How to Exist • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Exist

#161

Post by nradov » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

djaro wrote: post #144

augment_me wrote: post #29

In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…

It's interesting how this compulsion to work spread even to people that don't need to do it. Just look at how many modern-day billionaires are still flaunting how many hours they work each week. Up to the modern era, work was not seen as an inherent virtue, and even something to be avoided. Even well into the modern era, Teddy Roosevelt went on multi day camping trips completely unconnected from civilization. Just im…

Roman emperors routinely issued statements about how they were working so hard on behalf of their subjects that they barely had time to sleep. Evaluating the veracity of those statements is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re: How to Exist

#162

Post by Schiendelman » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

egocodedinsol wrote: post #133

sph wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot to do on a farm, yet no farmer is expected to be working a full 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, at moderate intensity. No farmer has to do something within the next hour or their boss shouts at them. No farmer has to feel bad, or need to catch up, if they have to take a day off unless it's planting season. No farmer has any qualm about ending a day early because they've done all they planned to do. No f…

Hired hands, serfs, migrant workers had all of that and more for most of human history.

I recently read that serfs weren't expected to work more than a few hours a day until industrial automation really took hold. I wish I had the link, but it made sense - and then labor laws were a reaction to those expectations, not solving a long running problem.

Re: How to Exist

#163

Post by Matumio » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

dfedbeef wrote: post #160

I feel like people are already pretty great at dissociating and ignoring their own thoughts and feelings just to exist today.

My experience is that if you try to sit still for 5 minutes, the opposite happens. The thoughts and feelings that you weren't aware of start mobbing you, and you have to at least acknowledge them to get your peace. It's also one of the hardest ways to waste time, getting busy with any distraction is much easier.

Re: How to Exist

#164

Post by rubslopes » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #140

Matumio wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Like trying hard to get into that state of meditation. Then you notice that you're getting tense and stressed about it not working, realize that this is not helpful, get angry at yourself for doing it wrong, try harder to do it right this time, etc. It's my favourite puzzle about meditation. You have to approach it sideways, but if you really try that it won't work. So you try hard not to that instead, which won…

FWIW a good trick is to be aware of your thoughts, watch the tension/stress/realisation/anger/effort arising, the sort-of ignore them because they're thoughts and look for the way your mind tenses moving between them, then do the opposite of that tensing or let the tensing move you to a feeling of (say) extreme love or connection because if you're going to feel something that is more pleasant than stress. These thing…

When I started meditating, I actively tried to ignore my thoughts, which was exhausting. So when I couldn't, I'd engage and ruminate instead, which was just as tiring.

The approach that finally worked for me (and one I still use today, years later) I learned from a book by Adrian Wells called Metacognitive Therapy. It's not self-help, actually; it's a clinical manual for therapists, but I read it anyway. The idea, in my own words, is not to engage with the thought but simply to recognize it, almost like greeting it and saying goodbye in the same breath. A thought comes, and you say, "Hmm, okay, I just thought that. That was a thought. That's fine." And you move on.

Of course, the book goes much deeper than that, but this simple approach helped me enormously with rumination and anxiety around intrusive thoughts.

Re: How to Exist

#165

Post by graemep » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #47

augment_me wrote: post #29

In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…

I’m not sure where this idea came from that farming was idle and only industry required constant work. Every hundred-year old book I’ve ever read that features farming includes themes of how the farmer’s work never ends and runs from dawn to dusk.

That is not the claim being made though. The difference is between work done (and payment due) being defined by time spent, vs work done being defined by tasks completed.

A hundred years is not a long time ago. its post industrial revolution, so after the cultural (and often legal) switch to work being measured by time spent. What about a thousand years ago? A lot of claims I have read for more leisured times in the past go back to hunter-gatherer cultures so much further back still.

Sticking to a thousand years ago, it would be task driven. They also had cultures, and usually religions that encouraged time off work, and with practices that encouraged not focusing on work. Religious holidays, sabbath day rules, payer, especially meditative prayer, but also formulaic prayer and pauses, periods of silence, hymns and so on. Even the meditation described in the article sounds like a secular version of religious meditation.

Re: How to Exist

#166

Post by angrydev » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

augment_me wrote: post #29

In "Four thousand weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, he breaks down that this obsession with action stems to the industrial revolution when it was decided that workers should sell their time for a living. Before that we used to have task-oriented jobs, like milking the cows, which you cant do more than once in a while, or harvest the fields, which you can't do until it's ripe. In general humans are more evolved to this kind…

If you enjoyed "4000 Weeks" historical analysis of labor I invite you to check out "Free Time" by Gary Cross. It expands on it greatly, taking it through the industrial age. Relevant to your comment Cross makes the case that another reason work was not done in excess was there were not many luxury goods to purchase. Only the extreme elites could afford what little there were. There was no real return on selling more of your time for money.

Re: How to Exist

#167

Post by msaltz » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

This version of doing nothing IMO is still “doing something”. It’s clearly not “just existing” to have a standard that you must hold still, not look around the room, not engage in thinking, notice how you’re feeling, etc.

It’s clear when you see the picture of the cat in the article that the cat has none of these concerns.

I’d consider this to be a form of meditation - still containing ideas of “this, not that”.

Something that has felt much more rewarding to me is to really just exist, but without any ideas of being present, or things you must do or not do. I just sit and take a break from doing anything on purpose. My mind might wander, or it might not. When it does “wander”, and I realize that it’s been wandering it almost feels like a miracle - how is this thing doing this on its own? But that’s not really the point either. Whatever is here now, is here now, whether you notice it or not. And by the time you notice it, it’s gone. So what difference is there between thinking and not thinking?

Re: How to Exist

#168

Post by BoppreH » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

> and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts.

I see this study cited often, and I always reject this interpretation. I'm perfectly content sitting for long periods, with or without my thoughts, but if you give me an electric toy I've never seen before, of course I'll play with it! Can I make muscles twitch? Move my arm? Are some parts more sensitive/conductive? What happens at the limits?

For me, the pain would be the cost of playing with a new toy that gives me novel sensations. I would do it even if I had other, less painful activities available. It's not necessarily a way to avoid boredom or whatever else the common interpretation claims.

Re: How to Exist

#169

Post by msaltz » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

BohdanPetryshyn wrote: post #77

One of the most concise and to-the-point explanations of meditation I've ever seen. One thought I had while reading it: isn't trying to get more comfortable with doing nothing just another thing to do? isn't it another form of changing what already is? EDIT: I'm advocating and practicing mindfulness but I always have this thought on the background and it's a real dilemma. Any thoughts?

This is a great point. This is why I don’t meditate :)

It became clear to me at some point that meditation was another way I was creating some standard for good or bad, and comparing myself to it. Would be annoyed at myself if I weren’t “mindful enough” etc. I think even if you don’t have this tendency, but you’re still meditating with the intent to be in a certain state or arrange things a certain way, you’re still doing a minor version of this - how I was before, not good, how I am now, better.

What I do now instead of meditating is to just sit without doing anything on purpose. I don’t try to prevent myself from thinking or direct my intention in any way. So I just am as I am - maybe my mind wanders, maybe it doesn’t. This way there’s no contradiction. When I’m anxious, I’m anxious. When my mind wanders, it wanders. When I think about cheese, I’m thinking about cheese. If I think “I’m feeling kind of present right now”, then there’s “I’m feeling kind of present right now”. And before I know it, it’s something different

Re: How to Exist

#170

Post by neomantra » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC

BohdanPetryshyn wrote: post #77

One of the most concise and to-the-point explanations of meditation I've ever seen. One thought I had while reading it: isn't trying to get more comfortable with doing nothing just another thing to do? isn't it another form of changing what already is? EDIT: I'm advocating and practicing mindfulness but I always have this thought on the background and it's a real dilemma. Any thoughts?

The practice described there is close to shamatha (calm abiding). Just sit and when thoughts arrive, simply label it as “thinking” without prejudice or attachment and carry on.

A common occurrence is the thought that oneself is thinking or labeling too much. This is close to the recursion / self-reference you are referring to. The practice thereof is to simply accept that (and your labeling of inner activity and all wrapped up in that) and carry on abiding. The inner chatter that you are not meditating well enough is a funny one.