191–200 of 228 posts
More productivity porn. War on leisure! Only this one particularly bad because it’s trying to say “no pain no gain” is a lie. That if the gains come with pain, the gains must not be worth it He’s not strong enough to squeeze the orange (rails contributor life perks) so the juice must not be worth squeezing Basically, that hard work ain’t worth it. Fun Uber Alles But it’s like, the process of building a sexy body is n…
However modern capitalism isn’t structured in a way that enables most people to think this way. Many people don’t have time outside of work to think of anything but their dependents and getting enough sleep. Many more have it much worse: working in Bataou or in a Foxconn factory; any hope of a life writing the next great novel or chasing proofs is not even a possibility.
If you do have the privilege though: use it as much as you can. We never know where the next breakthrough comes from. And maybe think about the layers of people, processes, and externalities that have come together to put you where you are.
I wish more people, ultimately everyone, was privileged enough to think like this and act on it. If I didn’t need to provide for a family I’d probably study pure mathematics and work on developer tools for writing, checking, and proving mathematical models of software systems. I would probably also read a lot more and spend a year or two now and again writing. Or I might spend it becoming a cabinet maker and getting…
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
What a simplistic way to put things in. You need to do a lot of things you do not love before you have the skills, the vision and the attitude to actually do what you love, and accomplish the goals you want to accomplish... As a millennial, I think this kind of attitude is the problem with our generation. I mean both simplifying things into instagram-quote-sized senteces like "always do what you love" and also convin…
What if you can't stop thinking about 'that tall, slim blonde from Accounting'? The #me-too crowd will have something to say to you if you decide to go and 'do' her.
What if you can't stop thinking about how to commit the perfect murder? Same problem. The cops would soon have a few questions for you.
Note that the two examples I have given you above are also perfect examples of 'side projects' and have nothing to do with your day-to-day job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
replace "productive" with "feeling energetic and excited" in that response and their arguments are still valid. If you want to work on something, anything, there are going to be days where you are energetic and excited, and days you will feel like shit. The author of the article is suggesting to quit when the days are shit, and that is a bad advice. There is nothing that will keep you excited forever.
Really, when your mind tells you that you are bored and sick, you should do something else. If the circumstances force you to eat shit, it's still not the right thing to do.
Sometimes you gotta eat shit because it’s the right thing to do. Changing the goals won’t fool anyone, not even yourself.
No ones born knowing how to code, it takes practice, it’s not fun, it can be deeply hurtful sometimes, hell all careers can hurt bad
Painful lessons aren’t worth it cus they’re painful? We’ve crossed the rubicon. Point of no return is way over yonder
More productivity porn. War on leisure! Only this one particularly bad because it’s trying to say “no pain no gain” is a lie. That if the gains come with pain, the gains must not be worth it He’s not strong enough to squeeze the orange (rails contributor life perks) so the juice must not be worth squeezing Basically, that hard work ain’t worth it. Fun Uber Alles But it’s like, the process of building a sexy body is n…
Except that's the opposite of what he's saying. Instead of valuing feeling productive, he now values feeling energetic and excited every day. I think you may have missed that part. Not everyone wants to get swole or be a rails core maintainer.
Changing goal posts is cheating yourself. Self discipline a sin now?
It’s the American stigma of failure, deeply flawed national trait
The argument is that hard work saps energy and can damage your self esteem so therefore it’s evil. No matter the benefits, they’re not worth it if they don’t come easy.
This is like bizarro Silicon Valley
Being totally honest here. I don't find any work that I totally can't stop thinking about. There is always something that I need to get done that I don't relish, that I don't enjoy. Here's how it goes - there's an idea that you think is really nice, you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. Some do, but most of them are like meh. There comes the first punch and y…
What worked for me: make an absolutely minimal version of the idea (2 hours), and a webpage that describes its promise (9 hours). 500 people looked at it, one thought it was cool - that was enough for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize that CSS itself isn’t really the point here, that it’s just one annoying thing in the pile of annoying things. But I wanted to mention... As a front end dev and someone who teaches front end stuff (React mainly), CSS really doesn’t change quickly, and when it does change, those changes are additive. CSS is very very good about backward compatibility. To give a specific example, CSS Grid is a newer feature t…
My problem is I don’t know a way. So I go searching for resources to learn from. Except there are dozens of ways to do a given thing. And all are really just partial, incomplete solutions, in different ways. Some are outdated, but how can I tell when I’m not a domain expert. And I don’t want to be an expert on every single domain I have to touch to build whatever thing I am working on. It’s a frustrating world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really, when your mind tells you that you are bored and sick, you should do something else. If the circumstances force you to eat shit, it's still not the right thing to do.
No, there are goals that require delayed gratification. You’re saying getting out of poverty is hard, so don’t do it. You’re saying don’t exercise, it hurts. Hate gutters In bowling? No problem, you’re as good as anyone, it’s the thought that counts. Sometimes you gotta eat shit because it’s the right thing to do. Changing the goals won’t fool anyone, not even yourself. No ones born knowing how to code, it takes prac…
But whatever myth you think there is for goals that require delayed gratification simply does not exist (at least for most people).
The journey is more important than the destination and all that. Reaching some arbitrary goal doesn't bring you lasting happiness.
No ones born knowing to code, but learning to code can also be fun. Like many other things. The worst thing you can say to somebody learning anything is that "this is very hard to learn".