The Animal Is Tired • Hacker News Board

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#291

Post by Swizec » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #159

Swizec wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a better explanation? I think it’s possible for both to be true. That kids give you unadulterated joy and also make you objectively worse off.

Generally, what I have seen, people report greater overall satisfaction with their lives if they have kids. Cant be bothered to dig up the data, but I have read about it a number of times over the years. However, deep in your 20s and 30s is when careers are taking off, kids are at their most demanding ages, etc. it’s rare to be fully established in your career when your kids are young. That means lower earnings. So,…

Yeah it depends how you ask the question.

Do you feel more fulfilled? Yes probably

Do you feel more stressed and struggling? D’oh

Typically we don’t equate “stressed, struggling, tired, and constantly drowning” as more happy. At least not in life satisfaction surveys I imagine

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#292

Post by danenania » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #267

blfr wrote: post #166

Better food, more exercise, more relaxation... but I also wonder if it would have made any difference. Yes. I'm only half OP's age but working out and eating well (well for me means much more) has made all the little aches I started to have in my 20s go away and made me much calmer, I can also sleep pretty much anywhere and at any time. More interestingly though, Me, and the animal I live inside. there is no animal y…

> there is no animal you live inside, this is not a meat vehicle for something else, your body is you, it's not some machine you merely inhabit. I wonder how history will view such statements once we manage the ability to uncouple our humanity from our meat prisons.

I suspect we will find that those things are not as neatly separable as some would like to think.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#293

Post by serjester » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

Snoozus wrote: post #234

maxqin1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> good food Everyone thinks they eat good food. Food is the number one physical measurable input into our bodies. So it boggles my mind that nutrition isn't the most studied subject, alongside maybe the study of living a fulfilling life. Changing my eating habits has changed my life for the better. It took kidney stones (not recommended) to get me here. But even my most obese and unhealthy friends like to proudly tel…

> Food is the number one physical measurable input into our bodies. This is the single reason why everyone focusses on food. It is not the biggest lever you have on your health / wellbeing. It is the easiest variable to measure and to play with. From the research it is quite clear that apart from gross errors what you eat does not really matter to any outcome. Quantity matters, but eating more can be compensated by e…

As someone that loves doing research on this, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I agree the first priority is sorting out your mental health, but after that a quality diet has massive ramifications on your life.

>>> Quantity matters, but eating more can be compensated by excercising more.

A single donut can have as many calories as running for an hour. Unless you have fantastic genetics / young it’s incredibly difficult to out run a bad diet.

Then there’s the discussion of good calories vs bad calories. If your goal is to optimize well being, what you put into your body has an outsized impact on how you feel so it’d be crazy to not pay some attention to your diet.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#294

Post by oldprogrammer2 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

climb_stealth wrote: post #61

autarch wrote: post #33

Robin Hobb is one of my favorite authors. Her masterwork is a series of series (four trilogies and a quadrology) known as The Realm of the Elderlings. She published the first trilogy, which begins with Assassin's Apprentice, starting in 1995. I saw the books when they first came out and I assumed from the title and the cover that it would be a cheesy fantasy by the numbers, so I never bought it. But I kept hearing ab…

Aw man, I just started a comment saying how this sounds really promising and was going to ask about it. Turns out I have actually read them. I might have to read them all again. I would recommend them as well. I'm a big fan of the Malazan series as well. I still think of the hair jacket when I come across someone with a smelly jacket and it never fails to crack me up. My recommendation for epic fantasy that is a bit…

The Dark Tower is one of my favorites, probably because King doesn't feel constrained by convention or genre. And if you have read King's other works you will appreciate the connections to his universe throughout, particularly The Stand and Salem's Lot.

Like others have said, the first 2 books are particularly good. But, be warned that the second book deals with a lot of racial and sexual issues, and King does not have a filter. The fourth book is a prequel, and really stands on its own as a novel, but really threw off the rhythm of the series for me. I had a hard time getting into it because I wanted to resume the primary storyline. The ending does come with a warning, but I think it was perfect.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#295

Post by cinntaile » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

danparsonson wrote: post #270

maxqin1 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing ironic at all. That's how I treat anything that is important to me. I like to ask questions. And the world is always changing. To think continuous change is "ironic" sounds problematic to me. I mean, that's why they little fat kid inside the large obese woman thinks it's still alright to eat cake for breakfast. Edit: there is such a thing as eating right for your age!

I think the GP was referring to the irony of 'eating healthy' only to later find out that what was previously considered healthy is now considered unhealthy. Spinach a nice example of that - I've been eating it raw for ages thinking I was being healthy, had no idea about the potential problems.

Yes this is what I meant to say, thanks for the clarification.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#296

Post by kayodelycaon » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

kkoncevicius wrote: post #283

The animal separation part is confusing to me. Not because of any "mind versus matter" dilemmas but because of desires. The author says that the animal wants to relax and lie down. But where is the distinction here? If you drink coffee when you feel the urge - that's on you, but if you relax when you feel like it - then it's the animal? Can it be that all those desires for working hard and having coffee and alcohol w…

> The author says that the animal wants to relax and lie down.

The author does not say this. She said her body needed this and she ignored that need.

The animal being talked about is her body and everything else is her regrets of not taking care of it. That's all.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#297

Post by LargeWu » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

SunlightEdge wrote: post #265

spamalot159 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brandon Sanderson is my go to recommendation for fantasy nowadays. Mistborn is a great place to start but The Way of Kings is the real meat and potatoes. He also links all these books together in the same universe and it's fun to notice the connections.

At the risk of being downvoted I don't find Brandon Sanderson a very good fantasy writer. For me, The way of kings started well (even if the characters were all pretty 2-D) in book one. Interesting plot with it mixing ww1/dune computer game themes in a fantasy setting. But by book 3 it was an incredible chore to get through and I stopped after about 10% in. I even got bored reading the plot summary of the third book.…

I don't know if it's that Sanderson is a bad writer; I think it's more that he's a bad editor. He is so prolific that he doesn't take the time to cut his books down to the length they should be, which is probably about half the length.

Every single novel I've read by him (All of mistborn, 1st 3 Way of Kings, Elantris) has egregious pacing problems. Way too much repetitive exposition that doesn't move the story along.

Arcanum Unbounded is actually pretty good, probably because it's all short stories and doesn't have time to get lost)

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#298

Post by Ensorceled » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

earthboundkid wrote: post #290

Ensorceled wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no animal you live inside, this is not a meat vehicle for something else, your body is you, it's not some machine you merely inhabit. It always drives me crazy when people take the work of a poet or author literally and then pedantically hound any joy or meaning out of the words. The point is that humans are animals, treat your animal well.

You can make that point better if you cut the "inside" part and have the big reveal at the end be that you are the animal. Having the big reveal be that you're in the animal sets up a false distinction which doesn't help make the point.

You are totally entitled to that opinion and critique. I disagree completely.

Also, that would be a different essay that you wanted Robb to write, not the one that she did.

There are many people who disassociate themselves, the inner "person", from their body. I have a friend with MS who practices this explicitly. This article reminds those people that they must still take care of their animal.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#299

Post by hedberg10 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

Liskni_si wrote: post #287

hedberg10 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*when the sun is the highest in the sky. Shirt off, if you dare. Start slow (don't be stupid and burn yourself). The energy is incredible. I walked about 20 miles this morning with the sun coming up before biking 6 miles to work and then back in the evening. And I know I'll have lots of energy to spare tonight. Yes we are warm blooded animals but still very dependent on the sun and activity.

20 miles is just 6 miles less than a marathon, and would take over 6 hours at the normal pace of 5 km/h. Is that really what you manage to do in the morning before work? :-O

Thank you for catching me. No, that is not what I walked :)

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#300

Post by kyralis » Mon, May 10, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

mattjaynes wrote: post #286

SunlightEdge wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted I don't find Brandon Sanderson a very good fantasy writer. For me, The way of kings started well (even if the characters were all pretty 2-D) in book one. Interesting plot with it mixing ww1/dune computer game themes in a fantasy setting. But by book 3 it was an incredible chore to get through and I stopped after about 10% in. I even got bored reading the plot summary of the third book.…

Totally agree. I love his lectures on writing which you can find on YouTube. He's a great teacher with excellent content. But great teachers aren't always the best writers. I decided to try the Mistborn trilogy. The first book was great - a nice tight and satisfying story. But the second and third books got progressively messier and I found myself totally disconnected and eventually just slogging through to the end.…

I had the same reaction to the Mistborn books, and my interpretation is that Sanderson really struggles when the plot and characters get "wide". The first book was tight and focused; when the characters graduated to a larger stage everything - from the characters to the world to the plot - ended up "flat" and unrealistic. It's like he has a set budget for any given work, and the wider the focus the less of that budget any individual piece gets.

Which is a shame, because some of his work really is excellent.