> Your most important asset is your ability to produce income. You... may want to reconsider that one.
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Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
421–430 of 579 posts
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#422> Your most important asset is your ability to produce income. I think that's an incredibly sad way to view yourself and your life, albeit I bet that for many people producing income is the single most important thing. I see that as a consequence and a failure of society.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18099961 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#423Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…
I learned in my bedroom and got a degree in comp sci. Between the two, the comp sci degree was less useful.
What has turned out to be more useful was knowing how to ship software that delivers business value without being an architect astronaught. I credit that to my few business classes in undergrad and my MBA studies before dropping out.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#424Breathing. So much can be accomplished with something seemingly so simple.
Could you elaborate a little bit? How do you master breathing and how has it helped you?
There's a wide variety of different breathing techniques that can be used for specific purposes. It's been literally life-changing for me. Some techniques can help you getting out of a bad moment (anxiety, stress,...) but others have much deeper effects and can transform how you function as a human being.
You can for example check the following broad categories: a) Conscious breathing (Holotropic, rebirth, and the likes), b) Pranayama (Kapalabhati, anuma viloma,..), c) Buteyko + McKeown, d) Anapana Sati, e) Qi gong, f) Wim Hof.
It takes time to absorb the practical knowledge and use it in daily life but as the question asked, I was richly rewarded for the time I've invested in mastering these techniques.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, for heavens sake. That's as far as you can see? You can get that in prison. We were born and raised on a giant slave plantation. There are enough resources to take care of everyone, so much that some of it has to be kept off the market to keep up the illusion and prices. I'm currently scraping by at a bare minimum, growing my own vegetables and foraging whatever I can find in the area. And I find it infinitely mo…
What do you mean by 'visualization of sports and other areas'? Are you talking about the projection of images for mass consumption which leads to emulation, or realisation of said images? Interesting stuff. I know myself that my biggest limit is my ability to imagine my own future, and how that vision is constantly cropped by my peers, and culture. What are you doing on hn may I ask? Sounds like an interesting life.
I mean that in certain areas we've recognized and pay tribute to the importance of visualization. But then we fail to make the connection and realize that the same mechanics apply to everything.
It's mainly the projection of fear, really. Fear of not fitting in, not having a roof over your head or food on the table, of war, disease, terrorists and so on.
It's tricky business to snap out of the collective psychosis, it took me 35 years and I still probably wouldn't have if life hadn't thrown me a banana peel in form of a serious accident.
Somewhere deep inside I'm sure almost everyone knows what they would really want to do. But it's too painful, the contrast hurts and it's emotionally tangled up with all the other things that we're not supposed to think about. So we "forget", to fit in.
Oh, mostly nostalgia at this point :) I was in the startup circle for a while, and I've been writing code for more than 32 years. But the only kind of coding that feels worthwhile to me these days is exploring better ways of writing code [0].
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#426Sound engineering. If you're a good sound engineer, you can basically get any album or record signed. All major labels look for excellent sound engineering first, and creativity second. This may sound counterintuitive, however if something is very creative and sounds unprofessional, they won't sign it. If it sounds excellent though very uncreative, it's still professional so there is a high chance of them signing it.…
Isn't it insanely complex and difficult to get some music sounding professional, refined and diminished? Not to mention the cost of equipment... Only from watching friends trying to get their music published, and even after paying big names in the industry it was still rubbish..
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you elaborate a little bit? How do you master breathing and how has it helped you?
There's a wide variety of different breathing techniques that can be used for specific purposes. It's been literally life-changing for me. Some techniques can help you getting out of a bad moment (anxiety, stress,...) but others have much deeper effects and can transform how you function as a human being. You can for example check the following broad categories: a) Conscious breathing (Holotropic, rebirth, and the li…
I also wrote a post on my experience with Wim Hof technique: https://medium.com/the-mission/a-year-of-cold-showers-662ec6...
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
May be, but most anyone who has ever been economically disadvantaged can tell you that it's damn sure the practical reality if you aim to participate in contemporary industrial civilization. When you're home-insecure, health-vulnerable, and have a family depending on you, income starts to dwarf things like ideals in one's value schema. Which is more sad, the people who debase themselves in order to provide for their…
> I see that as a consequence and a failure of society
Consequence yes, failure maybe not, since failure implies lack of success trying to achieve a goal. From my point of view it was never a goal of "society" to avoid that.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#429SQL. Ultimately a software company is a business, run by business people who have to solve business problems. Often to do that they come up with questions which need to be answered by ad-hoc (written on the fly for one purpose) SQL queries. Having that ability, to answer arbitrary questions FAST will elevate your status in the minds of managers and business people.
What's a good place to start learning SQL? (for someone with 5+ years C++ and now dabbling in Clojure/ELisp)
(self plug) you might want to give pgexercises.com a go. It takes you from beginner up to somewhat advanced with exercises that you can run in the browser.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe it's the only game, rather, I believe it's the best. The alternatives are theoretically wonderful, but when you lose the security of regular meals, a roof over your head, a shower, etc... Suddenly I'm not convinced. Judging from the fact that you too are posting from a computer, running on the internet, I can assume you haven't adopted the virtuous life of income free bliss that you speak of?
Oh, for heavens sake. That's as far as you can see? You can get that in prison. We were born and raised on a giant slave plantation. There are enough resources to take care of everyone, so much that some of it has to be kept off the market to keep up the illusion and prices. I'm currently scraping by at a bare minimum, growing my own vegetables and foraging whatever I can find in the area. And I find it infinitely mo…
Flagged, really?
Didn't rhyme with the HN narrative I guess, probably violated some CoC paragraph.
Ah well, this too shall pass. Just know that from the outside you look very funny when you run in circles chasing your tails.