A hacker's loneliness
"The computer is more interesting than most people. I love to spend time with my computer. It is fun to write programs for it, play games on it, and to build new parts for it. It is fascinating to try to figure out what part of the program it is in by the way the lights flicker or the radio buzzes.
"...The computer has moved out of the den and into the rest of your life. It will consume all of your spare time, and even your vacation, if you let it. It will empty your wallet and tie up your thoughts. It will drive away your family. Your friends will start to think of you as a bore. And what for?"
Shaken by the break-up of his marriage, Tom Pittman decided to change his habits. And he did. He later described the transformation: "I take a day of rest now. I won't turn on the computer on Sunday.
"The other six days, I work like a dog."
- Hackers, Steven Levy.
73 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadThey're still awesome people, but sometimes I wish there were people around me who I could associate with and discuss computer hobbies with. (Sadly, being in school doesn't give you many opportunities to meet new people very often, it seems to me...)
I'm in school (and have been for a long time). Many people that I respect told me: grad school was the best part in their lives, that I should enjoy my time, and that it only goes downhill afterwards (no more research, family obligations, boring jobs, administration work, etc.).
Great. But what if I don't like my situation right now? What if I don't like grad school that much? What if I don't like most of the people around me? If the sentiment that grad school is the best part of life is correct, then what else is there to look forward to? What's the point?
(sorry for being all gloomy, but the parent's post really struck a nerve)
Coincidentally, I'm in school and many people have told me the same thing.
To be honest, I don't "enjoy" anything about it. This only makes me wonder if college is supposed to be the "best part of your life", (and its quite the opposite for me); then the the rest of my life should be pretty darn depressing.
People stuck in a job they don't like because it pays enough to support there family have a reason to complain. You have no obligations but to yourself. If you think that you have obligations and try to use that as an excuse for why you are unhappy you are fooling yourself.
Find a different program, find a new hobby, meet a girl, start a company.
Being gloomy and getting angry that others are happy won't make you happy.
So unless you're very similar to the person who tells you that grad school was the best part of his life, take it with a grain of salt. Maybe you like being responsible, maybe you like to work.
The thing is, many people give up on their dreams just after grad school. Compromise suddenly trumps all.
(And maybe you're just chronically unhappy person. Unhappy no matter what happens. Unhappy for no describable reason. Food for thought, huh?)
That said, for me, I've met the most people at school mostly because I find myself surrounded by people who I can identify with. Its easy to make friends in a group of people who are like you, but if you don't feel like you fit in a group of grad students, its hard to make friends...
Know what though? It wasn't. Neither was college. I truly started to enjoy life after being in the workforce for a few years and realizing that I was unhappy and needed to change my life. In my case change meant taking a new job 1,000 miles away in a place where I knew no-one (could make a totally clean restart), meeting a fantastic bohemian female friend who encouraged me to go out and meet other women and report back (nothing better than a woman who helps you meet other women :-), and who helped me discover the person I truly am.
My life may not be perfect, but I have learned that only I control my happiness and that making excuses for unhappiness is a waste of the short time we have on this planet.
The combination of being young, unencumbered and part of a huge community of people who are looking to have fun means that it really is easy to have a fantastic time. If you aren't enjoying yourself, it's more than likely because you simply aren't making full use of what's available to you.
Obviously not everyone likes to get out and network, but most people do (geeks included) and so for them college can be a great experience.
Basically, "enjoying life" is entirely something you choose to do. If you aren't taking the steps to make college really fun for yourself, then it probably wont be the high-point of your life. Presumably you'll discover a happy lifestyle somewhere further down the line and enjoy that instead.
-J.M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature and former IBM programmer, from "Youth, Scenes from Provincial Life II."
I spend most of my mid-teens (15,16,17) writing pointless C programs (interpreters, compilers, etc. for pathetic new languages that probably no one except me will use).
While my classmates from high school went out dating girls, watching new movies, etc.; I would be sitting in front of my computer palms on forehead fixing hard to find C pointer bugs.
The only person I could have a decent conversation with was my CS teacher. In the end it was only after coming to college I realized how much I had lost.
I barely had any communication skills, absolutely zero sexual experience (haven't even walked holding hands with a female - even today) and the reputation of being a geek. And you know what? I realized I wasn't a happy person anymore.
I think this kind of a life is seriously screwed. Very soon (been trying) I'm gonna totally quit "being geek" (programming for a hobby, etc.) and try to be normal like everyone else.
just be moderate.
My previous roommates in college found it odd that I would spend Monday through Friday alone in my room working or reading, yet on the weekends come out an be completely extroverted. They were almost offended that I didn't want to sit around and watch tv with them during the week. That is somewhat of a sidetrack, but this balancing method allowed my to keep somewhat of an equilibrium with my life.
Take the approach starting tomorrow the same way you would if you were learning a new programming language. It would be insanity and a complete suicide mission to dive into the properties of compilers without even understanding the basic "hello world". You need to take smalls steps and develop your social skills in the same way you would your programming ones.
And by the way, normalcy is overrated.
You will become expert in programming, which you know is an exciting field, and then it will be relatively easy to get good paying job, or can start your own company if you feel like it, and later, when you establish yourself professionally and will find your path, it will be easier to have meaningful longterm relationship.
I also spent a lot of my young time in from of a computer or solving math puzzles, and I don't regret it at all. On a more personal note, I had my first gf when I was 24 and married at 32. And I don't feel like missing anything.
Moderation is good, and its good to remember not to take yourself too seriously (you appear to have serious plans for arjungmenon, greyman, stop taking yourself so seriously).
I doubt your days of hard programming were a waste. They are an experience at least, a side of life you are aware of that your peers might not be.
Knee-jerks - bad. Moderation - good. Trying new things - exceptionally good.
1. if you are on this site you want to start a company, and i have yet to have a girlfriend that accepts my non traditional lifestyle of starting companies and taking chances.
2. most of the people you meet in life are distractions, i meet some great friends in college and i found them through all sorts of activities,... most of them were creative computer projects.
so enjoy college meet other geeks and you will be just fine.
heck join your local engingeering fraternity
I spent most of my high school and college years same as you. Then I made a slow, concerted effort to balance out (learned to dance, make friends, talk to girls).
Today I'm still a geek, but reasonably social and "normal" too -- as much as I care to be, anyway. At any given hour I'm a geek, a socialite, an artist, a dope, and so on. People are dynamic, not static; don't limit yourself. Have fun!
Really, the thing is to frequently ask yourself "Is what I'm doing making me happy now? If not, is it somehow helping me be happier in the long term? If not, why the f--k am I doing it?"
You need, at most, a bit of moderation. Don't try to be normal - normal sucks.
I've personally been fortunate in finding a great balance between hacking and living, and am grateful for it.
You just have to find someone to share your life with who matches your interests... there's no point trying to be someone else, someone you're not.
--William Shakespeare
It might prove almost impossible to fix. OK I'm talking from about a bit different perspective because for me programming (when I was young) an only occasional hobby and I was rather the "otaku" type of nerd, I spent most of my time with swords & sorcery -style books, games, etc. So it might be different, but:
I tried to fix it at around 17. I wanted a girlfriend. I focused on the superficial parts of it: went to a gym, got some muscles, boughts some designer clothes, went to clubs (alone), got piss drunk and tried to pick up girls. And convinced myself this is how normal, extroverted people do. Of course, with one difference: they don't go to places alone. I did - I didn't have friends and when I had something like friends I didn't like it, to go with them to places, it felt it limits my freedom, it was just so convenient to go alone. So what I did was actually I tried to copy the superficial parts of extrovertedness such as the fancy clothes, without the substance of it (actually making and keeping friends, or generally, enjoying the company of others including things like "chatting", "just dropping in to say hello", and so on). I think I must have been unusual - someone who looks like a typical extra-cool disco gigolo (I think in the States it's called "guido"), but a typical shy introverted guy nevertheless who keeps looking at his shoe and likes to be alone.
Guess what, it didn't work. I tried it for 7 years, until about 25, had very little success, 3-4 relationships each lasting about 3 weeks. That's not too much, I guess.
Now at 30 I became something sort of a philosophy geek, I'm more introverted than ever, because after reading up a lot of philosophy, history, economics etc. I just can't talk with most people at all, simply because they are not interested in anything I would like to talk about, and I am not interested in what they want to talk about (they usually want to talk about other people, which is the least interesting subject to me).
If I could start over, if I was again at 17, with a still fairly open and malleable mind, when I was not yet too deep and detached to be unable to talk with people and make friends, I would take care not to become too knowledgeable, not to read too much, don't go too deep into philosophy etc. and instead of all those superficial approaches to extrovertedness (gym, designer clothes, clubs) I'd probably try to become more sociable, try to learn to chat and to like to chat.
(But you can't start over, of course. By 30 some parts of the mind just get rigider every year and you just keep doing what you did before. Habits, you know. )
For anyone who has read J.M. Coetzee knows, he is no F. Scott Fitzgerald, the stereotypical glamorous and superfluous writer; his prose and temperament matches that of a mathematician, rational and precise but nonetheless beautiful in its own right. Without going to the emo's and my personal sob stories, I'll jump right into how I cope with dealing with loneliness and the mainstream society.
1) Learn the protocol and languages of the mainstream American society: two words. Sports and music: they may seem like the most unhackish things to do, the former an activity of "dude-bro's" and the latter the effeminate hipsters, and both the epitome of American "individualist conformity."
But if you look past the posers, they are incredibly, like hacking, creative activities. Weight-training and aerobics is by definition, pushing past your limit of endurance and strength, like a late night coding marathon: a mind game (Romo: "My body is the soldier, but my mind is the general").
Music, is by definition about pushing the envelope, coding and playing. Sampling is like googling for code snippets online, re-arranging and constructing your personal software. Practicing is like coding and going over and over the compiler error's and then tracing through the runtime errors: if you really get into it, it's addictive to get it perfect.
2) Hack the social system. The social culture of the American high school and college and yuppie's in their early 20's is very much like the wall street c(v)ulture. Women and your peers are like wall street analyst, with absolutely no regards to your underlying vision and long-term potential. But if you do not beat the next quarter earning estimate or put out a good looking short-term "balance-sheet," (but it's okay if it is faked), all hell break loose.
So sell yourself like the slickest CFO's from Lehman/Enron/WorldCom. Hackers are sometimes too grounded, wondering out aloud what frameworks and API's they should use; they are too truthful sometimes when American culture is a shallow and superficial one.
This means going to a party, approach a group of people, interrupting the dude-bro talking about "doing a keg-stand" and the hipsters talking about (un)indie bands, smile and say, "I make software that predict breast cancer susceptibility in women, that plays the most appropriate music for your current mood, and that exploit the inefficiencies in the stock market to perform algorithmic trading for maximum profit." You don't even need to go further, the people in the attendance will be pressing you for more.
But in the end, superficial women and friends (read: friends that you go out with, not friends you have deep connections) are just that: wall street analysts. Don't get too hanged up by the "short-term balance sheet," be in for the long term. And by the long term, I don't just mean: an engineering degree or a stable job, but the software that will predict cancer, recommends music and exploit the stock market - and also yes, friends who could respect and relate to who you are.
Don't sell-out, buy in. Be a hacker, go against the grain, always be exploring, sharing and not ever yielding.
A lot of nerds and geeks (the ones I know at least) are unpopular not because they're unpleasant people (they aren't), but because they don't understand how the social system works, what you're allowed to say and what you aren't (and when). If you just watch people talking around you you can easily notice what annoys people or causes them to end the conversation, and avoid doing it. If you just apply your mind to everyday life, being involved in your surrounding culture really isn't that hard.
I agree with his conclusion: Geeks care (desperately even) about being popular (or normal or whatever you want to call it), but they care more about other things. There are only 24 hours in a day. If you are way into tech stuff, math, physics etc. you can't at the same time spend all your time worrying about clothes and (rubbish) popular culture, socializing and leveling up in the social game.
Well, that and the fact that the geek persona is naturally skilled in very litteral disciplines, whereas social interaction is much more about 'soft' skills like empathy and intuition.
I would only add: make all your life changes an evolution, not a revolution. If something screws up or turns out not to be exactly what you wanted, you can always revert the small change you made.
I do think that isolation partly exists within a person's mind, as I have felt isolated when surrounded by a roomful of people.
It's a part of our condition, a challenge that we must deal with successfully in order to hack on . . .
Are you more a mad scientist or a family guy? :-)
If you let any one thing consume all of your time then you're missing out on all the beauty and diversity the world and life can offer.
Feed your brain new experiences and it will reward you.
Apart from hacking away at the computer (I also do it for 8 hours a day at work), I cook daily dinners/breakfast as a hobby, I spend lots of time with my girlfriend (easier when you live together) and I try to generally disconnect from the computer for a few hours a day wether it be right after work or later at night
Some nights I won't even go near the PC except to turn on a movie, and some nights I will come home and work all night on the computer. It varies
As bufferout said, Moderation :)
Instead of just complaining and racking up karma, I propose we meet up at a bar in the city (San Francisco to you non-bay area residents). Who's with me to get drunk and tell nerdy jokes on Saturday night?
I'm totally not kidding. If you need an excuse, call it networking. If you don't, call it partying.
[Edit: I'm down for seedier mission bars, but anywhere is fine if there's enough interest.]
From what I understand, most super successful people work horribly long hours, but I suspect the feeling of fulfillment is also based on the social prestige of what they do. Computing is so ubiquitous (and also the cause of lots of frustration for some people) that those who drive the field don't get the recognition they deserve. Maybe the whole startup culture will change this, since the risk and self determination gives it more of a romantic flair.
At any rate, quitting, or even moderation, may not truly solve things if a person has a very deep love for their work. I think this adds a morally noble element to being a hacker startup-founder: it helps the whole field realize their true sense of self worth.