Live data from Hacker News

Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

facebook.com

161–170 of 235 posts

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the question nobody's posing is: why should it? That's a question I personally can't answer. I don't see any higher meaning in "leaving a legacy". You'll be dead anyway. Why shouldn't we focus on living a better, more relaxed and less stressful life while we're here to recognize that?

Good question... Somehow if we can get out of the hyper rationalist maximization seeking robot mentality, an answer of some form may present itself. Accepting death helps. Not just my own but that of much more. Buddhism has some very interesting insights here. And I bring up belief deliberately, because the answer here is faith. Not certainty, but faith. Whatever it may be (leave legacy, do no harm, etc), it's doing…

> Somehow if we can get out of the hyper rationalist maximization seeking robot mentality, an answer of some form may present itself.

If you have to be less rational to accept an answer, doesn't that imply that the answer is wrong?

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#162
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret? Will it be that you didn't spend as much time as you could've with your parents before they died? How about with your siblings? Maybe it was all of the times that you didn't make it to your kids' soccer games, piano recitals, school plays, or graduations? Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media star…

Everyone says: "No one on their deathbed regrets not spending more time at the office". Perhaps that's true. But I bet there are people who, on their deathbed, regret not having been more able to provide their families with financial security, or not doing a better job on something important they worked on. You might die tomorrow. But it's more likely that you won't, and you should plan accordingly. (I am not arguing…

Now it depends by what you mean by that. Many people's idea of financial security is very different, some see it in ability to live comfortably with materialism, others see it as not having to worry about the next meal and your shelter.

If the financial security is materialistically based, I feel working more for that will be regretted.

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all just a game. I feel like this sentiment is very common, but is implicitly stating that all of the other things, family, friends, personal health etc... are not games - when I don't see why that would be the case. Nothing distinguishes those things for me. Cre…

What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret? Will it be that you didn't spend as much time as you could've with your parents before they died? How about with your siblings? Maybe it was all of the times that you didn't make it to your kids' soccer games, piano recitals, school plays, or graduations? Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media star…

> Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media startup's bugs?

That's kind of an unfair comparison like saying that you might regret not spending nearly enough time telling your kids to clean up their rooms. I won't regret the tedium of work, but I may regret not spending enough time in whiteboarding sessions with colleagues that I respect.

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#165
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the parent was trying to apply pejorative labels or there was any malicious intent behind their post. It was more along the lines of being unable to parse the title, IMO. It's also good practice to critically examine any written piece, regardless of whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and ostensibly emotional value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that way. In fact, my life…

> It's also good practice to critically examine any written piece, regardless of whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and ostensibly emotional value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that way. That's an interesting assertion, and itself worth examining critically. Is it generally good practice to critically examine any written piece? Possibly. Probably even. Is it always good practice? Perh…

I can understand how you feel that feelings (yours personally? others'?) were not respected. Especially very short comments can sound terse to the point of sarcastic. However, the tone that you're bringing here is not quite appropriate. You seem to be raring for an internet argument: you're taking offense at pejorative labels in posts which don't have pejorative labels, and trying to go badass-philosopher on equivocations (they said "It's good practice", you criticized "It's always good practice").

So, I know who, roughly, the affected parties are here. But if you look close, that's not actually contextually obvious. People who don't know who the affected parties are click "Back" and then look at the comments, because Sheryl Sandberg is very unlikely to tell Facebook exactly who she is, who her husband was, and how he died. So they will come to our HN comments with a, "not to diminish anybody's grief, but who is this and why do I care, again?" approach. A simple comment of "her husband was a Silicon Valley executive" is great there. I mean, maybe I'd have added "and she is the COO of Facebook" too, since I've personally never heard of the companies he was a part of, but I remember hearing about his death a while back.

It's just supremely ironic. Here you are, inappropriately critically analyzing the appropriateness of critical analysis and disrespecting the real expressions of others' feelings while decrying how the Internet disrespects the real expressions of others' feelings.

I'm totally with you that there is a deep sympathetic response here where you and I both imagine living without that love that we're presently consumed by, or forcing someone else to live without that love. Yes, our feelings are real. Their feelings are also real. It's not the time to perceive slights in terse comments and expand short sentences into philosophical analyses. The phrase "which brings me to your second point" should be barred from this context. It's not just us and our sympathetic grief; they and their confusion are also very valid responses to a totally-ambiguous out-of-nowhere post.

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all just a game. I feel like this sentiment is very common, but is implicitly stating that all of the other things, family, friends, personal health etc... are not games - when I don't see why that would be the case. Nothing distinguishes those things for me. Cre…

What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret? Will it be that you didn't spend as much time as you could've with your parents before they died? How about with your siblings? Maybe it was all of the times that you didn't make it to your kids' soccer games, piano recitals, school plays, or graduations? Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media star…

"Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing your social media startup's bugs?"

For me, that quote would ends all auruments.

(I had a liver scan a little over a year ago, over some vague(probally psychosomatic?) pain in my upper right quadrant. Driving home from my primary care's doctors office with the ultrasound script in hand, I took a detour and went to the beach. I called certain family members and just told them "I just wanted to say hello." The whole day was kind of a blur, but I didn't take any part of that day for granted. I splurged and got an $8.99/lb salad. It tasted better that day? All my aches and pains went away that day. It was a bad day, but a wake up call. I ended up being o.k., and started to take life for granted--again. I won't die wealthy, but I will die knowing I treated kind people well. I don't think I will ever overlook the selfish, narcisstic one's though. I will die knowing certain people do awful things in order to "get ahead" in life. I will never forgive them completely. Yea, I have a sister who trampled on family in order to get ahead. I don't hate her, but I honestly don't knows how she can enjoy it all--when it was gotten so ugly?)

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#167
post #88

> Judaism calls for a period of intense mourning known as shiva that lasts seven days after a loved one is buried. It's strange to me to prescribe how long people should mourn. Some people are appalled when someone seems to get over someone quickly after they've died. But if they are truly not sad about it any more, I say good for them. What does it help the deceased for the living to be sad over them?

Often people who have lost close ones feel overwhelmed by all sorts of emotions, including guilt - whether over mourning too much or mourning too little. "Is it ok that I'm still grieving? Should I still be expressing this grief to people I meet? Do people expect that I should be moving on now? Am I moving on too soon?" By declaring the length of the mourning period, religion does there one of the things it does best…

Depends on how observant you are, in Judaism, it is mandates / marching orders.

The "shiv'a" (literally, "seven") is a lot more than just the mourning period - it is also the period when others are required to come and comfort the mourners. It also officially stops if a holiday happens to fall inside it - thus, it might last as little as half a day, at which Judaism tells you: "It's time to stop mourning". (with the implied statement that the deceased has semi-saint status, and that's why you don't need to mourn as long).

It's not uncommon for people to mourn longer than specified (e.g., the whole 7 days even though there's a holiday that should have terminated it) and for other people to be critical of them for disobeying the letter of the "law"

I don't think it's about reducing guilt; It's about establishing something that's easy to follow for people whose world just collapsed. Guilt management is, perhaps, a small part of that.

During the whole following year (if mourning a parent; 3 months if mourning your child, one month mourning a spouse or a sibling), the mourners are instructed to not enjoy - modern interpretation is to not see movies, shows, attend weddings, etc. I think it's about mourning etiquette much more than it is about guilt.

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Ozymandias: I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the…

The words are still there, aren't they? That counts.

That counts.

By which math? 90% of the world doesn't know 90% of the history and doesn't care to know. The same history that includes big names of their era. Steve Jobs may be held up as an Ozymandias of our day, but will he be remembered for any of his "accomplishments" a thousand years from know? I doubt it. Why? How many Steve Jobs does 90% of our planet remember from 1000 years ago? One, two, ten, Zero? So is it about a named legacy or an anonymous one? If you are talking about impact. Sure. How about your impact on those whose actions affect your life the most? Whose choices influence your decisions about your life? Why does the focus have to be binary? Either, or?

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#169
post #123

I have nothing but empathy for her grief - everything I've read about her makes her seem like an amazing woman, but I am very deeply uncomfortable with public displays of emotion like this. I guess this is one of those dumb culturally ingrained traits, because rationally I cannot really come up with any reason why it should make me feel so uneasy, but I feel like I'm gawking when I read someone describing their grief…

I have a really hard time with seeing grief on social media. It just comes across as shallow to me. People changing their profile picture to the deceased, posting tributes to them... it just seems fake.

I don't doubt their sincerity, I just think it's a really crappy medium for that kind of thing.

Re: Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all just a game. I feel like this sentiment is very common, but is implicitly stating that all of the other things, family, friends, personal health etc... are not games - when I don't see why that would be the case. Nothing distinguishes those things for me. Cre…

> "just look at the miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing their vision and impact on groups outside of their circle." I'm sorry but am I the only one that doesn't buy the view that Steve Jobs was this irreplaceable visionary everyone eulogizes him for? Wouldn't pocket size touch screen computers get invented anyway eventually?

Based on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon - touchscreen phone and PDA from 1994 - I'd say the concept was firmly established prior to Jobs return to Apple in 1996.

I think the vision comes in concreting the conceptual developments that had happened in to a product and creating a market for that product at a price that made the company hugely profitable.

Post reply on HN