Ask HN: Depressed HN

For an intelligent, logical person, there are few places to turn to. And they can post here anonymously.

HN's getting more of those posts partly because you can create a throwaway account easily, and also because HNers have been warm and understanding of posters who may be depressed. In other communities there's a greater chance of trolls and griefers replying with personal attacks or suggesting suicide.

Life can be tough, but being in a startup, which should essentially make your dreams 'come true', can be even tougher.

HN has a lot of Founders_

Often when you talk about founders, you're talking about people who are putting it all on the line. These are people who quit salaried day-jobs with scheduled amounts of vacation days and health care for the unknown. If they fail, not only do they go down, but their family goes down, so the stress is very high. For that reason, I try to do a hello-world type of check with founders at least once a week. Sometimes something as simple as "Hey, are you OK?" can snap people out of an otherwise spiraling-down depression. Sometimes it takes more.

Hackers in general_

It is anecdotal, but smart people in general are depressed. It is also an anecdote shared by many—even the Simpsons made fun of this so there is a common thought in society that smarter people are often more depressed. Hackers typically want to solve problems. Often hackers have a better solution to a problem, but that solution will be ignored by society. That leads to frustration and multiple instances of frustration leads to depression.

Consider the possibility that this conclusion results from a sampling error. Hackers may not experience depression at rates different than the general population. Your observation may depend on the fact that hackers are willing to post about this issue anonymously, where if they had to identify themselves, they wouldn't express the same ideas.

Also, because of their technical knowledge, hackers are more likely to access and use online discussion forums, which may make them seem to have a higher depression rate than people less able and willing to make posts in social media.

So maybe this is a non-issue.

My assertion is the problem stems from hacker types being more introspective (I hesitate to use the word "smarter") than your average person, which leads to the following realisation for most of us: We are not normal enough to enjoy a simple life of working 9-5 and partying on the weekends, but not brilliant or lucky enough to achieve the success we would like to attain.

Realising the above means deciding to "settle" for a life of drudgery or toiling forever with the prospect of ending up like a failed delusional "wannabe". Both thoughts being rather depressing as we essentially struggle with our unfulfilled ambition.

The thing is though, as I'm in my early 30s, now find that my friends have generally found other interests in their life to find pleasure in; rather than just being focused on career or success as a metric.

We find peace in being slightly above average, reaching mid-level management or senior technical positions, and enjoying the stable financial environment we are able to provide our partners/families.

Although the point is a bit after-school-special, but when you stop focusing on what you can/cannot do for yourself but what you can do for others, there can be tremendous fulfilment in that, which alleviates our otherwise depressive tendencies.

As for the isolation, I'm introverted, mostly involved with a lot of reading, learning, and thinking. I get outside to exercise, but don't have much to talk to others about. I have no interest in the things that occupy the biggest part of shared reality, like sports, popular TV shows, or politics. I've had many girlfriends in the past, but could only get them and keep them by playing up a fake personality that was funny, tough, daring, sociable. It's been my experience that women respond best to a combination of theatrics and measured acquiescence, and that they will give you a lot of feedback on how they want you to be. But as soon as I "be myself" - they're bored or annoyed and then they're gone.

So, now I spend almost all my time by myself, and that's depressing. I wished I belonged to something. Also, I'm 35 and my life is almost identical to what it was a decade ago, except that my body is older and hurts more, so I always wonder why I don't feel a sense of progress.

HN has a lot of smart people on it. It also highlights very different lives from the average person. Sometimes, HN is not much different from entertainment gossip magazines in that people read them and feel depressed that their lives aren't like famous people. On HN, it's possible that people read stories of "successful" entrepreneurs and get depressed because their lives aren't like that. I say "successful" in quotes because it's very easy to make anyone look successful if you just look at a tiny portion of their life.

Having dealt with this issue as well, I've developed a course that hopefully, helps hackers to deal with these issue. It's available at https://www.programmingspiritually.com I'm changing it to a freemium model later this week so there's no need to purchase it. If you want to be notified when it's available for free, just email me and I'll let you know.

My hypothesis is that an isolated post or two really resonated with people and received good responses. People then hope that others will respond similarly to their situation.

And we have little to no control over your circumstances. Starting a startup and getting funding relies on getting the approval of investors. Getting a dream career depends on persuading a few gatekeepers, etc.