51–60 of 152 posts
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This comment seems to be more about your situation than it is about his. We aren't crabs in a pot. Someone else doing a good thing does not make your life worse. You can simultaneously strive for making your own life better and celebrate someone else doing something healthy for themselves.
Jason posts a handful of cool links each week and occasionally writes a few paragraphs about them. He also sometimes produces a podcast. As far as I can tell, this is the full extent of his job. It’s really hard to imagine getting “burnt out” from this. It sounds exactly how many people actively enjoy spending their free time: surf the internet for fun and take a few minutes sharing a couple cool links with your frie…
I'm not saying curation is the world's hardest job but stakes are a bit different when you've become popular enough to make a living off of it. It's like being a Youtuber -- folks donate to you because you add value to their lives via your content. Even if generating links and paragraphs seems low-effort to you, to do it well every day for 24 years you can't shut off your consumption of media and you need to stay in…
Losing motivation for a project and moving over to new things is very different from a burn out.
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No, it's not very fair he's been able to coast through most of his adult life by scrounging up links to things that elder millennial nerds find neat, but taking swipes at a person who's been going through turmoil for a few years (apparently eight, but it's been coming across in his writing for at least the past two) does nothing to change that.
Telling kids to clear their plates because there are children starving in Africa doesn't actually help feed those children.
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maybe people just need to take a break from the internet? especially people who have been a part of the internet for almost the whole time of the commercial web.
It really rubs me the wrong way that someone claims to be "burnt out" from a job that probably requires an average of an hour or two a day of non-taxing work. I'd love to see Jason say with a straight face that he's "burnt out" to a minimum wage worker who works 12+ hours days, 7 days a week, or even to your average office drone who spends 8 hours a day pushing TPS reports without any breaks in a soulless cubicle. It…
I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in terrible conditions, doesn't mean he can't be sick of his job.
I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).
Must be wonderful to actually have the luxury to step away... I'm living the American dream - to work a non-rewarding job for no other reason other than health insurance. How do people manage these sabbaticals? Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?
You can buy your own insurance policy. You only chose to use your company provided insurance because they pay for half of it and no rational person takes on a large expense for no reason. If you can afford to take six months off and travel to Europe you can afford to pay full rate for insurance for 6 months while you do it and they go back to a half priced company policy when you get back.
But... you may not be able to get your own with any tax benefits if your company offers something and you choose not to take it. That's my understanding anyway. And... health insurance is just totally hosed in the US, with regulations like that on the books.
Take employers out of the equation. Let everyone buy their own, and/or, institute some basic govt policy, and let people buy private on top.
If you're buying for a family, it can be prohibitively expensive. Even a few years back (2016/207), high deductible plans for some of my colleagues were north of $1500/month with $10k deductibles for 2 people in their 50s with an early 20s kid.
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It really rubs me the wrong way that someone claims to be "burnt out" from a job that probably requires an average of an hour or two a day of non-taxing work. I'd love to see Jason say with a straight face that he's "burnt out" to a minimum wage worker who works 12+ hours days, 7 days a week, or even to your average office drone who spends 8 hours a day pushing TPS reports without any breaks in a soulless cubicle. It…
I really feel like you're reading too much into the term "burned out". You can get sick of doing anything and lose the spark. I've never managed to do anything consistently for half as long as he's run his blog. It's kind of amazing to me he lasted this long. I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in…
>I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).
Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork. It feels insulting and sneeringly privileged coming from someone whose job is to surf the internet for a few hours a day and sometimes post about it.
It is as if someone unironically described themselves as "severely clinically depressed" after their favorite sports team lost a game, or someone in the top 1% sincerely calling themselves "impoverished" after a slight cut to their yearly bonus (or the recent bloodbath in the stock market).
Jason posts a handful of cool links each week and occasionally writes a few paragraphs about them. He also sometimes produces a podcast. As far as I can tell, this is the full extent of his job. It’s really hard to imagine getting “burnt out” from this. It sounds exactly how many people actively enjoy spending their free time: surf the internet for fun and take a few minutes sharing a couple cool links with your frie…
Firstly, I believe you underestimate the amount of work Jason does and the amount of stress he is under.
I've read Kottke.org since I was a kid, and it's the only blog I still regularly read. There's a reason it's the only website I've looked at everyday for the majority of my life: consistent excellence. Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality.
And that doesn't happen for free. I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years. Remember that his livelihood depends directly on driving traffic to his website — there's no safety net or wiggle room. This sounds incredibly stressful to me.
Secondly, in another comment you claim that because other people with different jobs might be burnt out from those jobs, it is not reasonable for Jason to feel burnt out from his job, and therefore his sabbatical is unwarranted.
This makes no sense. Anyone can get burnt out from any job, and if they have the privilege to do so (and I do agree with you that it is a privilege), they should take time off. In a similar vein, if someone suffers from depression, that person should seek therapy if they can, regardless of whether someone else has life circumstances that are worse.
It makes no sense to prevent someone from taking time off (or seeking therapy) just because their life isn't as bad as someone else's. Instead, we should advocate for better working conditions (or access to therapy) for those who cannot afford the privilege.
Must be wonderful to actually have the luxury to step away... I'm living the American dream - to work a non-rewarding job for no other reason other than health insurance. How do people manage these sabbaticals? Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?
If a knowledgeable person on your team is burnt out and considering a new job, a long (paid) vacation can be advantageous for all.
Huge fan of kottke, he should take all the time he needs. I will say there's no way that tree isn't pot-bound though.
Dare I say no one has done more for the blog form than Mr. Kottke. His humble, almost monkish 24-year commitment to not only the pursuit of knowledge and meaning in the world, but his absolute insistence on sharing that pursuit with anyone who wants to ride along in that journey is one of the all-time greatest contributions to the web. Godspeed, Jason. Be well and see you on the flip (in whatever way you deem fit).
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