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Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

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Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#201

Post by beardbound »

jolmg wrote: post #182
ellius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The War of Art," if anyone needs a source.

Thanks for that. Could you help me with something? I'm reading the foreword of that book right now from Amazon's preview, and it says that it's the 1st of a set of 3 books. I found the 2nd, "Turning Pro", on Amazon, but I can't find the 3rd, "The Higher Realm". Was that book renamed to something else after the foreword was written, or has it still not been published, or what could have happened to it? Do you know any…

I have that book on kindle and just checked the contents. You’re correct. The book is split into three sections called books.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#202

Post by whowhatwhy »

qplex wrote: post #184
khallo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

replace "productive" with "feeling energetic and excited" in that response and their arguments are still valid. If you want to work on something, anything, there are going to be days where you are energetic and excited, and days you will feel like shit. The author of the article is suggesting to quit when the days are shit, and that is a bad advice. There is nothing that will keep you excited forever.

Really, when your mind tells you that you are bored and sick, you should do something else. If the circumstances force you to eat shit, it's still not the right thing to do.

"when your mind tells you" what does this really mean??

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#203

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

qplex wrote: post #200
ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are goals that require delayed gratification. You’re saying getting out of poverty is hard, so don’t do it. You’re saying don’t exercise, it hurts. Hate gutters In bowling? No problem, you’re as good as anyone, it’s the thought that counts. Sometimes you gotta eat shit because it’s the right thing to do. Changing the goals won’t fool anyone, not even yourself. No ones born knowing how to code, it takes prac…

I'm not suggesting to change any goals; just to have a break from any singular activity for a while. But whatever myth you think there is for goals that require delayed gratification simply does not exist (at least for most people). The journey is more important than the destination and all that. Reaching some arbitrary goal doesn't bring you lasting happiness. No ones born knowing to code, but learning to code can a…

No, the absolute worst thing you can say is "It's fine to give up as soon as it gets hard."

If you have a pile of cash you can lead a life of not much. But lottery winners and multimillionaires almost invariably seem to get bored by constant holidays, permanent no-destination travel, and other kinds of freewheeling.

Most people need a goal and a focus. And as soon as you have one you're going to frustrate yourself by definition, because you don't have the skills or the character to reach your goal immediately.

Which means work is involved. And that's going to suck in at least some ways at least some of the time, because work does - even if you're financially self-sufficient and are doing it for passion not money.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#204

Post by jodrellblank »

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #197
eshyong wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's the opposite of what he's saying. Instead of valuing feeling productive, he now values feeling energetic and excited every day. I think you may have missed that part. Not everyone wants to get swole or be a rails core maintainer.

He did want to be a rails maintainer. Did you miss that part?He wasn’t willing to do the work for it. So where’s the lesson? What are we applauding? Changing goal posts is cheating yourself. Self discipline a sin now? It’s the American stigma of failure, deeply flawed national trait The argument is that hard work saps energy and can damage your self esteem so therefore it’s evil. No matter the benefits, they’re not w…

So where’s the lesson? What are we applauding?

If your position is that changing your mind about anything ever is a sin, then what use is a 'lesson' to you? You can't learn it.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#205

Post by CptFribble »

jlelonm wrote: post #175
technothrasher wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're too goal oriented. Leisure activities can be simply about enjoying the activity and don't have to lead to anything. If you like to work on an idea, work on it. When you're annoyed by having to put a front end on it, just don't. You've played with your ideas, you've hopefully learned something and enjoyed passing the time. Now you are free to drop it like a hot potato and move on. I spend my work…

Not who you replied to, but you described me to a T. Problem is - I have no idea what to do about it. It's so hard to do anything fun in my free time because the moment I think about doing / starting something, goal oriented t thoughts follow, which means stress follows. I wish I could just go into "kick the can" mode whenever I wanted and turn off the part of my brain that wants to see results, progress, and checkma…

It takes practice like anything else, but one trick I found is to pick something that you definitely won't ever want to make money or a career from.

Maybe you have absolutely no desire to be a painter or artist. Pick up a pencil and just doodle for 30 minutes. Get some cheap paint and a small canvas on your way home from work and just spend an hour going for it.

Maybe you've always wanted to try fencing. Find a place and take a couple classes just to see what it's like.

I'm also like that, anything I start as a side project almost immediately becomes "if I don't change the world with this, why am I wasting my time?" So I had to start doing things that I know will never amount to anything, and specifically tell myself "This will never matter." When you can accept that you're spending a little time on something that's just for its own sake, then you've done it - you're experiencing an honest-to-goodness leisure activity.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#206

Post by dcsan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #16
danielvaughn wrote: post #3

My problem is that I get excited about different things with far too much frequency. This past week I've become obsessed with a video game idea. The week before I was obsessed with a design app that I'm working on.

I do that too. The top slot in my mind flips between ideas on a weekly basis. Last week it was a videogame. This week it's worldbuilding. Next week it might be something for the job, or it might be an Emacs mode, or who knows. One thing I've noticed though - regardless of whether or not I do something about my current top most exciting thing, these things come back . The same videogame idea has been visiting me regul…

I've started writing down those ideas of interest so I can see if there are themes, or better still a meta-idea that connects some cluster of them, to start work on.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#207

Post by dcsan »

surfsvammel wrote: post #50

“Because every minute spent doing something other than what you love most today is a minute you’re more likely to regret when you’re 80.” I think the opposite is true. Most things that I hated doing when I was 20, I’m today at 49 happy that I did. Workout, do the homework, even my military service. Many things I loved doing in the moment, play video games all through university, for example, I’m not so sure about.

“I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol, and wild women. The other half I wasted.” - WC Fields

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#208

Post by dcsan »

lisper wrote: post #115
throwsprtsdy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be precise, the author isn't simply saying "Do what you love", he's saying "Do what you love in your leisure time ". I think that's an important distinction. He's not giving diligent work short shrift, just trying to exclude drudgery from leisure time specifically.

And he's not saying "do what you love" either. The word "love" appears only once in the article, and that is inside a quote. He's saying "do what you can't stop thinking about." That is not the same as "do what you love."

It's maybe hard to know "what you love" but it's easy to know what keeps floating back up in the top of your brain, even if rational you says it might not be the best use of your time.

Then again if "Dance Monkey" won't stop playing in your head... doesn't mean it's great art.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#209

Post by deepGem »

mntmoss wrote: post #188
deepGem wrote: post #35

Being totally honest here. I don't find any work that I totally can't stop thinking about. There is always something that I need to get done that I don't relish, that I don't enjoy. Here's how it goes - there's an idea that you think is really nice, you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. Some do, but most of them are like meh. There comes the first punch and y…

Here is what I have discovered after grinding at that process many times: You have to find a mechanism of internal feedback and drive the project through that. What I mean there is, simply, when you get the idea and your first instinct is to seek confirmation from others, you've already erred by basing the entire thing on the whims of others. Even if you get them to become stakeholders with a substantial interest, th…

Very helpful insights. Thank you.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#210

Post by cloverich »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #171
dceddia wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that CSS itself isn’t really the point here, that it’s just one annoying thing in the pile of annoying things. But I wanted to mention... As a front end dev and someone who teaches front end stuff (React mainly), CSS really doesn’t change quickly, and when it does change, those changes are additive. CSS is very very good about backward compatibility. To give a specific example, CSS Grid is a newer feature t…

My problem is I don’t know a way. So I go searching for resources to learn from. Except there are dozens of ways to do a given thing. And all are really just partial, incomplete solutions, in different ways. Some are outdated, but how can I tell when I’m not a domain expert. And I don’t want to be an expert on every single domain I have to touch to build whatever thing I am working on. It’s a frustrating world.

You just need to learn the fundamentals of a few CSS techniques, like flexbox [1], [2]. Flexbox is honestly the last new CSS thing I really remember learning that was core to what I did, and I learned it before my last job (~4 years of React full time). New stuff comes out but the core stuff last long and serves you well, esp. now that the old old browsers have died.

[1]: https://philipwalton.github.io/solved-by-flexbox/ [2]: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

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