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The happiest I've ever been

ben-mini.com

31–40 of 402 posts

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#31

Isn‘t it ironic that we software devs laughed for decades when we automated other people‘s work with our code - „it‘s called progress, deal with it, dinosaur!“ But now we see that a meteor might have hit our planet too.

I certainly wasn't laughing, plight of a fellow man is nothing positive. But this is usually so abstracted and distant from one's work that unless you have somebody close who gets literally hit themselves is just abstract movement beyond horizon due to myriad forces and random events.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#32
My new goals are: Seek beauty, Seek happiness and Don't make people sad.

With a lot of effort, it's working. However, I soon discovered the last goal was the most difficult. Long story short, I keep my mouth shut a lot more. I feared, at first, that this would make me feel I was compromising myself somehow. But I also discovered that sometimes when I shared my opinion, knowing it was correct, I would later regret how I made that person feel. Conclusion on their feelings: There's nothing to be gained by hurting their feelings when they weren't ready to hear the message. Double success, I'm still happy and I didn't cause them any sadness.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#33
post #5

The latest developments in digital culture are somehow more frustrating than anything I saw in the previous 26 years. Experience is replaced by prompts. Taste perfected over the years with defaults. I'm not afraid of competition with AI-driven competitors — I'm afraid of people replacing real beauty with A/B mechanics. Perhaps this is indeed a good moment to switch to offline. Thank you for sharing your inspiring exa…

I started programming when I was eleven years old and I’m now in my 40s. I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life.

Do w hat we did in corporate/banking/other sociopathic envs did decades ago - find another source of fulfillment and happiness. For me its adventures and sports and kids, could be something else for the next joe.

Or just code as you want as a hobby, unrestrained, for whatever you need or makes you happy.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#34
post #17
post #12

I just wrote my own blog post thinking about this. I guess alot of us feel kind of weird right now.

Yeah, I decided to become a "professional" musician a few months ago after quitting my last tech job. I'm not amazing, but I've got some places to play, and I'm starting to give lessons, etc. It's not an easy job, but I feel something I haven't felt in a long time as a software developer: fulfillment and contentment. Best of luck to anyone on a similar journey.

If I didn't have a mortgage and family that would work!

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#35
In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson there is.

You weren’t happy because you optimized your feelings or had the right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus kills emptiness fast.

Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement just loops you back into your own head, helping people doesn’t. Feeling good is a side-effect of being useful, not the goal.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#36
post #21

Huh, strange. I remember when I was a little 9 year old boy typing in: FD 40 RT 90 FD 40 RT 90 FD 40 RT 90 FD 40 RT 90 To get a square on the screen. And then I was slightly older boy destroying my dad's precious slides for his presentation by formatting the entire disk accidentally while installing Red Hat Linux 8 Psyche from CDs my dad got at the bazaar. I was so excited for Shrike to come out the next year. Then I…

I thought for a moment you were serious, but the line about us doing wonderful things with tech gave it away as satire. Yeah no. Best we can do is technofascism and surveillance state. Glad you happy though!

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#38
I honestly don’t understand how anyone has the time and energy to be a coach while working a full-time job. My kids practice three times a week, and usually have games on both Saturday and Sunday - sometimes several hours away. Just getting them to practices and games often feels exhausting to me - I can’t imagine all the planning and scheduling that goes on behind the scenes, or having to show up and actually run things all the time.

Hats off to youth coaches - you make a huge difference in kids’ lives.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#39
Personally I want to have my cake and eat it here. Tech has amazing potential to make the world a better place to live in and genuinely bring people together. The crowning achievement of AI so far to me is not Claude Code, it’s AlphaFold. I find the documentary DM released about developing it inspiring both as a technology story but also a team achieving things together that make the world better. I want to see more of that and hope I can steer my career in that direction.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#40
post #35

In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson there is. You weren’t happy because you optimized your feelings or had the right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus kills emptiness fast. Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement jus…

There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness. I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
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