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Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

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Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#91

Post by decasteve »

> And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ``playing'' - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

Given the circumstances of the time, post-war, and his circumstances, the loss of his wife and stress of the Manhattan project, I might argue a guess that he was grieving.

So it's not just that he found playfulness with physics, it's that he was ready to find it.

What I'm trying to say is don't force it if you're grieving or suffering from some traumatic event. Feynman could play with physics again because he was ready to do so.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#92

Post by fctorial »

nicbou wrote: post #18
jacobmischka wrote: post #7

I read (listened to, technically) this book a few weeks ago because I've always been inspired by the idea of Feynman and didn't know much about him. Honestly, I actually like him less after having read it. As I guess I should have expected, because its subtitle is "Adventures of a Curious Character", it's unfortunately for me filled with many more random personal anecdotes, often involving naked women, prostitutes, g…

Although I didn't approve of some of the things he did, his book ( Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! ) made me want to branch out more, to approach the world with renewed curiosity. His book is a good reminder that there is more to life than your resume. I often find myself taking random detours like he did with the ants or the bongos.

His ant experiments blew my mind. The only experiment I did with ants was rubbing my finger on their trail and then watching them wander around blindly for a minute or so.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#93

Post by shoto_io »

> Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it.

When I was at uni other grad students often referred to us studying physics as “Spielkinder”, play children. No one could say to what end they really wanted to study physics for. Mostly it was just fun understanding how things worked. It was a lot of fun.

The downside of this was that when I was finished I really didn’t know a lot about the real world.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#94

Post by saalweachter »

nicbou wrote: post #34
jmfldn wrote: post #6

"The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate." This shows the extreme importance of blue sky thinking and allowing people to follow their whims sometimes rather than not starting something unless it fits into existing research goals and funding. This breakthrough all lead from an observation that had no apparent use beyond fulfilling a whim…

I learned my trade by playing. I suspect that many other people on HN also did. Now I do something very different, and that also came from playing, as did many of the skills that made it possible. I still write code, but it's entirely for fun. It's a completely different experience from closing tickets in an office. I do many other things that aren't very cost-effective, just because they're fun. They might not pay t…

You can't really make a learning system that doesn't play.

Physical play is how we train, develop and calibrate our bodies; mental play does the same for our minds.

If we one day build AGI that doesn't skip and dance and draw and make up silly stories for the fun of it, that will surprise me a lot more than the other way around.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#95

Post by Iv »

schindlabua wrote: post #66
Netcob wrote: post #44

Goal-oriented work, creativity and motivation definitely have a difficult relationship. In programming, I learn the most things simply by experimenting at home on my own. I'm thinking about switching jobs, so I wanted to learn some new frameworks and concepts to help with that, and I decided to make my personal projects a bit more "professional". Use continuous integration, focus more on web stuff, build and automati…

Hah sounds like you described me perfectly. But I do have to say, ever since I'm programming full-time I seem not to be able to just code for fun anymore. I used to program all day long.. and I guess I still do, but now it's for work, and after 8h of work I'm just done, you know? The "stuff I want to look at" list is growing longer and longer and there's no hope of me ever catching up. (I can't imagine how it is for…

> How do you get anything done in your private life at all?

We don't. It sucks. And if we ever mention the impact of having a kid on our quality of life it makes us bad parents and terrible persons.

I should have resisted more about having a kid. I am happy we made only one.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#96

Post by hibbelig »

schindlabua wrote: post #66
Netcob wrote: post #44

Goal-oriented work, creativity and motivation definitely have a difficult relationship. In programming, I learn the most things simply by experimenting at home on my own. I'm thinking about switching jobs, so I wanted to learn some new frameworks and concepts to help with that, and I decided to make my personal projects a bit more "professional". Use continuous integration, focus more on web stuff, build and automati…

Hah sounds like you described me perfectly. But I do have to say, ever since I'm programming full-time I seem not to be able to just code for fun anymore. I used to program all day long.. and I guess I still do, but now it's for work, and after 8h of work I'm just done, you know? The "stuff I want to look at" list is growing longer and longer and there's no hope of me ever catching up. (I can't imagine how it is for…

I found that the kids running to you and jumping up and down and demanding your attention is an extremely quick way to reset. After an hour or so you completely forgot about work.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#97

Post by paulz_ »

bvsrinivasan wrote: post #11

The meta-principle is that in complex domains there is no straight line, well worn, "plannable" path to greatness. Kenneth Stanley calls it "The Myth of the objective" and has spent the last several years trying to formalize this idea (within AI as well) and get it more traction. Book -- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25670869-why-greatness-c... Talk -- https://youtu.be/dXQPL9GooyI

Just finished the talk. Plan on reading the book. This is one of the most interesting concepts I've come across in recent memory. Really appreciate you sharing.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#98

Post by CalRobert »

schindlabua wrote: post #66
Netcob wrote: post #44

Goal-oriented work, creativity and motivation definitely have a difficult relationship. In programming, I learn the most things simply by experimenting at home on my own. I'm thinking about switching jobs, so I wanted to learn some new frameworks and concepts to help with that, and I decided to make my personal projects a bit more "professional". Use continuous integration, focus more on web stuff, build and automati…

Hah sounds like you described me perfectly. But I do have to say, ever since I'm programming full-time I seem not to be able to just code for fun anymore. I used to program all day long.. and I guess I still do, but now it's for work, and after 8h of work I'm just done, you know? The "stuff I want to look at" list is growing longer and longer and there's no hope of me ever catching up. (I can't imagine how it is for…

Dad of two - we basically don't, if I'm honest. I've had to give up on an immense number of things and while lots of people tell you "having kids is expensive" very few will tell you that the most expensive part is the opportunity cost. I have so many things I want to do and it hurts, almost physically, to watch other people doing them because they could hack on stuff after work while I had to deal with making sure a 3 year old wiped their butt OK or get yelled at because they actually wanted a _different_ spoon.

Now, it turns out my career was lacklustre, so no great loss, and I'm sure having older kids is different than mine (1 and 3) but right now I get make 40-60 minutes a day to do what I want. Not much time for a side gig. I'm writing this right now with my kid watching a cartoon next to me when I originally wanted to work on some UI stuff for a side project, because I'm exhausted. Speaking of the above, she's scratching her butt so maybe we need to discuss the importance of thorough wiping.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#99

Post by mehphp »

schindlabua wrote: post #66
Netcob wrote: post #44

Goal-oriented work, creativity and motivation definitely have a difficult relationship. In programming, I learn the most things simply by experimenting at home on my own. I'm thinking about switching jobs, so I wanted to learn some new frameworks and concepts to help with that, and I decided to make my personal projects a bit more "professional". Use continuous integration, focus more on web stuff, build and automati…

Hah sounds like you described me perfectly. But I do have to say, ever since I'm programming full-time I seem not to be able to just code for fun anymore. I used to program all day long.. and I guess I still do, but now it's for work, and after 8h of work I'm just done, you know? The "stuff I want to look at" list is growing longer and longer and there's no hope of me ever catching up. (I can't imagine how it is for…

You either don’t or you have to sacrifice sleep, leisure time or something else.

I have a full-time job, two-kids and a small SaaS side-business and it is all consuming.

I either get up early or stay up late to work on my own stuff.

The goal is to transition into working for myself but that is going slowly and I’ve been at it for a while so I’m feeling a bit burned out lately...

Thoughts of just selling the damn thing and just working my 9-5 are becoming more frequent...

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#100

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 »

klohto wrote: post #90
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you google "feynman quotes women"?

Why even state it then if you’re not interested in continuing the discussion?

It's a bit too obvious to have potential for a discussion ...
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