It's later than you think • Hacker News Board

Re: It's later than you think

#141

Post by rdtwo » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

joelx wrote: post #129

hi41 wrote: post #126

My deepest condolences to the family. I hope no parent goes through that experience the author and his family had. On the other had, I met a lady at the gym counter. She looked very tired so I enquired about her. She said it was third job. She said that she was doing that just to barely put enough food on the table for her family. I think some of the benefits IT folks enjoy is not what rest of the world experiences.…

I was shocked when the author of the post said he had had twins and founded his business in the same month. I just had twins a few months ago and founded my business ten years ago. I couldn't imagine doing both at the same time. I have massive newfound respect for parents, and especially for working single mothers. I have no idea how they do what they do. I am fortunate enough to have a nanny, work from home, and it'…

I see this kind of stuff from time to time and I also don’t understand how people do it. I wonder if they either don’t sleep or over report their contribution to parenthood

Re: It's later than you think

#142

Post by A1phab3t » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

As a father of a toddler, I really appreciate stories where you get a phone call out of the blue and somebody tells you your child died. I didn't have enough anxiety about him already, so thanks for giving me a reason to panic at random phone calls from my wife.

Re: It's later than you think

#143

Post by jodrellblank » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #28

IMO, the best PG essay says the same thing differently http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html . It has had a profound impact on how I think about everything, but especially the time I spend with our now 1 year old. I'd recomend everyone read it, and internalize that you only get 52 weekends in a year. You also only get a handful of each holiday with your kids. His words are better than mine, and I encourage everyone to ta…

> And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was.

And yet if you had a handful of 8 loaves of bread, it would be a lot of bread, if you had 8 luxurious chocolate truffles it would be more than you want to eat in one go. If you had 8 shelves of books the quantity would still "seem limited". If you stepped outside and there were 8 cars on your driveway, that would be a lot of cars and a long driveway, if none of them started and you had to walk 8 miles to the train station, that would be a long walk, if you went to the dentist and needed 8 fillings that would be a lot of fillings, and if there was a creature as tall as 8 humans, that would be a long horse.

Just choosing that the units of measure are peanuts and books, is not enough to establish that 8 is a small quantity, objectively and unquestionably. Everything is relative, everything is viewed in comparison to something different. Peanuts compared to how filling they are, books compared to .. how much choice you feel you deserve, outside of reading time. 8 books is quite a lot of reading time.

If you decide that 8 Christmasses is a paucity of Christmas, where did that decision come from? Why is it not enough, and how many would be enough? (and is the answer an eternal "just one more"?) If you have $8 but you want to spend $10 then $8 is not much money. If you have $8 but you want things which are ten a penny, $8 is a lot of things.

If we can't control how much we have, but we can choose what we want, why do we so often choose to want more than we have, then feel annoyed at the disinterested universe for being so mean to us?

Re: It's later than you think

#144

Post by whalesalad » Wed, Sep 11, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

jesterson wrote: post #136

whalesalad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do both. You’re worth more than that. It doesn’t need to be one or the other.

I believe it's almost impossible. Each of us have 24 hours per day and as of now, there is no way to stretch it.

With that mindset yes it’s impossible.

Re: It's later than you think

#145

Post by steve_adams_86 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

_thro_a_way_ wrote: post #135

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so many years with the pains unravelling as you learn to cope with that loss. Children are great at handling traumatic events, but it doesn't mean it's any less traumatic. That poor kid is probably going to struggle with this for a long time.

One hot August day my father was involved in a farm machinery accident, and died of his injuries two weeks later. I was 5. All the time I was growing up, it used to surface every couple of years. Later when I got into college and took a bunch of psychology and child development classes, I learned that the brain undergoes a major reorganization at about two year intervals, the last being in the early twenties. Looking…

That's an incredibly hard event to process at 5. Someone close to me lost her dad at 6 in a similar way (major injury, passed away shortly after), and I've helped her process that in conversations over the years. It's still hard to grasp what that experience would be like. I can see the pain it inflicts, the questions it triggers, but I suppose I'm fortunate enough that I don't fully comprehend it. Losing parents is so hard, and hard enough as an adult when it's easier to process and you may even feel secure in your independence.

I'm glad you feel free now.

Re: It's later than you think

#146

Post by ip26 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 9:14 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #74

Such a heart breaking story. For me it was taking a walk around the office and seeing a private plane take off from San Carlos airport, here its engine sputter, and then watching as it fell from the sky into the "lagoon" next to a hotel. Life ends. Really slammed home how a 'normal' day could suddenly be a really bad day, or your last day. One of the unfortunate challenges of tech work is that as someone young and si…

I took a slightly different lesson from the light aircraft crashes close to me- I don't get in them anymore.

Re: It's later than you think

#147

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 12:41 PM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #110

Proof wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Foreign Reader, it really pains me to read that there exists parents in other countries (maybe mostly USA?) that worry about whether their kid will one day become a School-Shooter. :(

Don't worry, your kid could be the next hitler or stalin! Sorry for the gallows humor...not sorry.

Its only recently that we started to frown upon genocide. The atrocities committed in the Middle Ages aren't fresh enough. Mind you, its not "just the numbers". Here's a US example [1]. Or think about stories in the bible about the ill.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials