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From: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html > 3. Boredom and drudgery are evil. > Hackers (and creativ

From: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html > 3. Boredom and drudgery are evil. > Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil. > To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers). > (There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)

pretty_lorelei 7y ago
IMHO, this is just different defininiton of boring, as in "doing this repetitive shit is boring and I would be better off automating it and doing something challenging" vs "being alone with my thoughts rather than consuming delicious Internet information is so boring, let me just mindlessly scroll HN instead".
- snazz 7y ago
  Yup. ESR's opinion and the OP are not mutually exclusive. Avoid boring, repetitive work, but deprive yourself of constant stimulus every once in a while.
- uniquelygeneric 7y ago
  As a musician, I can tell you that practicing a song (particularly a well known song) is very frustrating partly due to boredom. A practiced musician will know when they’ve reached their limit for the day of learning a song. Muscle memory is much slower than neural memory, and usually requires “sleeping on it”. Knowing you’ve reached the limit of your current capability is boring because you know the next few practice rounds will be much of the same, with minor improvements that provide a dopamine rush. Regardless, nothing has changed in the age-old saying of how to get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, Practice, Practice. The practice is the boredom, but without training your muscles and building up myelin sheaths, you’ll never be good enough to automate most of the music to an extent that you can improvise on top of it (the fun part). I guess my point is akin to OP’s, in that boredom isn’t inherently a bad thing, but a means to an end. Without the boring practice, we wouldn’t have experts/artists...and even then, the practice doesn’t have to solely be boring.

pretty_lorelei 7y ago

IMHO, this is just different defininiton of boring, as in "doing this repetitive shit is boring and I would be better off automating it and doing something challenging" vs "being alone with my thoughts rather than consuming delicious Internet information is so boring, let me just mindlessly scroll HN instead".

snazz 7y ago
Yup. ESR's opinion and the OP are not mutually exclusive. Avoid boring, repetitive work, but deprive yourself of constant stimulus every once in a while.
uniquelygeneric 7y ago
As a musician, I can tell you that practicing a song (particularly a well known song) is very frustrating partly due to boredom. A practiced musician will know when they’ve reached their limit for the day of learning a song. Muscle memory is much slower than neural memory, and usually requires “sleeping on it”. Knowing you’ve reached the limit of your current capability is boring because you know the next few practice rounds will be much of the same, with minor improvements that provide a dopamine rush. Regardless, nothing has changed in the age-old saying of how to get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, Practice, Practice. The practice is the boredom, but without training your muscles and building up myelin sheaths, you’ll never be good enough to automate most of the music to an extent that you can improvise on top of it (the fun part). I guess my point is akin to OP’s, in that boredom isn’t inherently a bad thing, but a means to an end. Without the boring practice, we wouldn’t have experts/artists...and even then, the practice doesn’t have to solely be boring.