Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?
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I've always been a curious person, interested in learning new skills and finding fun and useful ways to apply them. I don't know much, but what I do know are things I've set out to learn purely out of interest. Any success in my career has been mostly luck, and being somewhat articulate in a few key areas of IT.
But not only has my professional life become monotonous and unchallenging, my drive for novelty and improvement in my personal life has also diminished greatly. In other words, I seem to have lost that curiosity. That drive to learn and apply new things.
I'm not sure why this is, but my initial suspicion is that the lack of fulfillment I've experienced in the last ~5 years or so has left me feeling like continuing down the same path is a bit of a waste of time at this point. It all just feels as though it amounts to virtually nothing.
To be completely honest, I am working on something, but that something is myself. Working through personal issues has all but completely taken priority over any external endeavors and consumed what little energy I have, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a healthier balance would probably be ideal.
Anyone else from HN in a similar place?
287 comments
[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 224 ms ] threadBut I also read an article this week that said "unstructured time" is part of a healthy and relaxing weekend routine.
Either way, I think it's a good idea to make sure you're exercising, getting lots of sleep, and eating healthy, energizing foods.
Everything will work itself out, these years will turn out to have a hidden purpose, or you'll eventually die and it won't matter either way. If we avoid any major moral failures till the end then we're ahead of the curve, friend. We did our part.
It would not be an impressive project to people in industry and it would not impress most hiring managers. To quote you, it would be “nothing much”. For most people who aren’t in tech, this project sounds pretty cool and is very much something.
Easy to get lost in the sauce when you spend all day soaking in it.
It is funny because it seems that I’m now always looking for "the next small thing" instead of the "the next big thing" ;-)
It is easy to suggest focusing on one's happiness but it is more useful and (more difficult) to figure out how to tackle unhappiness instead. The goal is equanimity not happiness (i.e happiness in the conventional hedonic sense). Focus on the cessation of your personal suffering.
Nihilism is not the belief that there is no God and life is ultimately meaningless.
Nihilism is recognizing that there is no God and life is ultimately meaningless, while continuing to sacrifice at a grinding job you hate, continuing to submit to the phony morality of those higher than you in the social hierarchy, conforming to social rituals and customs you privately think are bullshit, continuing to follow the rules of external authorities as if that might pay off in the afterlife.
Nihilism is understanding the truth, but pretending the universe is different than it really is, so you can evade personal responsibility for creating your own meaning.
Nihilism is behaving as if there is a God who gives life meaning, even when you don't actually believe that, instead of assuming responsibility for making your own meaning during the brief time you're alive.
Nihilism to me is about accepting the idea that there is no self but without actually having directly experienced that truth. And according to buddhism for instance, there is a way to experience a selfless existence which gives rise to true equanimity.
Without direct experience, nihilism is just another form of faith.
“Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive” - Thich Nhat Hanh
TIL I am a nihilist.
You are wrong in suggesting I’m wrong. There isn’t any wrong. If you believe what you say, you would understand that and strip “wrong” from your vocabulary. There is only a way. There are many ways. The one I described was mine. The universe does not recognize your black and white thinking.
Don’t get so attached to your own opinions, that’s a form of clinging.
Ironically, this is precisely what you're doing.
But following your own logic, why the resistance to my comments if my statements are neither right or wrong and is just as valid as yours? I’m not intentionally doing the things you’re accusing me of doing.
At the end of the day, may you understand the causes of your own suffering and find peace.
so again, from one individual or group of individuals' subjective views of right and wrong.
>why the resistance to my comments if my statements are neither right or wrong and is just as valid as yours?
Because you are accusing others of being wrong? If I said your right view is wrong, how would that make you feel? Golden Rule.
Friendships or other things I mentioned: not that everything is smooth, but there is a sense of comfort, pleasure, joy that just does not go away with more time invested. Because I am not looking for returns. Just being around is bliss.
Bumming out of a beach is very underrated. Going to a movie date is underrated. This is where my happiness lies. Then on top I write code now again, not to gain startup throne but because I like learning and typing out my thoughts in code.
In my opinion, I think happiness isn’t the goal since it’s temporary. Instead we should aim for equanimity which arises from the complete cessation of stress and doubt and is much harder to obtain but is longer lasting.
Having said that, taking small steps is important. I feel OPs point is valid, in the sense that happiness comes from within, not external validation.
I embraced life, love, bonding, friendships, heartbreaks and have never looked back.
"It took me a long time and am not finished learning this yet, oh Govinda: that there is nothing to be learned! There is indeed no such thing, so I believe, as what we refer to as ‘learning’. There is, oh my friend, just one knowledge, this is everywhere, this is Atman, this is within me and within you and within every creature. And so I’m starting to believe that this knowledge has no worser enemy than the desire to know it, than learning.”
I think you mean “die”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY
His criticism of soft language about aging and death starts around the 5 minute mark
"Do what makes you happy" is a cliche that we all accept, but if you think about it, it's actually a very self-centered and egoistic way of deciding what to do. If we used different heuristics, like do what's best for your family/community/world, it might lead to very different answers than doing what makes you happy. It might even involve quite a bit more of what we call "work". Not work for the purposes of financial gain or social status, but work that improves the world for current and future generations.
That said, it's clear that our culture doesn't optimize for rewarding the kinds of work that actually make the world better. That's something we should try to correct for, rather than abandoning work as a value altogether.
I am not sure how one can work on absolutely nothing unless one is happily retired/unemployed.
I have come to value “productive work” much less than recreational. We have enough stuff already to last a dozen lifetimes.
Just think that the brightest minds of our generation are working on making people click more ads. And then be thankful that you are not in the same boat and OK with not being productive at all.
However I also recently quit social media (by this I don't count IRC, HN and the Fediverse as these are mostly text-based - okay to browse in my books), quit soft drinks, quit YouTube (almost, new videos come in through my subscriptions about once a day) and started reading (albeit very slowly) after a multi-year lapse. So it's not all bad.
I'd say you're working on the right things. Our fellow humans would like to hide behind the idea that any of this matters, but at the end of the day, it doesn't. What does matter to you is yourself and the relationships of people close to you.
"Evil comes from a man's inability to sit quietly in his own chair."
I hate it. I was halfway through dissembling my project car's engine for some upgrades and was hoping to get started on a bathroom demo for a remodel, and that's all been delayed.
I'm also not really working on any tech right now, because for the most part, I've gotten my personal technology working how I like it. I have a spare PC I've been meaning to turn into a home theater device but I'm more motivated to work on the car.
With work and family, I currently don't really have the energy to make consistent progress, so instead I do very small things, mostly not software.
Like, baking a sourdough bread usually spans two days, with not too much work on each of these days. Will it be The Next Big Thing? Well, only at our next meal :-)
That's the scope of projects I can manage these days.
And that's totally fine, the world cannot sustain the same number of Big Things as there are people, so I'm fine with most of us never having one, including me.
The best part about it is that you can share it with almost anyone and they’re going to appreciate it, which is hardly true of most software.
There is no meaning. But humans need meaning. Create your own! Absolutely anything will do as long as you find it meaningful. Just pick a goal/meaning and go for it. It’s okay to change what you find meaningful as you go through life.
I've faced a beginning of life pretty loaded in trauma, and a young adult life where self-inflicting some more was a comforting behaviour in the face of the absurdity of life. When contemplating suicide up close, in some of the aftermath I saw Camus' thesis as a pretty decent way to figure out some sort of "philosophy of continuing to exist".
https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/the-meaning-of-life-alb...
Personally I find it tricky, though. Am I doing nothing for this long because I am just getting lazy (-> need resolve) or depressed (-> need real help)? It does not seem to be your case, so just take your time. Take your time.