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Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#111

Post by jerf »

adwn wrote: post #44
ValentineC wrote: post #4

I like re-reading this once every few months, and taking stock of how little I've internalised it: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

You might want to rethink aligning your life to a Cracked listicle, in particular this one. For example: > For instance, some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden's line from Fight Club: "You are not your job." But, well, actually, you totally are. Well, actually, you totally aren't. The next part is even worse and downright dehumanizing: > you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful ski…

Having just read it for the first time, I'd characterize that article as the metaphorical slap to bring someone to their senses. It is not enough on its own to build a philosophy on, and it isn't necessarily representative of all of life, but that article is a slap a good number of people need.

But then there's also people for whom it will be the worst thing ever, who have already completely organized their lives around pleasing others and satisfying the needs of others while not thinking about the fact they have their own needs, and need in some sense the complete opposite slap.

But I'm not surprised there's some people who found the article to be food for some fairly big thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#112

Post by piyh »

boringg wrote: post #89

Maybe tone the superlatives down. I am not sure there are "life-changing" blog posts. Maybe a post that is either illuminating to a new way of thinking or point you in another direction. To be clear - I support the idea of sharing insightful information especially as everyone takes different paths of life. I do however loathe the over the top language. This day and age everything is "life-changing", "epic", "GOAT" -…

Mr Money Mustache was a life changing blog for me. I don't think that's a hyperbole. I saved way more money after internalizing that blog's message than I would have otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#113

Post by chubot »

I would say "career changing" more than "life changing", but I just wrote a post that shows the longevity of Joel Spolsky's writing. People are still confused today about things he explained well 15-20 years ago:

https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/07/spolsky.html

I don't think I've ever read a single life-changing blog post, but an entire blog over years and books can definitely be life changing.

I'd say that life-changing stuff has to be contrarian, and Taleb and PG are pretty contrarian. This also means they can be wrong, repetitive, and piss a lot of people off. You can criticize individual posts or passages easily; it's harder to do that of their entire career.

I'd also be careful to label them "not contrarian" -- contrarians can seem less so once people start agreeing with and imitating them, specifically as a result of the writing :)

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#114

Post by snarf21 »

I agree with others, there is no one thing that is going to change your life. You get there via experience. Experiencing the consequences at 30 of something may feel profound despite the fact your parents told you the same thing 100 times as a youth.

My advice is this: Introspection is a super power. The more you take the time to step back and reevaluate all of your actions/assumptions in life, the more you will be able to make meaningful change towards the life you want from NOW.

Also, find purpose outside of your career, find a hobby or cause and find fulfillment there. Corollary, if you are going to have regrets, regret doing something, don't regret not doing it.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#115

Post by jenkstom »

1) The reciprocity project. 2) Some post on how to find a niche and be a great consultant that I haven't found since. 3) "Respect and outcomes" 4) Findlaw's "What is the Definition of Domestic Violence" in where I finally realized that my ex was not just a painful person to deal with but a chronic abuser who I needed to get away from (as my therapist had been urging me to).

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#116

Post by jerf »

bemmu wrote: post #23
shaneos wrote: post #20

Aphantasia: How it feels to be blind in your mind By Blake Ross https://m.facebook.com/nt/screen/?params=%7B%22note_id%22%3A... Before reading this post I had no idea I had aphantasia and thought everyone else was the same as me, unable to see anything when they closed their eyes. This helped me understand myself and my relationships so much better than ever before. Thanks Blake!

I still can’t quite believe there are people who can see clear images in their minds. Maybe it’s more a matter of how you report your experience? I’m very conscious of how poor my mental images are, but maybe with a little less introspection I would also say I have great mental imagery.

I do think variances in reporting are some of it. I have some visualization skills and wouldn't claim to be "aphantasic", but on the flip side, there is an enormous dividing line between real-world images and these imagined images. While awake I would never confuse the two.

I also suspect a lot of people are massively overreporting the quality of their images. It's very easy to imagine something and think you understand it, until asked to produce something based on it. This isn't just limited to mental images, it's the source of the "why don't you 'just'..." questions, and comes up all the time in building, engineering, artistic endeavors, etc. Your brain is easily convinced it has a thought with more detail than it actually has. I really only trust people who have taken a lot of time to train the relevant system if they claim they have these things. For instance, I really can design some somewhat non-trivial programs in my head... but I've been doing this for ~25 years, and only recently would I say I'm getting to the point where these designs are sometimes good enough that they're not taking serious body blows betwixt conceptualization and realization.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#117

Post by rchaud »

adwn wrote: post #44
ValentineC wrote: post #4

I like re-reading this once every few months, and taking stock of how little I've internalised it: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

You might want to rethink aligning your life to a Cracked listicle, in particular this one. For example: > For instance, some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden's line from Fight Club: "You are not your job." But, well, actually, you totally are. Well, actually, you totally aren't. The next part is even worse and downright dehumanizing: > you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful ski…

The article is absolutely perfect for its audience, which is the smirking, early-20s Internet user of 10 years ago that read Cracked, or Maddox and spent their time on Digg and Reddit. You know the type.

I remember the impact it had when it came out. It was the reality check that a lot of people in that age range needed, especially new college graduates. This was the era of the "jobless recovery" of post-2008, when S&P500 was going up but underemployment was very high. You have to learn to drop a lot of ego when your fancy degree has you working at the same Starbucks as a kid straight out of high school.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #103
ripitrust wrote: post #46

https://blog.tjcx.me/p/consume-less-create-more This article inspired me on two things : 1) Lots of the things I do in everyday life is just to consume: buying, watching, following, etc. These things either consume my money, or my time. These things make me feel good, but it does not generate real value. In order to get rich, I need to create things. I also start to realize that great people are great because they st…

>I realized that reading a book was really just like reading Reddit—both were consumptive activitives. I disagree on this but I love and agree with the premise of the blog post. Comparing reddit to Moby Dick could not be further off. reddit (or any similar site) is a shill/bad actor/agitator/troll cesspool full of memes and clickbait. It is important to learn to tell good shit from bad shit. Consume things produced b…

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