Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#41

Post by cttet »

Existential crisis are usually related with "why" questions regarding life. But "why"s are usually of very low priority as it hardly harvest any insights given limited time. It is a helpful tool for human to explore and for scientific progress as it reduces the search spaces of potential actions or models, but not quite necessary helpful for day to day life.

So you can remind yourself that in hour mind it always seems that "why" matters a lot, but facts matter more than models and models can always be improved. "why"s are supposed to be a friend to guide us, but if they created problems, just be skeptic from and reevaluate the value of question itself.

If your crisis is a "what" crisis rather than "why". It is often easier to cope with, as you only need to open up yourself and remind that all "what" questions are just nomenclature build on immature social/scientific models and never complete. Every "what" question can be altered by a different definition.

People often relate existential crisis with nihilist view, but my opinion is that they are not nihilist enough to think through that the existential questions are meaningless or of low priority themselves.

[edit] typo

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#42

Post by dandelion_lover »

H8crilA wrote: post #36
tasuki wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huggles. I can understand how you feel. > battled with the knowledge that life has no intrinsic meaning Yes, it doesn't. But we can choose our own adventure, create our own meaning. I organize a summer camp for ~50 people. Is there any objective value to it? No - we'll all die and no one will remember. But I derive plenty of subjective value, as do the other participants. Is it worth it to do this? Objectively, no. F…

Why not give up on the search of meaning? "What is the meaning" is an ill posed question, because it assumes there is one or that there should be one. I mean think about it - what's the meaning of a life of a wolf. Or a frog. Or a computer program. Or a modern naked ape. They all just are, until they are not.

The creatures you listed were necessary for the development of a human. They are also a part of the fragile balance of nature which keeps the living conditions on Earth. I am not saying everything has a meaning (I do not know). But I disagree that this is "an ill posed question".

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#43

Post by rofo1 »

I vividly remember my first "existential crisis". Well, perhaps that's not the right term for my experience.

The first time I had a feeling that once it's over, it's really game over and.. that's it. Very unsettling, cold, indifferent. Who'd care about some carbon remains on some big stone orbiting somewhere in the galaxy? Nobody, no one, and it doesn't mean anything.

I was 6 years old. I remember where I was, who was in the room, what were they wearing - it's all etched in my memory. That's one of the strongest feelings I've felt.

From time to time, I think about this topic and it's still difficult to accept that we are finite. But, we are and it is what it is. We didn't choose this world; we are here, might as well make the best of it.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#44

Post by H8crilA »

dandelion_lover wrote: post #42
H8crilA wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not give up on the search of meaning? "What is the meaning" is an ill posed question, because it assumes there is one or that there should be one. I mean think about it - what's the meaning of a life of a wolf. Or a frog. Or a computer program. Or a modern naked ape. They all just are, until they are not.

The creatures you listed were necessary for the development of a human. They are also a part of the fragile balance of nature which keeps the living conditions on Earth. I am not saying everything has a meaning (I do not know). But I disagree that this is "an ill posed question".

So was the transistor [necessary] for the development of the CPU. It's also a part of fragile timing nature of electric signals. What's the point?

By ill-posed I simply mean it assumes something under the hood. Like when someone says "how do you catch X criminals" without first establishing that X is a crime. It's kind of a trick of language.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#45

Post by lampenrad »

Pandabob wrote: post #35

Yup. I guess spending time with family and friends makes it better. At least it does for me. We adopted a dog with my girlfriend this January and I'd say that just spending time with him alleviates it. I'd imagine having kids will have a similar effect (probably 100x stronger). In the newest Indie Hackers podcast [1], founder Aline Learner mentioned that starting a business helps with existential crises because you'r…

>I'd imagine having kids will have a similar effect (probably 100x stronger).

Sure, but putting the burden of existence on another human to alleviate one‘s existential pain doesn‘t make the problem go away, it only puts it on others that had no say in their own creation. Overall it increases the amount of suffering (unless we‘re talking about adoption in the case of the child, too).

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#46

Post by dandelion_lover »

H8crilA wrote: post #44
dandelion_lover wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creatures you listed were necessary for the development of a human. They are also a part of the fragile balance of nature which keeps the living conditions on Earth. I am not saying everything has a meaning (I do not know). But I disagree that this is "an ill posed question".

So was the transistor [necessary] for the development of the CPU. It's also a part of fragile timing nature of electric signals. What's the point? By ill-posed I simply mean it assumes something under the hood. Like when someone says "how do you catch X criminals" without first establishing that X is a crime. It's kind of a trick of language.

The point is that there may be a meaning. You questions do not prove its lack.

I do not like your parallel. The question about the meaning of life can also have the answer "there is no". It does not assume anything under the hood.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#47

Post by betimsl »

idoubtit wrote: post #21

I'm surprised existential crisis is not a common phenomena. Life has no meaning, no purpose. "I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind." (Qohelet, in the Bible, about 2300 years ago). So why live? In my case, I examined my options. Purposely dying (including taking extreme risk while mountain climbing, etc) is not an option for now, because it would cause intens…

You have people who you love and (probably) love you back and yet you want to go?

You're a narcissistic ignorant. Lift your head up a little and see the world you dumb idiot. Look at the people dying of hunger all over the world and you're sitting here telling us that you have read thousands of books and now everything is saturated for you instead of celebrating the privileges you have.

I hope you live up to 100 and your time passes as slowly as possible because looks like that is the worst possible TORTURE somebody can wish for you.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#49

Post by austincheney »

Going through one right now.

I am old and confident in my skills as a developer. Many of my peers are young and utterly lack the confidence I take for granted.

Part of being confident (different than arrogant), and old, is that you have a kind of honesty about your capabilities and the technologies in which you work from experience solving certain problems. You know what is easily capable and what isn't. You know what is necessary and what isn't. You don't need tools, frameworks, gimmicks, or black magic to write your code for you. In many cases you would rather just write an original solution for a given problem because there is a very good change it will be less code, execute faster, and takes less time than dicking around with a bunch of dependencies and their configurations.

Another part of getting old is a loss of sensitivity. Either you have moved passed hard problems and grown callous to things that are no longer challenging or your career is stuck stagnating. Let's call that battle scars. This doesn't mean empathy is gone, but it does mean you have lost patience for people who either don't try or make everything an emotional event.

I found the culminating collision between old confident developers versus less confident, possibly more sensitive, developers boils down to RTFC (Read The Fucking Code). Here are some frustrating scenarios:

* A developer is particular about code style and so they don't RTFC and then misunderstandings occur.

* A developer is intimidated when a file contains greater than X lines of code and so they don't RTFC and misunderstandings occur.

* A developer refuses to do work without a certain API, framework, or tool and so they refuse to RTFC causing defects to slip into production.

* A developer doesn't know what they are doing and make an incomplete attempt to RTFC but refuses to ask questions in order to achieve clarity.

* A developer doesn't know what they are doing and finds a piece of code challenging so instead of RTFC they blame everything else, such as coworkers or the programming language, on their failures.

* A developer is largely code illiterate and so they pretend to RTFC and then lie about their assessment.

This is an existential crisis for me, because I am tired of dicking around with dishonest insecure people whose only professional goal is to achieve easiness (not simplicity). I have a fancy job at one of the largest and most profitable public companies in the US and I am in the process of giving this up and relocating for a change of pace.

Re: Ask HN: Have you ever had an existential crisis?

#50

Post by Haghn »

penguinlover08 wrote: post #40
Haghn wrote: post #39

I found that one of the best advice (successfully tested on myself and others) to help during existential crisis is to remember that someday you are going to die, and work from there. If you knew you were going to die in ten minutes, what will you do ? What will you regret ? What will you wish you had done ? Also this : https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...

so basically Stoicism's negative visualization?

I am not much experienced with stoicism, so I can't say.

My reasoning is that a crisis is generated by an unpleasant situation that may be difficult to identify, thus the feeling of powerlessness. By looking for what you want - or don't - out of life, and in an ideal situation (in front of death, a very personal thing where you don't have to deal with habits, job, or any external pressure), you can identify the elements in your life that suit you or don't, and act on it.

Post reply on HN