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Very, very good reply, I'm glad I skipped past the unnecessary point-by-point at the beginning to get to the real meat of the reply. There are a few weird and

Very, very good reply, I'm glad I skipped past the unnecessary point-by-point at the beginning to get to the real meat of the reply. There are a few weird and irrational biases I see going on amongst techies who frequent HN. I'll just talk about one of them because bias is a tough topic to talk rationally about. The one I want to discuss that I see a lot of hackers doing is creating a need to do everything themselves. This leads directly to the delusion that side projects are things to take Really Seriously. Sure, if I wanted to, I could chunk out all the work it takes to build a product, take it to the market, refine it, then finally build a company around it to take the load off. But unless you're a real honest-to-god genius, then you're going to make mistakes, and those mistakes can add months, or even years to the time when you can Call It Done and go back to spending the time with your wife and kids. If you're not absolutely strict about not letting it override your personal life, you will end up sacrificing your life to the jealous God of the Market. You might try to respond by moving the goalposts, saying that the real goal here is learning, not achieving some kind of outcome. But do I really need to ship a product to learn? There is a class of activity that is actively distrustful of the market, which insists that all learning comes from the creator's own mind. It's called art. If Picasso thought that the market was worth listening to, then we wouldn't know his name today. Artists by their nature listen to other artists, and not you. That's what makes it art. Side projects should be considered to be more art than business. Art doesn't fuck with your personal life. Art informs your personal life. Whether you're creating it or enjoying it. If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now and jeez could you really just come back later after I'm taking care of this Really Important Thing. If you're bleeding your professional life so far into your personal life that you are even for a moment taking it more seriously than your wife and kids, you have fucked up your priorities. I would never ever ever even dream of doing this. Everything else is noise compared to my personal life.

hutzlibu 10y ago
"my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now" But can you listen patiently, if you have been in a flow before? I can't, even though I too often try to, to be polite, but I think I prefer being honest and stay in the flow, if I want to. And when I am done, I am free for other persons. But it takes good balance, true.
- keithwhor 10y ago
  I can't. I've tried. I don't think it's necessarily messed up priorities. I think it's that some of us have obsessive compulsions to follow through on an idea or train of thought. I like to think I'm generally personable and hospitable, but I am a completely different person in the midst of a flow. I am abrupt and dismissive - not because I don't care, but because of an irrational urgency to put ink to paper. I often turn around, minutes (to even an hour) later, and dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. I feel like it's physically painful for me to not work in this way. I can not give undivided attention when there's something that needs to get out, and am certainly jealous of people who can context switch out of a flow like it's nothing.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I mean, I think it's similar to going to the gym: no matter how much I care about what you have to say, you're never going to get above 75% attention if you interrupt me mid-workout. The blood is pumping, Im hopped up on hormones, etc. It's not even that I don't want to focus, it's that my body is geared for something else and cant switch instantly. Similarly, if I've been deeply focused, my brain has switched out normal, every day concerns for work material, my brain state is settled in to focus mode, etc. I spend hours a day (and have for years) teaching myself to focus on a large, abstract set of information in a particular state to attack problems. (It's actually a lot like visualization meditation -- to be able to hold a complex model of what you're working on in your head while you work.) Im not able to instantly turn it off, it takes time to switch out of that mode of thinking and to bring back the "normal" information. It has nothing to do with priorities -- context switching, particularly a mode switch, takes time.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    > dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. My ex used to hate that, she'd say "your not listening?" and I'd repeat verbatim everything she said and then she'd get annoyed because listening and listening are different things. Current GF gets into a flow state herself so she is way more understanding :).
zepolen 10y ago
> If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife Sounds like you have a wife that doesn't respect your hacking time to me.
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  Do you have a wife? I think this is the norm.
  - zepolen 10y ago
    Obesity and 100 IQ is the norm as well.
    - fapjacks 10y ago
      This is the most elegant comment I've seen in a while. Well said.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      Completely stealing this for future use.
    - pathsjs 10y ago
      100 IQ is the norm, sure, but why obesity?
      - metaphorm 10y ago
        100 IQ is a defined norm. It's a calibration. Obesity is a statistical trend in America. 2/3rds of Americans are "overweight" or "obese"[0] according to widely used metrics. [0] - https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
        10y ago
mirimir 10y ago
Well said. However, some define "personal life" differently. Some meditate in caves. Some climb mountains, and maybe jump off them. Others like to hack on stuff. Or do art, which certainly can displace everything else. If you want a partner, you must find one who loves you for what you are, not what you might tolerate, with suitable tweaking.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  The way I see it here is that your personal life revolves around two things, yourself and other people that you care about deeply. If you're single, this could mean your best friends. Obviously you want a working marriage. But marriages, just like startups and side projects, take work. You need to hack on the marriage just like you might hack on the business. But you should never take the business more seriously than the marriage. The business exists to serve your needs, not the other way around. How to hack your marriage is outside the scope of the discussion. But I believe they can be worked on so that they get better. Heck, I think a lot of the problems in marriages can be boiled down to the wife believing, with good reason, that the husband considers his job to be more important to him than she is. So this reprioritization alone can fix a lot of personal problems.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    I get that. But marriage isn't necessarily a binary thing. And all women don't have the priorities that you seem to assume.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      Sure, everyone's different. But find me a woman who would honestly be ok with playing second fiddle to your career, and I'll show you a woman who just doesn't value herself. Just because they'll accept it for the sake of the relationship doesn't mean they'll like it. The relationship is going to suffer and you both are going to suffer for it. Just because you don't perceive yourself as suffering doesn't mean you're not. You just won't be aware of it. If it gets too bad, you'll wake up one day and find divorce papers on your kitchen table. Think about what President Trump's marriage must be like in terms of priorities. Sure, people are different, marriages are different, but there's also an ideal to work towards. Marriage needs to fit the needs of both people, but it's not like people all have weird crazy different needs.
n3on_net 10y ago
"you have fucked up your priorities" Different people have different priorities, so there is no such thing as generalized "fucked up priorities" if you don't know the priorities of the person.

hutzlibu 10y ago

"my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife. I do not tell her that I'm currently in flow right now" But can you listen patiently, if you have been in a flow before? I can't, even though I too often try to, to be polite, but I think I prefer being honest and stay in the flow, if I want to. And when I am done, I am free for other persons. But it takes good balance, true.

keithwhor 10y ago
I can't. I've tried. I don't think it's necessarily messed up priorities. I think it's that some of us have obsessive compulsions to follow through on an idea or train of thought. I like to think I'm generally personable and hospitable, but I am a completely different person in the midst of a flow. I am abrupt and dismissive - not because I don't care, but because of an irrational urgency to put ink to paper. I often turn around, minutes (to even an hour) later, and dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. I feel like it's physically painful for me to not work in this way. I can not give undivided attention when there's something that needs to get out, and am certainly jealous of people who can context switch out of a flow like it's nothing.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I mean, I think it's similar to going to the gym: no matter how much I care about what you have to say, you're never going to get above 75% attention if you interrupt me mid-workout. The blood is pumping, Im hopped up on hormones, etc. It's not even that I don't want to focus, it's that my body is geared for something else and cant switch instantly. Similarly, if I've been deeply focused, my brain has switched out normal, every day concerns for work material, my brain state is settled in to focus mode, etc. I spend hours a day (and have for years) teaching myself to focus on a large, abstract set of information in a particular state to attack problems. (It's actually a lot like visualization meditation -- to be able to hold a complex model of what you're working on in your head while you work.) Im not able to instantly turn it off, it takes time to switch out of that mode of thinking and to bring back the "normal" information. It has nothing to do with priorities -- context switching, particularly a mode switch, takes time.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  > dequeue every question or thing that was asked of me, one-by-one. My ex used to hate that, she'd say "your not listening?" and I'd repeat verbatim everything she said and then she'd get annoyed because listening and listening are different things. Current GF gets into a flow state herself so she is way more understanding :).

zepolen 10y ago

> If I'm sitting there hacking out a weird new concept for accessing databases and my wife comes into the room and wants to talk about our son's baseball game, I put down the text editor and listen to my wife Sounds like you have a wife that doesn't respect your hacking time to me.

AznHisoka 10y ago
Do you have a wife? I think this is the norm.
- zepolen 10y ago
  Obesity and 100 IQ is the norm as well.
  - fapjacks 10y ago
    This is the most elegant comment I've seen in a while. Well said.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    Completely stealing this for future use.
  - pathsjs 10y ago
    100 IQ is the norm, sure, but why obesity?
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      100 IQ is a defined norm. It's a calibration. Obesity is a statistical trend in America. 2/3rds of Americans are "overweight" or "obese"[0] according to widely used metrics. [0] - https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
      - 10y ago

mirimir 10y ago

Well said. However, some define "personal life" differently. Some meditate in caves. Some climb mountains, and maybe jump off them. Others like to hack on stuff. Or do art, which certainly can displace everything else. If you want a partner, you must find one who loves you for what you are, not what you might tolerate, with suitable tweaking.

vinceguidry 10y ago
The way I see it here is that your personal life revolves around two things, yourself and other people that you care about deeply. If you're single, this could mean your best friends. Obviously you want a working marriage. But marriages, just like startups and side projects, take work. You need to hack on the marriage just like you might hack on the business. But you should never take the business more seriously than the marriage. The business exists to serve your needs, not the other way around. How to hack your marriage is outside the scope of the discussion. But I believe they can be worked on so that they get better. Heck, I think a lot of the problems in marriages can be boiled down to the wife believing, with good reason, that the husband considers his job to be more important to him than she is. So this reprioritization alone can fix a lot of personal problems.
- mirimir 10y ago
  I get that. But marriage isn't necessarily a binary thing. And all women don't have the priorities that you seem to assume.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    Sure, everyone's different. But find me a woman who would honestly be ok with playing second fiddle to your career, and I'll show you a woman who just doesn't value herself. Just because they'll accept it for the sake of the relationship doesn't mean they'll like it. The relationship is going to suffer and you both are going to suffer for it. Just because you don't perceive yourself as suffering doesn't mean you're not. You just won't be aware of it. If it gets too bad, you'll wake up one day and find divorce papers on your kitchen table. Think about what President Trump's marriage must be like in terms of priorities. Sure, people are different, marriages are different, but there's also an ideal to work towards. Marriage needs to fit the needs of both people, but it's not like people all have weird crazy different needs.

n3on_net 10y ago

"you have fucked up your priorities" Different people have different priorities, so there is no such thing as generalized "fucked up priorities" if you don't know the priorities of the person.