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You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

neilthanedar.com

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Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#101

Post by mensetmanusman »

HendrikHensen wrote: post #42
mensetmanusman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This solves it for most, but secular society has lost any structural capability to succeed in this. Marriage rates have dropped over 70%. There are extremely thriving sub-communities in places though. Graft on to those.

> This solves it for most, but secular society has lost any structural capability to succeed in this. Can you explain how you see a causation between religion and marriage success?

Religion realigns order, people look up in the same direction instead of past each other when contemplating meaning.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#102

Post by james_pm »

Arainach wrote: post #74

I find the presentation of this article jarring. Bold, italics, underlining, yellow highlighting, light yellow highlighting. I would argue that content should never highlight anything. Highlighting should be reserved for the reader to highlight the parts they find important or relevant. Authors have plenty of other tools at their disposal - all of which this article uses - and the preemptive highlighting is distracti…

Same. I can identify with the subject matter, but the whole thing was just so off-putting. Trite, sound bites.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#104

Post by JKCalhoun »

unstyledcontent wrote: post #14

I'm burned out because I have to raise two young children, work a full time job in a demanding career, and then in the hour or two a day of time that isn't accounted for in those two tasks, I need to maintain a household and try to care for myself. I feel a strong sense of purpose caring for my family, but don't have enough time to meet life's demands. Maybe other people relate more to this post because they more mon…

When kids were added to the family, it actually improved my life. I actually had motivation then for making money—and making time.

Now, empty nested, I can see that I was both rudderless and identity-less before the kids. I'm wandering now (and retired) trying to find a replacement identity.

I'm still a father of course (and husband) but with less input and less to do. In fact I feel inclined to step back and let the girls have their lives now. So I road-trip, come up with projects to keep me busy, try to be an "educator".

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#105

Post by ManuelKiessling »

dluan wrote: post #97

This is absolutely going to fall on deaf ears here, but I moved with my wife and 1 year old to China for 4 months and became the most productive in more than a decade. Safety, convenience, infrastructure, everything around you isn't solely designed to price gouge you and exploit you, and all of that was just a minor benefit. The biggest thing I felt was an immense existential dread lifting from me. It's like the worl…

Mh. Would like to hear the full story. My initial mental reflex is one of „es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen“, that is, „there is no right life in the wrong one“, as Adorno put it.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#106

Post by CrossVR »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #104
unstyledcontent wrote: post #14

I'm burned out because I have to raise two young children, work a full time job in a demanding career, and then in the hour or two a day of time that isn't accounted for in those two tasks, I need to maintain a household and try to care for myself. I feel a strong sense of purpose caring for my family, but don't have enough time to meet life's demands. Maybe other people relate more to this post because they more mon…

When kids were added to the family, it actually improved my life. I actually had motivation then for making money—and making time. Now, empty nested, I can see that I was both rudderless and identity-less before the kids. I'm wandering now (and retired) trying to find a replacement identity. I'm still a father of course (and husband) but with less input and less to do. In fact I feel inclined to step back and let the…

People underestimate how quickly you burn out when you're completely on your own. It's the people around you that give you purpose and motivation.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#107

Post by GMoromisato »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #30
GMoromisato wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people should have kids because they otherwise lack meaning, but it's absolutely true that kids change you in ways you would never have believed. If you think you might want kids but aren't sure, just do it.

> have kids because they otherwise lack meaning That's how life on earth worked for 3 billion years. I think that assuming humans are somehow above that is unwise. We're not.

I think, until very recently, people had kids because the sex is good.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#108

Post by mkoubaa »

GMoromisato wrote: post #70
Aurornis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe other people relate more to this post because they more money and no kids. I have kids, but I don’t think having kids or even a lack of money is necessary to experience the type of burnout you’re describing. While everyone and every situation is different, my personal experience is that having kids led to less burnout for me over time. I expected the opposite after reading comments online, but it turns out th…

I feel the same way about kids. For me, I think, it changed my perspective. Lots of things at work that would have bothered or frustrated me no longer do so. Having kids is a great way to develop a Zen attitude about some things. Though, to be fair, you gain a whole new set of much scarier things to worry about.

If you don't have a zen attitude around a three year old you're going to have a bad time

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#109

Post by mkoubaa »

kevinh wrote: post #51
llmslave2 wrote: post #46

Maybe this hits for millennials and older but as a gen-z I think it's safe to say we're burnt out because everything we want is simply too expensive, our degrees are useless, dating and relationships have become damaged because of the apps, and we are inheriting a world that is broken and continues to shatter. The older generations have everything and still feel burnt out and unhappy? Cool. Cool cool cool. That will…

15 years ago this exact comment would have been written swapping out millennials for gen x and gen z for millennials.

This is a such a cop-out. We millennials had it easy compared to zoomers.

Re: You’re not burnt out, you’re existentially starving

#110

Post by dluan »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #105
dluan wrote: post #97

This is absolutely going to fall on deaf ears here, but I moved with my wife and 1 year old to China for 4 months and became the most productive in more than a decade. Safety, convenience, infrastructure, everything around you isn't solely designed to price gouge you and exploit you, and all of that was just a minor benefit. The biggest thing I felt was an immense existential dread lifting from me. It's like the worl…

Mh. Would like to hear the full story. My initial mental reflex is one of „es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen“, that is, „there is no right life in the wrong one“, as Adorno put it.

I think it's simpler to just appeal to every entrepreneur's spider sense - go where the great people are. It really does feel a bit like how Silicon Valley and San Francisco felt in 2000s-2010s. Caveat of course, which is even before 2008, aware insiders of SV were trying to warn that the Goodness of the internet was being squeezed too hard, that VC was turning to rent seeking too soon, the cart is way too far ahead of the basic research pipeline, etc. And of course, there's corruptible people, terrible overwork, insane competition, bad stuff etc in China too.

But there's a determined, undeniable sense of "we're going to make the world a better place", and you can physically see and touch it in China. Once you take a big inhale of that air, you realize just how much you missed it and needed it.

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