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Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
161–170 of 175 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#162[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#163Doing things I love: - Learning French and Japanese - Drinking tea and exploring tea culture - Playing Geoguessr (or in my case, Geotastic) to see different places in the world and just generally have a fun time figuring out languages, and unique traits of different countries and cultures - Reading and watching science fiction, lots and lots of it! - Coding. I really do love writing code. - Trying to improve my commu…
Playing an instrument
Somehow I missed that, even though I regularly play several of the instruments in my home... Thanks for reminding me of one more awesome thing!
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Always sucked. If you don't believe me feel free to go back to any underpowered machine of your choice and use it as a daily driver for a while. No, tech didn't always suck. Sure, it was slower hardware. But it was empowering hardware. You owned it, it served only you, didn't spy on you and you could make it do whatever you desired. Now it's mostly walled corporate gardens, you are the product, every gadget spies o…
You can buy the same hardware today and do whatever you want with it.
Not really. Sure you can find something on ebay but some parts can be hard to find (I collect old SPARC machines).
More importantly, you can't go back to the time where you could interact with the world with the older machines. My SPARCstation10 would run a web browser marvelously in 1993, but that combination isn't going to browse any website today.
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
>AI I'm apathetic. It's there, it's a tool. You won't feel that way in the near future.
If you're sure of this, then what actions have you taken to shield yourself and/or profit from this? If I were a true believer that AI was going to takeover, I'd be allocating a large part of my portfolio into AI companies (hardware & software) along with learning a trade that's relatively safe, like cleaning septic tanks or construction. Do you really believe in the narrative you're pushing?
> allocating a large part of my portfolio into AI companies
Even if you were certain that AI would take over virtually everything, the problem is deciding which AI companies to invest in. Thinking back to 1996, just when this new thing called "the web" was gaining tracking and assuming you were certain it was going to be huge, what companies would be the best investment? A lot of the companies doing web stuff went nowhere. Many of the biggest successes didn't even exist in 1996. It's not obvious which (if any) AI companies are worth investing in even if you're positive that AI is the future; the current companies might be massively overvalued; the best AI companies might not even exist yet.
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#166I believe we (humankind) have been transitioning to a phase of what I call "time compression." Everything is happening too fast compared to say 40-50 years ago. You can attribute it to many things (tech in particular), but primarily it's the fact that everyone has a terminal in their hands where they can access information, people, news, etc. at a whim. It's affecting both our mental health and our collective social…
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#167It seems like you are in some kinda bubble were you are getting feed doom and gloom, most of what you have said is just normal stuff and cycles the world goes through, the difference is you are connected to it more now.
What if you weren't connected to this? what if you didn't know? Ukraine/Iran/whereever, sucks for those people but if your always connected to everything, there is always something bad going on in the world, so you will always see it and it's too much to bare. Some people argue this is just sticking your head in the sand, but what is it that you can personally do? if you want to take up some form of activism in this area, go ahead, but if you aren't, then it should be ignored.
You only have a certain amount of **s to give, choose widely.
And focus on what is local to you, In the scale of the universe who cares about you? in the scale of the planet who cares about you? In the scale of your country who cares about you? in the scale of your city? Your street even, who cares about you? But on the scale of the people you know and interact with, your family, coworkers etc, who cares about the universe?
The problem is you are connecting yourself to the universes enitre problems and then struging to stay sane. No wonder.
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can buy the same hardware today and do whatever you want with it.
Not really. Sure you can find something on ebay but some parts can be hard to find (I collect old SPARC machines). More importantly, you can't go back to the time where you could interact with the world with the older machines. My SPARCstation10 would run a web browser marvelously in 1993, but that combination isn't going to browse any website today.
Right that's fair. But you can browse websites made with the technology of that time -- maybe ?
Or work with it disconnected on other bits... but yeah. The world you're connecting to has changed..
Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#169 No phone, no notifications before the laptop opens. A simple
mantra practice creates inner stillness that carries through
the day, the model releases still drop, the threads still
spiral, but there's a quiet center that doesn't get pulled
around.
Tapasya, disciplined austerity, is the most underrated
concept missing from this conversation. Cold exposure,
fasting, sitting with discomfort instead of reaching for the
dopamine loop. You're training your nervous system's interrupt
handler. Less reactive to stimuli you can't control, which in
2026 is a genuine edge.
The Gita's answer to this thread: act without attachment to
outcomes. Ship your work. Keep your practice. Let the results
belong to something larger than your portfolio.
The AI isn't going anywhere. Neither is the chaos. Your
practice can outlast both.Re: Ask HN: How are you all staying sane?
#170I noticed my pessimism scaled perfectly with my screen time. That was enough data for me.