Its interesting to me that you bring up 9/11 since that was my first thought as well. I remember that time as a surreal haze of watching the news with a near constant "is this real and happening?" thoughts running through my head. I recall the feeling of waking up and how things felt normal again until the realization of the current state of the world washed over me. It took a long time until things felt "normal" again which is crazy considering the wars that were happening and the waste of life that the events led to.
I haven't really had that experience until the last few months. Its just as surreal now as it was then.
What? Less than half a million deaths so far. Pretty serious, but definitely not the worst human catastrophe since WW2.
There are a few dozen wars, civil wars, and genocides over the last 70 years that resulted in more than half a million deaths. Plus of course much non-death related suffering. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran-Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Congo.
Plus some real stand-outs, like the Korean War (2M - 3M?), the Vietnam War (1M - 4M?), the Khmer Rouge mass killings (1.5M - 2.5M?), Nigerian Civil War (1M - 3M?), the Bangladesh genocide of '71 (500k - 3M?),
In the natural world, cyclone Bhola (and subsequent flooding) is blamed for over half a million deaths.
As it stands, COVID-19 isn't even in the top 20 yet (er, bottom 20?), though unfortunately it is on track to perhaps hit top-10.
For reference, WW2 is still two orders of magnitude worse than any of the above. Yikes.
There's also something that seems mentally different about a pandemic rather than a war. Diseases are horrific and it's one of the great tragedies that we weren't able to contain this one. But something about deaths from a natural cause like a virus just feels different from a death caused by the human hatred or greed of a war.
I lived in lower Manhattan on Sept 11. The following months were full of anxiety as no one knew if there would be more attacks (hijackings, bombings, perhaps a chemical attack on the subway like what had happened in Tokyo some years earlier). The city was full of missing person posters, who you knew were people who would never be seen again.
After 9/11, a lot of people avoided the subways or going to terrorist targets like Times Square, but life outside of the immediate area around the WTC continued, and even the World Series was played in the Bronx shortly after. 9/11 had a terrible impact, but things returned to almost normal much more quickly than they have with covid-19.
9/11 was definitely more localized to New York and maybe America. But the pandemic has been the first major crisis at a global scale for this generation.
I'm holding up quite well. I'm still working from home, but my kids are going to school again, which helps a lot. Our holiday to Sweden was cancelled, so we're renting a campervan and touring around our own country (Netherland) instead. We're well aware we've got it relatively easy compared to many other people.
But if these times are so hard on you, why don't you share a bit more about your situation?
(I'm assuming this is still about the Corona crisis. Or is it about the unrest in the US instead?)
Living in Nothern Europe, and working in IT, life is good. Things are opening up, only large gatherings like festivals are still cancelled. None of that non-sense of being required to where a mask just to go shopping.
Summers is here, vacation time is just around the corner.
Some of us had is pretty easy, depending on your view. I worked from home for around four weeks. My wife has been going to work through the whole corona thing, closing pharmacies was never an option really. My daughter have been in daycare almost every day, allowing me to work. So everything has been pretty normal, just with less traffic.
The US thing scares me way more. Not in a surprised way, the worlds superpower has been in freefall for some time now, I hope it does what it has been good at throughout its history and reinvents itself into something better. If not, we're all in for a world of hurt.
The US scares me both in Corona terms (cases seem to be moving up whereas in most of the world they've been going down a lot), and in terms of what looks to me like extreme entitlement of the police forces, literally demanding the right to kill people, rejecting any attempt at accountability, and attacking peaceful protesters against police violence.
Several US police forces make it look like the only way forward is to completely abandon existing police forces and start over. I really hope the protesters win this, otherwise it seems to me you're basically accepting a police state.
The Police thing is just a symptom of deeper ills. But I think if these ills can be remedied, the rest of the patient has a greater chance of surviving.
As I will finish to move to The Netherlands in July (began moving in February but get stopped with the closing of the borders on the Belgium side), we had to cancel your trip to Nicaragua and we plan to tour a part of the country by bike instead during my partner holidays (I will probably still be jobless during that time).
i can't deal with the fact that i'm okay while so many elsewhere aren't. i've donated a considerable amount of money and still i feel like it's not enough and that i should change course. i've chosen the coming election (in the us) as a deadline for making this decision.
Thanks for asking and hope you are doing well! I unfortunately got dumped by a girl I was dating, lost my job and a (non-nuclear) family member while living in Manhattan, NYC. I thought I was holding up okay but once my gym shut down and social events shut down (before later transitioning to videoconference) my mental state and diet declined fast. The lack of human contact was mitigated to an extent by virtual social events but i feel exhausted by them after a short while. All but a couple people I know my age (mid 20s) are still in the city. Since my landlord offered no help and my lease is up, I’ll be contributing to my building’s overwhelming vacancies next week when I move back in with my folks out West.
Loneliness can be a serious problem. You really really do need some social contact. To keep things safe, I think the best approach is to have a small group of people who meet with each other but nobody outside the group. It won't hurt to also keep some distance to each other.
Any suggestions for doing so would be helpful to me (and hopefully the OP). If you have any specific ideas, please reply. When you don't have a small group of people to begin with, this is really difficult advice to follow
Ideally, get in touch with a few friends or neighbours. If you really don't know anyone in the vicinity, I'd suggest finding some like-minded people online and agree to meet in person. Or get to know your neighbours.
Sounds like a lot stuff to deal with at the same time. This would be hard for anyone. Hopefully the move back out West feels like a bit of a fresh start and you get back on your feet quickly! :)
You have my sympathy re: the breakup. Why is it "Since my landlord offered no help and my lease is up" instead of " my rent is due, but I can't afford it". You make it sound like the landlord is at fault.
In the UK we have a rent/mortgage holiday to protect us from these unprecedented times. I'd probably blame everything other than myself if I went from being a professional living in Manhattan to unemployed and unable to pay rent. Sometimes the carpet can just be pulled out from under us and it sucks.
Financial investments are inherently risky. It amazes me how people are such huge proponents of upside gains, but find unpalatable the idea of downside risk.
The housing market is terrible at the moment - if you were to kick the tenant out you'd probably still be waiting until this is over before you're guaranteed to get a new tenant anyway. Plus the usual estate agency overheads. I'm slightly too financially conservative/liberal to say landlords are in the wrong to kick tenants out during this crisis, but only slightly. Which is saying something! I'm glad that in the UK we have some government support to help both tenants and landlords.
My lease will end without the option for renewing because the apartment was rented out from under me sight-unseen. I'm fully paid up on rent. I was never given notice or the ability to renew said lease. This isn't just "It's the landlord's fault" in my opinion. I've seen plenty about evictions - but leases expiring are something I see under represented.
I'm doing well. Ironically I think I'm doing better now than I would have been if the pandemic didn't happen; but still not in a particularly good position. Optimistic, though!
If you're struggling, it's probably because the systems that you put in place at the start of the pandemic have broken down. (Kinda like how we eventually forget/give up on New Years Resolutions...)
I'd recommend these[1] two[2] videos from CGP Grey to help. The first talks about the kind of things that you might be doing that are making you miserable, and the second about specific ways in which we can cope with the pandemic (and specifically a lockdown, if you are still in one).
Brief notes:
Avoid doing any of these things:
* Staying still, avoiding exercise
* Having an irregular sleep schedule
* Maximizing screen time; going to sleep looking at your phone, and using it as soon as you wake up
* Encouraging negative emotions, eg: by looking at the news
* Setting unmeasurable or unachievable goals. Waiting for motivation to strike.
* Obsessing over trying to be happy.
* Following your self-destructive impulses
Partition your house/space into the following spaces, and try to obey these rules about the spaces:
* A space for exercise. If you don't have equipment, you can do body weight exercises. If you have access to safe outdoor spaces, make sure to use that too. Make sure you set a minimum amount of time, and stick to it.
* A space for sleep. Do not use your phone here. Do not eat here. Do not linger here. It's just for sleep. If you're failing to sleep, leave and try again later. Setting an alarm to wake up is important to maintaining a consistent sleep schedule. It doesn't matter when you wake up - so long as the time is consistent.
* A recreation zone. Go here to do activities that you actually enjoy. Only do these activities if you intend to give them your full attention. Keep an eye on the quality of the recreation, and make sure you set a maximum time limit.
* A creation zone. Somewhere to work, study, or develop skills. Crafts, coding, cooking. Make sure this space is dedicated; so do not consume entertainment here, do not eat here.
If you have room for all those spaces in your house, you’re extremely luck. I work, sleep, and exercise in the same room. I’m not unusual in that respect.
If you have only one desk that you use for work and recreation, here is a little hack: switch chairs. I have a work chair and a "lazy" chair. Same desk, different feeling. Works for me.
Work: Incredibly smooth, even if I'm confined to a 13 inch laptop as opposed to 2x 26 inch screens (OK, I occasionally hook up my TV for extra help). Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks.
Physical health: Several years ago I decided to dedicate a portion of my spare time to sports and I got into my best shape ever by end of last year(body fat ~10%, down from 20+). Which initially got me worried given that gyms were closed and whatnot. So I ended up ordering some weights for exercising at home and I started doing it every day just to make sure I stay in that shape. End result is I've gained a lot of muscle without changing my weight. Body fat probably in the lower to mid 7%.
Mental health: Again - a lot of improvements: I'm not fond of real life interactions and I operate significantly better on my own. I do get mildly pissed off when my phone rings, more so than I used to. On the downside, I constantly run out of books which is becoming incredibly annoying.
Finances: Not dealing with eating out for lunch and dinner anymore. Though my bills have gone up now that I'm home all day long as opposed to just coming in the evening, crashing on the bed and leaving first thing when I open my eyes. I.E. my water bill has gone up 5 times, electricity about 3 times.
Summer: I had some plans, one fell through completely (still unsure if that's good or bad) and the other is almost at the same stage but it might be for the better(it's complicated).
So no kids, lol. The hardest part of this is how I think it works this way for everyone else on my team at work. They are (normal work + 100%). I'm (normal work - 80%). Got my first negative performance review ever a couple weeks ago. It's rough.
Yes, no kids. And personally I'm __way__ above my 100%. 3 weeks in we did our largest release by a considerable margin(double digit larger than the second largest). Which is mind boggling still, considering the project itself is composed of +6.2 million lines of code and we make releases once a month.
Feeling this. We have a 1.5 yo, not potty trained, the infinite loop of food in/out is a suck on productivity. He also doesn't understand why we can't play with him. Before Covid, we were pretty firmly against screens for him. Now he's a straight up couch potato, first thing in the morning he looks for the remote instead of wanting breakfast :( Yesterday, with much covid related hesitation, we put him back in day care. His original day care still is closed so we had to find a new one, luckily only 2 minutes from home.
The flip side is, I feel blessed to have spent a ton of quality time with him and realized how little time we spent with him in a pre-covid hustle and bustle world. I've been wanting to downsize our lifestyle for a while and now my wife is finally seeing why and possibly on board. I'd like to sell our real assets and move to the beach somewhere and basically retire early / maybe do low volume consulting. I don't know if I can totally sell her on leaving the US, but getting closer. I really love this place, but it's freaking toxic. I do a good job of ignoring new media, but lately it's been impossible. I know the upcoming election is going to be a last straw that makes me say F this place, but I have to convince the fam too.
I don't work remote very well. For above mentioned reasons, home = family/life, office = work, and I have partitioned my life this way for ever and it's very hard to make the change to WFH. Luckily, I'm a little older have saved enough and could likely retire now. But not by our normal QOL standards so best part of this thing is getting my wife to stop shopping and we aren't eating $100 meals on weekends. Hanging out at the park, swimming pool, etc. has been fun to have lowkey entertainment.
I am back at the office and damn I miss the quiet so much. It is so loud and distracting at the open office. This is the reason I truly want to work remotely. I honestly can do my work 2-3 times faster, and of better quality.
I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me.
I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of good results prior to this, has helped build a lot of goodwill I can burn through.
For the first time the current social climate has affected me severely too. My parents city is among the worst affected by Covid, and both my 80 yr old grandparents stay there. My anti-tribal-free-speech-absolutist and pro-equality-altruistic self have put me in a moral crisis as the BLM movement has picked up. Then today morning my favorite blog closed because of an attack by cancel-police. My country is on the cusp of actual war. I also spilled my coffee twice in the last 2 days and that makes me irrationally frustrated.
On the bright side, I have no suicidal thoughts. None of my relationships have been destroyed (yet). I still have my job and I know the cause of my current state is temporary. I've started therapy, which should start helping any moment now. Covid has affected people in worse ways, so I'm quietly trudging along.
Worst 3 month period of my life outside the one time I was depressed + alone . Now I am just depressed.
> I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane.
I think this will resonate with a significant subset of the HN crowd. I really thrive on externally-enforced structure (didn't take long to discover I made a terrible entrepreneur, but found a good niche as a startup employee). I've set my life up around having different events and places I need to be: classes at my gym, took up some in-person Spanish lessons, etc. When all those avenues shut down, I found it incredibly difficult to motivate myself to do anything. My physical health has deteriorated as I get much less exercise now, and that has sort of spiraled with my mental well-being. It's been rough.
> I really thrive on externally-enforced structure (didn't take long to discover I made a terrible entrepreneur, but found a good niche as a startup employee).
How did you find that out? Really interested whether I fall in the same group. I feel like I agree with you; I haven't been exercising as much because I can't go to a studio/gym to exercise, and the deterioration of both physical health and mental well-being is very apparent now.
When I tried my go at doing my own startup with a colleague, I found it incredibly stressful. But a lot of that stress was due to me finding it difficult to prioritize the right things to do, difficulty motivating myself to do the parts I didn't enjoy, and just overall procrastination.
To be honest, I know everyone wants to have a "growth mindset", i.e. the belief that if you're not good at something that you can diligently "face your fears" and overcome it, but at least for me I've come to the conclusion that I'm just constitutionally not cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't know if it's my genes or my early upbringing or what, but I've tried all the motivation/self-direction/anti-procrastination tricks in the book, and it just doesn't work for me. There was definitely a sense of loss when I came to that conclusion, but I've found that I'm able to thrive when I have an environment with more structure.
Interesting. Can you share more about your startup adventures? How long do you usually stay and what kinds of teams do you prefer? I had my own stint working at a startup, but having too little skill/experience + the startup chaos made it way too stressful, but looking back it was pretty interesting.
I do agree on your last point. Part willpower, part understanding what works best for each of us. Accepting that we might not be everything that we want to be is hard, but growth is discovering the paths that we can otherwise take.
Out of curiosity did you switch to decaf or just no coffee at all? I could never tell if it was coffee specifically or just caffeine in general which heightened my anxiety.
It never ceases to amaze me how different people are. For me, all effects have been the exact opposite. Less going out, so more cooking and healthier eating. Less tired from open office noise, so more energy for sports. More free time without commute, so I picked up some long forgotten hobbies again.
This means my advice might not apply to you, but if I may still recommend one thing: ignore most of the news for a while. The sensationalism can get infectious. There won't be anything deserving of the name war in your country (the US, I assume).
I actually feel a lil guilty about how well things are going for me. Its not really been any change for me, same schedule - same job. I think the key is as you said, mostly avoiding the news. Every day or two, I skim over the headlines on CNN but mostly I avoid it. I do check the stock market in the mornings - I swear the DJIA is just a yo-yo. But it's just out of curiosity as I still have 15+ years before I can retire...So not stressing about it even on bad days.
I think previously, I was just way too wrapped up in the news cycles.
HN is about the extent of my social media...
I always found the signal-to-noise ratio of facebook, twitter, etc. to be too low to make them worthwhile.
On the other hand, I can spend hours sucked into random tech books, blogs, etc. So I guess time wise it balances out.
Agree 100%. I've felt a little guilty too. I started working from home full time about 4 months before covid landed in US. I'd built a nice above garage office. Kids homeschooled already. Planted a garden that's doing well, had more time for home projects, etc. I have friends not doing so well. I have donated to individuals and organizations since I feel I have an obligation to help people in need.
News is the biggest drag on my mental well being. It is important to be informed, but I genuinely feel that media is so driven by ad revenue and has optimized itself into being as negative and outrageous and _loud_ as possible, to the detriment of sane balanced information and opinion. I need to know the sides of current issues, but not loudly 24x7 with as much vitriol on all sides. I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.
HackerNews is really one of the few sites I can expect to find calm reasoned discussion and information.
>I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.
I feel like the traditional office/working culture is built around extroverts and not compatible for introverts, since extroverts value face to face conversations and feel stimulated and prefer the open office and other noises.
This change made introverts more comfortable, because all the other distractions are gone. I feel the same way like you do, I have more time and I was able to improve my daily life.
Like anything, the introvert/extrovert dichotomy is actually more like a scale. Few people are entirely on one end or the other.
I can generally prefer personal time and a quiet place to mull my thoughts, but at the same time miss the spontaneous discussion and emotional attachment that an office provides.
I don't think theres that much of a difference. Most of the people who're doing well are staying at home with a partner or family and have a healthy relationship.
I can't imagine anyone in my situation of being cut off from almost all human contact (young+single+alone) for 4 months being "better than ever".
I too was having a pretty decent time, setting up an apartment I’d moved into right before the pandemic hit my city.
Then recently I traveled and stayed with my GF for three weeks, and now she is here for two weeks, and I’m more tired than ever.
After this my parents will want me to visit, but I will be taking some time to myself in between and have asked my girlfriend to go home a week early.
I want to get back into my nice routine of waking up and making coffee and breakfast and working out, and reading before bed, and working on personal projects after work.
I fear, as much as I like her that she may be far less independent than I am. And it’s a bit troubling. But for now I am just looking forward to being on my own again for a while.
I do miss the office though, I had a nice ten minute walking commute although am happy to be less distracted at work.
It’s all ups and downs really.
I hope GP and everyone else adversely affected by this comes out strong on the other side and is able to receive the help they need or overcome the challenges they face. We’ve all got them, but it’s just different magnitudes on different dimensions of an incredibly complex space.
And spilling my coffee twice would give me a conniption! It’s locally roasted organic gosh darn it!
India is actually being quite slow in their response. The general feeling seems to be that India doesn't want escalation, but also do not want to be seen as being bullied by China.
The situation right now is being described as 'tense but calm'.
China changed all of the nation's maps to now include an added claim on a new piece of land in Ladakh. China also works very closely with their new proxy Govt (Oli's Nepal). So, at the same time Nepal is also changing their maps and laying claim on new land that they did not previously stake claim to.
So now technically India is occupying Chinese property, and they China been clear in wanting to use force to claim it.
We are still in a semi-lockdown and daily cases are still increasing. It's definitely a bad time to go for a war and the government knows that. More efforts are being put into decreasing the nation's reliance on Chinese imports. Previous tresspasses by the PLA were addressed through diplomacy and the results were good. Same approach is being tried now too.
That's fair. For decades we did not have enough will to retaliate against our adversaries. The result was there were terror attacks in almost every major Indian city. It's only in the last five years that the leadership has shown some resolve to irradiate terrorism. The perception of India being soft will take some time to wear off.
The last thing China needs right now is another hit to its GDP, which would be quite substantial if it was subjected to similar international sanctions as Russia was for its actions in Ukraine.
Same here. I do daily exercise now since I don't have to waste 3 hours every day commuting. I'm spending more quality time with family. It just feels that I have more time to do more things. I'm also more productive at doing my work for whatever reason.
But, I see anxiety and depression around me and I'm talking about people that didn't had a bad economic or job impact. It's just uncertainty and insecurity that breaks people. I try to support them.
Try to be creative with your time. Take it easier and have fun with your family. Don't stick to social media because it fills your day with negative content and disappointment. And don't waste your time with Youtube and Netflix because deep down you will feel pointless if you do that. And speak up and share your pain with others.
Also remember this is not the end of world.
It only has been a few months and the amount of uncertainty, pain, and insecurity that you feel right now is million times less than what people have to deal for many years in some countries with civil war, sanctions, dictatorships. And they are holding up. So don't suddenly feel that you living in the worst time ever. We have everything needed to overcome this.
It's obviously different for different people and it's easy to give advice. I also know people that lost someone which makes it much harder. Don't stay alone and find something that motivates you.
Although it’s easy to give advice, in this case yours is very valuable. I’m trying to follow the work out every day thing too, bringing in my family for it too.
I think most people in tech are more introverted, but some of us are huge extroverts, and this has been incredibly trying. Clamping down on news coverage has helped a lot in my case, because it feels like I'm in some Black Mirror mass insanity episode!
This has been the number 1 thing that I've started doing recently that has improved my mental health. I've been incredibly depressed and anxious this year, and realized how much of that has been tied to the news cycle. I've mostly ignored the news for about a week now, and I'm feeling much better. I still have an underlying current of anxiety that I need to deal with, but overall I'm feeling better.
Rather than reading the news constantly, I ended up subscribing to the print edition of The Economist, so I'll read that once a week rather than constantly flipping over to Google News every hour.
Is there any option to go to co-working spaces or the like? Some people I know have started doing that and while it's different than pre-covid (strict limits on the number of 'attendees') it's been really nice to see people together again and for them to find some relief from mostly staying at home. it can work wonders!
Social/political climates and the "cancel culture" always has something to target. If you look, at any given time, this is something that has been going on since we could communicate in a public sphere. There has always been and always will be a tension in the public conversation. I wouldn't say "cusp of actual war" though. There are many people however who are hoping and actively counting on you thinking that though.
I would argue, however, that all of this has been severely amplified due to social media and the current crisis of the news industries. We have to at least consider who is literally banking on your getting your attention - hijacking the fight-or-flight part of your brain is part of that equation.
The situation is unprecedented, yes, but war is not going to happen. Physical war, unless you are in crisis states which are fighting among themselves, is very rare. War among nuclear powered nations will also be difficult to ignite.
Despite the bravado of 'an eye for an eye' every politician cares about their future. Modi won't start a war with China and China won't with Modi.
China is already on a backfoot about the Corona situation and Modi is on a backfoot about a LOT of things but the media is bailing him out. I don't think war will be a right thing for both the nations.
60yrs ago, Nehru was still the Prime Minister. That war was done because of Nehru's disasterous forward policy where he single handedly asled Indian Army to capture Chinese posts because of bad advice from his generals/advisors.
China then waites until US & Russia were busy in Cuban Missile Crisis.
JFK was still alive 60yrs ago!!
JFK had such close a relations with India that Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had askes his brother "when will a Kennedy become a President once again".
JFK wanted to help India but he was busy in Cuban Missile Crisis. But after that, UK and US started dropping military supplies. And China ended the war single handedly and went back to the status quo.
Things that have changed:
1. We are a highly interconnected economy
2. China is at a backfoot
3. Modi is at a backfoot. (Note that Nehru was facing no such pressures 60yrs ago about corona, self inflicted short sightedness on Economy etc)
4. Nehru and the Congress at that time was not based on total and pointless bravado. The current regime in India is just busy in bravado. China has encroached since May probably and PM Modi spoke a few weeks ago and then, too, he denied any incursion and that lead to China hailing him
5. Neither India nor China will afford a war, leaders will gain from a skirmish. Chinese subservient media will hail it as a Chinese victory, same as Indian media which is super subservient will hail PM as someone who defeated China.
They won't be able to peddle lies if there is a war, for the war will be entirely up in Ladakh. And Russia and US will intervene because both Trump & Putin will need that tag at home of avoiding a war.
They are? That's geopolitical insanity for China. Talk about playing into the interests of your adversary. The USA is ready to eat pop-corn while our adversary (China) kills themselves over an obscure border region with India.
I would love to agree with you, except the present situation has been the one "media event" of my lifetime where having early warning through social media was materially useful: I stockpiled food before the two weeks or so of supply disruption and empty shelves at the start of the crisis.
I've found twitter to be both an extremely valuable lockdown coping mechanism with friends and replacement events, and an anxiety amplifier.
Materially I'm fine. I'm still getting paid and spending very little. All my travel plans for the year are cancelled and in unknown limbo and I don't know when I can dare to make plans again.
I hear you. I echo your experience to the letter. It got to me so I had 6 weeks of sick leave. On antidepressants for the second time in my life. Never felt so alone. Working from the office these days because I can't imagine sitting home alone again. Went on a weird tinder bender and knocked out 20 dataes over 7 weeks only to be social...
Are you me? Seriously hit all the nails on the head for me. Except my country is not yet currently at war. And I used to go out social dancing and that is basically dead until next year most likely.
I ruined two coffees the other day. Put too much peppermint oil in and screwed it up.
And then I let my coffee friend screw with my grinder/machine settings and it got hosed. ugh.
I really recommend getting a workout buddy and making yourselves accountable. It's helping so far.
Hey, quick question about your coffee – why do you add peppermint oil? And how much do you add? I'm always looking to improve my coffee routine or try new things out. Currently I'm on an iced cold-brew trend because the place I'm in has been in a 40+°C heatwave for the last 5ish days.
I don't have it down yet. I just switched to vanilla to try out. Roomate used to work at BlueBottle. Told me that you really want to stay away from extracts, theyd infuse their own simple syrups with vanilla beans.
I think peppermint oil should work. Would be better if I used peppermint simple syrup I think tho. just more surface area.
Iced coffee might not matter if you're doing a lot of milk tho!
Have you tried making your own overnight cold brews yet?
Yeah, I've been making my own! I just have it black, though – no milk or sugar. It's just something nice to sip on in the morning without having to wait for it to cool. I might try adding vanilla or something to it to switch things up a bit.
I feel you. Try not to put too much pressure on yourself. I've been having a lot of ups and downs myself. Not having anyone to talk to I've been almost by myself for four months with occassional walks with a friend. But the sum total of my human face to face contact is about 4-5 hours a month. This is just not enough for most humans.
Plus there is the added stress that if you slip too much you could end up back into a bad job market. The only thing one can do is to find other healthy diversions and keep diet / sleep / exercise on track.
I hope my managers understand and won't judge my performance at this time.
Hey screye, mid-March to mid-June was shit for me, too. Nearly 2 months of not being able to exercise outdoors. Stress eating & drinking. I had multiple meltdowns, some of which bled into my work. I somehow managed to not get fired. In my own way, I'm right there with you. If you need someone to listen w/o judgement, and to tell you "yeah, that does indeed suck", feel free to reach out. I had some people to lean on and it really helped me.
Thanks for the offer mate. I really appreciate the general outpour of support within this community.
I am happy to say I have a really supportive group around me, so I do get to vent every once in a while. This week is a bit rough, but I should be able to find time to reach out on the weekend.
Being able to confide in a stranger like this is strangely comforting. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Despite never having met you, one thing about Covid that is absolutely true, is that 'we are in this together'. There is a sense of camaraderie having faced a common challenge.
Hey man, I identified with a lot of your post, but I've found some ways to cope with it and I'm actually doing pretty well these days. Feel free to PM me and we can talk.
Possibly a cliche response here, but take heart: the fact that you're a recognized high performer, with a family and is able to afford therapy puts you well ahead of the vast majority of humanity. Hope you'll bounce back soon.
I think that free-speech is a central tenet of modern society and the source of future progress. I am strongly anti-tribal. I do not associate with groups, isms or movements. I like to purely talk issues and like to evaluate ideas for their individual merit and not based on who says them.
> pro-equality = altruistic
Pretty self explanatory. Generally socialist leanings borne from wanting to provide equality of opportunity and measurably fair treatment to all.
_______
I support most of BLM's policy goals. I believe there needs to be more awareness about racism. I think holding racists and people in power accountable is important. Police reform, removing qualified immunity, mandated cameras and reforming the criminal justice system.
However, I refuse to align myself to the movement itself. Because an agenda-less and leaderless movement can go in any direction any time. A great example is how the Gamer-gate movement took a strong turn away from 'ethical journalism in gaming' to 'racist hatred of women' within the span of six months. Religion is an excellent example of how tribes demand loyalty.
Many of the top thinkers within the BLM movement see violent protests as an inevitable part and many allies endorse violent revolution. I do not yet know if I agree on those matters. I do not want to sign up for buffet of opinions where I have to mandatorily eat every dish. I prefer to have my opinion a-la-carte.
Each of these issues are important but they have a ton of nuance. To find a good solution, we need free speech. We need people with contrary opinions to be able to challenge the protestors and through the friction there will emerge solution.
But, all groups (including ones of my peers) are increasingly moving towards hiveminds of agreement where the In-Group-Contrarian must be destroyed.
There is a reason it has me so rattled. I have yet to truly sort out my opinions on the whole matter at large.
I identify with a lot of what you say. As someone who is (as you say) "pro-equality-altruistic" but not "anti-tribal-free-speech-absolutist", one thing I want to say is that I don't hate you. I don't even dislike you. I feel like the media and social media are making it feel like we all hate each other for tiny differences in our worldviews. I've come to believe that those spaces are dominated by the most entrenched, vocal, spiteful people. If you care about equality and altruism in your heart, I'm with you. And I bet a lot more people are with you than you think.
A lot of people want similar outcomes but disagree on how to get there. When you recognize that you and the other person want the same outcome but disagree on HOW to get there it's more annoying than it is anger inducing. I'm not "anti-tribal-free-speech-absolutist", but I get why people want it. By seeing their point of view I can at least say, I see your heart and I get that this is because you want more goodness in the world. Just a long winded way of saying. I agree with this too much online is pushing conflict or blind agreement, and not as much shades of agreement or small disagreements.
Anger gives us a spike of dopamine. The people involved in this industry are selling you that dopamine hit. They aren't required to believe anything they say. A large percentage of the people in media were educated at the finest universities on the planet. I think it's silly to believe they're so foolish they can't see that what they are spewing right now is exactly counter to what they were spewing 5 seconds ago.
I feel you. This has been such a shitty time just in general around the world, and I've been having a hard time personally as well. During the past month I've been pretty unproductive at work (partially out of my control), we had to put down our dog of 15 years, my grandpa had a stroke, and one my uncles has an extremely aggressive form of cancer. Luckily I'm still in good health, and I don't know anyone with covid-19.
My favorite blog was also shut down this morning by the cancel police (same blog as you). Reach out if you need someone to chat to!
Strangely the coffee thing struck a chord with me. When I was having a bad time some weeks ago (worries around grandparents and covid) I got really frustrated because on top of that I spilled water on my keyboard.
Like, in the big picture, that's not important at all. But that send me over the edge into complete frustration. Was pretty unproductive afterwards.
I'm sure everything will turn out fine for you though, hang in there!
> On the bright side, I have no suicidal thoughts. None of my relationships have been destroyed (yet). I still have my job and I know the cause of my current state is temporary. I've started therapy, which should start helping any moment now. Covid has affected people in worse ways, so I'm quietly trudging along.
All the best! Thanks for sharing and keep on keeping on. We’re all there with you.
An anxious wreck. Working from home, staying isolated because I'm taking care of someone with no immune system. The isolation is killing me. In the last few weeks I've stopped being able to fall asleep half the nights.
It's been quite tough but also a blessing in disguise. I've managed to stop drinking (I was a regular "party goer" on the Weekends - I blame English culture) and feel a lot healthier for it. I wouldn't have managed cutting it out as my social circles built around the pub/clubs so being forced to stay home really helped curb that habit. I just need to work on the diet and exercise now but feeling 10x better than I was four months ago.
Years ago, I visited the zoo in Central Park in NYC and watched a polar bear, as it swam around and around in a pool. It swam in a triangle, touching the three same points on the wall of the enclosure as it made each circuit.
Last month I walked around Greenwich Park in London 125 times, each time following exactly the same route. I thought about that polar bear a lot as I walked.
When I see things like this I always wonder if any of my ancestors were involved. Did any of my ancestors go to see these zoos? What would they think of me if they knew of my disapproval? Would they think there is something wrong with me?
Our dark history gives me hope. I don't mean to say I enjoy seeing darkness in our history. Instead I see it as a clear point on a compass pointing away from where I want society to head. Even if I don't agree with how everyone else wants to tack forward as long as we're heading West, I don't care if it's NW or SW.
The Infantorium was also a thing. People paid a quarter to gaze upon the wonder of premature babies displayed in incubators¹.
While an infantorium still feels awful as a general concept, it did provide genuine medical care to very vulnerable babies. Eventually saving the lives of thousands of premature babies. The linked wikipedia article probably allows you to consider the morality more than my first paragraph ;)
> Couney’s reputation suffered after the 1911 Coney Island Fire. Despite all of the infants being rescued, the incident highlighted the dangers of caring for infants in amusement parks.
Can really related to this. I've been walking the same set of paths at the same places too. I've also started to recognize the "regulars" there too. A lot of us seem to be doing the same circuit at the same time.
The polar bear swims in circles because he doesn't know he's trapped. We walk in circles and social distance to protect our family and our communities.
I got laid off unexpectedly, right at the beginning of the coronavirus. Severance package was terrible and I'm pretty much broke. Plus, the FMV of my options cratered, so the equity I worked hard for is already underwater.
Hit the interview trail hard and have received nothing but rejections. Despite getting referrals from current engineers, I don't even make it past the tech recruiter phone screen stage. And of course, no one is willing to offer feedback so I'm left with my worst thoughts of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
Sitting here with no money, nothing to do, watching all my friends take advantage of the remote work by going to cool places. I'm going insane and all signs point to the continuation of this shitty status quo for the next year at least. I don't know what I'm going to do.
The fact that you are not hearing back may not be the negative indication. The companies you are applying for might just be in a "hold for now" mode, so even a positive initial interview may be stuck waiting for the next step. "Waiting for the manager to approve an on site; but wait, there is no one on site now; how do we proceed? well, let's think about this next week". One hand posting "help wanted", another starting "hard hiring freeze", etc. This can be infuriating, but is a much better state than a rejection.
Hang on, and do not dwell on the losses. Try to ignore news and perceived fortunes of others. Read books instead of CNN and/or twitter.
Most importantly, focus on staying healthy and sane. Healthy, energetic and $20k in debt is much a much better "COVID exit" state than spent, on antidepressants but with $20k in the bank. Contribute to an open source project, try something new. Are you handy? try building something or fixing something; not for money, just to keep your mind on building things. Good luck!!
Just hired someone. I focused on character—looking for hard worker, resilient, and utter honesty—and intelligence, assessed through a fairly difficult coding challenge requiring recursion to solve.
If you’re a software engineer, recommend reading Code Complete and SICP while you have free time. For working on your character, one path would be following the book of Proverbs :P
Sounds like you might need to take something other than tech to make do. Maybe even consider out of town jobs, WordPress, or even PHP. Or try remote jobs outside your country - normally the US has the best jobs, but it really turned around this year.
The interview gauntlet can be tough and demoralising, and extremely depressing. I've been there. After months of rejections, I ended up at a company where the last guy quit with minimal notice and they needed to replace him ASAP. It helped that I was out of a job and didn't have any notice period. They ended up offering me double what the average engineer got and they haven't fired me yet, so it might not be you, just the job market.
My best tip would be to find and stabilize your life somehow so that it's not a race against time at least with regards to living costs. Find some small victories in your life like exercise or a productive non-addictive hobby like updating wikis or drawing. When applying for jobs with failure for too long, your confidence and willpower drops significantly, and this might show in your interviews.
Not too bad - my commute was 1h15m each way so I've got lots of extra time, I'm fortunate to have a dedicated office at home and a garden to relax in - I know I'm somewhat of an outlier though, and appreciate just how lucky I am.
I'm also moving jobs and it's going to be interesting ramping up remotely.
Long time lurker around here, created an account to reply here.
I don't know. It's hard man. I know there are people in worse situations than me but it's hard anyway.
Working from home since March.
I spend all my day alone at home (with my cats). My GF arrives late and leaves early. She has to go to work everyday.
I feel unmotivated. I'm not socializing, I'm getting fat, I'm slacking on my work.
The worse part is that the effort that I and others have been making are worthless because a couple people can and will destroy it.
I'm living in Portugal and "we" thought everything was going back to normal. Of course not. The cases are ramping back up again. Today we have new and harder rules to follow once again.
I know that I won't be back into the office this year.
My summer festivals are cancelled.
I couldn't celebrate my birthday with my friend and family.
It was funny (a sad funny!) to read this post since the summer festival I'm going to miss the most was the one put on by the local Portuguese/Azoran community.
Nelson Mandela has inspired me in many ways. Going beyond subsisting in captivity, he emerged from 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island---South Africa's Alcatraz---to become President.
Today's episode shares part of what I believe helped him, which I believe can help us. First, he endured 27 years. We're only a few months in, and not in a small cement prison cell with a bucket for a toilet.
More, he practiced daily habits. We can too. I describe his in this episode, I hope in ways we can learn from.
Here are a couple quotes I read in the recording, both from his autobiography:
“I attempted to follow my old boxing routine of doing roadwork and muscle-building from Monday through Thursday and then resting for the next three days. On Monday through Thursday, I would do stationary running in my cell in the morning for up to forty-five minutes. I would also perform one hundred fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee-bends, and various other calisthenics.”
“I awoke on the day of my release after only a few hours’ sleep at 4:30am. February 11 was a cloudless, end-of-summer Cape Town day. I did a shortened version of my usual exercise regimen, washed, and ate breakfast. … As so often happens in life, the momentousness of an occasion is lost in the welter of a thousand details.”
Beside that post, I've found acting in service of others gives more meaning, purpose, and inspiration beyond any self-care.
Whatever your situation, others can use your help. For me, my podcast costs almost nothing, but drives me to help on the environment. There is no shortage of people who could use help, in person or virtually.
The lockdown improved the focus on myself, since there are less things to take care of.
Some work of mine ended up gathering attention from "VIP"s in my field. I've started a systematic study of new areas that I'll use for a future, major, project of mine.
Fitness is very important for me; I was able to do a reasonable, minimalist, workout at home with some equipment, therefore, although I lost some shape, I've been in an acceptable fitness state.
I suffered mostly at the beginning. It wasn't suffering in a strict sense, rather, I was unsettled. Small things, like having to mind what to touch and what not, or people's fear of the future, were definitely taxing at the beginning. Now, I don't mind anymore - I got used to, in the good, and in the bad.
"Fine print" follows.
1. I'm certainly a person who doesn't strictly need social contact, so I didn't suffer for the lack of it.
2. I also have a certain discipline. Discipline in itself is (I suppose) always hard work even for people perceived as disciplined, but I guess that for some, guidance from somebody is, at least, a soft requirement.
3. Job uncertainty is a given. I'm in a good position now, but nobody knows what will happen [to my position] in 6/12 months from now.
The hardest thing for us has been the loss of public spaces -- not being able to take my 3yo son the Air and Space Museum (his favorite place), to ride the metro, or even over to Grandma's house for the afternoon is tough.
What I miss the most is being able to sit down at a Korean restaurant with friends and just EAT for two hours.
Overall, though, things are going really well. The transition to working from home was easy (half the team was already remote), I've had more time to exercise, and our company has been advocating good work-life balance throughout this whole ordeal. I have the efforts of my champion wife to thank for keeping a 3yo distracted all day while I'm at work, and that is not lost on me, either -- I'm in a good place now because I am with good people, surrounded by love.
Not good. What is really depressing is this is going to last a lot longer than I had hoped. Even more depressing is so many people just don't seem to care - all they have to do is wear masks and gloves and take some super simple precautions. People with great reach like Joe Rogan aren't helping either, not to mention dumb politicians and leaders.
For now I have a job, but nothing is certain. Also feel helpless seeing so many people suffering and not being able to help ...
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 271 ms ] thread"The quantity isn't there and the quality isn't there."
I haven't really had that experience until the last few months. Its just as surreal now as it was then.
There are a few dozen wars, civil wars, and genocides over the last 70 years that resulted in more than half a million deaths. Plus of course much non-death related suffering. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran-Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Congo.
Plus some real stand-outs, like the Korean War (2M - 3M?), the Vietnam War (1M - 4M?), the Khmer Rouge mass killings (1.5M - 2.5M?), Nigerian Civil War (1M - 3M?), the Bangladesh genocide of '71 (500k - 3M?),
In the natural world, cyclone Bhola (and subsequent flooding) is blamed for over half a million deaths.
As it stands, COVID-19 isn't even in the top 20 yet (er, bottom 20?), though unfortunately it is on track to perhaps hit top-10.
For reference, WW2 is still two orders of magnitude worse than any of the above. Yikes.
AIDS has killed 32 million people. It killed 1 million people in 2016 alone.
After 9/11, a lot of people avoided the subways or going to terrorist targets like Times Square, but life outside of the immediate area around the WTC continued, and even the World Series was played in the Bronx shortly after. 9/11 had a terrible impact, but things returned to almost normal much more quickly than they have with covid-19.
But if these times are so hard on you, why don't you share a bit more about your situation?
(I'm assuming this is still about the Corona crisis. Or is it about the unrest in the US instead?)
Summers is here, vacation time is just around the corner.
Some of us had is pretty easy, depending on your view. I worked from home for around four weeks. My wife has been going to work through the whole corona thing, closing pharmacies was never an option really. My daughter have been in daycare almost every day, allowing me to work. So everything has been pretty normal, just with less traffic.
Several US police forces make it look like the only way forward is to completely abandon existing police forces and start over. I really hope the protesters win this, otherwise it seems to me you're basically accepting a police state.
If you're struggling, it's probably because the systems that you put in place at the start of the pandemic have broken down. (Kinda like how we eventually forget/give up on New Years Resolutions...)
I'd recommend these[1] two[2] videos from CGP Grey to help. The first talks about the kind of things that you might be doing that are making you miserable, and the second about specific ways in which we can cope with the pandemic (and specifically a lockdown, if you are still in one).
Brief notes:
Avoid doing any of these things:
* Staying still, avoiding exercise
* Having an irregular sleep schedule
* Maximizing screen time; going to sleep looking at your phone, and using it as soon as you wake up
* Encouraging negative emotions, eg: by looking at the news
* Setting unmeasurable or unachievable goals. Waiting for motivation to strike.
* Obsessing over trying to be happy.
* Following your self-destructive impulses
Partition your house/space into the following spaces, and try to obey these rules about the spaces:
* A space for exercise. If you don't have equipment, you can do body weight exercises. If you have access to safe outdoor spaces, make sure to use that too. Make sure you set a minimum amount of time, and stick to it.
* A space for sleep. Do not use your phone here. Do not eat here. Do not linger here. It's just for sleep. If you're failing to sleep, leave and try again later. Setting an alarm to wake up is important to maintaining a consistent sleep schedule. It doesn't matter when you wake up - so long as the time is consistent.
* A recreation zone. Go here to do activities that you actually enjoy. Only do these activities if you intend to give them your full attention. Keep an eye on the quality of the recreation, and make sure you set a maximum time limit.
* A creation zone. Somewhere to work, study, or develop skills. Crafts, coding, cooking. Make sure this space is dedicated; so do not consume entertainment here, do not eat here.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck
Every room has four walls.
My room is dedicated like this:
Northern wall: Desk with laptop. Go here for work/creativity.
Southern wall: My bed is here. Sleep only.
Eastern wall: My worktop is here for cooking.
Western wall: I drag my chair over here when I want to read or watch something.
Floor in the middle: Exercises.
You don't need to have a lot of space to make dedicated spaces. It's more of a mental thing.
Work: Incredibly smooth, even if I'm confined to a 13 inch laptop as opposed to 2x 26 inch screens (OK, I occasionally hook up my TV for extra help). Peace, quiet, fully able to focus on my tasks.
Physical health: Several years ago I decided to dedicate a portion of my spare time to sports and I got into my best shape ever by end of last year(body fat ~10%, down from 20+). Which initially got me worried given that gyms were closed and whatnot. So I ended up ordering some weights for exercising at home and I started doing it every day just to make sure I stay in that shape. End result is I've gained a lot of muscle without changing my weight. Body fat probably in the lower to mid 7%.
Mental health: Again - a lot of improvements: I'm not fond of real life interactions and I operate significantly better on my own. I do get mildly pissed off when my phone rings, more so than I used to. On the downside, I constantly run out of books which is becoming incredibly annoying.
Finances: Not dealing with eating out for lunch and dinner anymore. Though my bills have gone up now that I'm home all day long as opposed to just coming in the evening, crashing on the bed and leaving first thing when I open my eyes. I.E. my water bill has gone up 5 times, electricity about 3 times.
Summer: I had some plans, one fell through completely (still unsure if that's good or bad) and the other is almost at the same stage but it might be for the better(it's complicated).
So no kids, lol. The hardest part of this is how I think it works this way for everyone else on my team at work. They are (normal work + 100%). I'm (normal work - 80%). Got my first negative performance review ever a couple weeks ago. It's rough.
The flip side is, I feel blessed to have spent a ton of quality time with him and realized how little time we spent with him in a pre-covid hustle and bustle world. I've been wanting to downsize our lifestyle for a while and now my wife is finally seeing why and possibly on board. I'd like to sell our real assets and move to the beach somewhere and basically retire early / maybe do low volume consulting. I don't know if I can totally sell her on leaving the US, but getting closer. I really love this place, but it's freaking toxic. I do a good job of ignoring new media, but lately it's been impossible. I know the upcoming election is going to be a last straw that makes me say F this place, but I have to convince the fam too.
I don't work remote very well. For above mentioned reasons, home = family/life, office = work, and I have partitioned my life this way for ever and it's very hard to make the change to WFH. Luckily, I'm a little older have saved enough and could likely retire now. But not by our normal QOL standards so best part of this thing is getting my wife to stop shopping and we aren't eating $100 meals on weekends. Hanging out at the park, swimming pool, etc. has been fun to have lowkey entertainment.
I am back at the office and damn I miss the quiet so much. It is so loud and distracting at the open office. This is the reason I truly want to work remotely. I honestly can do my work 2-3 times faster, and of better quality.
I am entirely sure that I have moderate-serious depression since the lock down started. I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane. So WFH has been disastrous for me.
I have been eating worse, not working out, stopped pursuing hobbies/side projects and have been incredibly unproductive at work. Thankfully, a year of good results prior to this, has helped build a lot of goodwill I can burn through.
For the first time the current social climate has affected me severely too. My parents city is among the worst affected by Covid, and both my 80 yr old grandparents stay there. My anti-tribal-free-speech-absolutist and pro-equality-altruistic self have put me in a moral crisis as the BLM movement has picked up. Then today morning my favorite blog closed because of an attack by cancel-police. My country is on the cusp of actual war. I also spilled my coffee twice in the last 2 days and that makes me irrationally frustrated.
On the bright side, I have no suicidal thoughts. None of my relationships have been destroyed (yet). I still have my job and I know the cause of my current state is temporary. I've started therapy, which should start helping any moment now. Covid has affected people in worse ways, so I'm quietly trudging along.
Worst 3 month period of my life outside the one time I was depressed + alone . Now I am just depressed.
I think this will resonate with a significant subset of the HN crowd. I really thrive on externally-enforced structure (didn't take long to discover I made a terrible entrepreneur, but found a good niche as a startup employee). I've set my life up around having different events and places I need to be: classes at my gym, took up some in-person Spanish lessons, etc. When all those avenues shut down, I found it incredibly difficult to motivate myself to do anything. My physical health has deteriorated as I get much less exercise now, and that has sort of spiraled with my mental well-being. It's been rough.
Yes ! This was exactly it.
The 2nd half of 2019 was some of the best time of my life because of this.
It's been quite jarring to see how instantly my mental health deteriorated the second the lock down started.
How did you find that out? Really interested whether I fall in the same group. I feel like I agree with you; I haven't been exercising as much because I can't go to a studio/gym to exercise, and the deterioration of both physical health and mental well-being is very apparent now.
To be honest, I know everyone wants to have a "growth mindset", i.e. the belief that if you're not good at something that you can diligently "face your fears" and overcome it, but at least for me I've come to the conclusion that I'm just constitutionally not cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't know if it's my genes or my early upbringing or what, but I've tried all the motivation/self-direction/anti-procrastination tricks in the book, and it just doesn't work for me. There was definitely a sense of loss when I came to that conclusion, but I've found that I'm able to thrive when I have an environment with more structure.
I do agree on your last point. Part willpower, part understanding what works best for each of us. Accepting that we might not be everything that we want to be is hard, but growth is discovering the paths that we can otherwise take.
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000486741560313...
https://www.goodrx.com/blog/does-coffee-caffeine-cause-anxie...
I also wish I was scientifically literate enough to understand how good the study is :P
This means my advice might not apply to you, but if I may still recommend one thing: ignore most of the news for a while. The sensationalism can get infectious. There won't be anything deserving of the name war in your country (the US, I assume).
I think previously, I was just way too wrapped up in the news cycles.
On the other hand, I can spend hours sucked into random tech books, blogs, etc. So I guess time wise it balances out.
News is the biggest drag on my mental well being. It is important to be informed, but I genuinely feel that media is so driven by ad revenue and has optimized itself into being as negative and outrageous and _loud_ as possible, to the detriment of sane balanced information and opinion. I need to know the sides of current issues, but not loudly 24x7 with as much vitriol on all sides. I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.
HackerNews is really one of the few sites I can expect to find calm reasoned discussion and information.
For example:
127.0.0.1 reddit.com
127.0.0.1 www.reddit.com
DNS over HTTPS maybe ?
CNN will show relentlessly negative headlines until the election is over. Fox will be overly positive. There are other sources on both sides.
For your mental health-- get a variety. You don't have to agree with all of it, but get diverse inputs.
This change made introverts more comfortable, because all the other distractions are gone. I feel the same way like you do, I have more time and I was able to improve my daily life.
I can generally prefer personal time and a quiet place to mull my thoughts, but at the same time miss the spontaneous discussion and emotional attachment that an office provides.
I can't imagine anyone in my situation of being cut off from almost all human contact (young+single+alone) for 4 months being "better than ever".
That is me and I feel better than ever.
Then recently I traveled and stayed with my GF for three weeks, and now she is here for two weeks, and I’m more tired than ever.
After this my parents will want me to visit, but I will be taking some time to myself in between and have asked my girlfriend to go home a week early.
I want to get back into my nice routine of waking up and making coffee and breakfast and working out, and reading before bed, and working on personal projects after work.
I fear, as much as I like her that she may be far less independent than I am. And it’s a bit troubling. But for now I am just looking forward to being on my own again for a while.
I do miss the office though, I had a nice ten minute walking commute although am happy to be less distracted at work.
It’s all ups and downs really.
I hope GP and everyone else adversely affected by this comes out strong on the other side and is able to receive the help they need or overcome the challenges they face. We’ve all got them, but it’s just different magnitudes on different dimensions of an incredibly complex space.
And spilling my coffee twice would give me a conniption! It’s locally roasted organic gosh darn it!
India :(
(though I stay in the US)
We just had a minor skirmish with China with around 60 deaths total. The messaging from China is very similar to the run-up to the 1962 war.
The situation right now is being described as 'tense but calm'.
China changed all of the nation's maps to now include an added claim on a new piece of land in Ladakh. China also works very closely with their new proxy Govt (Oli's Nepal). So, at the same time Nepal is also changing their maps and laying claim on new land that they did not previously stake claim to.
So now technically India is occupying Chinese property, and they China been clear in wanting to use force to claim it.
But, I see anxiety and depression around me and I'm talking about people that didn't had a bad economic or job impact. It's just uncertainty and insecurity that breaks people. I try to support them.
Try to be creative with your time. Take it easier and have fun with your family. Don't stick to social media because it fills your day with negative content and disappointment. And don't waste your time with Youtube and Netflix because deep down you will feel pointless if you do that. And speak up and share your pain with others.
Also remember this is not the end of world. It only has been a few months and the amount of uncertainty, pain, and insecurity that you feel right now is million times less than what people have to deal for many years in some countries with civil war, sanctions, dictatorships. And they are holding up. So don't suddenly feel that you living in the worst time ever. We have everything needed to overcome this.
It's obviously different for different people and it's easy to give advice. I also know people that lost someone which makes it much harder. Don't stay alone and find something that motivates you.
This has been the number 1 thing that I've started doing recently that has improved my mental health. I've been incredibly depressed and anxious this year, and realized how much of that has been tied to the news cycle. I've mostly ignored the news for about a week now, and I'm feeling much better. I still have an underlying current of anxiety that I need to deal with, but overall I'm feeling better.
Rather than reading the news constantly, I ended up subscribing to the print edition of The Economist, so I'll read that once a week rather than constantly flipping over to Google News every hour.
Social/political climates and the "cancel culture" always has something to target. If you look, at any given time, this is something that has been going on since we could communicate in a public sphere. There has always been and always will be a tension in the public conversation. I wouldn't say "cusp of actual war" though. There are many people however who are hoping and actively counting on you thinking that though.
I would argue, however, that all of this has been severely amplified due to social media and the current crisis of the news industries. We have to at least consider who is literally banking on your getting your attention - hijacking the fight-or-flight part of your brain is part of that equation.
Yeah But, India and China are quite seriously considering war right now. No joke.
It's the worst it's been for a while, but there have been pretty major incidents[2] even within the last decade.
It's a serious situation, but not unprecedented.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Actual_Control
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Daulat_Beg_Oldi_incident
Despite the bravado of 'an eye for an eye' every politician cares about their future. Modi won't start a war with China and China won't with Modi.
China is already on a backfoot about the Corona situation and Modi is on a backfoot about a LOT of things but the media is bailing him out. I don't think war will be a right thing for both the nations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War
China then waites until US & Russia were busy in Cuban Missile Crisis.
JFK was still alive 60yrs ago!!
JFK had such close a relations with India that Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee had askes his brother "when will a Kennedy become a President once again".
JFK wanted to help India but he was busy in Cuban Missile Crisis. But after that, UK and US started dropping military supplies. And China ended the war single handedly and went back to the status quo.
Things that have changed:
1. We are a highly interconnected economy 2. China is at a backfoot 3. Modi is at a backfoot. (Note that Nehru was facing no such pressures 60yrs ago about corona, self inflicted short sightedness on Economy etc) 4. Nehru and the Congress at that time was not based on total and pointless bravado. The current regime in India is just busy in bravado. China has encroached since May probably and PM Modi spoke a few weeks ago and then, too, he denied any incursion and that lead to China hailing him 5. Neither India nor China will afford a war, leaders will gain from a skirmish. Chinese subservient media will hail it as a Chinese victory, same as Indian media which is super subservient will hail PM as someone who defeated China.
They won't be able to peddle lies if there is a war, for the war will be entirely up in Ladakh. And Russia and US will intervene because both Trump & Putin will need that tag at home of avoiding a war.
I've found twitter to be both an extremely valuable lockdown coping mechanism with friends and replacement events, and an anxiety amplifier.
Materially I'm fine. I'm still getting paid and spending very little. All my travel plans for the year are cancelled and in unknown limbo and I don't know when I can dare to make plans again.
I ruined two coffees the other day. Put too much peppermint oil in and screwed it up.
And then I let my coffee friend screw with my grinder/machine settings and it got hosed. ugh.
I really recommend getting a workout buddy and making yourselves accountable. It's helping so far.
That's the plan, but I also in the most stressful time of the year in terms of work. So it is kind of hard to build new habits.
> making yourselves accountable
Been trying this. I talk to my brother every morning, who keeps me accountable.
It helps, but still rough.
> I used to go out social dancing
Climbing and soccer were mine. I feel you there.
> I ruined two coffees the other day. Put too much peppermint oil in and screwed it up.
There is something about ruined coffee that hits a person really hard.
Be strong mate. Like all things, this too will pass.
I think peppermint oil should work. Would be better if I used peppermint simple syrup I think tho. just more surface area.
Iced coffee might not matter if you're doing a lot of milk tho!
Have you tried making your own overnight cold brews yet?
Plus there is the added stress that if you slip too much you could end up back into a bad job market. The only thing one can do is to find other healthy diversions and keep diet / sleep / exercise on track.
I hope my managers understand and won't judge my performance at this time.
I am happy to say I have a really supportive group around me, so I do get to vent every once in a while. This week is a bit rough, but I should be able to find time to reach out on the weekend.
Being able to confide in a stranger like this is strangely comforting. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Despite never having met you, one thing about Covid that is absolutely true, is that 'we are in this together'. There is a sense of camaraderie having faced a common challenge.
What does this mean?
I think that free-speech is a central tenet of modern society and the source of future progress. I am strongly anti-tribal. I do not associate with groups, isms or movements. I like to purely talk issues and like to evaluate ideas for their individual merit and not based on who says them.
> pro-equality = altruistic
Pretty self explanatory. Generally socialist leanings borne from wanting to provide equality of opportunity and measurably fair treatment to all.
_______
I support most of BLM's policy goals. I believe there needs to be more awareness about racism. I think holding racists and people in power accountable is important. Police reform, removing qualified immunity, mandated cameras and reforming the criminal justice system.
However, I refuse to align myself to the movement itself. Because an agenda-less and leaderless movement can go in any direction any time. A great example is how the Gamer-gate movement took a strong turn away from 'ethical journalism in gaming' to 'racist hatred of women' within the span of six months. Religion is an excellent example of how tribes demand loyalty.
Many of the top thinkers within the BLM movement see violent protests as an inevitable part and many allies endorse violent revolution. I do not yet know if I agree on those matters. I do not want to sign up for buffet of opinions where I have to mandatorily eat every dish. I prefer to have my opinion a-la-carte.
Each of these issues are important but they have a ton of nuance. To find a good solution, we need free speech. We need people with contrary opinions to be able to challenge the protestors and through the friction there will emerge solution.
But, all groups (including ones of my peers) are increasingly moving towards hiveminds of agreement where the In-Group-Contrarian must be destroyed.
There is a reason it has me so rattled. I have yet to truly sort out my opinions on the whole matter at large.
My favorite blog was also shut down this morning by the cancel police (same blog as you). Reach out if you need someone to chat to!
I would love to chat. Maybe sometime this weekend. I really appreciate your willingness to offer support, when you yourself are in such supply of it.
Like, in the big picture, that's not important at all. But that send me over the edge into complete frustration. Was pretty unproductive afterwards.
I'm sure everything will turn out fine for you though, hang in there!
Isn't this still speculative at this point? Last I read about it (on Reddit) there was no actual evidence that NYT was cooking up a hit piece.
If it means anything ( I hope it does). It's that democracy take a while and wars in Western democratic countries are only a very small probability.
Because people don't want land anymore, as they wanted in the ( for us) distant past.
They want money and trade/work is the best way to get it.
Edit: It's not worldwide applicable. But be hopeful that the right loyalists are a servere minority.
I wish you the best, from Belgium :)
I am talking about India and China.
I hope everything works out.
All the best! Thanks for sharing and keep on keeping on. We’re all there with you.
If your job cannot be WFH, you are single and/or you are living in a big city - the quality of life may have gone down.
Can you share more details?
Last month I walked around Greenwich Park in London 125 times, each time following exactly the same route. I thought about that polar bear a lot as I walked.
To me, this reads very much as something written by Kurt Vonnegut. Not exactly reassuring and not exactly depressing.
The Bronx Zoo had people, in cages, on display in 1906. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo
While an infantorium still feels awful as a general concept, it did provide genuine medical care to very vulnerable babies. Eventually saving the lives of thousands of premature babies. The linked wikipedia article probably allows you to consider the morality more than my first paragraph ;)
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney
He was the first zoo animal to be given anti-depressants.
There's even a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maQTLIWUZtw
I find that hard to believe. The polar bear absolutely knows he's trapped, though he probably doesn't know why.
Just saw this downthread, he even developed depression later in life, seems pretty sentient: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23614699
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panther_%28poem%29
I got laid off unexpectedly, right at the beginning of the coronavirus. Severance package was terrible and I'm pretty much broke. Plus, the FMV of my options cratered, so the equity I worked hard for is already underwater.
Hit the interview trail hard and have received nothing but rejections. Despite getting referrals from current engineers, I don't even make it past the tech recruiter phone screen stage. And of course, no one is willing to offer feedback so I'm left with my worst thoughts of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
Sitting here with no money, nothing to do, watching all my friends take advantage of the remote work by going to cool places. I'm going insane and all signs point to the continuation of this shitty status quo for the next year at least. I don't know what I'm going to do.
Hang on, and do not dwell on the losses. Try to ignore news and perceived fortunes of others. Read books instead of CNN and/or twitter.
Most importantly, focus on staying healthy and sane. Healthy, energetic and $20k in debt is much a much better "COVID exit" state than spent, on antidepressants but with $20k in the bank. Contribute to an open source project, try something new. Are you handy? try building something or fixing something; not for money, just to keep your mind on building things. Good luck!!
If you’re a software engineer, recommend reading Code Complete and SICP while you have free time. For working on your character, one path would be following the book of Proverbs :P
The interview gauntlet can be tough and demoralising, and extremely depressing. I've been there. After months of rejections, I ended up at a company where the last guy quit with minimal notice and they needed to replace him ASAP. It helped that I was out of a job and didn't have any notice period. They ended up offering me double what the average engineer got and they haven't fired me yet, so it might not be you, just the job market.
My best tip would be to find and stabilize your life somehow so that it's not a race against time at least with regards to living costs. Find some small victories in your life like exercise or a productive non-addictive hobby like updating wikis or drawing. When applying for jobs with failure for too long, your confidence and willpower drops significantly, and this might show in your interviews.
I still try hard to remain confident we'll all get through this.
I'm also moving jobs and it's going to be interesting ramping up remotely.
Long time lurker around here, created an account to reply here.
I don't know. It's hard man. I know there are people in worse situations than me but it's hard anyway.
Working from home since March.
I spend all my day alone at home (with my cats). My GF arrives late and leaves early. She has to go to work everyday.
I feel unmotivated. I'm not socializing, I'm getting fat, I'm slacking on my work.
The worse part is that the effort that I and others have been making are worthless because a couple people can and will destroy it.
I'm living in Portugal and "we" thought everything was going back to normal. Of course not. The cases are ramping back up again. Today we have new and harder rules to follow once again.
I know that I won't be back into the office this year.
My summer festivals are cancelled.
I couldn't celebrate my birthday with my friend and family.
I miss hugs from my mother.
This shit sucks.
Hopefully it is ready for next year: http://feastoftheblessedsacramentcom.ning.com/
But either way, it's so cool to see portuguese communities outside here. Thanks for sharing! Hope you can be there next year :D
Here's the text:
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Many of us are struggling living in lockdown.
Nelson Mandela has inspired me in many ways. Going beyond subsisting in captivity, he emerged from 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island---South Africa's Alcatraz---to become President.
Today's episode shares part of what I believe helped him, which I believe can help us. First, he endured 27 years. We're only a few months in, and not in a small cement prison cell with a bucket for a toilet.
More, he practiced daily habits. We can too. I describe his in this episode, I hope in ways we can learn from.
Here are a couple quotes I read in the recording, both from his autobiography:
“I attempted to follow my old boxing routine of doing roadwork and muscle-building from Monday through Thursday and then resting for the next three days. On Monday through Thursday, I would do stationary running in my cell in the morning for up to forty-five minutes. I would also perform one hundred fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee-bends, and various other calisthenics.”
“I awoke on the day of my release after only a few hours’ sleep at 4:30am. February 11 was a cloudless, end-of-summer Cape Town day. I did a shortened version of my usual exercise regimen, washed, and ate breakfast. … As so often happens in life, the momentousness of an occasion is lost in the welter of a thousand details.”
For more on Mandela and daily habits, see my post, Nelson Mandela on sidchas https://joshuaspodek.com/nelson-mandela-on-sidchas.
----
Beside that post, I've found acting in service of others gives more meaning, purpose, and inspiration beyond any self-care.
Whatever your situation, others can use your help. For me, my podcast costs almost nothing, but drives me to help on the environment. There is no shortage of people who could use help, in person or virtually.
"To serve is to live." -- Frances Hesselbein
The lockdown improved the focus on myself, since there are less things to take care of.
Some work of mine ended up gathering attention from "VIP"s in my field. I've started a systematic study of new areas that I'll use for a future, major, project of mine.
Fitness is very important for me; I was able to do a reasonable, minimalist, workout at home with some equipment, therefore, although I lost some shape, I've been in an acceptable fitness state.
I suffered mostly at the beginning. It wasn't suffering in a strict sense, rather, I was unsettled. Small things, like having to mind what to touch and what not, or people's fear of the future, were definitely taxing at the beginning. Now, I don't mind anymore - I got used to, in the good, and in the bad.
"Fine print" follows.
1. I'm certainly a person who doesn't strictly need social contact, so I didn't suffer for the lack of it.
2. I also have a certain discipline. Discipline in itself is (I suppose) always hard work even for people perceived as disciplined, but I guess that for some, guidance from somebody is, at least, a soft requirement.
3. Job uncertainty is a given. I'm in a good position now, but nobody knows what will happen [to my position] in 6/12 months from now.
What I miss the most is being able to sit down at a Korean restaurant with friends and just EAT for two hours.
Overall, though, things are going really well. The transition to working from home was easy (half the team was already remote), I've had more time to exercise, and our company has been advocating good work-life balance throughout this whole ordeal. I have the efforts of my champion wife to thank for keeping a 3yo distracted all day while I'm at work, and that is not lost on me, either -- I'm in a good place now because I am with good people, surrounded by love.
Wishing you all the best, HN :)
For now I have a job, but nothing is certain. Also feel helpless seeing so many people suffering and not being able to help ...