4 ms·

Drivel. All of it. Right off the bat, try these on for size: Do What You Can Tolerate, And You'll Get By; Do Something You Hate If You Have To, Otherwise You'l

by mkn 15y ago

Drivel. All of it. Right off the bat, try these on for size: Do What You Can Tolerate, And You'll Get By; Do Something You Hate If You Have To, Otherwise You'll Starve; Do Something You're Indifferent To But Pays The Bills, Or You Won't Be Able To Afford Anything; or, Do Whatever Comes Along And Have Fun In Your Free Time. Those are your writing assignments. 1000 words or less. Due tomorrow. A healthy dose of realism would help the author along, as would taking the attention-whoring down a notch or two. I spun into a soulless depression--working by day, working by night And now the author is in his manic phase, which will also pass. Seriously, if you're in "soulless depression," don't change careers, get mental help. Cognitive behavior therapists would call what the author is doing "awfulizing." He's making the consequences of a course of action out to be far worse than they really are, and working himself up over it. "Oh, it would be absolutely awful if I had to do X for a living!" Well, no. You could develop coping skills instead of insisting that everything has to be perfect in order for your life not to be awful. Oh, well. It takes all kinds, I guess.

r0s 15y ago
> Do Something You Hate If You Have To, Otherwise You'll Starve; You make a great point here... as I lift the pistol to my mouth. The illusion of desperate survival is so pervasive it spans all class lines. Most people would consider trading modern convenience for a little labor or discomfort(say, washing dishes manually, or lawn care) to be a fate equal to desperate poverty. This entitlement is truly fear, and it motivates otherwise capable entrepreneurs into a life of bland wage slavery. When starvation is invoked as a warning here, it is truthfully in regard to modern privilege. A warning that the service and maintenance of modern life will fall on the misguided consumer. If they should choose to be self sufficient on small income, they will have to learn how. A fate apparently worse than starvation. Fear motivates this attitude.
keeptrying 15y ago
I don't think you have understood the article. Try reading it again without bias. Your comment seems to be a rationalization of your own job. The author is positing that there are situations out there where you could love your 8 hours a day of work and the time after it. And that in most cases you can do this by refocusing on your minimal "needs" as opposed to the many "wants" that you feel due to a variety of pressures in life: "nice car", "big bank account", societal, status-symbols etc. Also his post is aimed at technology professionals who love technology but just need to find the right situation. So it's much less riskier than changing fields but people still don't make the effort to find a better situation. And I've seen the very same thing happen.
gruseom 15y ago
It isn't drivel. He's saying that if you ignore what your heart and soul crave, you will suffer increasingly until you wake up and make changes. That's a practical truth, one worth repeating because most of us do so assiduous a job of forgetting it. Realism? He identified a false assumption and corrected it. How much more realistic can you get? don't change careers, get mental help What's mental help? Sounds like something we could all use. Work is what we spend most of our waking hours doing, so work that sucks is life that sucks. That's not "awfulizing" - those consequences really are bad. There may be good reason to accept them for a while, but that path is fraught with risk, because (we've all seen examples of this) "a while" can so easily turn into decades, into a lifetime. When someone breaks out of that trance, we should all applaud.
Confusion 15y ago
A blog post such as this cannot possibly contain any definitive truth. At best, it can offer a new/different way of viewing things and perhaps convince you that this other way is valuable instead of, or more likely: in addition to, the outlook you had before reading the article. The fact that you could write different articles, with different titles, arguing different points, does not imply that the contents of this article is 'drivel'. It shows there is a wide variety of valid arguments that support multiple ways of viewing and living your life. Which ones you find compelling, which ones you choose to accept, that is up to you. Disagreeing with the arguments presented or the fact that there are alternatives you consider better supported are insufficient reason to call something 'drivel'.

by mkn 15y ago

r0s 15y ago

> Do Something You Hate If You Have To, Otherwise You'll Starve; You make a great point here... as I lift the pistol to my mouth. The illusion of desperate survival is so pervasive it spans all class lines. Most people would consider trading modern convenience for a little labor or discomfort(say, washing dishes manually, or lawn care) to be a fate equal to desperate poverty. This entitlement is truly fear, and it motivates otherwise capable entrepreneurs into a life of bland wage slavery. When starvation is invoked as a warning here, it is truthfully in regard to modern privilege. A warning that the service and maintenance of modern life will fall on the misguided consumer. If they should choose to be self sufficient on small income, they will have to learn how. A fate apparently worse than starvation. Fear motivates this attitude.

keeptrying 15y ago

I don't think you have understood the article. Try reading it again without bias. Your comment seems to be a rationalization of your own job. The author is positing that there are situations out there where you could love your 8 hours a day of work and the time after it. And that in most cases you can do this by refocusing on your minimal "needs" as opposed to the many "wants" that you feel due to a variety of pressures in life: "nice car", "big bank account", societal, status-symbols etc. Also his post is aimed at technology professionals who love technology but just need to find the right situation. So it's much less riskier than changing fields but people still don't make the effort to find a better situation. And I've seen the very same thing happen.

gruseom 15y ago

It isn't drivel. He's saying that if you ignore what your heart and soul crave, you will suffer increasingly until you wake up and make changes. That's a practical truth, one worth repeating because most of us do so assiduous a job of forgetting it. Realism? He identified a false assumption and corrected it. How much more realistic can you get? don't change careers, get mental help What's mental help? Sounds like something we could all use. Work is what we spend most of our waking hours doing, so work that sucks is life that sucks. That's not "awfulizing" - those consequences really are bad. There may be good reason to accept them for a while, but that path is fraught with risk, because (we've all seen examples of this) "a while" can so easily turn into decades, into a lifetime. When someone breaks out of that trance, we should all applaud.

Confusion 15y ago

A blog post such as this cannot possibly contain any definitive truth. At best, it can offer a new/different way of viewing things and perhaps convince you that this other way is valuable instead of, or more likely: in addition to, the outlook you had before reading the article. The fact that you could write different articles, with different titles, arguing different points, does not imply that the contents of this article is 'drivel'. It shows there is a wide variety of valid arguments that support multiple ways of viewing and living your life. Which ones you find compelling, which ones you choose to accept, that is up to you. Disagreeing with the arguments presented or the fact that there are alternatives you consider better supported are insufficient reason to call something 'drivel'.