6 ms·

The question is a bit odd if you are human, but let me explain this in short terms. Modern lifestyle has stripped many of us of essential, real problems. By f

The question is a bit odd if you are human, but let me explain this in short terms. Modern lifestyle has stripped many of us of essential, real problems. By far not all, of course, but definitely the generally well-paid IT crowd on HN. So instead of hustling to survive like a maid in 1929 Berlin (I am watching Babylon Berlin right now) what's left over are luxury problems, especially if you're in the double income no kids crowd. What the Internet calls "first world problems" but even less "important". Just pull yourself together after all, right? (the answer is no, this will of course break you, or anyone, in the long run but that's a huge off the rails discussion). What side project can I have? How can I fill my day with something useful instead of gaming? There is a profound emptiness for some people. The vast majority of jobs aren't as amazing as you are supposed to pretend in interviews. You stop feeling useful and doubt your place in society. Educated, trained but not applied to something that makes sense. Do I have to feel guilty about gaming because I am not productive after 6pm or should I invest time to develop myself because HN tells me to? After spending 8 exhausting hours at my job that lines someone else's pockets? This is where your mental game is played after the "real" problems are not a threat anymore. It's hard for struggling hard working people who bust their asses to pay rent to understand. I know because that's been me. I have seen both sides. Going to bed anxious because some huge bill just arrived. Now I am going to bed thinking: "what am I even here for?" And I actually enjoy my job. But in the end I am doing something shallow, something useless. Not advancing humanity or something.

mikelyons 7y ago
This is quite a good description of it. I'm so tired of existing. I don't have a brain that's wired in such a way that I'll ever really create something worthwhile. I am equally unlikely to ever find a partner who would want children with me. Why even maintain this existence...?
- 0ldblu3 7y ago
  Does procrastination often lead to depression?
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    It's hard for me to say as it's a box that I am inside of. However, it is near impossible to even muster a desire or motive to stop procrastinating when there seems to be no value in anything I'm doing except distraction from the anguish of dragging myself through Life. Likely it's a feedback loop, the start of which I am not clear on.
- kharak 7y ago
  This sounds serious, please consider seeking mental support and health care. Even if you don't make it to the top of your value pyramid, life should offer you something.
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    I do all the treatments and drugs and recommendations, it doesn't change anything, but thanks for your concern.
- mettamage 7y ago
  Edit: that's it. I'm writing a dating guide soon. I'm seeing this too often on HN. --- original post --- > I am equally unlikely to ever find a partner who would want children with me. I've had this issue for 6 years (between 16 to 22). I was heavily involved with the pickup artist community at the time. I wouldn't call myself a pickup artist, since what I do isn't picking up women and it isn't an art. I just used whatever good advice they had lying around and used it. After 6 years, here are the cliff notes (I studied psychology as well, so you can bet this has some science behind it). - The most important advice: only take advice you understand or are curious about and test whether it works for you. If it doesn't, that's completely fine. Advice in getting relationships does not have a one size fits all solution. Maybe this will be the case in the future, but for now, no one figured it out yet. - Learn cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Read David Burns Intimate Connections and Feeling Good. - Learn Mindfulness Meditation and other forms. Read Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan. - Finding a therapist is always a good idea. They can second those books and they can second CBT. - Strength + cardiovascular exercise helps (strength for body posture, running for mental sharpness). The best way to get into this IMO is to simply lift a weight a couple of times until your heart starts beating a bit faster. Then when it is beating faster, notice how you're feeling slightly more in ecstacy than before (other than some slight muscle fatigue). - Fix your fashion. A good fashion doesn't win women over. It is appreciated though. A bad fashion does let them run away. If you don't want them to run away, stay safe, have a good fashion. - Read up on assorted mating theory and try to find women that are compatible with you personality-wise, and ask yourself where they'd hangout or how you'd recognize them. I was into artsy types, so anyone who looked like an artist, I'd introduce myself to. I have a high openess to experience, artsy people tend to as well. Do a big 5 personality test (no mbti/myer's briggs nonsense). - Be careful with pickup artist advice. It's toxic and sexist as hell. The sexism is bullshit. - This stuff is hard work. I have a friend who has slightly better looks than me (I'm not a pretty person, I'm average at best), but he has no initiative. His dates / relationships are far and few in between. I do think he's enjoying life though. Those are my biggest tips, most are also quite science-backed. Some personal findings: - Getting a girlfriend won't fix your life. You need to take care of your own problems. The only thing it does, it enriches your life. - You need to come from a place where you feel like you don't need a girlfriend, but it would simply be nice or fun or adventurous (or whatever positive emotion you can think about). The best way to do that is to cater to every single need that you have as much as possible without needing someone else to help you with it. - You need to make your intentions clear as soon as you know them. I sometimes do it when I see a woman. I do steer clear from cliche's. If I think she's hot as hell, I try to mention that in its most eloquent form (e.g. I'd say she has a nice fashion sense, amazing energy and cute -- I would then go into specific detail). This makes things a lot less complicated. Be respectful about it. I always asked for permission to kiss women, verbally. This goes straight against pickup artist literature, but I found that it worked enough of the time and at least I had a good feeling about it to get verbal consent. - It is a numbers game. You need volume, but if after a 1000 approaches you haven't even felt a real connection and kissed someone, you're doing something wrong and you need a coach. The problem: most coaches suck. The only one that I know is good is called Ratisse (personal experience but I was already nearly complete in what I needed to learn). - You can be yourself. Except, you must also be: positive, optimistic and playful. Other than that, you can be yourself. - You'll have more success approaching women by yourself than with friends. Reason: you're less threatening by yourself, and convey more open body language. The hyper charged version of this is traveling alone (warning: it can be tough at times, just meet people at hostels. If you don't know what to say then just introduce yourself to a group of people at hostels with "hi my name is <name> what are you guys doing in <place/country>?" And have a story ready as to why you think the country/place is genuinely amazing, don't fake the story, just tell a story from the heart. This does the trick often enough.). - Try to come up with a method of dating women by focusing on your strenghts. Do this as fast as possible. My weakness: lack of humor. My strength: a shit ton of fantasy. My solution: approach women with fantastical stories that I'm making up out of thin air. - It's the inside that counts, not the outside. The outside is fun, so are drugs or video games. But a good personality means guaranteed amazing sex no matter how she looks, so IMO looks are irrelevant even from a hedonic perspective. I've been with good looking women, but the best sex I've ever had wasn't from a good looking woman. The most amazing intimate moments didn't have any correlation with looks either (sometimes they were good looking). The only thing I had was that I became less insecure after having slept with a few good looking women (and ultimately realizing it was all nonsense).
- CartyBoston 7y ago
  The pain you express here is one I recognize, I'm sorry. For me the answer is simple to say and difficult to execute - if I don't value the world I am in, create a world that I do value. Creating worlds is awesome, literally Godlike. And very, very hard work that I try to be patient watching me flail at.
  - MattSayar 7y ago
    Kindof reminds me of that one poem about changing the world: When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
- downerending 7y ago
  See my other comment. There are a lot of single moms in the world, and if you can get past that, likely a lot of them can get past whatever you think is unappealing about yourself. (I'm not a fan of marriage, however. It's neither necessary nor advisable.)
rocgf 7y ago
Holy crap, reading this is creepy since I don't think there's anything to add or subtract that could make it more fitting for myself. I've been feeling like this for a few years now, yet I could never articulate it as well as you have. I make about 3 times what a regular developer makes in the UK and, when I got this job, I felt like I 'made it'. That was very short-lived, as I succumbed to the meaninglessness you describe. Don't get me wrong, I love not being worried about money as much, but something just doesn't feel right. Like, is this it? Working on side projects feels maybe a bit shallow as well. I will probably not be advancing humanity in any way, not to mention that even making any revenue from them is relatively far-fetched, despite what IndieHackers might suggest. Therefore, I am stuck between working all day long for the unlikely chance that I might 'get rich' with some startup (and then what?) or slide into the comfort of gaming/hobbies/relaxing. Both have pros and cons, both take something from you, be it stress or time wasting. Life is hard.
- CaptArmchair 7y ago
  You're going to love this video on YouTube aptly titled "Meaning is a jumper you have to knit for yourself": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psaCM1j9LEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psaCM1j9LEM Also, Exurb1a has an excellent channel fraught with articulate video's about existentialism. Then there's this. You're summarizing how much our non-working life has become a zero-sum game: > Working on side projects feels maybe a bit shallow as well. I will probably not be advancing humanity in any way, not to mention that even making any revenue from them is relatively far-fetched, despite what IndieHackers might suggest. Therefore, I am stuck between working all day long for the unlikely chance that I might 'get rich' with some startup (and then what?) or slide into the comfort of gaming/hobbies/relaxing. Both have pros and cons, both take something from you, be it stress or time wasting. Life is hard. Here's the hard truth: You have conditioned to feel guilty if you don't spend your time either producing or consuming. Here are some blatantly false beliefs that tie into this: Side projects are only successful if the yield either revenue or attain a vague notion of "impact". Satisfaction of whatever pass time you choose is a function of the amount of money you invest in it (buy the latest gear, invest in increasingly expensive experiences). Professional success is working at a FANG company, selling your startup after VC funding, entering the motivational speaker circuit, being a "thought leader",... "work hard, play hard" etc. etc. You have to "optimize" how you spend time in order to "maximize" your output. Which could be anything ranging from running 5 miles, meditation, writing a blog post and catching up on e-mail between waking up at 4am and breakfast, to monitoring your sleep cycles over reducing your meals to protein shakes to "not waste time eating". You end up losing something along the way: Yourself. The things that define you as a unique human being. Having your own particular needs, desires, dreams, aspirations and wants that nobody else has. For instance, you start running 5 miles each morning before dawn because "running invigorates you for the day to come." Well, yeah, sure, but are you actually taking this on because the idea truly resonates with you? Clicks with who you are? Or are you just waking up each morning, secretly resenting the entire thing, because some "thought leader" marketed the idea of "running = road to success" in such a way that you honestly started to believing that? Your time is yours and yours alone. Nobody else is living your life. Sure, nothing of significance happens if you don't put in the time and effort. But that notion doesn't equate that whatever you have to do needs to answer to modern day ideals such as "useful", "successful", "productive", "rich", or whatever. Nope. If you want to learn a language, play the guitar, write a novel, join a choir, make a stroll through the park each sunday, cook a nice meal, make photographs, sketch a drawing, read a book, play a game, go travel, etc. etc. etc ... then you should do that first and foremost because that's what YOU want to do with YOUR life... It's awesome that Elon Musk did build up Tesla and SpaceX practically from thin air. Really awesome. And he likely enjoys doing that and he derives enormous purpose and satisfaction from those enterprises. But I am not Elon Musk. And I certainly do not aspire to become like Elon Musk. Turns out that success and purpose are measures you have to define for yourself first and foremost. They can be literally anything, as long as they resonate with who you are. You don't have to build rockets in order to feel success. Just baking your own bread and sharing that with a friend can bring intense happiness and purpose. If you're only willing to accept that for yourself. Everything else is above all sly marketing.
simongr3dal 7y ago
I like to think that Maslov's Hierachy of Needs has a deeper meaning than just describing that you shouldn't buy an iPhone before you have food in the fridge or whatever. The sort of emotions and problems being felt at the higher levels of the hierachy are just as important to the psyche as the emotions and problems being felt at the lower levels of the hierachy. Even if it is "first world problems", not being fulfilled in the right way can be very distressing.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  When examined and compared, Maslow's Self-Actualization -- the top of his pyramid of needs -- and Nietzsche's Will To Power are practically the same thing. Both exist to, in some part, address the emotional problems at the top levels of the hierarchy, as well as the more practical implications of personal growth.

mikelyons 7y ago

This is quite a good description of it. I'm so tired of existing. I don't have a brain that's wired in such a way that I'll ever really create something worthwhile. I am equally unlikely to ever find a partner who would want children with me. Why even maintain this existence...?

0ldblu3 7y ago
Does procrastination often lead to depression?
- mikelyons 7y ago
  It's hard for me to say as it's a box that I am inside of. However, it is near impossible to even muster a desire or motive to stop procrastinating when there seems to be no value in anything I'm doing except distraction from the anguish of dragging myself through Life. Likely it's a feedback loop, the start of which I am not clear on.
kharak 7y ago
This sounds serious, please consider seeking mental support and health care. Even if you don't make it to the top of your value pyramid, life should offer you something.
- mikelyons 7y ago
  I do all the treatments and drugs and recommendations, it doesn't change anything, but thanks for your concern.
mettamage 7y ago
Edit: that's it. I'm writing a dating guide soon. I'm seeing this too often on HN. --- original post --- > I am equally unlikely to ever find a partner who would want children with me. I've had this issue for 6 years (between 16 to 22). I was heavily involved with the pickup artist community at the time. I wouldn't call myself a pickup artist, since what I do isn't picking up women and it isn't an art. I just used whatever good advice they had lying around and used it. After 6 years, here are the cliff notes (I studied psychology as well, so you can bet this has some science behind it). - The most important advice: only take advice you understand or are curious about and test whether it works for you. If it doesn't, that's completely fine. Advice in getting relationships does not have a one size fits all solution. Maybe this will be the case in the future, but for now, no one figured it out yet. - Learn cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Read David Burns Intimate Connections and Feeling Good. - Learn Mindfulness Meditation and other forms. Read Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan. - Finding a therapist is always a good idea. They can second those books and they can second CBT. - Strength + cardiovascular exercise helps (strength for body posture, running for mental sharpness). The best way to get into this IMO is to simply lift a weight a couple of times until your heart starts beating a bit faster. Then when it is beating faster, notice how you're feeling slightly more in ecstacy than before (other than some slight muscle fatigue). - Fix your fashion. A good fashion doesn't win women over. It is appreciated though. A bad fashion does let them run away. If you don't want them to run away, stay safe, have a good fashion. - Read up on assorted mating theory and try to find women that are compatible with you personality-wise, and ask yourself where they'd hangout or how you'd recognize them. I was into artsy types, so anyone who looked like an artist, I'd introduce myself to. I have a high openess to experience, artsy people tend to as well. Do a big 5 personality test (no mbti/myer's briggs nonsense). - Be careful with pickup artist advice. It's toxic and sexist as hell. The sexism is bullshit. - This stuff is hard work. I have a friend who has slightly better looks than me (I'm not a pretty person, I'm average at best), but he has no initiative. His dates / relationships are far and few in between. I do think he's enjoying life though. Those are my biggest tips, most are also quite science-backed. Some personal findings: - Getting a girlfriend won't fix your life. You need to take care of your own problems. The only thing it does, it enriches your life. - You need to come from a place where you feel like you don't need a girlfriend, but it would simply be nice or fun or adventurous (or whatever positive emotion you can think about). The best way to do that is to cater to every single need that you have as much as possible without needing someone else to help you with it. - You need to make your intentions clear as soon as you know them. I sometimes do it when I see a woman. I do steer clear from cliche's. If I think she's hot as hell, I try to mention that in its most eloquent form (e.g. I'd say she has a nice fashion sense, amazing energy and cute -- I would then go into specific detail). This makes things a lot less complicated. Be respectful about it. I always asked for permission to kiss women, verbally. This goes straight against pickup artist literature, but I found that it worked enough of the time and at least I had a good feeling about it to get verbal consent. - It is a numbers game. You need volume, but if after a 1000 approaches you haven't even felt a real connection and kissed someone, you're doing something wrong and you need a coach. The problem: most coaches suck. The only one that I know is good is called Ratisse (personal experience but I was already nearly complete in what I needed to learn). - You can be yourself. Except, you must also be: positive, optimistic and playful. Other than that, you can be yourself. - You'll have more success approaching women by yourself than with friends. Reason: you're less threatening by yourself, and convey more open body language. The hyper charged version of this is traveling alone (warning: it can be tough at times, just meet people at hostels. If you don't know what to say then just introduce yourself to a group of people at hostels with "hi my name is <name> what are you guys doing in <place/country>?" And have a story ready as to why you think the country/place is genuinely amazing, don't fake the story, just tell a story from the heart. This does the trick often enough.). - Try to come up with a method of dating women by focusing on your strenghts. Do this as fast as possible. My weakness: lack of humor. My strength: a shit ton of fantasy. My solution: approach women with fantastical stories that I'm making up out of thin air. - It's the inside that counts, not the outside. The outside is fun, so are drugs or video games. But a good personality means guaranteed amazing sex no matter how she looks, so IMO looks are irrelevant even from a hedonic perspective. I've been with good looking women, but the best sex I've ever had wasn't from a good looking woman. The most amazing intimate moments didn't have any correlation with looks either (sometimes they were good looking). The only thing I had was that I became less insecure after having slept with a few good looking women (and ultimately realizing it was all nonsense).
CartyBoston 7y ago
The pain you express here is one I recognize, I'm sorry. For me the answer is simple to say and difficult to execute - if I don't value the world I am in, create a world that I do value. Creating worlds is awesome, literally Godlike. And very, very hard work that I try to be patient watching me flail at.
- MattSayar 7y ago
  Kindof reminds me of that one poem about changing the world: When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
downerending 7y ago
See my other comment. There are a lot of single moms in the world, and if you can get past that, likely a lot of them can get past whatever you think is unappealing about yourself. (I'm not a fan of marriage, however. It's neither necessary nor advisable.)

rocgf 7y ago

Holy crap, reading this is creepy since I don't think there's anything to add or subtract that could make it more fitting for myself. I've been feeling like this for a few years now, yet I could never articulate it as well as you have. I make about 3 times what a regular developer makes in the UK and, when I got this job, I felt like I 'made it'. That was very short-lived, as I succumbed to the meaninglessness you describe. Don't get me wrong, I love not being worried about money as much, but something just doesn't feel right. Like, is this it? Working on side projects feels maybe a bit shallow as well. I will probably not be advancing humanity in any way, not to mention that even making any revenue from them is relatively far-fetched, despite what IndieHackers might suggest. Therefore, I am stuck between working all day long for the unlikely chance that I might 'get rich' with some startup (and then what?) or slide into the comfort of gaming/hobbies/relaxing. Both have pros and cons, both take something from you, be it stress or time wasting. Life is hard.

CaptArmchair 7y ago
You're going to love this video on YouTube aptly titled "Meaning is a jumper you have to knit for yourself": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psaCM1j9LEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psaCM1j9LEM Also, Exurb1a has an excellent channel fraught with articulate video's about existentialism. Then there's this. You're summarizing how much our non-working life has become a zero-sum game: > Working on side projects feels maybe a bit shallow as well. I will probably not be advancing humanity in any way, not to mention that even making any revenue from them is relatively far-fetched, despite what IndieHackers might suggest. Therefore, I am stuck between working all day long for the unlikely chance that I might 'get rich' with some startup (and then what?) or slide into the comfort of gaming/hobbies/relaxing. Both have pros and cons, both take something from you, be it stress or time wasting. Life is hard. Here's the hard truth: You have conditioned to feel guilty if you don't spend your time either producing or consuming. Here are some blatantly false beliefs that tie into this: Side projects are only successful if the yield either revenue or attain a vague notion of "impact". Satisfaction of whatever pass time you choose is a function of the amount of money you invest in it (buy the latest gear, invest in increasingly expensive experiences). Professional success is working at a FANG company, selling your startup after VC funding, entering the motivational speaker circuit, being a "thought leader",... "work hard, play hard" etc. etc. You have to "optimize" how you spend time in order to "maximize" your output. Which could be anything ranging from running 5 miles, meditation, writing a blog post and catching up on e-mail between waking up at 4am and breakfast, to monitoring your sleep cycles over reducing your meals to protein shakes to "not waste time eating". You end up losing something along the way: Yourself. The things that define you as a unique human being. Having your own particular needs, desires, dreams, aspirations and wants that nobody else has. For instance, you start running 5 miles each morning before dawn because "running invigorates you for the day to come." Well, yeah, sure, but are you actually taking this on because the idea truly resonates with you? Clicks with who you are? Or are you just waking up each morning, secretly resenting the entire thing, because some "thought leader" marketed the idea of "running = road to success" in such a way that you honestly started to believing that? Your time is yours and yours alone. Nobody else is living your life. Sure, nothing of significance happens if you don't put in the time and effort. But that notion doesn't equate that whatever you have to do needs to answer to modern day ideals such as "useful", "successful", "productive", "rich", or whatever. Nope. If you want to learn a language, play the guitar, write a novel, join a choir, make a stroll through the park each sunday, cook a nice meal, make photographs, sketch a drawing, read a book, play a game, go travel, etc. etc. etc ... then you should do that first and foremost because that's what YOU want to do with YOUR life... It's awesome that Elon Musk did build up Tesla and SpaceX practically from thin air. Really awesome. And he likely enjoys doing that and he derives enormous purpose and satisfaction from those enterprises. But I am not Elon Musk. And I certainly do not aspire to become like Elon Musk. Turns out that success and purpose are measures you have to define for yourself first and foremost. They can be literally anything, as long as they resonate with who you are. You don't have to build rockets in order to feel success. Just baking your own bread and sharing that with a friend can bring intense happiness and purpose. If you're only willing to accept that for yourself. Everything else is above all sly marketing.

simongr3dal 7y ago

I like to think that Maslov's Hierachy of Needs has a deeper meaning than just describing that you shouldn't buy an iPhone before you have food in the fridge or whatever. The sort of emotions and problems being felt at the higher levels of the hierachy are just as important to the psyche as the emotions and problems being felt at the lower levels of the hierachy. Even if it is "first world problems", not being fulfilled in the right way can be very distressing.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
When examined and compared, Maslow's Self-Actualization -- the top of his pyramid of needs -- and Nietzsche's Will To Power are practically the same thing. Both exist to, in some part, address the emotional problems at the top levels of the hierarchy, as well as the more practical implications of personal growth.