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Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

benmilne.com

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Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#161

Post by alexbecker »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #160
alexbecker wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I was unclear. I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common. I'm not arguing that depression is the opposite of happiness; however, I do not think it's unreasonable that if people are overall less happy, this will increase the incidence of depression.

> Perhaps I was unclear. Well, it seems that you said what you meant to say, because your clarification still leans pretty heavily on the notion of happiness vs. depression. > I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common. Here's the problem. Statements about "reliable" or "unreliable" happiness in response to a discussion about depression reduce d…

I think I address that with my last sentence:

>I'm not arguing that depression is the opposite of happiness; however, I do not think it's unreasonable that if people are overall less happy, this will increase the incidence of depression.

None of what you say contradicts this. You point out

> Depression can be wholly orthogonal to "regular" emotions.

which is certainly true, but it also can be quite parallel to them. In my experience, my worst episodes of depression were usually triggered by periods of profound unhappiness, even if during these episodes the experience is not the same as being continuously unhappy.

(Characterizing depression as coming in "episodes" is also misleading, as it is generally ever-present to some extent; but any characterization less than several pages long is misleading. I'd appreciate the benefit of the doubt that I understand the other issues and subtleties in play even if I do not discuss them.)

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#162

Post by ryanpardieck »

tedks wrote: post #105
yason wrote: post #51

Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…

This is the sort of sentimentality that has no place in modern capitalism. Why would you need to cook dinner or water a garden (who even has a garden) or even have children in the first place? People have been doing that for thousands of years. If you want to scratch dirt you can move to Kansas and be a dirt farmer. Plenty of time with your kids with that career track. If you're building a company, you have almost no…

"know that you were able to go further and faster and better than all the people around you, that you've won"

What exactly has been won here? There have probably been ultra-driven people for as long as people have been cooking or gardening or "scratching dirt." Being ultra-driven and ambitious is probably as boring and quotidian as any of those other things.

All of us die, it is usually unremarkable, and after a while no one remembers. You're optimizing so that you spend most of your life doing the things that seems most meaningful to you. Those people who are having children and watering gardens are probably doing the same. Each type of person can do that without condescending to the other type of person.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#163

Post by unclebucknasty »

alexbecker wrote: post #161
unclebucknasty wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps I was unclear. Well, it seems that you said what you meant to say, because your clarification still leans pretty heavily on the notion of happiness vs. depression. > I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common. Here's the problem. Statements about "reliable" or "unreliable" happiness in response to a discussion about depression reduce d…

I think I address that with my last sentence: >I'm not arguing that depression is the opposite of happiness; however, I do not think it's unreasonable that if people are overall less happy, this will increase the incidence of depression. None of what you say contradicts this. You point out > Depression can be wholly orthogonal to "regular" emotions. which is certainly true, but it also can be quite parallel to them.…

Well, I'm in no position to deny you the benefit of the doubt with regard to what you intended. I can only take you at your word there. I'm only pointing out that what you've written doesn't seem consistent with it.

>None of what you say contradicts this.

It actually does in that I've effectively stated that the sentence has no meaning in this context.

Replying further would only belabor the point and I don't want to be antagonistic. I'll just chalk it up to miscommunication. Thanks for the discussion.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#164

Post by patcon »

ryanpardieck wrote: post #162
tedks wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of sentimentality that has no place in modern capitalism. Why would you need to cook dinner or water a garden (who even has a garden) or even have children in the first place? People have been doing that for thousands of years. If you want to scratch dirt you can move to Kansas and be a dirt farmer. Plenty of time with your kids with that career track. If you're building a company, you have almost no…

"know that you were able to go further and faster and better than all the people around you, that you've won" What exactly has been won here? There have probably been ultra-driven people for as long as people have been cooking or gardening or "scratching dirt." Being ultra-driven and ambitious is probably as boring and quotidian as any of those other things. All of us die, it is usually unremarkable, and after a whil…

> All of us die, it is usually unremarkable

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#165

Post by famousactress »

mtbcoder wrote: post #91
famousactress wrote: post #24

The saddest thing about this post to me is the fact that he could only write it because his startup is apparently doing great. Most startups aren't, despite the fact that lots of the folks there are in effectively the same personal position and feeling the exact same thing - in addition to the added pressure of not feeling like they measure up to stories like this one because their quarter didn't go nearly as well. I…

> The saddest thing about this post to me is the fact that he could only write it because his startup is apparently doing great. Agreed. > Most startups aren't, despite the fact that lots of the folks there are in effectively the same personal position and feeling the exact same thing - in addition to the added pressure of not feeling like they measure up to stories like this one because their quarter didn't go nearl…

I certainly haven't! Those were the people I had in mind when I ended the comment with "and for God's sake appreciate the fact that you're in the hilariously small fraction of people who get to blog about the pains of working too hard by choice."

It's hard to fairly cover every situation the OP is enjoying more privilege than, because frankly there's an ocean of them.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#166

Post by famousactress »

dharmach wrote: post #103
famousactress wrote: post #24

The saddest thing about this post to me is the fact that he could only write it because his startup is apparently doing great. Most startups aren't, despite the fact that lots of the folks there are in effectively the same personal position and feeling the exact same thing - in addition to the added pressure of not feeling like they measure up to stories like this one because their quarter didn't go nearly as well. I…

> The saddest thing about this post to me is the fact that he could only write it because his startup is apparently doing great. Because if his startup was doing bad and he says what he said, he will be ridiculed and/or pitied for being a loser.

And/or lose prospective/confidence-of-current investors.Lots of pressure to appear bulletproof and unburdened by the usual constraints of advanced humanity.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#167

Post by cagl »

yason wrote: post #51

Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…

I like this perspective. Thanks for sharing

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#168

Post by icelancer »

santoshalper wrote: post #150
gsibble wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hit the nail on the head. Once you've done it, there's nothing quite like it. It's like the volume knob on the rest of the world gets turned down. I'm 3 months out of my last CEO role and depressed, despite being depressed in my CEO role. Now I'm depressed because I'm bored. I don't know what happiness is anymore. It turns out that happiness is chasing the dream, not the dream itself. I've lost sight of it. I don…

You neglected your life and took terrible care of yourself and now you are likely suffering from clinical depression. The volume knob got turned down because you stopped listening.

This is your second armchair psychologist post that's incredibly negative, naive, and assuming. Be a little more sensitive and/or less judgmental.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#169

Post by coldtea »

prof_hobart wrote: post #92
coldtea wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most people a vanishingly small amount of life is now. Most of it has either already happened, or more importantly is still to come. "Now" is a "rolling window". Lost 'nows" also agrregate.

It is, but acting as if the current "now" is the only thing that matters leads to very short term thinking, which often ends up with bad long term consequences.

Yeah, but the post is addressed to people having the exact inverse problem.

Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home

#170

Post by psykovsky »

famousactress wrote: post #116
xtracto wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>for God's sake appreciate the fact that you're in the hilariously small fraction of people who get to blog about the pains of working too hard by choice. This made me think: How would a similar blog post from one of the albañiles (construction worker) be? Earning 13 bucks a day doing hard physical work and then having to do another job to earn a little more.

We'll probably never know because that guy doesn't have time to write one. (Note the irony)

He would probably find the time, but not the energy.
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