I think about it, are
| all related to the "smolnet/smallweb". (offpunk, mainly, but also
| other email/gemini/blog related stuff).
|
| It is funny because it seems that I'm now always looking for "the
| next small thing" instead of the "the next big thing" ;-)
| rendx wrote:
| Same! I took a break from my job. A couple of years ago. My new
| full-time engagement is myself, and it's one of the most
| challenging and exhausting and fulfilling jobs I've ever had.
| Sometimes I catch myself "wanting" to go back to the "less
| complex" version of myself, but there's no turning back now, and
| it only takes a few minutes to realize I wouldn't want to go back
| anyway. ;)
| reactordev wrote:
| If you find yourself thinking "this is all for nothing", you'd be
| correct. You can't take any of this crap with you when you pass.
| You do what makes you happy. What makes you happy? Searching for
| external validation of a pat on the back for a job well done is
| not what makes one happy. Take a moment, pause, just be, focus on
| your happiness and what that means _to you_. Stop comparing
| yourself to others. Stop trying to find fulfillment through
| praise or purpose and instead search inwards and ask yourself
| "What do I like, dislike, enjoy, and am I doing those things?".
| If you are just going through the motions but haven't searched
| within then I suggest you take a time out and get to know you
| again. Remember you. Rediscover you. Or start a new path. Life
| isn't a straight line.
| bitzun wrote:
| One addition IMO: If anyone in your life tries to push you to
| seek their validation and do what they think you should (which
| is mostly just validating themselves), ignore and avoid them,
| or at least try to knock them down a peg.
| Sajarin wrote:
| This is a step in the right direction but it is still wrong.
| Yes, whatever praise or accolades you earn from work will be
| things you can never take with you when you pass. But the same
| also goes for whatever enjoyment you get from hobbies,
| interests or activities. You've just swapped one temporary
| source of happiness for another. Even if the latter is more
| meaningful, it is still temporary.
|
| It is easy to suggest focusing on one's happiness but it is
| more useful and (more difficult) to figure out how to tackle
| unhappiness instead. The goal is equanimity not happiness (i.e
| happiness in the conventional hedonic sense). Focus on the
| cessation of your personal suffering.
| panarky wrote:
| _> when you pass_
|
| Nihilism is not the belief that there is no God and life is
| ultimately meaningless.
|
| Nihilism is recognizing that there is no God and life is
| ultimately meaningless, while continuing to sacrifice at a
| grinding job you hate, continuing to submit to the phony
| morality of those higher than you in the social hierarchy,
| conforming to social rituals and customs you privately think
| are bullshit, continuing to follow the rules of external
| authorities as if that might pay off in the afterlife.
|
| Nihilism is understanding the truth, but pretending the
| universe is different than it really is, so you can evade
| personal responsibility for creating your own meaning.
|
| Nihilism is behaving as if there is a God who gives life
| meaning, even when you don't actually believe that, instead
| of assuming responsibility for making your own meaning during
| the brief time you're alive.
| Sajarin wrote:
| I'm not a nihilist so I don't know whether those
| characterizations are accurate. It seems you are making
| some conflations with absurdism and pascal's wager.
|
| Nihilism to me is about accepting the idea that there is no
| self but without actually having directly experienced that
| truth. And according to buddhism for instance, there is a
| way to experience a selfless existence which gives rise to
| true equanimity.
|
| Without direct experience, nihilism is just another form of
| faith.
| brabel wrote:
| > Nihilism is behaving as if there is a God who gives life
| meaning, even when you don't actually believe that, instead
| of assuming responsibility for making your own meaning
| during the brief time you're alive.
|
| TIL I am a nihilist.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I found this video to be quite significant to me on the
| "nihilism" front :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv79l1b-eoI
| yayr wrote:
| I don't understand why having the opportunity as an
| individual and species of defying entropy and all the
| consequences this would bring should be meaningless...
| demondemidi wrote:
| Pass?
|
| I think you mean "die".
| fasterik wrote:
| You got downvoted, but this is a valid point. I am always
| reminded of George Carlin's bit about "soft language" and how
| it obscures facts of life that we're uncomfortable about:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY
| fasterik wrote:
| The problem isn't work per se, it's our attitudes toward work
| and the projects that we choose to work on.
|
| "Do what makes you happy" is a cliche that we all accept, but
| if you think about it, it's actually a very self-centered and
| egoistic way of deciding what to do. If we used different
| heuristics, like do what's best for your
| family/community/world, it might lead to very different answers
| than doing what makes you happy. That would involve quite a bit
| of what we call "work". Not work for the purposes of financial
| gain or social status, but work that improves the world for
| current and future generations.
|
| That said, it's clear that our culture doesn't optimize for
| rewarding the kinds of work that actually make the world
| better. That's something we should try to correct for, rather
| than abandoning work as a value altogether.
| azangru wrote:
| Hmm, my reading of the title was, is anyone working on something
| that they have a good reason to suspect will turn out to be
| nothing. I.e. does anyone think they are doing a bullshit job.
|
| I am not sure how one can work on absolutely nothing unless one
| is happily retired/unemployed.
| 127 wrote:
| I'm building things that I find fun and interesting, not
| necessarily for profit. Of course, I have a revenue generator
| that I'm also keeping up. But mostly just fun these days.
| Currently that fun thing is building software synths from
| scratch, just starting from audio callback.
| sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote:
| Working on yourself / mental health is not working on nothing -
| it's probably the most important, hardest and rewarding work you
| can do apart from recreational work. Recreational work is all the
| work that is required for everything to function but that doesn't
| produce anything- think of cooking, cleaning, childcare, elderly
| care etc. - you know all the work that traditionally is/was
| "women's work"
|
| I have come to value "productive work" much less than
| recreational. We have enough stuff already to last a dozen
| lifetimes.
|
| Just think that the brightest minds of our generation are working
| on making people click more ads. And then be thankful that you
| are not in the same boat and OK with not being productive at all.
| bitzun wrote:
| I like working on (relatively) nothing. I quit working a few
| months ago and now I don't want to go back. I've spent these
| months reading books about everything, working out, playing with
| hobbies and relaxing. The experience has reinforced for me that I
| don't want kids, I don't need any "lasting" legacy or any greater
| career success, and I want to work only enough that I can avoid
| it as much as I can. I want to learn everything, but I don't want
| to be compelled to employ that knowledge for "success".
| UltimateEdge wrote:
| I have fewer personal software projects going on than I used to
| (in fact, almost none), and these days I think I spend a lot of
| the time on unimportant busywork, under the excuse that
| "organising myself will free me up in the future, when something
| interesting comes around".
|
| However I also recently quit social media (by this I don't count
| IRC, HN and the Fediverse as these are mostly text-based - okay
| to browse in my books), quit soft drinks, quit YouTube (almost,
| new videos come in through my subscriptions about once a day) and
| started reading (albeit very slowly) after a multi-year lapse. So
| it's not all bad.
| david_draco wrote:
| You can have a lot of output once you stop receiving input for a
| few days.
| bmitc wrote:
| > I am working on something, but that something is myself.
|
| I'd say you're working on the right things. Our fellow humans
| would like to hide behind the idea that any of this matters, but
| at the end of the day, it doesn't. What does matter to _you_ is
| yourself and the relationships of people close to you.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I'm working on nothing. It is ok to give up the external
| validation of doing something, and I've found live much more
| livable.
|
| "Evil comes from a man's inability to sit quietly in his own
| chair."
| Moto7451 wrote:
| I have a six month old and have dealt with two people dying in
| the past three years including handling their estates. I'm lucky
| I have time to learn anything at work.
| molly0 wrote:
| Hope you are doing okay, stay strong.
| flatline wrote:
| I am working on relocating to an area that will afford me more
| personal and professional opportunities in the future. I have
| been writing software professionally for over 20 years and there
| is not much left there to captivate me, so I've refocused my
| professional efforts towards softer skills. I spend a lot of my
| day talking to people, organizing schedules, planning,
| networking, writing proposals. Much like you, working on myself.
| dharmab wrote:
| I'm currently working on nothing outside of work due to an
| illness.
|
| I hate it. I was halfway through dissembling my project car's
| engine for some upgrades and was hoping to get started on a
| bathroom demo for a remodel, and that's all been delayed.
|
| I'm also not really working on any tech right now, because for
| the most part, I've gotten my personal technology working how I
| like it. I have a spare PC I've been meaning to turn into a home
| theater device but I'm more motivated to work on the car.
| DANmode wrote:
| Are you willing to share the class of illness? That's awful to
| hear...
| om154 wrote:
| I feel less hopelessness, but I'm also just working on myself.
| Getting into a routine, cooking, working out, making tomorrow
| better. Work can come next.
| perlgeek wrote:
| I used to have one or more side projects going on all the time.
|
| With work and family, I currently don't really have the energy to
| make consistent progress, so instead I do very small things,
| mostly not software.
|
| Like, baking a sourdough bread usually spans two days, with not
| too much work on each of these days. Will it be The Next Big
| Thing? Well, only at our next meal :-)
|
| That's the scope of projects I can manage these days.
|
| And that's totally fine, the world cannot sustain the same number
| of Big Things as there are people, so I'm fine with most of us
| never having one, including me.
| namuol wrote:
| Cooking and baking have replaced a lot of the hobby time I
| spent on software side projects over the last few years.
|
| The best part about it is that you can share it with almost
| anyone and they're going to appreciate it, which is hardly true
| of most software.
| Swizec wrote:
| I've always liked Viktor Frankl's take on this:
|
| There is no meaning. But humans need meaning. Create your own!
| Absolutely anything will do as long as _you_ find it meaningful.
| Just pick a goal /meaning and go for it. It's okay to change what
| you find meaningful as you go through life.
| avensec wrote:
| I was in a similar introspective state of my life when someone
| recommended "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl. To
| anyone reading the comment wanting more, I'd recommend the
| book. The audiobook is only 4h 45m.
| cmehdy wrote:
| This is also in some way where Camus ended up.
|
| I've faced a beginning of life pretty loaded in trauma, and a
| young adult life where self-inflicting some more was a
| comforting behaviour in the face of the absurdity of life. When
| contemplating suicide up close, in some of the aftermath I saw
| Camus' thesis as a pretty decent way to figure out some sort of
| "philosophy of continuing to exist".
|
| https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/the-meaning-of-life-alb...
| CrypticShift wrote:
| You can spend unlimited time working on yourself. I see no
| unhealthy unbalance in that as long as you have no inner need or
| outer pressure to produce (or you are able to control both).
|
| Personally I find it tricky, though. Am I doing nothing for this
| long because I am just getting lazy (-> need resolve) or
| depressed (-> need real help)? It does not seem to be your case,
| so just take your time. Take your time.
| itsgrimetime wrote:
| I think it's super normal to have fluctuations in your interests
| and curiosities. Life would be pretty boring if we did the same
| thing for its entirety. I also think that focusing on yourself is
| something that always pays off - and will likely give you more
| mental and emotional capacity long term. Whenever I have periods
| like that I find my curiosity and drive comes back naturally if
| I'm patient and don't try to force it.
| slowhadoken wrote:
| I'm inquisitive so I keep my eye on the regular stream of hype
| and trends to find what's actually good. My focus is math and
| computer science. Most of my mind is in the theoretical and pops
| up occasionally to do brief soul searching and give people
| advice. I don't care about careers.
| tomNth wrote:
| I'm working on nothing. I'm making great progress, I have a whole
| lot of nothing !
| iamwpj wrote:
| I had a period like this, I even stopped playing some games
| because it just was there anymore. My wife and I took a long road
| trip in 2021 and it gave me time to be peaceful (national parks
| helped a lot with this). I started grad school in 2022, it has
| really helped me with perspective and forces me to engage in my
| interests when other things are often easier. There's drawbacks,
| but overall I'm happy to have motivation. In short: try something
| new!
| codeptualize wrote:
| > I am working on something, but that something is myself.
|
| Great way to spend your time. It takes a lot of time and energy
| so it's not really surprising that there is little bandwidth left
| to spend on other things. I totally recognize that.
|
| Sometimes boring and steady is good if you need that energy to
| work on other things, but if you think the "boring" is part of
| the problem, it might be time to change things up.
|
| If you have the means/access, therapy might be helpful to figure
| out where these feelings come from and what to do with them.
|
| > Everyone seems so busy building or learning the next big thing
|
| I think this is also not per se a realistic view of what's going
| on. There are plenty of people who do their job and that's it,
| but you won't see them post about it.
|
| Things are only a problem if you find them problematic. If you
| are happy doing nothing that's great, if not then you might need
| to take some action.
|
| I've had times where I did absolutely nothing, now I am building
| a company haha, things change, lots is possible.
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| I found in my mid thirties that my perspective on what was
| important and desirable shifted significantly. Which led me to
| become disengaged from my desire to build side projects and learn
| new programming languages. It was a time were ecclesiastes from
| the Bible resonated a lot. After a while I just found out that I
| wasn't interested in nothing but I had to rediscover what was
| important to me and what I valued spending my time on.
|
| While my current lifestyle doesn't lineup well with the tech
| grind and won't get me attention online I'm much happier living a
| lifestyle that serves me and family rather than some external
| validation. Hope that helps and good luck on your journey.
| asim wrote:
| Bingo. This happened to me also. What I valued changed. In my
| 20s and early 30s I was really serving myself. Even work was
| about my own curiosity and desire to work hard. Eventually as
| "me" time was stripped away I had to re-evaluate and understand
| what I was living for. We live in a world of abundance, excess
| and desire. The desire to create is not the same as being
| driven by a real need. And the cycle of consumerism only made
| our lives worse as we watched others who we aspired to be like
| or escape our lives for short periods through endless content
| binging. Our real needs are much simpler. We don't need a lot
| to live a good life. If anything we have to become more
| disciplined in learning how to need less.
| fidotron wrote:
| One of the massive things which caused a shift was knowing a
| decent sized group of people that became incredibly financially
| successful as the result of acquisitions and what this actually
| did to their personal lives. It really wasn't the all happy fun
| situation that it is so often portrayed as being.
|
| Then there is the whole have kids<->not have kids axis, and
| where people fall on that will dramatically influence their
| priorities with work as well, with the former tending to see it
| as a way to finance raising their kids and the latter tending
| to attempt to replace kids with something else in their lives,
| which can often be work.
| tesdinger wrote:
| I just want to spend time on my hobbies. I'm in IT because it
| is the closest a job can be to my hobbies.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| In our younger years, we are primarily driven by economic
| necessity and social validation. Sure, programming genuinely
| interests me from my teenage years, but if it wasn't for
| attaining some level of financial independence, there's no way
| I could have spent most of my 20s in front of a screen, solving
| someone else's problems. I could have been doing it as a
| leisurely recreational hobby instead.
|
| Now I'm in my late 30s, with a 5-year-old child and a well-
| furnished 2-bedroom flat that was paid for in cash. I don't
| feel like having to prove anything to anyone. I've not fallen
| prey to any kind of excessive material consumption. My best
| idea of spending quality time is assisting my son with playing
| with Lego, and then taking a walk in the park with a classic
| philosophical book from Plato or Hegel or Hume.
| firefoxd wrote:
| I was working on too many projects at the same time. Including a
| startup, a book, a blog, and pitching for a movie.
|
| Along the way, I got married and slowed down a bit. Then i got
| twins. I couldn't work on my own stuff even if I wanted to. When
| covid hit I published a short story that I had been working on
| for 7 years just to say I did something.
|
| Now I occasionally blog, and edit a paragraph or two of my book
| every week. I don't feel bad about it. The most important thing I
| want to reflect upon when I'm old, is my family.
| Cacti wrote:
| Let me guess, you're about under 30 and/or without kids, right?
|
| You're just burnt out. It happens. You'll be able to recognize it
| when you go through it a couple times lol
|
| It's not a big deal but you need to get sleep and exercise and
| get out of house and away from devices at least once a day for ~3
| months.
|
| And then reassess. But you shouldn't make any decision if you're
| depressed and burnt out.
| Jaja_what_else wrote:
| I do not want to write about the topic, although it is a deep
| field. There is something else that makes me write this comment:
|
| There is nobody out there being an expert in his/her field
| without having also personal interrest. Yet - you say while you
| had this kind of drive which is key to be one of the best, all
| you got is luck. I dont think so. You describe the last 5 years
| as being without any success or fulfillment. This is absolutly
| impossible over such a long time. Nowadays, you say it is of no
| fun to you anymore to have this "hobby".
|
| Well, you know which kind of people sound like this? Since i am
| not an expert, don't get me wrong - but to me it is textbook like
| depression. Please think about checking it with a pro.. best case
| is i am wrong.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Only thing Im working on is learning the lbum "Pollinator" by
| Cloud Rat on guitar.
|
| That and working on calisthenics.
|
| Im honestly at the point where seeing a computer makes me a
| little quesy. Im so sick of tech
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Wow, I just wanted to say thanks a lot for posting this. I'm in a
| _very_ similar boat. I was always very focused and goal-oriented
| in my younger days - a bit of a workaholic but generally enjoyed
| working hard. A number of changes since the pandemic have left me
| feeling very similar to you:
|
| 1. Like tons of other people, I re-evaluated my relationship with
| work during the pandemic. To be honest, it wasn't easy. I think a
| ton of people (especially Americans) tie up their self-worth with
| their jobs, and during the pandemic I just felt more disconnected
| from my job.
|
| 2. I think a lot of folks have underestimated the psychological
| changes that happen from being way more isolated these days. I
| don't mean "shut-in" isolated, I just mean that working remote
| most days means the number of people I interact with in person
| has gone way, way down. I'm all for remote work but I won't deny
| that I greatly miss a lot of the energy from just being around
| other people.
|
| 3. Finally, I've just become really disillusioned with tech over
| the course of my career, which makes me very sad. I started my
| career during the dot com boom, and there was so much optimism
| about the beneficial societal changes that tech and the Internet
| would bring. I don't feel like all tech is "evil" these days, but
| I do feel that the world would be better off if all the big tech
| companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) just completely
| stopped building any new tech. Obviously that's not realistic,
| but it highlights my feeling that I'm not looking forward to
| _any_ new tech from these companies, because more tech is going
| to invariably lead to more isolation, more "doom scrolling",
| more assaults on our attention. I feel like most big tech
| companies have just become the equivalent of drug dealers, just
| trying to hijack our brain's evolutionary attention mechanisms to
| addict us. "Attention is all you need" is right...
|
| Anyway, don't have any advice or anything, just wanted to say I
| appreciated your post in a "misery loves company" sort-of-way, so
| thank you.
| om154 wrote:
| I can relate a lot to this. Thanks for sharing
| jassyr wrote:
| Feels like you read my mind. I'm disconnected from career and
| generally feel disappointed with direction of technology. It's
| quite difficult finding meaning in life surrounded by
| careerist.
| brabel wrote:
| > I started my career during the dot com boom, and there was so
| much optimism about the beneficial societal changes that tech
| and the Internet would bring. I don't feel like all tech is
| "evil" these days...
|
| Wow that's so true... we totally didn't see the social media
| dystopia we're living in today coming. We imagined a world
| where everyone has all the world knowledge available at their
| fingertips would be wonderful. How wrong were we.
| amelius wrote:
| In the early 90s the internet was great. The problems started
| with companies and their inherent greed.
| castalian wrote:
| No, it was the people. Early internet users demographics
| was a result of extreme selection. Companies did exist back
| then.
| amelius wrote:
| Companies existed of course, but they provided the
| building blocks of the internet and were not directly
| concerned with the processing of our data.
| bakugo wrote:
| This is true. The big turning point was the release of
| the iPhone, a device that allowed people who didn't know
| what a computer was to access the internet.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Barriers to entry that revolve around level of interest
| are ok.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| On average, yes it's easy to get stuck in a rut with low
| quality content, toxic social media, attention-stealing
| recommendations, etc. but with just a reasonable amount of
| effort it can be avoided in favor of the good stuff. Just
| like a traveler can get stuck at tourist traps or with just a
| few more moments of planning find a local treasure; and how
| if you're at a buffet you could get locked into the mac &
| cheese or go find the hibachi station in the back. It would
| be nice if getting lost wasn't a thing, but it's not terribly
| onerous to navigate the scenic route.
| j4yav wrote:
| But we are surrounded by people not doing that, and not
| even through any fault of their own for the most part. They
| are wired into an endless machine that trades dopamine hits
| for their money. Children are wired in before they even
| have a chance to resist.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| The Extremely Online crowd's influence is waning.
|
| Twitter is widely mocked as a cesspool of conversation.
| Facebook is seen as antiquated. Instagram and TikTok are
| the current darlings but they seem to have less of an
| iron grip than the OG social networks.
|
| The future is probably not another winner-take-all
| network. We've tried enough of those. The future is
| probably smaller networks where users self-select into
| them based on affiliations, much like web forums.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I used to feel like I wanted to "Save Them From
| Themselves" but I no longer care. As long as I and my
| family are not zombies, I could care less that the rest
| of these people we're surrounded by are lobotomizing
| themselves. As long as they aren't in my way they can do
| what they want. They'll be voluntarily stepping into
| their own Matrix Pods in 20 years and I won't be.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > How wrong were we
|
| Nowhere! Social media brought out the true character of
| people; most (many?) of us are negative species, mix that
| along with bad people.
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Ehh this type of thinking is reductive.
|
| The primary issues are a combination of nature vs nurture.
| The age of argument, the solution has always been some
| combination of both.
|
| But when you look at our western society over the past 60
| years or so, you see that -fundamentally- the nurture part
| of the equation is being heavily influenced by capitalistic
| forces. For example, news used to be once a day, then 3
| times a day, now 24/7/365. There isn't more news now than
| 100 years ago, so how do you feel all that time and how do
| you keep someone engaged? (If you have been paying
| attention, you know the answer is selling fear, sex,
| violence, and other negative emotions are traits of the
| human species.)
|
| But really, the easiest way to counter this toxic mindset
| was said best by mister Rodgers: just look for the helpers.
| Look for the guys running into the fray when everyone else
| runs away... Those people are just as human as you or me...
| They are the true character of the human species. For we
| are a communal species that depends on one another, we
| always have, we aren't a bad species... We are just letting
| our man made systems bring out the worst.
| advael wrote:
| I strongly relate, and think a big part it for me is that most
| people range from apathetic to hostile to most projects that
| try to wrest any power from tech companies, despite complaining
| about the way they've been immiserated by them in the next
| breath. It's hard enough trying to pry even little bits of
| freedom or individuality from the grasp of all these moneyed
| interests without every effort to do something like it getting
| a bunch of random hate
| qorrect wrote:
| Thank you both - I'm feeling the same, and I had tied up so
| much of my personality and life with software development, I
| feel pretty lost now. I've had a side project to work on for as
| long as I can remember, now I'm just not interested in building
| at all. And honestly, I don't know where to go from here.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I am currently doing nothing.
|
| I've spent several years recently writing various bits of open
| source software outside work, and trying to get a new search
| algorithm published in some journal. After several rejections, I
| stuck it on arXiv, but I think I'm done with it.
|
| I'm not particularly bothered by my lack of drive right now.
| Sometimes it's good to just enjoy life and kick back. I'm sure
| something else will come along that I get into eventually.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Not only am I not working on anything, I'm not even reading HN
| anymore!
| cowboyscott wrote:
| Do what feels right for you, and make sure you're doing that in a
| way that ethical for those around you and the rest of the world.
| It sounds like our paths getting there were a bit different, but
| I also took a significant break from my professional life and
| disengaged with expectations that were not my own and used that
| time to deliberately work on my mental health and relationships.
| Thankfully, I was in a situation where I had the resources to do
| so (which includes the support of my partner). I quit a nice tech
| job and spent a year studying a ton of subjects that I loved or
| thought I'd love, and explored radical shifts in my career. I'm
| not done yet, but I managed to find the parts of my old work I
| still enjoy, the parts I don't, and the beginnings of an
| understanding of how to trade my time for money in a way that I'm
| comfortable with. I've been easing back into things, and am even
| finding joy in the things in things that had previously been
| surefire triggers for emotional spirals (including hackernews!).
| Anyway, I'm still not settled, and never will be, but I'm content
| with that for now.
| ponderings wrote:
| My idea is to work on small toy things I can finish in uhh 30
| minutes, a day, a week, 30 years etc Ponder the big problems in
| life, read up what was done to progress the progress sufficiently
| to be able to participate in attempting to solve the puzzle. Look
| where others didn't look. Eventually you find a problem that fits
| your ability. This could be a small problem that takes 5 years to
| complete or a big problem that takes 1 day once you know how to
| do it.
|
| Sometimes you just have to try stuff. Without going into details
| my 2 most stupid ideas turned out to be completely hilarious and
| unlike anything one could imagine in advance.
|
| Enjoy the process not the results.
| shadowfoxx wrote:
| I don't think its possible to be working on 'absolutely nothing'.
| I think you'll find that if you really explore this idea that you
| can almost always go further. For example. Do you clean your
| house? Maintenance is something. The status quo is something and
| it need to be maintained to exist. I think you recognize this
| because you admit that you're working on yourself.
|
| The only time I think you could truly do nothing is when you've
| passed.
|
| I would say I _was_ in a similar place - Wake up, Go to work,
| come home, watch youtube, sleep, repeat; I had projects I was
| interested in but couldn 't bring myself to do them. For me, part
| of the answer was changing my environment, the people I was with,
| the culture was to chill because you're exhausted from work.
| Another part was, like you're doing now, working on yourself.
| Another, specific part of working on myself was taking inventory
| of the things I 'valued'. Did I truly still value those things or
| were they things from my youth that I am clinging to? Do I value
| them because I authentically value them or is it because
| culturally they are valued? Am I applying those cultural valued
| to places that matter to me. For example: "Hard work". I do value
| hard work, but the places I was applying that value did not
| provide return on the investment. So now I apply 'hard work'
| elsewhere.
|
| I think it is both necessary and good to do this from time to
| time. Good luck on this journey.
| shove wrote:
| Hell yeah. Find your slack. Long live Bob and the church of the
| subgenious.
| jessehorne wrote:
| I resonate a lot with this but I think it's against my will that
| I feel lost. I've started little projects like 48hr.dev to try to
| help me just build more and to collaborate with people in the
| same spot. I have friends building these incredible saas apps or
| stuff to help in scientific research, or just really cool side
| projects but I struggle to find ideas that are valuable to
| people. I don't lack motivation or interest I just lack the luck
| or either skills to find (and have faith in) solid ideas.
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I can completely relate to this, and was in a similar place not
| too long ago. My personal recommendation would be to check out
| Vipassana (dhamma.org) - it was a life-changing experience, and
| the first to actually address some of the mental issues I was
| facing.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Without turning this post into a book, I think what you are
| feeling is very normal, and perhaps even a healthy moment of
| reflection. If you consider time to be the single most precious
| resource, then perhaps you can figure out how you want to use it.
| If that's in bacchanalian and hedonistic pursuits, then great. If
| that's in self-discovery, great. Maybe on your path you'll find
| therapy or diet or exercise or hobbies or meds will bring
| renewal. My guess would be at some point you will find something
| that sparks renewed interest and you'll find the balance.
| city41 wrote:
| > But not only has my professional life become monotonous and
| unchallenging
|
| In my 20 years as a developer, I think I can count actually
| fulfilling moments on one hand. Maybe I'm just really unlucky,
| but I suspect that professional development isn't very efficient
| or worthwhile. So many projects get canned, delayed, reworked,
| death marched, or are just, well, asinine.
|
| Personally, my growth had stunted, especially ever since Covid
| hit. I was just kind of "existing" and not really doing anything.
| But lately I've taken on something completely new to me, and wow
| I'm pretty bad at it. I'm learning so much, and it's fun to see
| the improvement and "ohhhhhhhhh" moments. So maybe just try
| something totally different for a while.
| senju wrote:
| Here. I'm just lazy. An excuse I tell myself is ehh that probably
| has no monetary future so I just don't do it, but its probably
| just laziness.
| kunalgupta wrote:
| I'm not in the same place, but I do find it still surprising at
| age 40 you can flail around randomly in a city and discover
| entirely new areas of life that fully captivate your interest.
| The other day someone invited me to join a math club and now it's
| my favorite part of my week. I hadn't thought about math since I
| was 15. but that's example one of dozens. not that anyone's
| asking, but I think if anyone isn't feeling satisfied they can
| easily try very random things and find some satisfaction and
| that's what I would recommend
| blopp99 wrote:
| I find myself in the same hole but not because of lack of
| opportunities from peers or life, not because I dont have good
| ideas or dont know how to excecute them.
|
| I have work mostly all my life working as a freelancer and havent
| been able to find a workplace that I feel really confortable.
| That and situations that always seem to happen in the worst
| possible moment, I found myself in the necesity to make my own
| company, what do we do? what do we make? software and hardware.
| anything specific? no im working towards that.
|
| Thank you for your post, feels good to vent a little bit
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't have much to offer you, but I have some questions if
| you're willing to answer:
|
| 1. Do you have a live in partner and/or children?
|
| 2. Do you work remotely?
|
| I ask because I'm seeing similar sentiments more lately from
| friends who work remotely and live alone. Even those with active
| social lives still have this sense of lack of fulfillment.
|
| But I don't see it amongst peers with live in partners or
| children or who work in an office. In fact I had some friends who
| were working remotely alone who either got partners or returned
| to the office and their outlook improved.
|
| To be clear, I'm absolutely not suggesting that you should get a
| live-in partner or children or go to the office just for
| socializing.
|
| I'm more making a comment on a trend I've noticed with the rise
| of remote work, and one that we as a society will need to work on
| fixing together without forcing everyone back to work.
| namuol wrote:
| (Edit: just one semi counterexample)
|
| I work remotely with a live in partner of 7 years and we're
| both feeling a lack of fulfillment. I work remotely, they work
| in an office.
|
| Sure the pandemic might have had some play here but I don't
| think it's because we're not in an office so much as these last
| few years have put things like "work" into perspective.
| jedberg wrote:
| Interesting, thank you for offering your POV, and changing
| mine.
| happyjack wrote:
| I liked your office / partner comment; I think there's a
| lot of truth in that.
|
| I think a lot of people are really worn out. We have
| endless scrolling, tons of wars in the world, people are
| indebted, and realistically it doesn't matter how much you
| work; it's all unaffordable and many are losing hope.
|
| I think the first world needs a large structural change.
| Government, capitalism, the whole nine yards. I think a lot
| of people are seeing the bullshit from the left and right
| and saying to themselves "surely I'm not the only one who
| thinks something is wrong."
| personjerry wrote:
| Im going to antarctica next week because I want to, it's the 7th
| out of 7 continents :)
|
| I don't really need another reason
|
| Slowly been wandering through latin america until I ended up here
|
| Doesn't mean I don't look for opportunities, in fact I still hack
| at projects, apply for stuff like YC
|
| But there's no rush even if they don't succeed, I have some
| savings
| smeej wrote:
| I recently realized everything else I'd ever worked on amounted
| to nothing, because I had never figured out how to be someone. (I
| was some _thing_ to someone growing up, but someone who still
| doesn 't know other people are also someones.)
|
| So I'm working on becoming someone. That's a combination of
| figuring out what things are just given in my life--that I am or
| I like or I want unprompted, naturally--and what things I choose,
| where I'll actually make an assessment from my values and apply
| my will and effort to making a change.
|
| Hopefully once I do this, I'll be able to be someone who works on
| something, instead of living the remainder of my life afraid of
| the responsibility, and continuing to be no one working on
| nothing.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Be someone to people you care about and are close to. Don't
| worry about trying to be a person that has a wikipedia page.
| smeej wrote:
| Oh yeah. Couldn't care less about that.
|
| I mean it several levels back from that, being a subject in
| my own story rather than merely an object in anyone else's,
| being someone who has an identity and makes decisions and
| engages other people as a person in my own right.
|
| I wasn't anybody even to _myself,_ which is why I couldn 't
| ever do anything. I could be used by people to do their
| things, but I wasn't an agent even in my own life.
| myself248 wrote:
| Are you 35-45-ish? Ask your doctor to check your hormone levels.
| This sounds SUPER familiar, and therapy ain't gonna patch the
| leak if the lugnuts aren't even holding the wheel on.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Worth noting that most doctors think very low testosterone
| levels are "fine" because they're "in range", which basically
| means you're not going to, like, die tomorrow from it. Research
| what healthy levels actually are where you feel good and
| healthy. It's significantly higher than the lowest acceptable
| test range.
| bsdpufferfish wrote:
| Strange that both options you mentioned are professional
| services.
| kevinsync wrote:
| If by "everyone" you mean "people I see on the internet", you're
| only seeing them because they desperately want / need you to see
| them, and your perception of their accomplishments is their
| currency.
|
| If you mean people you encounter in real life (and they aren't
| inner-circle), they likely are just saying something, ANYTHING,
| to either just make conversation or give themselves confirmation
| that they exist and that they're valid. We're human, after all.
|
| Just try to take it all with a grain of salt. There's no "correct
| path" in life. You get to define what success and happiness means
| for you, and you'll also never find a shortage of people who will
| tell you you're wrong lol -- but the most-free people in the
| world are those who unapologetically just "are".
|
| Be your authentic self, dude -- do nothing, do something, who
| gives a shit!
|
| Life can't pass you by if you spend it truly enjoying whatever it
| is that gets you off (even if that's "nothing")
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I have a lot of stuff I want to work on but completely lack the
| motivation/mental health/physical health to get into a consistent
| routine that lends itself to me getting these projects done
|
| I'm in my mid 30s and my preference would be to sit on a porch at
| a cabin in the woods and wittling a spoon next to a fire with a
| cup of tea. But I need to keep my skills sharp to stay employed
| so here I am, sitting in guilt over the lack of productivity in
| my life and living out a tremendously mediocre career making one
| fourth of what I'd make if I ever applied myself
| nlstitch wrote:
| I can relate to some aspects. After more than 10 years in IT
| (Also mid 30s), I sometimes I have the feeling I've seen it
| all. Another framework, another paradigm.. getting more of
| those "Oh wait that new thing you seemed to have invented is
| 99% similar to this old tech from years ago but its now made
| hipster".
|
| I find myself scanning through news headlines, trying to up my
| dopamine while doomscrolling YT, but ultimately.. sometimes
| after I do.. I feel both TMI and empty at the same time. The
| world seems to have gone crazy with a constant tug-of-war on
| every single subject known to man. It's extremely tireing, and
| it makes you want to escape ( to a cabin) indeed.
| seer wrote:
| To be honest I was in a similar place last few years,
| professional development was pushed to the back seat somehow,
| nothing was interesting to me. But then I started doing stuff for
| me personally - got a sail skipper license, a motorbike license -
| traveled the world. But after a year of having fun, I have to say
| I'm quite happy getting back to the industry.
|
| I think maybe it's because I'm getting into health tech, and that
| feels slightly more meaningful. Also FHIR turned out to satisfy
| my lust for exploring complex systems quite a lot. We'll see how
| it goes, but my advice to all burned out hackers is to get a
| sabbatical - like a year or so - code what you like, travel the
| world, tinker with hardware, join a ngo, stuff like that, time
| does heal all wounds.
| nprateem wrote:
| Basically nothing but yoga for the last 3 months. Seems like the
| only thing worth doing. Every book on proper yoga/enlightenment
| says it's the way to lasting fulfilment. So I'm prioritising
| myself at the moment. I even pulled out of a PS350k job to do
| this. Time to get the big thing on my bucket list ticked off.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not right now, but I was in that place during probably the final
| 2 years at my previous job. It's hard to say if that was
| primarily due to the job itself (I was there for a little over 10
| years, but by year 8 or so I was becoming disillusioned with the
| company and felt like I wasn't doing much new or novel) or the
| pandemic (for reasons that should hopefully be obvious!). And I
| did have a few spurts of creativity/wanting-to-learn during that
| time, but they only lasted 4-6 weeks at a time, at best.
|
| The job dissatisfaction translated to burnout. The pandemic stuff
| was I guess a different kind of burnout that I'd never
| experienced before, combined with mild depression over the
| isolation (fortunately my partner and I lived together; I can't
| imagine what people living alone had to go through) and inability
| do do most of the normal things I loved to do.
|
| I think it's useful to really examine how you feel (possibly with
| the help of a therapist, but you can do a lot of this
| mental/emotional work on your own if that's not your thing) to
| try to determine if these feelings are coming from a true belief
| that this career/hobby path simply is no longer for you, or if
| it's more that there are some current conditions in your life
| that have temporarily made you feel this way. I've experienced
| various levels of burnout throughout my career and life, and I
| know during those periods I was very negative about continuing
| with what I was doing longer term. But ultimately I still love
| software, and still love building things with software, and I'm
| glad I haven't abandoned it entirely.
|
| Taking a break -- consciously, without putting pressure on
| ourselves to do _something, anything_ -- is I think the bare
| minimum to getting past feelings of burnout, if that is what it
| is. Sometimes that alone works. But sometimes you may need a new
| job with fresh people and challenges as well.
|
| Regardless, I think it's important to understand and acknowledge
| that there is _nothing wrong with you_. This is an unfortunately
| normal thing that happens sometimes, when things aren 't going
| well for a sustained period of time. There _is_ a way out, either
| to find joy in what you 're doing again, or to decide that you
| want to find something else to do with your life and time.
| _ache_ wrote:
| g4zj, you are doing the most important thing of your life. Keep
| doing, I'm pretty sure you are doing great! Keep healthy.
|
| I was actually in a situation similar to you. Lost of interest in
| learning new stuff, every thing feeling the same as something
| that I already know, and obviously I was wrong, but it took
| sometime before I was hocked over a new subject I know little
| about. Lately, I'm studying Computer Related skills like
| soundness, proof assistant and automatic proof/solver. It will
| not have any impact on my IT career, but I never learned anything
| for my career.
|
| I keep working on myself too.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This is me. I've been working on my hardware design and
| engineering skills for 20 years, in the last I stopped trying to
| focus on progressing that and just focus on progressing me, my
| relationships (including with myself), and learning to market
| myself better and more genuinely. In learning about marketing
| I've learned a lot about human nature, and manipulation of such,
| and I've learned to recognize how marketing and soceity in
| general manipulates us in ways I was previously unaware of.
| Learning this alternate skillset really opened my eyes up to the
| broader world and has really broadened my horizons.
| namuol wrote:
| I've been adjusting to a new chronic illness and have found that
| I need to save my "health days" for work, exercise, and
| friends/family.
|
| I still sometimes find myself feeling good during time off
| without any plans, but I have learned that I can't really pick up
| projects that I know will take more than a couple days of focus
| to complete.
|
| If I find myself longing for more work or bigger projects, it
| usually means I've been in a long span of feeling well, which
| means I should just go outside or be with people anyway. Work
| usually fills that void very quickly, too...
| al_borland wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. For me, I think it's burnout. If I have a
| week+ off of work, I'll start to get the itch to start a project,
| but with work the way it is, I hardly even touch my home computer
| anymore.
|
| I have a lot of things I started during those weeks off that
| never really make it off the ground, because the interest falls
| to 0 the second work starts back up.
| EvkoGS wrote:
| I've been in the same state this summer. I burnt half of my
| savings bootstrapping my startup that failed, and gambled the
| rest 90% on crypto (longing crypto lol, it's 2x since then)... so
| I spent 2 months lying on the couch, rewatching my favorite
| movies and sleeping 12 months per day on Prozac. Ended up
| starting great relationships with my university classmate, it's
| much more meaningful now.
|
| Creating a product and seeing people loving it brings me the most
| joy, from my experience.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I'm not working on engineering/programming related stuff right
| now, but I did start the year with a resolution to write some
| more music - been playing guitar for nearly 20 years now, but
| most of my playing is just looping a few chords and noodling over
| it. Which is fun! But I would like to actually get some songs
| done. Not for any particular reason, just seems fun.
|
| I try to just sort of follow my interests in my free time instead
| of optimizing it or trying to find some "side hustle." Sometimes
| I'll be fiddling around with programming related stuff, sometimes
| its music, sometimes I get into a game for a while. Last summer
| it was (kind of out of left field for me) fishing - just bought a
| rod and some tackle and started going out.
|
| If there's any antidote for "the hustle" it's fishing - sure, you
| can spend 1000s on gear if you want, but at the end of the day,
| you're going to go sit out in nature for a while and some days
| you just won't get a single bite. The first few times that
| happened, it bugged me, until I realized that sitting by the
| water for a couple of hours is a great use of time regardless of
| whether I see a single fish.
|
| Another thing I like about fishing is it's _just_ active enough
| that it keeps my mind busy - instead of sitting there worrying
| about the budget or whatever, I ', just thinking "maybe I should
| try reeling a bit differently" or "maybe I should move down the
| bank a bit" or "maybe I'll tie on that new lure". It's like
| perfectly tuned to keep me pleasantly distracted while not being
| stressful or high-pressure in the least.
|
| My oldest son asked for a kayak this Christmas, and I found a
| pretty good deal on a pair of fishing-style kayaks from a local
| guy who was getting rid of his. I'm very much looking forward to
| trying some kayak fishing this summer, there's so many good
| looking spots that weren't really accessible from the shore.
|
| Speaking of kids, that's also a great way to pull myself away
| from the drive to constantly be doing something new and
| "productive". They keep me busy and while there's times I wish
| for a little more free time, overall they're a blast. My oldest
| and middle child are now old enough to game with me - we spent a
| lot of time over the Christmas break playing through the new
| Mario game, Mindustry, and even a bit of Fortnite (that's _their_
| thing, not mine, but it 's something to do).
| unoti wrote:
| If you're feeling like you're stagnating, here are some ideas to
| help get you jump started that I've done over the years.
|
| There are a lot of things you can learn that are inherently
| *fun*. Maybe try learning something that sounds fun and
| interesting to you! Some examples for myself include things like
| Ham Radio, how and why radio signals bounce off the atmosphere.
| Or cooking, figure out how to make the best salsa you've ever had
| by getting a molcajete and fire roasting some tomatillos and
| peppers. Or go learn Unreal Engine, and the endless wonders and
| rabbit holes therein. Or make your own toy programming language,
| or teach people about programming, or make it a goal to make the
| best apple pie, or chili, (or insert your favorite food here)
| that you've ever had. Learn how to make the best margaritas the
| world has ever seen. Or take up making homemade ice cream. Get
| into 3d modelling or animation or texturing. Take up dog
| training, and do agility or dog dancing. Take up camping, hiking,
| backpacking, cross country skiing, mountain biking. Learn about
| wilderness survival, or backcountry emergency medicine. Getting
| certifications can be a fun way to force yourself to learn things
| you wouldn't otherwise, and my ham radio license and emergency
| medicine first responder certifications were really fun to get.
| Learning to draw can be super fun, and easier than you might
| think (get the book "Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain").
| Fitness, take up some form of exercise that sounds fun to you; in
| my case I did powerlifting. Take the Fastai course and learn to
| make ML models from scratch. Learn to fly the A10 Warthog in
| DCS-- they say that if you can do that, you can do anything in
| simulation gaming. I'd go further than that and say that learning
| all the content in the FastAI course was easier than attaining a
| level of mastery with the A10.
|
| People skills: One of the most impactful things I've ever done is
| take the Masterclass in Negotiation. That and reading the book
| Nonviolent Communication changed how I think about and deal with
| people forever. The book on body language, What Every Body is
| Thinking is very fun and will help make you never be bored in a
| meeting again. The Like Switch is also pretty great. Together I
| consider these a pretty fabulous two semester course in dealing
| with people.
|
| Getting started is always the hardest part. Once you get some
| momentum on something it gets easier. A lot of these things can
| be combined, like you can listen to tutorials about how to fly
| the A10 while you're out walking.
| vladgur wrote:
| Without any sarcasm, Thank you for providing a handful of ideas
| to make learning great again.
|
| Specifically very little can be more fulfilling than an ability
| to save another human.
|
| I'll look into emergency medicine certificate
| serial_dev wrote:
| Kind of?
|
| I became a dad last summer and we also bought a house. My 9-5
| takes a lot out of me, there is always something to work on at
| our house, building furniture, chopping wood, groceries, and the
| baby needs constant attention. Luckily, I'm relatively happy at
| my job, not too many meetings, I'm free to work whenever I can,
| and I like the company, my team, the technology, and the service
| we provide our customers.
|
| However, I wish I could spend more time tinkering on software and
| tech stuff I care about.
|
| I'm not in the "nothing matters" group, I know that nobody will
| care about my open source packages when I die, that's not why I'm
| doing it. I do it because I find software development and
| technology interesting, and I genuinely enjoy coding in my
| (though now very limited) free time.
|
| On the other hand, I try not to consume too much content, as it
| would make me feel unproductive, but in reality, I just need to
| do different things at this point in my life. With my current
| schedule, I had to recognize and accept that I can't read 1 book
| a week, I ain't doing 10 leetcode questions a day, I won't be a
| FAANG YouTuber, I probably will never build a startup. I can,
| however, read twenty minutes before going to sleep, and spend 2-3
| hours a week learning something new and exciting, while enjoying
| my time with my family.
| jmkr wrote:
| There's a lot of negative vibes in programming these days. When I
| think of a programming community I think of fun, learning,
| engagement, projects, /programming/. These days it feels like
| it's just for money or power. These negative feelings make it all
| less fun.
|
| So I've been doing music instead. I'm not good at it at all, but
| learning it ticks pretty much all the boxes that programming
| does. It's scientific in some ways, creative in others, and
| overall kind of fun to just build things.
| castalian wrote:
| TBH modern music also bears a lot of negative vibes.
| makz wrote:
| Exactly my thoughts. I've shifted to music as well. I'm not
| interested in programming anymore, music has taken the place
| programming had and for a living I do tech support.
| rosencrantz wrote:
| I read a book from 1960 about Quantum Mechanics. There is more
| content from one paragraph there than from anything from your
| AppleTV, your Facebook, your WhatsApp, your Telegram or anything
| else from your stupid overpriced trash media. Ken Thompson is
| right when he calls Apple an atrocity. Linux and Framasoft are
| not terrorist organisations but I'm not sure about any other.
| autotune wrote:
| I've been working on two things:
|
| 1) method acting
|
| 2) being on the run for a $5 taco thief
|
| I am dead serious.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Working on nothing is when I get my best work done. I'm sure
| there's science behind it, but I very consistently return to the
| piano better than when I left off. And all my major code
| solutions come to me after a few days off.
| interbased wrote:
| I often feel stagnant and like I should be "doing something".
| I've come to realize that the best way so far, for me, to add
| more fulfilling content in my life, is to meditate on what I
| actually want out of my life. What makes me excited? What gives
| me a reason to wake up in the morning? I started journaling this
| year, and it has forced me to record my thoughts and think about
| the answers to these question. Once I understand the goals that I
| have and what kind of life/environment I want for myself, I come
| up with action steps to lead my life in that direction. Whether
| it be taking a class, attending a type of social gathering every
| week, committing myself to sharpening a new skill, I follow it
| like a quest guide in a video game.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Great question & post!
|
| I am definitely working on nothing (outside of my normal day job,
| of course).
|
| I used to work a normal day job and then in the evenings and
| weekends work furiously on side projects. One of those side
| projects became a business that while still around today, is
| probably getting shut down this year due to failure to generate
| revenue that exceeds its relatively minimal costs. In other
| words, the business failed.
|
| That business failing despite 3+ years of nights and weekends,
| and a significant chunk of my own money, is ONE reason why I
| struggle to find enthusiasm for new projects.
|
| Another reason is something similar to yours which is that I am
| focusing on myself more these days. Mind, body, and spirit. I am
| taking more time to focus on things I enjoy rather than embracing
| a constant feeling that I need to do MORE. I work my day job and
| I try to be an excellent contributor there, but I've accepted
| that it doesn't seem like my path in life is going to be a tech
| entrepreneur. I just don't have what it takes to build something
| truly novel and unique enough to drive revenue, nor do I have the
| marketing and personal skills required to take something mediocre
| and generate sales.
|
| That might sound like I'm giving up, and to a degree it is, but
| its more like I'm accepting reality. I don't think I was meant
| for that life and I'm learning to be ok with it. That means
| dropping all the side projects and constant hustle and just
| embracing life. Spending more time with family, working out more,
| and generally just chilling for a while (it's been a couple
| years).
|
| At times this manifests as a mid life crisis where I worry that
| my time is running out and that I haven't accomplished my goals.
| I'm learning how to recognize these emotions and let them pass
| without disturbing me too much. It's definitely a skill and one
| that I am by no means an expert at.
|
| On that note it's also worth pointing out that many of these
| feelings are common to people in their mid 30s. It's a time where
| I'm learning to re-evaluate what is important to me. I've
| accomplished a lot of my goals, and accepted some were foolhardy.
| Now I find that I should just learn to live well and appreciate
| what I have and who I am, rather than focusing on what I don't
| have, and who I am not.
| sandos wrote:
| I was doing constant things in my spare time until I had kids.
|
| I mean, I still do, just not a lot of it involves learning
| something technical. Controlling a hoverboard motor is maybe the
| biggest hobby project I have, other than that its been MTB:ing,
| working out, and lately I got the genealogy bug. And I realized
| that for some reason I love that kind of work. I remember being 4
| years old or so, and being fascinated with phone books! I mean
| really, really fascinated over all the names, and all the people
| they represented.
| bradley13 wrote:
| Sometime in my late 40s I got really tired of learning the "next
| great thing" only to realize that some young developers had
| reinvented the wheel. Again.
|
| Since then, I have learned new things, but not because they were
| "relevant" or "important", bit just because they were fun.
|
| Python is a crappy language, and always has been. It's just a
| happy accident that the ML folks glommed in to it. Most
| frameworks suck, seriously, they are awful, victims of their own
| success.
|
| Learn a clean, new language. Use it to solve AdventOfCode, just
| for fun. Get back to the _fun_ in programming :-)
| crimbles wrote:
| I'm past that stage. I built a business in the 2000's and hosed
| it completely because I had no idea what I was doing. Then I
| spent a lot of the 2010's trying to conceptualise and create
| something I believe in which was similarly futile on the
| probabilistic scale. I figured at the end of it that it's futile
| and embarked on a journey of self improvement which devolved in
| chaos and nihilism.
|
| Now I exist in a world of laughing maniacally at this shit show
| while raking in the cash from pretending I give a fuck about
| things like microservices and AngularJS, sleeping through hours
| of meetings, drinking a hell of a lot of really good wine and
| spending my spare time travelling all over the world and hooking
| up with floozies in bars and doing things which my parents would
| frown about.
|
| Do what makes you happy and fuck everything else. Seriously.
| Leave no regrets.
|
| Anyway I'm sure the HN community will frown upon this. I know I
| do :)
| crawancon wrote:
| I hit a bit of a wall with my main project and just never really
| moved on. still in limbo.
| t0mislav wrote:
| Yeah. Very similar story on my side.
|
| I slowed down a lot, both at my job and with side projects. And
| you know what, Earth is still spinning!
|
| Kids are here now, working on myself, trying to figure out
| things, be happier. Etc.
| cedws wrote:
| Yes. I quit my job in September, haven't really produced anything
| since despite having a lot of free time on my hands. I find the
| software space to be very uninspiring at the moment; everything
| that's going on is LLMs and crappy LLM wrapper startups. In all
| my years of HN surfing addiction, the last 6 months have been the
| most boring, but maybe that's just me.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| This AI contortion is just mega-boring with lots of money being
| thrown as everybody thinks they need to do something -
| anything.
| artemonster wrote:
| Oh, look, this blockchain technology will be a major
| transformer for so many industries, finance will NEVER be the
| same, there are 100 of startups revolutionizing everything on
| blockchain NOW. ... ah, nevermind, its VR and metaverse that
| are changing everything! join us in our hustles to build new
| meta experience that would change shopping and social
| interaction forever!! ... ah, nevermind, do you want a stupid
| chatbot in your application that doesnt require one?
|
| in 2 years there will be another "next big thing", just ignore
| that noise and do whatever you want to do.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I'm working on myself through my work, if that counts?
|
| I'm a staff-level SWE. I took the last year off of paid
| employment because I felt anxious and stressed even though
| everything was, objectively, fine. I had some poor health habits
| that I was staunchly ignoring and a project I was deeply vested
| in at my job was ripped out from under me. The meaning I ascribed
| to that project was giving my life purpose and, with that
| suddenly missing, and with my health in less than ideal shape, my
| outlook on the world became dismal.
|
| I took the year off because I wanted to try and rediscover that
| curiosity you mentioned having lost. I used to _LOVE_
| programming. I _loved_ feeling like a techno-wizard making pixels
| bend to my will. What happened? Why did I now feel anxious and
| uncomfortable staring at a screen while trying to think
| critically? I think I got a little too lost in the sauce of the
| startup world and it became clear that it would take some "me
| time" to rebalance.
|
| So, from some perspectives, I've been doing nothing. No
| significant other, no money-making job, not travelling the world
| or living life to the fullest... but having a project that feels
| meaningful to me, whose existence is moderately under my control,
| and that I have sufficient time and energy to engage with --
| that's giving me most of what I felt was missing. Well, that and
| dropping a bunch of widely understood bad habits and picking up
| some better ones.
|
| I want to see myself as a more consistent and reliable person. In
| my 20s, I had infinite energy. In my 30s, I'm finding that's only
| true if I keep myself away from alcohol and drugs, exercise
| constantly, connect with people, and, most importantly, be
| mindful of my physical and emotional state. If I start slipping
| into a rut, and don't notice it and nip it in the butt, suddenly
| it can take over my whole demeanor and disrupt a lot of good
| things I had going. A couple of days of bad sleep, coupled with a
| desire to keep pushing forward, can cause me to regress into
| drinking a bunch of caffeine. The caffeine will mess with my
| anxiety and mood and I'll be more tempted by unhealthy food and
| marijuana. These decisions start to take their toll, the effects
| compound, and suddenly I'm in a destructive cycle where I see
| myself _being_ less and less each day. I start to hide from
| myself. All these issues were present in my 20s, but they never
| really seemed to be a hindrance. I could just roll with the
| punches and remain proud of my accomplishments. Now, in my mid-
| thirties, I find myself frustrated (yet a little excited) to try
| and figure out how to keep myself running like a well-oiled
| machine. I want to remain proud of my consistent growth into my
| later years and it 's going to require getting better at working
| with myself.
|
| That said, I know me. I don't do well without a project that I
| can see myself in. It's what makes getting up in the morning
| worthwhile. I think it has to do with having an
| avoidant/dismissive emotional attachment style, or something to
| that effect. So, if someone were to ask me if I'm working on
| nothing then I guess I would always want to confidently say, "No.
| I am working on something, but at my own pace and with poorly-
| defined goals."
|
| So, in an effort to work on myself, I've given myself a project
| whose goal is to help me, and others, be more consistent and
| present. I must admit I've taken the most circuitous route
| possible to achieving this effect as I'm ostensibly creating a
| digital ant farm which functions as a mental health companion
| (https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants). The goal is to create a
| pet whose growth fluctuates with its owners' consistency. I want
| to see my ant colony thrive when I am consistent. When I am
| feeling good I want to see my ants take on new challenges, expand
| their territory, stress themselves out trying to maintain growth,
| build habituated pathways to foods in an attempt to scale. And
| then, when I invariably go through an emotional downturn, I want
| to see my ants yield some of their land back to the fog-of-war,
| hunker down and weather the storm of inconsistent check-ins and
| less good habits undermining my personal energy. And then, when
| I've sated my desire for self-destruction and re-commit to being
| dedicated to my goals, I want to see my ants rediscover forgotten
| pathways, regain their ground quickly, and act as a reminder that
| my emotional downturns didn't undo all my personal growth. The
| habits are still there, hidden in fog, waiting to be rediscovered
| with a little effort. I want to have this pseudo-living creature
| that serves as a visual proxy for how well I feel I'm doing.
|
| If anyone feels similarly and could see themselves finding
| purpose through this effort - feel free to reach out. I would be
| happy to talk to you and help you find a home in the project.
| There's Discord and email in my bio. It's my first game, the
| scope is way too large, the code I've written is bad, and I have
| no strategy for monetization. You'll very likely become a worse
| Rust developer by associating with me :) ... but I know I want to
| create something that helps motivate people to continue showing
| up for themselves and I'm confident there are others out there
| who either feel similarly, or feel lost and could use help
| finding themselves with the right project.
|
| I've written a lot! Sorry for the meandering thoughts and the
| weird upsell of a project in a thread about working on nothing...
| but it all seemed relevant to me while the juices were flowing.
| Cheers :)
| brainless wrote:
| This is such an interesting thread and I feel I should share my
| story since it's on the other end of the spectrum.
|
| I had a poor relationship with work about a decade ago. I
| struggled with very bad health, both physical and mental. I went
| through a slow journey of recovery that made me unplug from work
| a lot. I traveled quite a bit, cheap backpacking. I invested in
| friendships, good food, and very simple life.
|
| In the last couple years I have moved to a village in eastern
| Himalayas. I gained my anchor: nature. I started a co-living
| hostel here. I started working in software again but I have no
| expectations of a traditional career. My passion came back
| slowly. I have been able to invest in learning new languages,
| create passion projects, do daily physical chores of running a
| nomad space.
|
| I have even started learning drums. I have kept investing in
| people, learning how to build bonds. I also feed animals around
| me daily. Now I have come around to finally focus on software
| work full-time again. I'm building a product, but without big
| financial expectations. I realise this isn't standard, but:
| software product is about impact to me, not about becoming rich.
| And I'm deeply content with this.
|
| I have been inspired a lot by Pieter Levels, the founder of
| nomadlist and have even connected on how I wanted to build things
| like him. For me, I feel I'm here now since building is not about
| making tons of money to me. I haven't had as much fun writing
| code daily as in the last couple years. And I'm 40 years old.
| Hope it helps.
| brainless wrote:
| I'm sorry, as I'm typing on mobile, my reply isn't the most
| structured.
|
| I want to add an important thing: since I unplugged from the
| money expectations in the last few years, I have been able to
| simply do nothing whenever I wanted to. Like literally just sit
| and stare. Or maybe play DotA 2. Hours of games...
|
| I have a privilege, I don't have much financial liability so I
| can unplug easily. But this is what allowed me to heal.
| DANmode wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I am taking the appropriate time, now.
|
| For _everything_.
|
| Still building, but building correctly, and less often, trending-
| toward-never, at the expense of my health.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| For most of human history seasons have dictated what we can and
| can't do. I believe there's an emotional and physical component
| to seasons that we can either respect, or push back against.
|
| Which means there's going to be seasons that are quite
| productive. And seasons of grief and pain. And seasons to focus
| on self growth. Once I accepted this it got a bit easier to stop
| beating myself up about these things.
| charlie0 wrote:
| A big part of this could just be mild burn out. I find that if I
| take a long vacation, sooner or later I get bored and get right
| back to being curious and working on building or learning
| something. Having said that, I have a harder time finding meaning
| in side projects now that I'm older.
|
| There's a bit of nihilism in me now, kinda like the koa "If a
| tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it
| make a sound?" If I work on a side project and no one uses it,
| does it even matter? Learning for the sake of learning has become
| near meaningless to me.
| logiduck wrote:
| I'm not sure how this will resonate here, but this past year my
| interests in side projects sharply declined. For reference I am
| early 30s, married no kids. Up until now I used to work on 2-3
| large side projects a year, diving deep into them obsessed with
| sleepless nights working.
|
| Now with LLMs it just feels kind of like whats the point? Either
| my work will be consumed by an LLM to train and get tossed aside
| or i should just wait 5 years and whatever i will have worked on
| will probably just be a prompt away. Even if that doesn't become
| true, nobody really cares about traditional software building
| anyways. Everything is just LLMs. All interesting things about AI
| that I really liked building with ML or RL now just seem
| completely obsolete. Any mention of AI is just overwhelmed by "oh
| so your just connecting to ChatGPT and boom no problem, right?"
| with the majority of the population completely blind to the fact
| that there are many types of ML and other things besides an LLM.
|
| Its just hard to get motivated by anything. Unless you are
| working on a LLM right now nobody really cares what you are doing
| in software. Just seems futile.
|
| I think also my own personal expectations get in the way of doing
| side projects. Its hard to work hundreds of hours on something
| knowing the end monetary value is going to be $0. So I end up in
| this state of wanting to work on something but then getting
| cynical, realizing there's little to no money to be made and just
| demotivate myself.
|
| Anyways that is a long rant and this past year instead of
| building software i started to learn an instrument. it has been
| great. with software there is this notion of something being
| "optimal" but with music there is no optimal. Even the highest
| level artists are not satisfied with their work. The music is
| always above you.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| You have to die a few times before you can really live.
| Muromec wrote:
| I'm doing boring stuff. Forms with 5 to 20 fields that people put
| data into. Nothing AI, not a startup, regulated industry, kind of
| slow, low stress. I can focus on delivering on quality, I close
| laptop at 5pm and do other stuff. I feel that it's valuable to
| society to have this basic stuff not in a half-broken state, I
| enjoy the people around -- no tech bros with inflated egos or
| anything.
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