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Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#201

Post by DougN7 »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #122

Those are so very clichéd but that’s how it is. 1. Travelling - just going somewhere, taking a train ride, just being on the move, a trek, or a place even 80-100km from the city or sometimes closer; for 1-2 days, or few months at a stretch. I really feel I’m breathing more, feel like I am “alive” (I don’t know how else to say this), I feel genuinely and effortlessly happy when I’m travelling. I sleep better (!!), I w…

I can understand enjoyment playing sports with others, but even after a couple of years of running I never came to enjoy it. What’s the secret?

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#202

Post by uwagar »

v-erne wrote: post #174
mrelectric wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Once you're a parent you can never not be a parent again" without clearly elucidating the logic behind it? It's a simple sentence. Your comments feel tiresome and pushy. Once you're a parent you can never not be a parent again because that kid is simultaneously a part of you, potential manifestation of all your dreams and hopes that you can't or won't accomplish, they're your friend, companion, confidant. They're…

>> potential manifestation of all your dreams and hopes that you can't or won't accomplish And this is how You get tiger moms ladies and gentlemen (only half joking - Your child is first and foremost independent human and not extension of yourself). >> You understand them and they understand you like no one else does. I think I have never seen this in my life - where do You think generational conflicts comes from?

i'm with u bro. these dads seem to live in some cuckooland. wait till the kid asks them to fuck off and let them live their life their way.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#203

Post by rnk »

srvmshr wrote: post #180
kairozu wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Also live in Japan & work for a domestic company w/friendly work culture (no dress code, WFH common, flex time). Definitely look for something new if you’re not happy.

I have all the three you mentioned. The problem lies with staffing. I am the only one who does their ETL, manage their database, build the backend and dashboard and pursue ML projects on 3D AR/MR at the same time. For them, as the 4X engineer I am shouldering half of the engineering workload

Get a new job? That would be the us solution, but could that work there?

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#204

Post by rg111 »

notacoward wrote: post #183

Getting 50 pages into a new book, realizing it's really good and I still have 450 pages to go. Bonus points if it's a new (to me) author with many other works available.

I had that feeling about Neal Stephenson.

It was Cryptonomicon, so I had about 1000+ pages left, and multiple books.

Oh, I am so glad that I discovered Stephenson. And I have HN to thank for that.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#205

Post by deltaonefour »

mrelectric wrote: post #149
deltaonefour wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once you're a parent you can never not be a parent again, not even in a hypothetical multiple-worlds time-travel scenario. This is not true at all. It's not a logical answer. Based of what you just said above, I believe you are being honest but I believe your biases are creeping into the answer and therefore cannot trust it. I'm sorry. The reason is because if you erased your memory of being a parent with time trave…

> "Once you're a parent you can never not be a parent again" without clearly elucidating the logic behind it? It's a simple sentence. Your comments feel tiresome and pushy. Once you're a parent you can never not be a parent again because that kid is simultaneously a part of you, potential manifestation of all your dreams and hopes that you can't or won't accomplish, they're your friend, companion, confidant. They're…

Probably is pushy. Don't worry about it. You can just not answer. Up to you.

Either way, Thanks for the answer but your words would not convince me to have a kid if the result of everything you said meant that I would be significantly unhappier.

This is really what I'm driving at: What is it can you actually say to convince someone who's not a parent to become one despite the fact that it will make you significantly unhappier.

I mean you explained why you can't stop being a parent, you've explained the benefits of being a parent but you haven't explained why you should start being one despite knowledge of NET unhappiness in the future.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#206

Post by deltaonefour »

v-erne wrote: post #176
deltaonefour wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify the scientific inquiry that measures happiness is simply asking people how happy they were on a scale of 1 to 10. On average people with kids would rate their happiness lower, but when these people are asked whether having kids made them happier they would say yes. So are they happier? Not sure. Could be exactly as you say, but in one sense that bug may actually mean they are truly happier.

>> but when these people are asked whether having kids made them happier they would say yes This can be quite easily explained by peer pressure - You are expected to treat children as precious little gifts from god, and speaking ill about them makes you look bad in the eyes of your peers.

Anecdotally I've asked close friends for genuine answers and from my perspective they seem convinced they are happier.

That being said I have also (fewer) close friends who have told me they are less happy. So you have a point.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#207

Post by deltaonefour »

v-erne wrote: post #171
haihaibye wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple types of happiness, eg present short term mood vs overall life satisfaction. In your study parentd give a lower 1-10 ranking when asked how they feel in a particular moment, on random timers. When cleaning up shit of someone you love, sure it sucks at that particular moment but your life's full of meaning.

I'm not sure I buy that - Humans can create meaning out of everything - You do not need children for that (there are some that spend years meditating in literal caves and claims that their life is also full of meaning). So given that we can have two persons with life full of meaning, one of which is feeling down most of the time, and both of them somehow selected this life for themselves - its not quite hard to point…

This is true, but if you think in terms of evolution and natural selection we should be biologically inclined to have certain desires that motivate us to have children above other desires. "Meaning" is more of a creative term, but in actuality much of how we behave is dictated by biology.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#208

Post by srvmshr »

metabro wrote: post #190
srvmshr wrote: post #4

I will be tad shameless & mundane: I don't enjoy working after 9-6. No great intellectual side hobbies to burn the midnight oil. For me, two things give a lot of bliss: 1. Watching a new interesting show or a re-run on Netflix, sipping a cup of coffee (or having a few drags of vape occasionally). 2. Going on a long aimless drive with country music, and stopping somewhere along the coastline to enjoy the view of sea o…

I’m assuming you aren’t Japanese based on your Other comments. How has dating and your social life been in Japan.

Oof, that's the one thing I was hoping to avoid answering. But since you asked I will be honest:

I dated three women in past 5 years. The first, a dentist of same nationality as me. She was caught cheating with her senior. It was a body blow because I was an inch away from marrying her. The second was 7-8 years younger than me, and she left me when she moved to NY. It was unceremonious & rude, and given that I came to know about her new status from mutual friends rather than herself, it was bitterly humiliating.

I met a wonderful person - a local - while discussing music. We have been married for sometime now. We are not from the same field. That reduces friction & gives some opportunity for different perspective on work-life. No children yet but that's okay.

Social life is otherwise fine. I have a core set of friends, which I can count with my fingers. We meet up weekly & have dinner, usually on Fridays.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#209

Post by deltaonefour »

haihaibye wrote: post #143
deltaonefour wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be. The child lasts far beyond 20 years and within that time frame there will be ups and there can be downs. Really bad downs. A child can grow up to hate you, be your enemy, become a criminal, become addicted to drigs. It is not a guarantee for happiness. Statistically speaking though, when measured scientifically people in general are actually found to be overall less happy with kids. This is the scientifi…

There are multiple types of happiness, eg present short term mood vs overall life satisfaction. In your study parentd give a lower 1-10 ranking when asked how they feel in a particular moment, on random timers. When cleaning up shit of someone you love, sure it sucks at that particular moment but your life's full of meaning.

The parents were asked about long term overall life satisfaction of course. This is obvious. Humans can rate their overall happiness even when their current situation is temporarily not that great.

Re: Ask HN: What's your greatest enjoyment in life?

#210

Post by _rutinerad »

uwagar wrote: post #194
tjpnz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too live in Japan. You don't have to put up with the Japanese office regimen if you don't like it. My last and current roles have been at Japanese companies and I've been able to WFH for both. No guarantee you'll be able to rid yourself of GCP/AWS though.

what is GCP/AWS?

Google Cloud Platform / Amazon Web Sevices, probably
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