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Please finish your anecdote. What's different about the Bay Area that made your life worse? What improved when you left it?
by ipsin 10y ago
Please finish your anecdote. What's different about the Bay Area that made your life worse? What improved when you left it?
- rubix9 10y agoHBO's Silicon Valley is all anecdote. Watch it.
- kristopolous 10y agoI'm sorry but this is a personal health thing and I don't want it to erupt as a fiery debate where people gang up on me like it's the Lord of the flies. I'm so deeply uninterested in that
- ipsin 10y agoOk, my apologies for that.
- jacobkranz 10y agoI had something similar to me when living up in the area. Everything got better after moving to Santa Monica along the beach.
- z0ltan 10y agoSounds like you're still in shell shock!
- kristopolous 10y agoWhere someone lives is as personal a decision as who they marry or what career they pursuit.
- throwaway76543 10y agoI can't speak for this other person but there's some interesting research which shows that some people do much, much more poorly when surrounded by other happy people who're experiencing success. For example, high suicide rates in seemingly happy places: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110421082641.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110421082641.h... People can have very different responses to their environment. It doesn't mean an area is universally terrible if it makes certain kinds of people depressed. Conversely, it doesn't mean an area is universally desirable if it makes certain kinds of people happy. People are different.
- gfody 10y agoI think it's common for young men to attach their self image and overall worth to how much better they're doing vs. other young men their age. They're basically Pirsig's "ego climbers" and would certainly do well for themselves to get the hell out of the valley at least until such time as they could return as selfless climbers. They could of course stick around and perhaps achieve a positive self image by out competing or out maneuvering their peers. Obviously a huge amount of them do.
- jkestner 10y agoI think that describes much of the startup scene altogether. A lot of people seem willing to forgo a surer path to wealth by taking options instead of salary (as worked out here many times). Is it because they want to be really, really rich? I think it's more that they want the hero narrative that VCs and The Social Network have sold them. As the reality of being cheap labor while you read about the latest lottery winners reasserts itself, it's natural to get depressed.
- kristopolous 10y agoA culture of jockeying egos isn't a healthy conducive environment to those who are collaborative-focused and decidedly anti-competitive.
- throwawaywelp 10y agoThrowaway because personal blah blah, and haven't left the Bay Area yet, but... if you have mental health issues that need to be resolved (depression/anxiety/suicidal thoughts) or that you have disorders impairing you when you don't have someone who is experienced in helping because there's not that many (in the area) in general, dense areas are pretty bad.