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Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

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Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#221

Post by kingcharles »

trevorishere wrote: post #114

This Christmas is significantly different for me. Normally it would be filled with friends and family, but not this year. I succeeded in hiking >10 miles yesterday and today, legs willing, I'll be at least spending part of the day in the PacNW forests to keep the depression at bay. JWST was my Christmas present. I'm happy to see we've got final separation and the last view of the telescope. If anything, it's the best…

Yes! Another loner, here on my own today (well, me and the puppy I found)... but woke up at 6am CST to watch JWST launch. So thankful it made it up in one piece! After two decades of waiting it was a great Christmas present and gave me a happy start to the day.

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#222

Post by Ostrogodsky »

Meh, I have been alone for like 18 straight Christmas. Life goes on. BTW dont believe the people saying "I care about you" "Feel free to reach me by email", that's an exercise in showing off. If you think you cant cope, contact a professional who can help you, not a rando on the Internet.

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#223

Post by garyrob »

abzug wrote: post #20

Thank you for this gesture. I lost almost everything. Job, 7-year relationship, my mental health. Feeling that I'm not only alone but inadequate to have a life like anybody else. I'm still alive, so there's that.

I had some absolutely miserable times, which your comment reminds me of, when I was in my 20's. I'm 65 now, and my two grown kids have come to stay with my wife and my for Christmas. We played a board game for hours last night, like when they were young, and had lots of laughter together...

My point is that what you're going through will pass. It does take work; so keep up doing the things you know must be done to move your life ahead. You have received lots of good advice in this thread; I don't need to say more (except one thing I will add at the end). Do what you need to do, and this period will be over, and life will be good.

My one piece of advice is that I've found meditation is very helpful. It enables me to let go of negative thinking that arises from painful times decades ago, when those thoughts do arise. It's a very important part of my life now.

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#226

Post by ethbr0 »

User23 wrote: post #171
ethbr0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, programming (the practice) itself doesn't require math. Problems you solve with programming may or may not require math: the math requirements come from the specific problems. Every time I've used heavy math in programming, I've figured out the math for the problem in isolation, then programmed that solution.

> IMHO, programming (the practice) itself doesn't require math. Strictly that is incorrect, but I get what you mean and agree with the point you’re communicating. I suspect it’s largely due to the rather dysfunctional way mathematics is taught in America. Writing C for example requires knowledge of order of operations, inequalities, boolean arithmetic, and something very much like mathematical induction if you want y…

> order of operations, inequalities, boolean arithmetic, and something very much like mathematical induction if you want your loops to terminate

To a first approximation, this is a substantially more limited set of concepts than even low-grade math.

Iterating counters and loops is the most "general" math I've used on most problems, and for...each or equivalent auto-bounding functions over sized collections removes that.

Can you write a 3D engine without math? No. Can you write a DB engine without math? No. Can you write a general web app without math? Probably.

Point being: if your goal is to put food on the table by programming, a 2-year study plan worth of advanced math is better invested learning elsewhere.

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#227

Post by pixelbreaker »

FourthProtocol wrote: post #102
pixelbreaker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, posts like this exacerbate the feeling of being alone. I'm alone this Christmas, and it's bloody great, a morning of simracing, followed by pizza and a nap then maybe watch die hard. A large proportion of people seem to make the assumption that being with family is amazing and everyone should do it. But if your family are largely arseholes, then why waste your time and energy?

This so much. My wife and son are in France with the parents in-law. I refused to go because racism and bigotry and, and, and... I have also loved being alone my entire life. I made a bird feeder this morning.

Good work, happy birds!

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#228

Post by maverick74 »

iammjm wrote: post #75

This year I decided to finally stop participating in other people's illusions. I was raised Catholic but stopped believing about 15 years ago. Still, each year I went through the motions. This year I thought: I don't believe, I don't care, so why bother? This feels quite liberating and I'm proud of myself

What made you stop believing? Any special event that you would like to share?

I believe that it all comes down to "Love". That's the key. All other "rules" are mostly human-made. Your relationship with God is just that: a relationship between you and God. And that's YOUR business and God's!

I too was raised a Catholic, but there are many places where priests are not as good as they should be.

I think I'm lucky on that, that I had a good priest for the biggest part of my life. I developed interest in finding out more and, for the most part, most lay people's common knowledge is wrong.

God does not want you locked up in a bunch of rules. God (even being apparently very absent) wants you to be happy thru Love. And that's all! (and, funny enough, the catholic church does defend that! It's just very sad they miss by a lot to put that into practice - but, then again, they are humans as well...).

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#229

Post by lisper »

blip54321 wrote: post #83
sillysaurusx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you're posting this to HN, you want to talk to someone about all of this. I happen to like hearing about your life, so please feel free to DM me any time. https://twitter.com/theshawwn Happy to just listen. No advice.

It's a kind offer. I will mention that I suspect many people going through this won't be comfortable with Twitter as the means of communications....

I'm happy to "listen" via email. Follow the link in my profile to find my contact info. Put "HN" in the subject line to get past my spam filter.

Re: Tell HN: You are not alone this Christmas

#230

Post by jimmygrapes »

FourthProtocol wrote: post #102
pixelbreaker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, posts like this exacerbate the feeling of being alone. I'm alone this Christmas, and it's bloody great, a morning of simracing, followed by pizza and a nap then maybe watch die hard. A large proportion of people seem to make the assumption that being with family is amazing and everyone should do it. But if your family are largely arseholes, then why waste your time and energy?

This so much. My wife and son are in France with the parents in-law. I refused to go because racism and bigotry and, and, and... I have also loved being alone my entire life. I made a bird feeder this morning.

>refuse [...] because of bigotry

I think you might need to reevaluate either your word choice or your perceptions

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