Quit Your Job

I know it's bad form to move so quickly into meta-discussion on here, but I feel a lot of the comments in the thread right now are endemic of a certain closed-mindedness that has, to me, come to define in part the Hacker News zeitgeist, which stands in something of a contrast to the site's supposed founding principle of intellectual curiosity.

There is plenty of prior art in Western (and other traditions of) philosophy in the spirit of this essay. Nietzsche and Bataille talked about work in a similar way. Cioran pretty explicitly embraced failure (or the risk of failure) as virtue, as this work does. This essay seems to be saying something like: take a big risk, quite possibly fail, live your principles even if it means being an "outcast", commit to it, and who cares what other people think, because in doing so you will find your people. The response in here seems to be "look at this guy taking big risks and failing, what an outcast." Of course, that is surely the point.

I have, as I'm sure many on here have, found success in grinding away at boring problems, suppressing any kind of "call of God" or desire to do something larger, so we could build a nest egg and stable future for ourselves with MAGMA money. This essay is sort of a direct assault on the aesthetics of that approach. As for me, I have grown quite tired of it, so this piece does resonate with me.

If it does, you will be extremely delighted knowing there is a book by Marcus Aurelius called Meditations. The book withstood the test of time. He has written it clearly and explained his reasons in a proper manner. He was a roman ruler and everything is from that perspective. Most of the people here are probably not making enough money to get by the everyday mundanes of life. So things like self-actualization are far away from reach. Therefore, when someone drops in an article like this, saying to quit job, isn't it disrespectful for those trying to get their needs? Sure, if everyone had a comfort cushion, I guess internet would be a better place. But the reality is quite harsh! Therefore, people may say harsh things but they don't mean it. It's just to get by.

I hope this isn't offending!

Deeply, deeply pretentious.

Such drivel. If you really want to move people to act give them a clear roadmap for a lifestyle that supports years without meaningful income.

Did you have $1M in savings? Did you have rich parents? Did you just live off your SO's income? Did you have financial dependants like children or elderly parents?

I hope I'm wrong but this just reeks of intense privilege being misconstrued as nonconformity.

So many wild things in this, but I was curious about this aspect:

> It also helped that I was unemployed. I had time to court her properly.

Does anyone find this kind of situation helps their relationship health? I've started relationships between jobs and started them with people who weren't working. It's not always long-term poison, but a big part of a relationship is figuring out if your two lives will work well together. I find that's easiest to figure out if neither of you is in a temporary situation that's radically different from your future. Sometimes you get lucky and you survive the transition - but in my experience you'll be on the strongest footing if you don't need to navigate a major transition!