16 ms·

Life is Short (2016)

568 points by hvo 9y ago

pmoriarty 9y ago
By far the deepest and most eloquent writing on this subject that I've ever read has been Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life".[1][2] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Seneca/dp/1941129420/ https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Seneca/dp/1941129420/ [2] - https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pd...
- pdog 9y ago
  Seneca's On the Shortness of Life is truly spectacular: "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it... Life is long if you know how to use it."
  - ianai 9y ago
    *have the ability to use it for your desires...the 40 hour work week leaves little for much else.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      only if you do something you have no interest in for 40 hours a week.
      - projektir 9y ago
        Which is the case for most people.
        thijsvandien 9y ago
        Then they know where to start making changes.
        mstibbard 9y ago
        Modern society would likely not work if everyone had a job they enjoyed. Are there really that many people genuinely interested in sewage, fast food, tax, etc.
        ekianjo 9y ago
        You dont have to flip burgers for the rest of your life. As long as there is always transition between jobs there are always enough people in every field of work.
        uiri 9y ago
        I think you're underselling the science and engineering behind building waste disposal systems that scale, the science behind the taste, shelf life, etc. of packaged food & beverages, and the complexity of taxes. Sure, there is a lot of menial work, but society has been on a trend of automating that away for decades. No matter the field, there are things which can't be automated away and those are also things which someone somewhere is bound to find deeply interesting.
        ianai 9y ago
        “Burger flipping” is not a good nor service critical to society. It’s convenience food and expensive at that. No ones dying because they didn’t eat at McDonalds. If you can afford a burger then you can afford milk and cereal for more than one meal - just an example. I argue people will be more willing to take menial work with a UBI. Because with UBI people will move from working to survive to working for luxury. Ie the UBI won’t buy them a nicer apartment, but the UBI plus a cruddy but simple job will.
        Jtsummers 9y ago
        If you know you can afford a sufficiently large home and food for your family at wage X (UBI), how much higher does the pay need to be to motivate you to clean toilets or work in a steel mill? People don't do those things (in general) because they're a public good, or because they're a "calling". They do them because they need the money, and the pay is sufficiently good. UBI may be a good thing (if we can work out the economics of it), but people will still do the menial and risky jobs out of need, not to end up in the penthouse of a high-rise luxury building unless the pay is damned good.
      - ianai 9y ago
        Not at all. Yes, pleasing work is wonderful. But you’re still tied to being there for most of your waking hours. It doesn’t matter how flexible the position is, there are opportunity costs.
      - HugoDaniel 9y ago
        I am building the pyramids so that some day a dead pharaoh can lay inside them.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        If only. You're lucky if something you worked on lasts more than a decade.
        metaobject 9y ago
        Semi relevant note: When I followed the link PG has on his website for 'Hackers and Painters', Amazon reminded me that I ordered that book in 2005.
      - sdiupIGPWEfh 9y ago
        Doing something you love 40 hours a week can easily rob you of that love, depending on your situation.
        ianai 9y ago
        Yep, it’s entirely possible whole new categories of work and goods/services would open up thanks to an UBI. Suddenly a person can choose to work mornings at a nonprofit (presumably paid more in karma than in cash) and afternoons somewhere else making better money. Or maybe work three different jobs that add up to a highly valuable skill after 3 years with each job. Ie a programmer with domain knowledge in commercial driving and liquor business operations.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        I like programming but I probably wouldn't spend 40 hours per week on it every week, if I could do whatever. And even then I probably would choose different things to work on and wouldn't sit through stuff like Scrum ceremonies.
    - savanaly 9y ago
      Makes me think of >ONCE UPON A time, artists had jobs. And not “advising the Library of Congress on its newest Verdi acquisition” jobs, but job jobs, the kind you hear about in stump speeches. Think of T.S. Eliot, conjuring “The Waste Land” (1922) by night and overseeing foreign accounts at Lloyds Bank during the day, or Wallace Stevens, scribbling lines of poetry on his two-mile walk to work, then handing them over to his secretary to transcribe at the insurance agency where he supervised real estate claims. The avant-garde composer Philip Glass shocked at least one music lover when he materialized, smock-clad and brandishing plumber’s tools, in a home with a malfunctioning appliance. “While working,” Glass recounted to The Guardian in 2001, “I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him that I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.” from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day-job.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day...
      - slvrspoon 9y ago
        he actually drove a NYC taxi for decades to pay bills, buy his first house on the lower east side, etc. in his autobiography, reflecting on it he simply states "i enjoyed driving a cab" for many of the same reasons Uber markets today.
- e19293001 9y ago
  I'd come across Seneca's message from this book[0]: "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing, Let us balance life's books each day.... The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." [0] - https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Perseverance/dp/0735211736 https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Persev...
- stared 9y ago
  I read it some time ago, due to HN appraisal. The key point of poor time boundaries, and losing one's time on tempting-but-non-fulfilling pursuits, are strong (and valid as much, or even more, in 2018). Yet, I was disappointed that after beating around the bush of all pointless activities he tells that philosophy is the only worthwhile activity. (But some coincidence, Seneca's stuff... I expected a bit more of self-distance from a stoic.)
lazyjones 9y ago
Alright. This isn't Reddit, but: how do people find meaningful things to do (instead of addictive, unrewarding habits) when options, at any particular time, seem to be very limited (i.e. I have 2 hours, starting now - what's available?)? Is it even possible to choose particular meaningful activities consciously (e.g. why would I expect travelling to X to be a great experience if I haven't done it before?), or do they happen by accident if you just expose yourself to many different situations (like having kids)? It seems like the "just say yes" principle is key - don't plan how to spend time based on what you know, just try more things and stop doing what turns out pointless. And, like pg writes, do it now. Practical result: it's probably better to go to a new club you don't know yet every time you go out, than to frequently visit your favourite one. Even if it feels wrong to habitual animals like us. Apologies for the rambling.
- Woberto 9y ago
  I think one of the most meaningful things in life for many people is connections to others, and it's something we can do easily during those periods that you mention. For example, PG's post made me think about how I could call my mom when taking a break since I don't see her often, and beyond that I should probably spend more time texting people and keeping up other such relationships.
  - ranic 9y ago
    This is good advice. And as far as "single-player" activities are concerned, I think pursuing curiosities as far as your interest will go is a good way to discover new interests. Read an article on a topic you find compelling? Find additional reading material. Maybe take a class. Catch the urge to make something? Go for it. Something might stick or it may not. Either way, you'll have done something you might not have otherwise done and it won't have been a waste of time.
    - lazyjones 9y ago
      > I think pursuing curiosities as far as your interest will go is a good way to discover new interests. Read an article on a topic you find compelling? Find additional reading material As we get older, we develop stronger biases, so we think we can dismiss more and more as not worthwhile without even trying it. That's why I believe some outside influence is key.
thiago_fm 9y ago
might be good to be pg and have plenty of time to spenD with its own kid, after doing a phd in one of the most expensive colleges in the US, selling a company for tons of money, creating a extremely successful incubator i used to enjoy his essays for a long time, til i started to see how out of the world of most people even the basic stuff he writes there -- he is able to afford to spend time doing stuff nobody can, then it's kinda of easy to be successful at whatever he does.
- lazyjones 9y ago
  > he is able to afford to spend time doing stuff nobody can, then it's kinda of easy to be successful at whatever he does I don't think that's fair to say (and I know I'm "arguing on the Internet" here... bad!). After cashing out for FU money, it's much harder than before to put in 100 hours/week and "invest" your own health in order to succeed at something against the odds. Money can't replace everything, especially not dedicated founder time. It's also much harder to see a point in proving yourself again. I know it's an unpopular opinion with many people, but it's been like that for me and other successful founders I've talked to. What's easy is to make more money from money using proven methods (strictly not "whatever he does"). VC is not rocket science and pg is simply smarter than many others in the field, so he is fairly successful at it.
- jotm 9y ago
  Yeah this stuff does not work for most people. Still, cutting out the bullshit is great advice.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    Yeah, but it's kind of bullshit advice, too. It's not specific enough. "Unnecessary meetings" - how do you know for sure it's unnecessary? Etc.
    - jotm 9y ago
      I'm guessing with experience? When you've had a dozen of the same meetings or "emergencies", you tend to know which ones are actual bullshit.
agumonkey 9y ago
Telling a weird and only slightly related to the 'not waiting' part of this article (which I like). I recently got bitten by bitcoin trading. Knowing nothing about trading it was extremely wasteful. Also soulless... every dollar I made was someone else's loss. But it made me approach waiting and time efficiency differently. I'm a very attentist person.. I wait.. waiiit.. In bitcoin there's a tension (I did minute scalping) to get started and leave at the right time. Also since no one wants to wait watching charts, it made me learn rust/kotlin in the mean time with way more energy. Stretching and working out too. Surprisingly this stupid activity gave floor to other more fulfilling ones. Life is complex sometimes. ps: sometimes too life make you blind to what would be your perfect life and then you miss it. uneasy feeling to get over.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that. I had the opposite experience where I started to get back into to bitcoin with a set of small trades and turned a small profit. I bought some more bitcoin and ethereum. The objective for me though was to learn the platform. It actually made me think of new ideas about how you could use the platform. I personally think that you need some skin in the game to truely understand some technology. My perspective through trading bitcoin is that it isn't as zero sum as you say but more like your gain and someones loss could be seen as you are interacting with a system that may make people money in the long run. I think its good though that you started to learn Kotlin and Rust and maybe you are being a bit too hard on your self of being guilting when you are trading cryptocurrencies.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    This is just my persona. I may be one of the few sad altruist trader. And I don't mind the losses etc, I didn't bet my house, nothing serious. I also think btc is not worth much, at least coming from my speculative/profit side. I think there are more interesting things to do.. so back to pg article :) ps: I wouldn't mind a cute 3x profit, I know how I'd spend the money in very good ways.
  - haihaibye 9y ago
theomega 9y ago
Sam Altman published a very related piece three years ago: “The days are long but the decades are short” https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...
- Micoloth 9y ago
  You are right, it's a nice article!
starpilot 9y ago
This makes me so anxious and depressed. I'm convinced that nothing will make you more unhappy than reading articles like this about how you're doing your life wrong. A good life seems to come from being content with a bad one.
- marcofloriano 9y ago
  Actually your comment makes me sad. The article is pretty good and realistic. Life is hard and real. But when you savor it with the right things (God, family and friends for me) it's amazing! Short, but amazing
- bpchaps 9y ago
  Could you expand on why it makes you anxious and depressed?
  - cgag 9y ago
    Why reading about how short life is and how you're likely currently wasting yours? How could it possibly not?
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      I take it as a reminder to reflect every now and then, when I have the energy to do so. When reflecting, I check to make sure I'm striving to live in a way that aligns with my values and long-term goals, and that my values and goals still make sense, given my current understanding of myself and life.
  - cmdli 9y ago
    I'm not the person you're replying to, but I can speak for myself. There's a lot of anxiety in the idea that you're "wasting" your life. You feel anxious about every day, worrying that you aren't doing enough even though you don't really want to do more. For instance, I might worry too much that I'm using my free time poorly that I don't enjoy it, and therefore waste it, which only causes me to think that I am wasting my life. Some amount of stress/anxiety is good because it gets you out of bed and doing something, but encouraging it too much is debilitating.
Waterluvian 9y ago
I have a one year old and this is such empowering advice. I discovered a lot of this on my own somehow, but reading that blog now reminds me to cut the bullshit that somehow keeps creeping back in. When explaining to my boss and peers why I was quitting my dream job, I would repeat, "life is fleeting, I want to watch my son grow up." I've had that wish for a few months now. I have another job that's a bit less rewarding but I work from home and it's far more relaxed. I've already remarked to myself or my wife a dozen moments that I would have missed if I was elsewhere that day: at work, in traffic, etc. I feel so blessed that I was lucky enough to figure this out this early in life.
- brianliou91 9y ago
  Hey! I've been trying to find positive stories of people who sacrificed work for deeper personal lives. Would love to chat with you over email if possible! My email is brian@teamleada.com
dwheeler 9y ago
Nice article, and I agree, life is short. This is, of course, not a new observation. It's Easter, so here are a few Biblical quotes with the same sentiment: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14 ESV) "Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow." (Psalm 144:4 ESV) It's an old observation... but it's also timeless. It's good to be reminded. Thanks.
thsowers 9y ago
> After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. I lived as if she'd always be there. I love this article, and this line has always hit me particularly hard. He goes on to mention that she encouraged this illusion, and I think many people who are older do this as well. As someone who is going through something similar, what do you do in this situation? Of course you can adjust your life to live as if people won't always be there, but how do you get them to stop encouraging the illusion?
gilbetron 9y ago
A pleasant essay, but I think it is a bit dismissive of the situations people are in. A simple example is the teenagers he mentions. You can't help but worry a ton about what people think about you as a teenager - your "social subprocess" has just kicked on, and you are overwhelmed by a great number of new senses and feelings. Telling a teenager not to worry about things does nothing but make everything worse. I can come up to you and inject you with adrenaline and nothing you do (short of medical intervention) will make you feel calm, and certainly me telling you to "just calm down" isn't going to help. The essay is well intended, and well written as usual, I just have an issue with the underlying assumption that people can simply change everything as desired.
- projektir 9y ago
  What's funny is that it's not like anyone is teaching teenagers proper coping mechanisms. They don't come up on their own. Knowing how not to worry about things is exactly that. Hell, I still worry...
  - gilbetron 9y ago
    I think there are more coping mechanisms being taught these days than when I was a teen (I'm only slightly younger than Graham), but I agree with your point overall. We try to teach our son (9) that you can't prevent feelings, and it's ok to let yourself feel them, but that we can find ways to respond to our feelings. He's young, so we'll see how it works out, but it's what my mother taught me and it works ok. My wife's mother taught her to basically step on her feelings and suppress them. She has lots of anxiety/depression issues as a direct result.
- 2ion 9y ago
  It's the gospel of someone who experienced, by common standards, extreme success. No more, no less. I find his essays mostly to be opinion pieces without exceptional insights or conclusions that would make them stand out if they were not attached to his persona.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
hourislate 9y ago
Who is this man? I wish I could be his friend.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
Read it before a couple of times but always good to read it again, it is my favorite Paul Graham essay.
euske 9y ago
As a side note, not only one's life is short, but the entire human history is short. I'm over 40 and it struck me that if I repeated my life 50 times it would already go back B.C.! We've invented and developed ALL the things in between. I don't think I could live 50 times and do that myself. That was some amazing achievement, humans.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  That is the sole reason companies calculate 'man hours.' You simply can't do exponential work just by living 50 times over. Other people in parallel matter a ton. Interesting point though
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    You appear trip be contradicting the parent's point -- I read them as saying that it's not merely the sum of hours but the interplay of minds. So in theory 10 people might do something on less man hours than 1 because the interactions create utility that speeds development.
- jonnybgood 9y ago
  But what is that ”amazing achievement” relative to? We have no frame of reference other than our imaginations. Could we have went to the moon much earlier? If the Cold War didn’t happen would we still have the achievement of landing on the moon or be in space at all like today?
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
    Relative to all of previous history.
  - UweSchmidt 9y ago
    Sure, with all the money saved on military expenses, and countries not drawn into conflicts we'd be a lot farther ahead.
    - 9y ago
Avshalom 9y ago
the corollary to "time flies when you're having fun" is that misery never ends. Chronic depression and entry level retail is the next worst thing to immortality...
goldenkey 9y ago
I admire pg's sentiment here but I think the analysis is inaccurate. There's all these "regret minimization" techniques and books out there - but they all fail at one thing; giving the true reason for why every person will ultimately have regrets: You are not you. The exhausted and tired you has different weights assigned to activities, most strongly correlated with energy required. The stimulated you after drinking 4 shots of expresso or taking amphetamines, is more than willing to do the things that tired you would probably have not done. We wrestle with lazyness, consumption versus actual action, the great now for the shitty future or vica versa. You really can't please all modes of thinking -- ever. The deathbed mode of thinking is another entirely different beast. But what pg says about "importance" vs "what matters" rings true and really penetrates through this incompleteness of self-thought. Love is the only thing that could never be wrong. Because it isn't a binary - it's not even just a feeling - it's a thing that modes of thought can't erase despite their different weighting schemes. Do whatever you do - but do it for love. I promise you it won't be a regret.
matte_black 9y ago
For those with kids, is it better to have them early, or later? I’ve always thought it’s better to wait until at least my late 30s, so I can live the first half of my life completely on my terms. My father was in his late 30s when I was born, and I think it was a pretty good decision on his part.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  I have two girls. I'd say the most important thing is to be in a place in life where you have time to spend with them. Maybe that means waiting for a career to mature, or maybe it means postponing some part of a career, if possible. Note that "enough time" means different things to different people. Some people don't like their kids, and won't regret prioritizing their career. But if you're anything like me you'll be astonished at how much you love your kids. You'll love them in a way and to to a degree that you didn't know was possible, that surpasses any love you've experienced before. Get to a place time-wise and financially where you can do that love justice.
- terrellm 9y ago
  My wife and I (both 40 today) are a husband-and-wife entrepreneur team that started our software business right out of college at 21. We had our first child at 30 and second at 33. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of my wife's high school classmates who didn't go on to college are already grandparents. We used our 20's to finish undergraduate college and go on to get our graduate degrees, do some traveling, and build & grow a successful software company. We looked at our 20's as the chance to build a business with little opportunity cost and even less overhead, knowing we had the rest of our life to recover from any failures. We put in a lot of hard & long hours, dealt with financial ups-and-downs, and had to learn how to build a team. Today our software company, now a SaaS and e-commerce business, is stable and has a solid team in place. Being established, along with our kids enrolled in online school, enables us to have a significant amount of flexibility for family. We spend just over half of our year in Texas and the rest in Colorado. Work still has to get done, but we can work around family now. I couldn't imagine us trying to build a business from scratch, especially as a husband-and-wife team, while also trying to raise kids.
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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subcosmos 9y ago
"Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short." Wise words. It took me a long time to learn this the hard way.
Swizec 9y ago
Life isn’t short, it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do.
japhyr 9y ago
Oh my. My son is 7, and I know time with him will fly by. But realizing I can count the childhood Christmases that we have remaining hits me so much harder than knowing his childhood will fly by in general I savor every day with him, even when I'm busy and a bit frustrated. I tell him that as well. Reading the opening part of this hit me in the gut.
visarga 9y ago
"Life is too short" is also the core tenet of a philosophy called "Memento Mori" (remember that you will die!). It was even used as a greeting, instead of "hello" by the members of certain religious sects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori <rant> But the opposite is also true: while I am alive, I am never dead (as silly as it sounds). I never experience death. For me it is an eternal now which is always alive. Should I worry about things I will never experience? We only experience the death of others, we don't know what it is like not to be alive 100 years from now. Why should we care about that when we are in an eternal now that is always alive? One way to deal with death is to leave something of you behind - kids, ideas or social impact. Another way is to remember that there is a great number of people who died as well - everyone before a certain birth date in fact. It's not like going in a strange place, it's like going where all these great people went before us. When we die we're divided - the matter that was in our bodies goes to earth and is recycled in nature, possibly becoming part of another life. The genes pass on to our kids and our grandchildren, then spreading out in a vast number of people 10 or 20 generations later; genes have a life of their own. The ideas we had fly from mouth to mouth, having a life of their own as well. The memories are left with our friends and family and will have a second death when they die. But does it matter to you if you're remembered by someone who is not close to you? The life that was in us just reinvents itself again. We're split into pieces and every piece goes right where it should. Another thing to ponder about: what else is a lot like death? In a sense, it's the time before we were born. It was like death, because we didn't exist, and then we came into being. How was it before we were born? Was it a bad experience? We have had eons of death before our short ~80 year span and it didn't affect us negatively one bit. If we're not affected by the 'no-life' of the time before we were born, why should we be affected by the 'no-life' that will be after we die? In the end, what is important? I think all reasons in life are related to survival instincts. Even learning to walk and grasp, or how to function as a member of society, or how to date and how to raise children - they are all in the service of self replication (and protecting one's life). Our fundamental reason for being is self replication, and all our "good things in life" come from things that support it. Thus it is this recursive loop that creates the root value (that of being alive) and from it come all our other values. But this kind of thinking is relative. When we're lifting ourselves from the basic loop of survival, we see how many of the things we hold dear and important are irrelevant. There is no universal good or reason to be. Meaning is being invented every moment and we're in control of it. We should think ourselves free and ignore the survival game as much as we like. That's the beauty of it - we're free to reinvent ourselves, or to embrace our instincts and values, which have been chiseled by countless generations of genetic selection before us. One strategy is exploration (there's no rule, we could be anything), and the other exploitation (holding dear the good things in life, those which fit our survival instincts). They're both valid. </>
Kuiper 9y ago
For related reading, I recommend this Tim Urban piece, "The Tail End": https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html I read about five books a year, so even though it feels like I’ll read an endless number of books in the future, I actually have to choose only 300 of all the books out there to read and accept that I’ll sign off for eternity without knowing what goes on in all the rest. ... I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years. It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
- deleted 9y ago
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- lsc 9y ago
  >I read about five books a year, so even though it feels like I’ll read an endless number of books in the future, I actually have to choose only 300 of all the books out there to read and accept that I’ll sign off for eternity without knowing what goes on in all the rest. makes you want to take some time off and read, doesn't it?
  - crowbahr 9y ago
    I highly recommend audio books. I tallied it up and last year I read 58 books averaging 1.8 hours of reading a day. It's great!
    - lsc 9y ago
      I don't think audiobooks are really the same; Maybe I just need to figure out how to make it read faster, but so far it's just slower and less immersive. Audio is a thing, like I really enjoy history podcasts when I'm doing other things that require attention, but it's different from reading 'cause I'm not immersed in the world of Mike Duncan or Nate DiMeo - I mean, I really enjoy listening to them but it's like watching a movie on a screen; reading a book is like watching a movie on a occulus rift (only, you know, good) I mean, one of them is there in the room with you; the other becomes the room, absorbs all attention.
waytogo 9y ago
Interesting piece but perspective matters. > don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short. It depends on your situation. If you cashed out and don't have to worry about paying rent and feeding your family (like Paul) then it's easy to spend more time with your family. If not: You are constantly torn between spending time with your family and getting your startup/career/job right to be able to finance the next vacation/school/flat. It's actually even worse. Every minute you spend with your family you face opportunity costs losing money you could invest into your family. If you work only your kids won't remember you. Try to cash out before you hit 25, not later than 30.
- oceanman888 9y ago
  I am not from silicon valley, is cashing out before 25 that usual? How much money are you talking about?
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    At macro scale not everyone can retire early. It's a pyramid of sorts. Who is going to wash the rich person's car? Until we have very advance tech, the answer is the person who didn't get lucky and cash out at 25.
barking 9y ago
OTOH eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die
evincarofautumn 9y ago
I see this and I understand the sentiment but my emotional reaction is basically “Nah.” Life is long and good. Even when shitty things happen to you, it’s a gift to be alive. (A gift from whom, you might ask? Probably nobody, but nobody knows! Isn’t that exciting?) I’m about to celebrate my 10,000th day on Earth. That’s a lot of days! And I have a couple times that more ahead of me if I’m lucky and I do some exercise. I’m not waiting to do things that matter to me, not because the clock is ticking, but because I want to do them now. And I might not want to do them later, so it’d be a shame if I didn’t. Of course I’m terrified of the day it ends. It keeps me up almost every night. But pragmatically, the more I think about that, the less I enjoy the time I have. And I plan to arrange a good vitrification at the end of things so I have a small chance of coming back for an encore. You’ve got to be practical about life, but you don’t need to be pessimistic. Life may not be long enough, but it is long.
- v64 9y ago
  Couldn't have said it better myself. I went on a trip with a friend for my day 10k celebration, hope yours is a good one :)
solidify 9y ago
No matter what you do, life will always feel short.
ColinWright 9y ago
Related: two of President John Tyler's Grandsons Are Still Alive. http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-grandsons-are-still-alive http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-g... John Tyler was born in 1790, and he took office in 1841.
pendar747 9y ago
I definitely agree with this article and believe that life is short, but it's also a good idea to relax and not worry about it all too much. I think the relaxing and having a piece of mind is undervalued by most people. It helps you have a better quality life however short it is. Remember that the time you spend on worrying about how short it is is also part of your life which you are kind of wasting. Having said that I agree that we should consider the bullshit in our life and cut in favor of things that we really want to do, because at the end life is to short for that.
tabtab 9y ago
Arguing on-line can be a good thing: it sharpens both your logic and articulation skills. If you don't like on-line debate, you can leave. A good online debate ends up looking like a geometry proof: based on these givens, here's the logical conclusion using cold, hard, and clear logic. Now, it may be that people disagree with the givens, being that many of them depend on assumptions of human behavior and psychology that would take million$ to settle in controlled studies, but at least one narrows down the reasons for their preference. Another reader can then "shop the proofs" and select the one with givens that best match their own circumstances or shop practices. Thus, good debates create clear(er) decision trees even though disagreements remain. Parameters will remain parameters.
dlwdlw 9y ago
Life is short for those that have triggered immortal processes. There are no easy ways to do this however. (the easiest way being starting a family) Most people probably feel that life is too long and boring and are always looking for something to do. It's probably somewhat offensive to these people to claim life is too short when their major negative emotion day to day is ennui. I think the internet has exacerbated this problem for some people. Those who can't bring themselves to do things because they can easily see that it's already been done before but weren't young enough to grow up in this new environment to easily consider doing things like game streaming or YouTube channels.
- dlwdlw 9y ago
  Should add that for many tech people the immoetal process often chosen is founding a company. Without a source of meaning like children they often don't have the motivation to grind out the rest of their days as a cog

568 points by hvo 9y ago

By far the deepest and most eloquent writing on this subject that I've ever read has been Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life".[1][2] [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Seneca/dp/1941129420/ https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Seneca/dp/1941129420/ [2] - https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pd...

pdog 9y ago
Seneca's On the Shortness of Life is truly spectacular: "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it... Life is long if you know how to use it."
- ianai 9y ago
  *have the ability to use it for your desires...the 40 hour work week leaves little for much else.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    only if you do something you have no interest in for 40 hours a week.
    - projektir 9y ago
      Which is the case for most people.
      - thijsvandien 9y ago
        Then they know where to start making changes.
        mstibbard 9y ago
        Modern society would likely not work if everyone had a job they enjoyed. Are there really that many people genuinely interested in sewage, fast food, tax, etc.
        ekianjo 9y ago
        You dont have to flip burgers for the rest of your life. As long as there is always transition between jobs there are always enough people in every field of work.
        uiri 9y ago
        I think you're underselling the science and engineering behind building waste disposal systems that scale, the science behind the taste, shelf life, etc. of packaged food & beverages, and the complexity of taxes. Sure, there is a lot of menial work, but society has been on a trend of automating that away for decades. No matter the field, there are things which can't be automated away and those are also things which someone somewhere is bound to find deeply interesting.
        ianai 9y ago
        “Burger flipping” is not a good nor service critical to society. It’s convenience food and expensive at that. No ones dying because they didn’t eat at McDonalds. If you can afford a burger then you can afford milk and cereal for more than one meal - just an example. I argue people will be more willing to take menial work with a UBI. Because with UBI people will move from working to survive to working for luxury. Ie the UBI won’t buy them a nicer apartment, but the UBI plus a cruddy but simple job will.
        Jtsummers 9y ago
        If you know you can afford a sufficiently large home and food for your family at wage X (UBI), how much higher does the pay need to be to motivate you to clean toilets or work in a steel mill? People don't do those things (in general) because they're a public good, or because they're a "calling". They do them because they need the money, and the pay is sufficiently good. UBI may be a good thing (if we can work out the economics of it), but people will still do the menial and risky jobs out of need, not to end up in the penthouse of a high-rise luxury building unless the pay is damned good.
    - ianai 9y ago
      Not at all. Yes, pleasing work is wonderful. But you’re still tied to being there for most of your waking hours. It doesn’t matter how flexible the position is, there are opportunity costs.
    - HugoDaniel 9y ago
      I am building the pyramids so that some day a dead pharaoh can lay inside them.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        If only. You're lucky if something you worked on lasts more than a decade.
        metaobject 9y ago
        Semi relevant note: When I followed the link PG has on his website for 'Hackers and Painters', Amazon reminded me that I ordered that book in 2005.
    - sdiupIGPWEfh 9y ago
      Doing something you love 40 hours a week can easily rob you of that love, depending on your situation.
      - ianai 9y ago
        Yep, it’s entirely possible whole new categories of work and goods/services would open up thanks to an UBI. Suddenly a person can choose to work mornings at a nonprofit (presumably paid more in karma than in cash) and afternoons somewhere else making better money. Or maybe work three different jobs that add up to a highly valuable skill after 3 years with each job. Ie a programmer with domain knowledge in commercial driving and liquor business operations.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I like programming but I probably wouldn't spend 40 hours per week on it every week, if I could do whatever. And even then I probably would choose different things to work on and wouldn't sit through stuff like Scrum ceremonies.
  - savanaly 9y ago
    Makes me think of >ONCE UPON A time, artists had jobs. And not “advising the Library of Congress on its newest Verdi acquisition” jobs, but job jobs, the kind you hear about in stump speeches. Think of T.S. Eliot, conjuring “The Waste Land” (1922) by night and overseeing foreign accounts at Lloyds Bank during the day, or Wallace Stevens, scribbling lines of poetry on his two-mile walk to work, then handing them over to his secretary to transcribe at the insurance agency where he supervised real estate claims. The avant-garde composer Philip Glass shocked at least one music lover when he materialized, smock-clad and brandishing plumber’s tools, in a home with a malfunctioning appliance. “While working,” Glass recounted to The Guardian in 2001, “I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him that I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.” from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day-job.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day...
    - slvrspoon 9y ago
      he actually drove a NYC taxi for decades to pay bills, buy his first house on the lower east side, etc. in his autobiography, reflecting on it he simply states "i enjoyed driving a cab" for many of the same reasons Uber markets today.
e19293001 9y ago
I'd come across Seneca's message from this book[0]: "Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing, Let us balance life's books each day.... The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." [0] - https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Perseverance/dp/0735211736 https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Persev...
stared 9y ago
I read it some time ago, due to HN appraisal. The key point of poor time boundaries, and losing one's time on tempting-but-non-fulfilling pursuits, are strong (and valid as much, or even more, in 2018). Yet, I was disappointed that after beating around the bush of all pointless activities he tells that philosophy is the only worthwhile activity. (But some coincidence, Seneca's stuff... I expected a bit more of self-distance from a stoic.)

lazyjones 9y ago

Alright. This isn't Reddit, but: how do people find meaningful things to do (instead of addictive, unrewarding habits) when options, at any particular time, seem to be very limited (i.e. I have 2 hours, starting now - what's available?)? Is it even possible to choose particular meaningful activities consciously (e.g. why would I expect travelling to X to be a great experience if I haven't done it before?), or do they happen by accident if you just expose yourself to many different situations (like having kids)? It seems like the "just say yes" principle is key - don't plan how to spend time based on what you know, just try more things and stop doing what turns out pointless. And, like pg writes, do it now. Practical result: it's probably better to go to a new club you don't know yet every time you go out, than to frequently visit your favourite one. Even if it feels wrong to habitual animals like us. Apologies for the rambling.

Woberto 9y ago
I think one of the most meaningful things in life for many people is connections to others, and it's something we can do easily during those periods that you mention. For example, PG's post made me think about how I could call my mom when taking a break since I don't see her often, and beyond that I should probably spend more time texting people and keeping up other such relationships.
- ranic 9y ago
  This is good advice. And as far as "single-player" activities are concerned, I think pursuing curiosities as far as your interest will go is a good way to discover new interests. Read an article on a topic you find compelling? Find additional reading material. Maybe take a class. Catch the urge to make something? Go for it. Something might stick or it may not. Either way, you'll have done something you might not have otherwise done and it won't have been a waste of time.
  - lazyjones 9y ago
    > I think pursuing curiosities as far as your interest will go is a good way to discover new interests. Read an article on a topic you find compelling? Find additional reading material As we get older, we develop stronger biases, so we think we can dismiss more and more as not worthwhile without even trying it. That's why I believe some outside influence is key.

thiago_fm 9y ago

might be good to be pg and have plenty of time to spenD with its own kid, after doing a phd in one of the most expensive colleges in the US, selling a company for tons of money, creating a extremely successful incubator i used to enjoy his essays for a long time, til i started to see how out of the world of most people even the basic stuff he writes there -- he is able to afford to spend time doing stuff nobody can, then it's kinda of easy to be successful at whatever he does.

lazyjones 9y ago
> he is able to afford to spend time doing stuff nobody can, then it's kinda of easy to be successful at whatever he does I don't think that's fair to say (and I know I'm "arguing on the Internet" here... bad!). After cashing out for FU money, it's much harder than before to put in 100 hours/week and "invest" your own health in order to succeed at something against the odds. Money can't replace everything, especially not dedicated founder time. It's also much harder to see a point in proving yourself again. I know it's an unpopular opinion with many people, but it's been like that for me and other successful founders I've talked to. What's easy is to make more money from money using proven methods (strictly not "whatever he does"). VC is not rocket science and pg is simply smarter than many others in the field, so he is fairly successful at it.
jotm 9y ago
Yeah this stuff does not work for most people. Still, cutting out the bullshit is great advice.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  Yeah, but it's kind of bullshit advice, too. It's not specific enough. "Unnecessary meetings" - how do you know for sure it's unnecessary? Etc.
  - jotm 9y ago
    I'm guessing with experience? When you've had a dozen of the same meetings or "emergencies", you tend to know which ones are actual bullshit.

agumonkey 9y ago

Telling a weird and only slightly related to the 'not waiting' part of this article (which I like). I recently got bitten by bitcoin trading. Knowing nothing about trading it was extremely wasteful. Also soulless... every dollar I made was someone else's loss. But it made me approach waiting and time efficiency differently. I'm a very attentist person.. I wait.. waiiit.. In bitcoin there's a tension (I did minute scalping) to get started and leave at the right time. Also since no one wants to wait watching charts, it made me learn rust/kotlin in the mean time with way more energy. Stretching and working out too. Surprisingly this stupid activity gave floor to other more fulfilling ones. Life is complex sometimes. ps: sometimes too life make you blind to what would be your perfect life and then you miss it. uneasy feeling to get over.

zitterbewegung 9y ago
I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that. I had the opposite experience where I started to get back into to bitcoin with a set of small trades and turned a small profit. I bought some more bitcoin and ethereum. The objective for me though was to learn the platform. It actually made me think of new ideas about how you could use the platform. I personally think that you need some skin in the game to truely understand some technology. My perspective through trading bitcoin is that it isn't as zero sum as you say but more like your gain and someones loss could be seen as you are interacting with a system that may make people money in the long run. I think its good though that you started to learn Kotlin and Rust and maybe you are being a bit too hard on your self of being guilting when you are trading cryptocurrencies.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  This is just my persona. I may be one of the few sad altruist trader. And I don't mind the losses etc, I didn't bet my house, nothing serious. I also think btc is not worth much, at least coming from my speculative/profit side. I think there are more interesting things to do.. so back to pg article :) ps: I wouldn't mind a cute 3x profit, I know how I'd spend the money in very good ways.
- haihaibye 9y ago

theomega 9y ago

Sam Altman published a very related piece three years ago: “The days are long but the decades are short” https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-are-short https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

Micoloth 9y ago
You are right, it's a nice article!

starpilot 9y ago

This makes me so anxious and depressed. I'm convinced that nothing will make you more unhappy than reading articles like this about how you're doing your life wrong. A good life seems to come from being content with a bad one.

marcofloriano 9y ago
Actually your comment makes me sad. The article is pretty good and realistic. Life is hard and real. But when you savor it with the right things (God, family and friends for me) it's amazing! Short, but amazing
bpchaps 9y ago
Could you expand on why it makes you anxious and depressed?
- cgag 9y ago
  Why reading about how short life is and how you're likely currently wasting yours? How could it possibly not?
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    I take it as a reminder to reflect every now and then, when I have the energy to do so. When reflecting, I check to make sure I'm striving to live in a way that aligns with my values and long-term goals, and that my values and goals still make sense, given my current understanding of myself and life.
- cmdli 9y ago
  I'm not the person you're replying to, but I can speak for myself. There's a lot of anxiety in the idea that you're "wasting" your life. You feel anxious about every day, worrying that you aren't doing enough even though you don't really want to do more. For instance, I might worry too much that I'm using my free time poorly that I don't enjoy it, and therefore waste it, which only causes me to think that I am wasting my life. Some amount of stress/anxiety is good because it gets you out of bed and doing something, but encouraging it too much is debilitating.

Waterluvian 9y ago

I have a one year old and this is such empowering advice. I discovered a lot of this on my own somehow, but reading that blog now reminds me to cut the bullshit that somehow keeps creeping back in. When explaining to my boss and peers why I was quitting my dream job, I would repeat, "life is fleeting, I want to watch my son grow up." I've had that wish for a few months now. I have another job that's a bit less rewarding but I work from home and it's far more relaxed. I've already remarked to myself or my wife a dozen moments that I would have missed if I was elsewhere that day: at work, in traffic, etc. I feel so blessed that I was lucky enough to figure this out this early in life.

brianliou91 9y ago
Hey! I've been trying to find positive stories of people who sacrificed work for deeper personal lives. Would love to chat with you over email if possible! My email is brian@teamleada.com

dwheeler 9y ago

Nice article, and I agree, life is short. This is, of course, not a new observation. It's Easter, so here are a few Biblical quotes with the same sentiment: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (James 4:14 ESV) "Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow." (Psalm 144:4 ESV) It's an old observation... but it's also timeless. It's good to be reminded. Thanks.

thsowers 9y ago

> After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time with her. I lived as if she'd always be there. I love this article, and this line has always hit me particularly hard. He goes on to mention that she encouraged this illusion, and I think many people who are older do this as well. As someone who is going through something similar, what do you do in this situation? Of course you can adjust your life to live as if people won't always be there, but how do you get them to stop encouraging the illusion?

gilbetron 9y ago

A pleasant essay, but I think it is a bit dismissive of the situations people are in. A simple example is the teenagers he mentions. You can't help but worry a ton about what people think about you as a teenager - your "social subprocess" has just kicked on, and you are overwhelmed by a great number of new senses and feelings. Telling a teenager not to worry about things does nothing but make everything worse. I can come up to you and inject you with adrenaline and nothing you do (short of medical intervention) will make you feel calm, and certainly me telling you to "just calm down" isn't going to help. The essay is well intended, and well written as usual, I just have an issue with the underlying assumption that people can simply change everything as desired.

projektir 9y ago
What's funny is that it's not like anyone is teaching teenagers proper coping mechanisms. They don't come up on their own. Knowing how not to worry about things is exactly that. Hell, I still worry...
- gilbetron 9y ago
  I think there are more coping mechanisms being taught these days than when I was a teen (I'm only slightly younger than Graham), but I agree with your point overall. We try to teach our son (9) that you can't prevent feelings, and it's ok to let yourself feel them, but that we can find ways to respond to our feelings. He's young, so we'll see how it works out, but it's what my mother taught me and it works ok. My wife's mother taught her to basically step on her feelings and suppress them. She has lots of anxiety/depression issues as a direct result.
2ion 9y ago
It's the gospel of someone who experienced, by common standards, extreme success. No more, no less. I find his essays mostly to be opinion pieces without exceptional insights or conclusions that would make them stand out if they were not attached to his persona.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago

hourislate 9y ago

Who is this man? I wish I could be his friend.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

Read it before a couple of times but always good to read it again, it is my favorite Paul Graham essay.

euske 9y ago

As a side note, not only one's life is short, but the entire human history is short. I'm over 40 and it struck me that if I repeated my life 50 times it would already go back B.C.! We've invented and developed ALL the things in between. I don't think I could live 50 times and do that myself. That was some amazing achievement, humans.

goldenkey 9y ago
That is the sole reason companies calculate 'man hours.' You simply can't do exponential work just by living 50 times over. Other people in parallel matter a ton. Interesting point though
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  You appear trip be contradicting the parent's point -- I read them as saying that it's not merely the sum of hours but the interplay of minds. So in theory 10 people might do something on less man hours than 1 because the interactions create utility that speeds development.
jonnybgood 9y ago
But what is that ”amazing achievement” relative to? We have no frame of reference other than our imaginations. Could we have went to the moon much earlier? If the Cold War didn’t happen would we still have the achievement of landing on the moon or be in space at all like today?
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  Relative to all of previous history.
- UweSchmidt 9y ago
  Sure, with all the money saved on military expenses, and countries not drawn into conflicts we'd be a lot farther ahead.
  - 9y ago

Avshalom 9y ago

the corollary to "time flies when you're having fun" is that misery never ends. Chronic depression and entry level retail is the next worst thing to immortality...

goldenkey 9y ago

I admire pg's sentiment here but I think the analysis is inaccurate. There's all these "regret minimization" techniques and books out there - but they all fail at one thing; giving the true reason for why every person will ultimately have regrets: You are not you. The exhausted and tired you has different weights assigned to activities, most strongly correlated with energy required. The stimulated you after drinking 4 shots of expresso or taking amphetamines, is more than willing to do the things that tired you would probably have not done. We wrestle with lazyness, consumption versus actual action, the great now for the shitty future or vica versa. You really can't please all modes of thinking -- ever. The deathbed mode of thinking is another entirely different beast. But what pg says about "importance" vs "what matters" rings true and really penetrates through this incompleteness of self-thought. Love is the only thing that could never be wrong. Because it isn't a binary - it's not even just a feeling - it's a thing that modes of thought can't erase despite their different weighting schemes. Do whatever you do - but do it for love. I promise you it won't be a regret.

matte_black 9y ago

For those with kids, is it better to have them early, or later? I’ve always thought it’s better to wait until at least my late 30s, so I can live the first half of my life completely on my terms. My father was in his late 30s when I was born, and I think it was a pretty good decision on his part.

nate_meurer 9y ago
I have two girls. I'd say the most important thing is to be in a place in life where you have time to spend with them. Maybe that means waiting for a career to mature, or maybe it means postponing some part of a career, if possible. Note that "enough time" means different things to different people. Some people don't like their kids, and won't regret prioritizing their career. But if you're anything like me you'll be astonished at how much you love your kids. You'll love them in a way and to to a degree that you didn't know was possible, that surpasses any love you've experienced before. Get to a place time-wise and financially where you can do that love justice.
terrellm 9y ago
My wife and I (both 40 today) are a husband-and-wife entrepreneur team that started our software business right out of college at 21. We had our first child at 30 and second at 33. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of my wife's high school classmates who didn't go on to college are already grandparents. We used our 20's to finish undergraduate college and go on to get our graduate degrees, do some traveling, and build & grow a successful software company. We looked at our 20's as the chance to build a business with little opportunity cost and even less overhead, knowing we had the rest of our life to recover from any failures. We put in a lot of hard & long hours, dealt with financial ups-and-downs, and had to learn how to build a team. Today our software company, now a SaaS and e-commerce business, is stable and has a solid team in place. Being established, along with our kids enrolled in online school, enables us to have a significant amount of flexibility for family. We spend just over half of our year in Texas and the rest in Colorado. Work still has to get done, but we can work around family now. I couldn't imagine us trying to build a business from scratch, especially as a husband-and-wife team, while also trying to raise kids.
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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subcosmos 9y ago

"Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short." Wise words. It took me a long time to learn this the hard way.

Swizec 9y ago

Life isn’t short, it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do.

japhyr 9y ago

Oh my. My son is 7, and I know time with him will fly by. But realizing I can count the childhood Christmases that we have remaining hits me so much harder than knowing his childhood will fly by in general I savor every day with him, even when I'm busy and a bit frustrated. I tell him that as well. Reading the opening part of this hit me in the gut.

visarga 9y ago

"Life is too short" is also the core tenet of a philosophy called "Memento Mori" (remember that you will die!). It was even used as a greeting, instead of "hello" by the members of certain religious sects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori <rant> But the opposite is also true: while I am alive, I am never dead (as silly as it sounds). I never experience death. For me it is an eternal now which is always alive. Should I worry about things I will never experience? We only experience the death of others, we don't know what it is like not to be alive 100 years from now. Why should we care about that when we are in an eternal now that is always alive? One way to deal with death is to leave something of you behind - kids, ideas or social impact. Another way is to remember that there is a great number of people who died as well - everyone before a certain birth date in fact. It's not like going in a strange place, it's like going where all these great people went before us. When we die we're divided - the matter that was in our bodies goes to earth and is recycled in nature, possibly becoming part of another life. The genes pass on to our kids and our grandchildren, then spreading out in a vast number of people 10 or 20 generations later; genes have a life of their own. The ideas we had fly from mouth to mouth, having a life of their own as well. The memories are left with our friends and family and will have a second death when they die. But does it matter to you if you're remembered by someone who is not close to you? The life that was in us just reinvents itself again. We're split into pieces and every piece goes right where it should. Another thing to ponder about: what else is a lot like death? In a sense, it's the time before we were born. It was like death, because we didn't exist, and then we came into being. How was it before we were born? Was it a bad experience? We have had eons of death before our short ~80 year span and it didn't affect us negatively one bit. If we're not affected by the 'no-life' of the time before we were born, why should we be affected by the 'no-life' that will be after we die? In the end, what is important? I think all reasons in life are related to survival instincts. Even learning to walk and grasp, or how to function as a member of society, or how to date and how to raise children - they are all in the service of self replication (and protecting one's life). Our fundamental reason for being is self replication, and all our "good things in life" come from things that support it. Thus it is this recursive loop that creates the root value (that of being alive) and from it come all our other values. But this kind of thinking is relative. When we're lifting ourselves from the basic loop of survival, we see how many of the things we hold dear and important are irrelevant. There is no universal good or reason to be. Meaning is being invented every moment and we're in control of it. We should think ourselves free and ignore the survival game as much as we like. That's the beauty of it - we're free to reinvent ourselves, or to embrace our instincts and values, which have been chiseled by countless generations of genetic selection before us. One strategy is exploration (there's no rule, we could be anything), and the other exploitation (holding dear the good things in life, those which fit our survival instincts). They're both valid. </>

Kuiper 9y ago

For related reading, I recommend this Tim Urban piece, "The Tail End": https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html I read about five books a year, so even though it feels like I’ll read an endless number of books in the future, I actually have to choose only 300 of all the books out there to read and accept that I’ll sign off for eternity without knowing what goes on in all the rest. ... I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years. It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.

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lsc 9y ago
>I read about five books a year, so even though it feels like I’ll read an endless number of books in the future, I actually have to choose only 300 of all the books out there to read and accept that I’ll sign off for eternity without knowing what goes on in all the rest. makes you want to take some time off and read, doesn't it?
- crowbahr 9y ago
  I highly recommend audio books. I tallied it up and last year I read 58 books averaging 1.8 hours of reading a day. It's great!
  - lsc 9y ago
    I don't think audiobooks are really the same; Maybe I just need to figure out how to make it read faster, but so far it's just slower and less immersive. Audio is a thing, like I really enjoy history podcasts when I'm doing other things that require attention, but it's different from reading 'cause I'm not immersed in the world of Mike Duncan or Nate DiMeo - I mean, I really enjoy listening to them but it's like watching a movie on a screen; reading a book is like watching a movie on a occulus rift (only, you know, good) I mean, one of them is there in the room with you; the other becomes the room, absorbs all attention.

waytogo 9y ago

Interesting piece but perspective matters. > don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That's what you do when life is short. It depends on your situation. If you cashed out and don't have to worry about paying rent and feeding your family (like Paul) then it's easy to spend more time with your family. If not: You are constantly torn between spending time with your family and getting your startup/career/job right to be able to finance the next vacation/school/flat. It's actually even worse. Every minute you spend with your family you face opportunity costs losing money you could invest into your family. If you work only your kids won't remember you. Try to cash out before you hit 25, not later than 30.

oceanman888 9y ago
I am not from silicon valley, is cashing out before 25 that usual? How much money are you talking about?
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  At macro scale not everyone can retire early. It's a pyramid of sorts. Who is going to wash the rich person's car? Until we have very advance tech, the answer is the person who didn't get lucky and cash out at 25.

barking 9y ago

OTOH eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die

evincarofautumn 9y ago

I see this and I understand the sentiment but my emotional reaction is basically “Nah.” Life is long and good. Even when shitty things happen to you, it’s a gift to be alive. (A gift from whom, you might ask? Probably nobody, but nobody knows! Isn’t that exciting?) I’m about to celebrate my 10,000th day on Earth. That’s a lot of days! And I have a couple times that more ahead of me if I’m lucky and I do some exercise. I’m not waiting to do things that matter to me, not because the clock is ticking, but because I want to do them now. And I might not want to do them later, so it’d be a shame if I didn’t. Of course I’m terrified of the day it ends. It keeps me up almost every night. But pragmatically, the more I think about that, the less I enjoy the time I have. And I plan to arrange a good vitrification at the end of things so I have a small chance of coming back for an encore. You’ve got to be practical about life, but you don’t need to be pessimistic. Life may not be long enough, but it is long.

v64 9y ago
Couldn't have said it better myself. I went on a trip with a friend for my day 10k celebration, hope yours is a good one :)

solidify 9y ago

No matter what you do, life will always feel short.

ColinWright 9y ago

Related: two of President John Tyler's Grandsons Are Still Alive. http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-grandsons-are-still-alive http://mentalfloss.com/article/29842/president-john-tylers-g... John Tyler was born in 1790, and he took office in 1841.

pendar747 9y ago

I definitely agree with this article and believe that life is short, but it's also a good idea to relax and not worry about it all too much. I think the relaxing and having a piece of mind is undervalued by most people. It helps you have a better quality life however short it is. Remember that the time you spend on worrying about how short it is is also part of your life which you are kind of wasting. Having said that I agree that we should consider the bullshit in our life and cut in favor of things that we really want to do, because at the end life is to short for that.

tabtab 9y ago

Arguing on-line can be a good thing: it sharpens both your logic and articulation skills. If you don't like on-line debate, you can leave. A good online debate ends up looking like a geometry proof: based on these givens, here's the logical conclusion using cold, hard, and clear logic. Now, it may be that people disagree with the givens, being that many of them depend on assumptions of human behavior and psychology that would take million$ to settle in controlled studies, but at least one narrows down the reasons for their preference. Another reader can then "shop the proofs" and select the one with givens that best match their own circumstances or shop practices. Thus, good debates create clear(er) decision trees even though disagreements remain. Parameters will remain parameters.

dlwdlw 9y ago

Life is short for those that have triggered immortal processes. There are no easy ways to do this however. (the easiest way being starting a family) Most people probably feel that life is too long and boring and are always looking for something to do. It's probably somewhat offensive to these people to claim life is too short when their major negative emotion day to day is ennui. I think the internet has exacerbated this problem for some people. Those who can't bring themselves to do things because they can easily see that it's already been done before but weren't young enough to grow up in this new environment to easily consider doing things like game streaming or YouTube channels.

dlwdlw 9y ago
Should add that for many tech people the immoetal process often chosen is founding a company. Without a source of meaning like children they often don't have the motivation to grind out the rest of their days as a cog