Life Has Several Exits • Hacker News Board

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#21

Post by generalizations » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 9:45 PM UTC

cogogo wrote: post #16

I tend to read obituaries of everyday people (as opposed to the long form for famous people) when I see them. They are almost always a cruel distillation of what was certainly a far more complicated life. I think the tradition has evolved so they are written so that the people who knew them best can fill in their own memories. Especially when I don’t know the person they feel callous and lacking.

I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written it.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#22

Post by trailingComma » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #12

abhayhegde wrote: post #9

A good thing to know is there are exits from bad things too. Exit from a vicious cycle, exit from a mental rut etc. While it's best not enter, almost everyone ends up in bad places somewhere along the road.

Some bad things have exits into permanently bad/worse states. And no, it's not required to suffer a lot to accomplish something meaningful, this is just a part of the christian mythology.

Not required, but achieving meaningful things is certainly easier after the type of growth that comes from overcoming challenges.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#23

Post by erhaetherth » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

tomohelix wrote: post #6

I see it in another way, a bit nihilistic though. Sure, there are plenty of exits. But we will all have to make the final exit at some point. Either now or 10 years or 50 years. We will all have to go. And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim. And 100 years is, in the grand scheme of things, a blink of an eye. Even 1000 years would be inconsequential…

> And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim

FWIW I've been building a family tree recently and I've made it back to 1890. Don't know a lot about those folks but I do have pics. And they're the only tie I have to some family in Germany who I met just recently.

Bit of a tangent though. I don't think I'll optimize for rememberability.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#24

Post by appplication » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

generalizations wrote: post #21

cogogo wrote: post #16

I tend to read obituaries of everyday people (as opposed to the long form for famous people) when I see them. They are almost always a cruel distillation of what was certainly a far more complicated life. I think the tradition has evolved so they are written so that the people who knew them best can fill in their own memories. Especially when I don’t know the person they feel callous and lacking.

I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written it.

It’s also in the middle of the insane logistics that get dropped on you when a loved one dies. I wrote my dad’s obituary. Three days prior none of us would have ever thought about it. We were dealing with figuring out what actually happened, planning the funeral, tracking down contact info and notifying friends and family who we hadn’t talked to in sometimes decades, notifying my work, his work, medical bills and health insurance, life insurance claim, police reports, autopsy and coroner, notifying banks, canceling gym membership, unlocking computers and online accounts, pulling out old photos, actually talking to people because everyone I knew was suddenly messaging at once, coordinating family flights and housing from overseas… it’s just one of an crazy number of tasks at that point. You want to do a good job, but you also very quickly want it behind you.

I recall talking to the newspaper and they said it was something like $40 for a text obit, and $75 for one with a picture. For whatever stupid reason I was on autopilot frugal instincts and went with the lower cost option. It didn’t even occur to me until days later that was the dumbest place to save money, and not even that much.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#25

Post by sockaddr » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #5

Some of these exits are not like the others.

Yeah and I'm surprised at the lack of "exit from parenthood" it's an exit that I dread even though I've just begun the journey. It seems like a poorly thought out piece to have skipped one of the core human experiences.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#26

Post by cheema33 » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

appplication wrote: post #24

generalizations wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written it.

It’s also in the middle of the insane logistics that get dropped on you when a loved one dies. I wrote my dad’s obituary. Three days prior none of us would have ever thought about it. We were dealing with figuring out what actually happened, planning the funeral, tracking down contact info and notifying friends and family who we hadn’t talked to in sometimes decades, notifying my work, his work, medical bills and hea…

It has been suggested that one should write their own obituary. It gives you perspective. I just tried writing my own and it was a depressing affair. Maybe I need to reconsider my priorities.

Also, it goes without saying that your loved ones will appreciate it when you do finally kick the bucket.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#27

Post by ehPReth » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:27 PM UTC

omoikane wrote: post #19

its_a_random_ac wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I thought it was a reference to the DIY assisted suicide book, Final Exit.

If you are interested in that kind of books, there is also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide This book used to be banned due to its contents, but in 2012 I was able to easily buy a copy from Amazon Japan. And now it's only sold in their third party marketplace, not sure if it's banned again.

For the curious, seems to be available here:

Original Japanese version with pictures/design/colour: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/完全自殺マニュアル+(鶴見...

English Machine/Human translated .txt file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+...

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#28

Post by constantly » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:47 PM UTC

tomohelix wrote: post #6

I see it in another way, a bit nihilistic though. Sure, there are plenty of exits. But we will all have to make the final exit at some point. Either now or 10 years or 50 years. We will all have to go. And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim. And 100 years is, in the grand scheme of things, a blink of an eye. Even 1000 years would be inconsequential…

We spent a lot of time finding historical data from across the world and building our family tree back a few hundred years. But records didn’t keep as well back then. Now everyone is posting everything everywhere all at once. Do you think there’s a greater chance someone 20 generations from now will be able to look at TikTok and Threads archives and understand and get to know their forebears from 1,000 years ago? I think there’s a good chance of that.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#29

Post by hasbot » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

A big one for me is exiting one city and entering another (i.e. moving) especially when the new city is in another state. I've switched cities 7 times in the last 9 years and 6 states.

Re: Life Has Several Exits

#30

Post by deathanatos » Sat, Aug 19, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

> Upon your exit, your contributions, actions, decisions, opinions and presence most likely will have affected the trajectories of the people and the world around you, in obvious and less obvious ways.

Oh I wouldn't be too sure. The company that had acquired us some years earlier for millions of dollars then proceeded to can our entire division, sunset our product, and laid, more or less, everyone involved off. I cannot fathom what the point of the acquisition was: our wings were clipped before we even had a chance to fail; to date our acquisition is the largest unforced financial error I have seen made in my career, and it will be quite hard to top. We left no mark on the industry, the IP, if it still exists, will collect dust for all eternity. The company is no longer in the market, and I doubt ever will be again.

I was fond of the product, and while the tech had the inevitable layers of PM-driven tech debt layered upon it, it wasn't the worst? The only lesson I can learn there is that caring will bring nothing but disappointment, and that's continued to be driven in by subsequent employers. Today's corporate zeitgeist does not want nor produce, IMO, history-changing labor². (I think the ones listed are products of earlier zeitgeists that could produce such.) Employers do not value retention, so experience is not built within the company. The PMs driven desperate desire to push new features out and bugfix never do not make good products. The inability of today's "agile" to handle uncertainty¹ and dependencies means little to no planning is done (and bad tools like JIRA do not help here).

As for getting my name carved into the annals of history … screw that? Unless that's life's secret to joy and happiness (and I rather doubt it), I think the advice I was once given is sound here: walk around a graveyard and note what is written upon the stones: "loving mother" "caring father" — what you don't see is "excellent ".

I have a nephew, and I've probably left a larger mark on him and his life (I hope for the better) than anything I've done in my career, despite my career being longer than his life.

¹Yes, I've read the manifesto, yes, I feel the irony in this statement.

²To some extent, at least two companies in FAANG I know do things that do make for a good atmosphere … I partly think this is why they became part of "FAANG". I wish we could emulate some of their less boneheaded decisions (and ignore the boneheaded ones). Perhaps that would someday snowball into another letter in that acronym.