Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985) • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by nthj » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

mehphp wrote: post #99

schindlabua wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

I don’t mean to stick my nose in, but seeing as we are on HN: I keep hearing the market is pretty good for capital lately, have you explored raising a round to accelerate dropping the 9-5?

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

#142

Post by seoaeu » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

practicalpants wrote: post #39

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…

I don't think Feynman was that different in this masculine or promiscuous respect from many of that era's greats... Schrödinger, von Neumann, Einstein, to name a few. Feynman at least writes extensively about his deceased wife. I imagine you would not enjoy reading history too much as the 21st C Western first world attitudes on these topics are pretty unique compared to any other time.

Those other scientists didn't coerce any of their female graduate students to pose naked so they could practice for their painting hobby.

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

#143

Post by shawnz » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #110

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a sweet spot somewhere between the extreme of not using pre-built tools and drowning in them. I've been following a similar path: automation and testing give me certainty and peace of mind when I'm working on bigger teams, so they should also improve my personal projects, right? Well, the difference is that my personal projects are used only by me in limited ways, and I also don't have to worry that someone…

Every third party tool (or library dependency, by the way) is something that will have to be well understood, maintained and fixed when broken. Which is why I try to avoid them for the most part in my personal and work projects. When someone at work says "Hey, lets just use Xyz package I found online! It does just what we want!" you need to ask: Who fixes it when it causes a problem that stops us from shipping? Who d…

I strongly agree that bringing in new dependencies is not a small consideration. But at the same time, third-party dependencies will always be necessary and by carefully choosing those that are best suited for the job, you might be able to get a net reduction in complexity.

Old, established third-party dependencies are not necessarily better for the job than new, trendy dependencies. Their entrenched nature can be an advantage and also a limitation. And when you roll it yourself, then that is of course the newest and least established solution of all.

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

#144

Post by lumost » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #140

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…

> I don't want to spend my leisure time fighting with tools, debugging build processes that break all the time, make sense of docker's tagging system Now that CV-driven development is the standard, we are forced to learn new bloated "devops" tools and services every year. This type of knowledge expires very quickly. Also these tools and services do not develop communities: business users drop last-year tools like hot…

Sometimes I wonder if modern corporate culture has adopted soviet style newspeak.

Why are we immigrating to the new thing? For the same reasons as we migrated to the old thing. Why is the new thing better? Because it’s just so much better.

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

#145

Post by thisismyswamp » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

hungryforcodes wrote: post #12

A couple of comments here focus on the ability to play -- which is important -- and on blue sky thinking, etc. All very important, true! But what really strikes me is how this situation Feynman was in is a perfect example of Deep Work. He could expore whatever his mind needed to explore, and do it for as long and in whatever way he needed. I'm pretty sure this is an often overlooked success factor for his Nobel win.

Why try to fit this story into some arbitrary modern concept that was invented in order to sell books?

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

#146

Post by ta1234567890 » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

Reminds me of this slime mold video: https://youtu.be/GwKuFREOgmo

The mold “operates” in roughly two modes: exploring and exploiting. It explores to find the food and then it exploits the best paths to the food to consume it.

I feel our minds work in a similar way, we explore when learning new stuff and then we exploit when using what we learned to accomplish something.

Probably most of the work that majority of people do is mostly exploiting previously learned stuff, with some limited exploration sprinkled into it every now and then.

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

#147

Post by pomian » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

An aside for future or present dad's (and all Parents.) There is so much joy and learning that happens with raising kids, that I think the secret is not fight it, but enjoy it. Almost sounds cliché, but embrace the experience. From the very beginning to when they are adults, to experience a window into your own life, a window into the world. These windows allow you to explore your surroundings and relationships with a different eye, with more understanding. The best way to get into that zone, is to forget your own desires for a bit, forget your schedule. Just live in the moment of the kid (s). After you relax a bit, and surrender to their schedule, then all of a sudden you find opportunities for your time in between. But with passion and effectiveness. As mentioned below in a comment, you can be more focused, I believe because you are more relaxed. If you fight all the time to make 'your' schedule fit, you become frustrated. As you let go, you find a schedule that works, and with enthusiasm for that time to create and build. Cherish the moment with the kids, everything from diaper changing to eating, because they are a reflective window on your own soul, and a fresh mirror to the insanity if the world around you.

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

#148

Post by localhost » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

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…

I can't agree more! I make the same argument, but much less eloquently than you did "I just randomly got interested in this particular topic and decided to play aorund with it".

Using the same motivation: "let's play with things and see what I can figure out", I created a video [1] where I figure out what I need to do to create a silly version of the cat command that prints text out upside-down.

I did it for a bunch of reasons: figuring out how to replace system commands, learning a bit more about Unicode, trying out our C extension for VS Code, learning the process for building YouTube video (which was a very deep rabbit hole) ... all to produce a single video. It was fun, scratched an itch that I've had for a while that I'll continue to work on.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ2ivP2llFs

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

#149

Post by shawnz » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

temporama1 wrote: post #118

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…

> I'll come up with my own tools. They won't be great, but... They WILL be great. They'll do exactly what YOU need them to do, and nothing else. Software at present is a disaster, partly because we're just piling on complexity all the time, thinking only of the benefits and never of the huge downsides ("fighting with tools").

Everyone who develops a tool did it because they thought their tool would be great, and do exactly what they needed better than everything else that existed previously.

Everyone has slightly different needs, so that is exactly what creates the complexity disaster you are talking about. I think that being more willing to re-use the existing work of past developers actually works to reduce this problem.

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

#150

Post by SaltyBackendGuy » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

swat535 wrote: post #137

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…

This is exactly why the more I think about it, the more I just want to git-push-heroku-goodbye and be done with it. I don't care about setting and maintaining AWS instances, docker containers and jenkins. The older I get, the more I realize how precious my time is and now I have very little patience for anyone or anything that wastes it. This is also why I've basically cut off all social medias from my life (except H…

Same.

I completely overbuilt a recent side project and ended up scraping the whole thing because it wastes too much time to maintain it. As much as I love building new projects, having children at home reminds me that time is my only true resource and it's better spent with the kiddos (at least at this stage of my life).