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I could never survive in even less robust conditions. I need certain things, certain services, medical care that requires long time to deal with etc. I have red

I could never survive in even less robust conditions. I need certain things, certain services, medical care that requires long time to deal with etc. I have reduced my life to the bare minimum survivable for me in the name of preserving money and it's not enough. Any "advice" requires reducing more or suffering more either through subtraction or addition. I can't live like that. I had some plan to write a post here in AskHN to lay it out and maybe some miracle idea or plan would result but I finally realized I have done that sort of thing repeatedly over the years and the predictable results always take rather than give so there is no point. Anyone I connect with in private and spend energy engaging and explaining things to in depth just repeats the same script of things everyone things you can and should do and I end up more depressed and hopeless and they end up disappearing either outright or after some lecture and victim blaming. I know why they do it, to preserve a sense of security for themselves, but it drains me nonetheless. I can't get what I really need in this place and can't realistically establish anywhere I could. Hope has gasped its last breath.

nkoren 9y ago
I get that. Unless you explain the situation to me in detail, I definitely won't have a useful solution for you. And even after you explain the situation to me in detail, I probably won't have a useful solution for you. This would be a lot of emotional labour for an interaction where the median expected value seems very low, and the mode is zero. Totally get why this isn't something you'd want to go through repeatedly. (Actually, describing it in this way reminds me of pitching a book to a publisher, or a startup to an investor. Each pitch takes a really significant amount of energy, and you have to be prepared to do it many dozens of times with completely null results -- and with no guarantee that there will ever be anything other than a null result. This breaks a lot of peoples' spirits. I know a handful of brilliant writers with unpublished novels sitting on their shelves, because they just couldn't keep going through the pitch-rejection cycle. As writers, they are probably superior to, say, Agatha Christie, who endured five years of nonstop rejection before making her first sale. But they are not as stubborn, and therein lies the rub.) So, yeah, I understand. The only thing I can counter with is that even if you feel like you've explored the whole possibility-space, you haven't. Nobody has -- ever. There may be solutions for you; there always may be solutions for you; the question is how to maintain the core internal energy to keep searching for them. I don't have any super-brilliant advice in that regard. Only thing I can offer -- and you've probably already gotten this plenty of times; apologies if so -- is that meditation can be extraordinarily helpful for this kind of thing. Not immediately helpful -- the benefits can take weeks or months to fully kick in -- but simply being in touch with your breathing, and training your mind to be free of the cycles of worry which it otherwise is (necessarily) consumed by, can help you find that core of energy if it exists. In general, if you are breathing: it exists. And even if it is doesn't, meditation can help you look at the situation more dispassionately. What you don't want to do is to make permanent decisions out of exhaustions or frustrations which may not, in a bigger picture that you haven't been able to consider, be permanent. Final bit of advice: if you don't have the ability to meditate (physical or mental challenges can sometimes make this impossible), psilocybes can provide a viable shortcut for similar results. I definitely recommend not checking out until you've consulted with them first. What have you got to lose? :-)
- hestipod 9y ago
  I do meditate and it, like most things, has SOME beneficial effect, but not near enough and not near as much as the label on the tin says in my experience. No access to psychonaut stuff but I'd try in the right conditions with someone I could count on. I have drafted the "last ditch Ask HN for ideas" post but not sure when to post it. I know if it goes badly or is ignored outright it will really affect me and bring me down hard. I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards.
  - nkoren 9y ago
    > I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards. Oh yeah, I definitely appreciate that self-actualisation can't happen without the lower tiers being stabilised. That's not what I'm saying; all I'm suggesting is that mindset counts for a lot. I'll going to try be delicate about this because I don't want to come off as victim-blaming: I completely understand that the circumstance you're in isn't your fault, and the right mindset won't make opportunities for getting out of your situation magically appear. But the wrong mindset can without a doubt blind you to legitimate opportunities that might exist. This is why I recommend working on it. As a rather concrete example: -- going to have to redact some details here for confidentiality reasons -- I recently hired someone for part-time work, whose situation resembles yours in a number of respects, including long-term unemployment. I was not able to pay for full-time work or at market rates, but our new employee is still earning a meaningful multiple of what they were getting on benefits, so it's a solid step up. I can see how the role they've taken might, at some companies, be tedious -- but the way we do things, it's an intellectually stimulating, self-directed, remote-work, set-your-own-hours-and-pace sort of job. So far this new employee is loving it. I have high hopes that it'll help them get that bottom tier of the pyramid firmed up. In fact it's a job that I'm absolutely certain you would have the ability to do, and would even enjoy -- but the superficial job description is one that I've already seen you explicitly rule out as "soul killing". And probably at 90% of companies, you'd be right. At the other 10%, you'd be wrong. But that all-important 10% won't be available to you if you block yourself from seeing it. In order for any opportunities to be available to you, they must both objectively exist and be subjectively perceived by you. For the former: yes, I have no doubt that such opportunities are few and far between, but given your obvious intellectual abilities, I know that they exist. I have more concerns for the latter, hence my recommendation that you interrogate your assumptions and your perceptions. Anyhow, I've banged on about this enough, and hope you take my criticism in the constructive spirit it is intended! I would sincerely like to see things work out for you.

nkoren 9y ago

I get that. Unless you explain the situation to me in detail, I definitely won't have a useful solution for you. And even after you explain the situation to me in detail, I probably won't have a useful solution for you. This would be a lot of emotional labour for an interaction where the median expected value seems very low, and the mode is zero. Totally get why this isn't something you'd want to go through repeatedly. (Actually, describing it in this way reminds me of pitching a book to a publisher, or a startup to an investor. Each pitch takes a really significant amount of energy, and you have to be prepared to do it many dozens of times with completely null results -- and with no guarantee that there will ever be anything other than a null result. This breaks a lot of peoples' spirits. I know a handful of brilliant writers with unpublished novels sitting on their shelves, because they just couldn't keep going through the pitch-rejection cycle. As writers, they are probably superior to, say, Agatha Christie, who endured five years of nonstop rejection before making her first sale. But they are not as stubborn, and therein lies the rub.) So, yeah, I understand. The only thing I can counter with is that even if you feel like you've explored the whole possibility-space, you haven't. Nobody has -- ever. There may be solutions for you; there always may be solutions for you; the question is how to maintain the core internal energy to keep searching for them. I don't have any super-brilliant advice in that regard. Only thing I can offer -- and you've probably already gotten this plenty of times; apologies if so -- is that meditation can be extraordinarily helpful for this kind of thing. Not immediately helpful -- the benefits can take weeks or months to fully kick in -- but simply being in touch with your breathing, and training your mind to be free of the cycles of worry which it otherwise is (necessarily) consumed by, can help you find that core of energy if it exists. In general, if you are breathing: it exists. And even if it is doesn't, meditation can help you look at the situation more dispassionately. What you don't want to do is to make permanent decisions out of exhaustions or frustrations which may not, in a bigger picture that you haven't been able to consider, be permanent. Final bit of advice: if you don't have the ability to meditate (physical or mental challenges can sometimes make this impossible), psilocybes can provide a viable shortcut for similar results. I definitely recommend not checking out until you've consulted with them first. What have you got to lose? :-)

hestipod 9y ago
I do meditate and it, like most things, has SOME beneficial effect, but not near enough and not near as much as the label on the tin says in my experience. No access to psychonaut stuff but I'd try in the right conditions with someone I could count on. I have drafted the "last ditch Ask HN for ideas" post but not sure when to post it. I know if it goes badly or is ignored outright it will really affect me and bring me down hard. I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards.
- nkoren 9y ago
  > I am so far beyond mind game stuff being able to help...I need Maslows bottom rungs stabilized before I can do the rest...people always expect you to do it backwards. Oh yeah, I definitely appreciate that self-actualisation can't happen without the lower tiers being stabilised. That's not what I'm saying; all I'm suggesting is that mindset counts for a lot. I'll going to try be delicate about this because I don't want to come off as victim-blaming: I completely understand that the circumstance you're in isn't your fault, and the right mindset won't make opportunities for getting out of your situation magically appear. But the wrong mindset can without a doubt blind you to legitimate opportunities that might exist. This is why I recommend working on it. As a rather concrete example: -- going to have to redact some details here for confidentiality reasons -- I recently hired someone for part-time work, whose situation resembles yours in a number of respects, including long-term unemployment. I was not able to pay for full-time work or at market rates, but our new employee is still earning a meaningful multiple of what they were getting on benefits, so it's a solid step up. I can see how the role they've taken might, at some companies, be tedious -- but the way we do things, it's an intellectually stimulating, self-directed, remote-work, set-your-own-hours-and-pace sort of job. So far this new employee is loving it. I have high hopes that it'll help them get that bottom tier of the pyramid firmed up. In fact it's a job that I'm absolutely certain you would have the ability to do, and would even enjoy -- but the superficial job description is one that I've already seen you explicitly rule out as "soul killing". And probably at 90% of companies, you'd be right. At the other 10%, you'd be wrong. But that all-important 10% won't be available to you if you block yourself from seeing it. In order for any opportunities to be available to you, they must both objectively exist and be subjectively perceived by you. For the former: yes, I have no doubt that such opportunities are few and far between, but given your obvious intellectual abilities, I know that they exist. I have more concerns for the latter, hence my recommendation that you interrogate your assumptions and your perceptions. Anyhow, I've banged on about this enough, and hope you take my criticism in the constructive spirit it is intended! I would sincerely like to see things work out for you.