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My Life in Weeks

weeks.ginatrapani.org

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Re: My Life in Weeks

#131

Post by mncharity »

elashri wrote: post #13

That was nice to watch. I spent about 25 minutes going through that. But it was horrifying for me. I realized that I wanted to see if the source code is available but then realized that I really don't remember those details. I remember random things for my childhood but I don't remember the date when I started elementary school. I know that I got my first computer when I was in third grade but don't remember the date…

> horrifying [...] don't remember

A similar exercise is lined paper, one year per line. Your life on a page or two. You can vertical-bracket ranges of time, and have multiple columns (even extending the sheet). One nice aspect, is constraint propagation helps a lot in figuring out when things happened. As the years fill in, you get "well, it has to be after X and before Y, and I've already penciled in that summer and that one, so it must have been this one". For greater-than-year precision you can mark a tick, or a blob, or a month letter, but you don't have to. Each time I've done this with someone, there's been something that surprised them.

Re: My Life in Weeks

#133

Post by bergie »

russellbeattie wrote: post #27

It's interesting that she lists presidential inaugurations. I personally use those as milestones because my birthday is January 20th. It's fun to watch video of past inaugurations (since 1972) and think, "Huh, I was such and such age then. I don't remember everyone looking so weird!" (The bad side, of course, is that I can have some truly depressing birthdays - like my 45th and 53rd.)

I think last time I watched a US inauguration was GW Bush's in 2001. We were sitting in a bar in Helsinki, and they were showing that for some reason.

Quite a view of that country, a dude wearing a cowboy hat and swearing something on a bible, mixed with shots of police beating up protesters.

Re: My Life in Weeks

#134

Post by dostick »

jll29 wrote: post #104
picafrost wrote: post #21

So much of our life is consumed by work. Seeing your lifespan laid bare like this, there's a perverse instinct to optimize what remains. Have to be more productive, more efficient. But it's a bit like seeing you're bleeding out and deciding to optimize your blood donation schedule, isn't it?

In this Lex Fiedman video, they talk about how life is short, and a visualization as a spreadsheet is shown that makes one very concerned: Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg [ironically, the podcast is very long - over 3 hours - speaking of not wasting time, but after initial annoyance I'm glad I watched it all.]…

Should everyone make it? On one hand it’s awareness, on another- at cause endless anxiety that you now visualised how little it is and still can’t do anything..

Re: My Life in Weeks

#136

Post by tokioyoyo »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #84
hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. My advice to young people is -- if you can't figure out what to do in life, make more $$. With enough $$ you will have a world of time to ponder what to do. I also regret that I gave up a FAANG level opportunity because my faily doesn't want me to go to another city. I would hit well over 200K TC by now -- a very comfortable salary in Canada.

I earned over 200k base in Canada and it didn’t make that meaningful of a difference. I gave up chasing money and went to work for an NGO I care about, earning slightly more than half as much as before, and… I love it. I wouldn’t trade incomes if it meant trading the work. I thought the money would help, but with family, something will always suck it up. A trip, furniture, house, extracurricular, etc. I wasn’t gettin…

Hey, it’s pretty cool to hear who went through a similar thing! Had around the same base in Canada, let it go after a couple of years, and trying out something a bit different. Well, with the hopes that it’ll feel good after a little while.

Re: My Life in Weeks

#137

Post by tuananh »

pronik wrote: post #92

Gina Trapani! That's a name I haven't heard in a long time and at first couldn't place correctly -- for some reason, my mind went to Groklaw, but Lifehacker was the correct answer. Maybe I'm idolizing my own youth and its associated available free time just a tiny bit and I can't actually believe it's been 20 years, but those felt like good times, Web 2.0 with its focus on communication instead of publishing, with Sl…

ah that's it. i remember the name from when lifehacker was still popular.

Re: My Life in Weeks

#138

Post by jebarker »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #93
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first ~1000 are spent in the the very limited tutorial area. I think it's kinda strange that you're saying up to age 19 is "the very limited tutorial area", as if it doesn't count. Up to age 3 or 4, before you have stable memory, perhaps I could understand, but I'm well, well into middle age and I think of some of the time between say 10-19 as the most vivid in terms of my memories, friends, direction of my lif…

I have almost no <20 memories and I'm barely 40.

Same - I'm 43 and I have very few memories of my childhood. My 20s are pretty much a blur now too.

Re: My Life in Weeks

#139

Post by christiangenco »

I love this! I was similarly inspired by the Wait But Why article[1] and made a chrome plugin several years ago that shows this for my life every time I open a new Chrome window[2]. It's also a handy countdown for big events like vacations or The Singularity (which starts in 7,259 days) that I want some time to prepare for.

Life is precious and finite. Memento mori.

1. https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html

2. https://res.cloudinary.com/genco/image/upload/w_1200/v173967...

Re: My Life in Weeks

#140

Post by theshackleford »

massysett wrote: post #123
nyokodo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have to be more productive, more efficient Most people on their deathbed would counsel you to focus on relationships rather than productivity.

This is something one says on their deathbed when they have had a good life. Maybe some people who have wasted half their life being completely unproductive say “I wish I focused on relationships more” on their deathbed. But many others might say “I wasted my whole life, I wish I got it together.” The thing is, those people don’t write books or give seminars on how to live a good life. They die alone and are quickly…

> This is something one says on their deathbed when they have had a good life.

I can assure you the reaction at hand is not limited to those you suggest.

I know because I faced my own mortality, if only for a brief moment of time, far earlier than I ever expected and earlier than most would prefer I think. And when I did, this exact realisation hit me like a freight train. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a more profound, visceral moment.

What also may have helped, is developing quite a deep and close relationship with an individual who would later go on to pass from cystic fibrosis.

Now one of this is to say I may not now have an entirely different reaction when again it comes time for my card to be punched. However I feel like this has been somewhat tested by the SCI that would follow five years later. It's also not to say that what I felt had been a waste vs what is important will be applicable to all of us, in fact I am sure that realistically, it will be deeply different, personal and particular to each of us as individuals.

When I have particularly bad days as a result of my unlucky medical outcomes, I remind myself of what I experienced that night, and how lucky I was ultimately to be able to experience something like that, and then actually have somewhat of a "second chance" at taking a look down the second fork in the road.

TL;DR

I give 100x times less of a shit about a "career/being productive/min-maxing" than I once did. Your mileage may vary.

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