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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

#221

Post by eshyong »

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…

The author is not selling you anything. He is not saying that hard work is bad. His _whole argument_ is that we should work on projects that excite us and benefit us, as opposed to working on Rails because it's trendy and has lots of stars on Github.

To be honest, I think you would agree with the author if you focused on the overall message rather than specific points in the post.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#222

Post by overcast »

frfl wrote: post #215
overcast wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, mine looks like the one on the right, except a shade darker and without the horrible aliasing. That one on the left looks like your display has the brightness maxed out. I agree people should be more conscious of typography legibility, but what you're seeing on the left looks like there is something wrong with your display. Viewing on my iPhone 11 Pro is crisp and dark as well.

Interesting. But that image I've attached is a software screenshot, not a picture of my screen, so calibration should have no effect when you view it on your screen. Maybe it's just superior macos/ios having font/color rendering and not the display itself. Edit: Opened it up on Android, it's better there than pc for sure. Might just be font rendering on on system that's crap.

Yes, Windows font rendering is famously bad compared to MacOS. Though the color should not be affected like that.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#223

Post by 9588 »

CptFribble wrote: post #205
jlelonm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

i created and abandoned a project gathering developers not to do anything. people odly understood :) there was going to be a yearly newsletter that was never send out and participants were free to do other equally unimportant things together using the name of the org (that was never picked) overal it was a hilarious experience. most of the work was in assuring people they would not be contacted for anything.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#224

Post by kingludite »

maroonblazer wrote: post #49
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…

>you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. I think this was your first mistake. I believe the author's point is that whatever that thing is, it's important to you and potentially you alone. If it so happens to be interesting to others that's icing on the cake. And, there's at least some chance that that thing you find to be so important others, somewhere, will fi…

I use a more generic version of this scheme: 1) You keep that what makes your life worth while far away from potential critics. 2) Expect those deep into something not to want to share anything about their passion until you fully assure them of your respect and sincere interest. IOW they specifically don't want your [negative] opinion about their stamp collection or their model trains.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#225

Post by kingludite »

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…

haha, I keep telling people to think of their performance as a training schedule. You monitor your health and overall well being, do as much as you should to gradually improve, not doing enough is as bad as doing to much. The response is that hilarious story how they imagine any amount of work to destroy them gradually.

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#226

Post by kingludite »

qplex wrote: post #213
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm only saying one should not have to continually withstand frustration or bad circumstances. Sometimes giving up (and doing something else) is the right thing to do. Sometimes you need a break to be able to continue. And so on. In any case you should never prime for difficulty, it only decreases performance and motivation. And since very few things are actually really, really necessary, I find it's very hard to pas…

If you push yourself enough you get stronger, fail to push and you get weaker. Accumulate enough weakness and everything in life becomes really hard. Truly terrifyingly hard to the point it just gets bizare. Running a marathon is easier for some people than walking to the car is for others. If you build up enough strength you can also accomplish things that take a lot of effort and time. The satisfaction you get from that cant be compared to instant gratification. But more importantly, you feel fantastic when you have the energy and know you can do hard challenging things right when you decide to go for it. Not next week, right now!

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#227

Post by kingludite »

dcsan wrote: post #206
TeMPOraL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My "joke" is to abandon them professionally. Ideally they are left in a state where someone else can pick them up. (could be me 10 years from now)

Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about

#228

Post by kingludite »

nukst wrote: post #111
glouwbug wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy, I enjoyed that. Everytime I sit down to face a nasty problem I get a little sick, but as I start working a flow slowly starts to build, and before I know it the Starbucks I'm at is empty. I wouldn't consider myself a professional, but I know how to beat my own inner dialogues it seems

I can relate to that. Sometimes I'm dealing with a problem that is really complicated and I tried to solve several times without success... I can feel the resistance in bed, when having breakfast and before I sit on my chair and fire up vim to go to that very block of code. It also tears me apart to go to work and leave it unsolved. Resistance drags us down really, really bad. It makes it difficult to go back to work…

From chess I learn that being professional about things means absolutely nothing. You just do it and get to the point where instinct wants you to run away in horror. To me, this is where the work starts. The point where the boys stay behind and the men move on. If you want to be better than others (like in chess) you cant just stop where everyone else would stop. That would be silly.
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