5 ms·

I'm a web developer who comes from a family of painters. I write software because I'm for the most part burnt out on painting. What should I do?

Sebb767 5y ago
The common option cited on HN seems to be buying a farm, so you're not out of options yet :-)
- jagged-chisel 5y ago
  Followed by a metal fabrication shop, and wood shop ...
  - motioncuty 5y ago
    Im stoked to become a ski instructor.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  A CPU farm or a GPU farm?
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    The canonical response is a goat farm. But personally, I surely would be happier tendering a GPU farm.
ford_o 5y ago
How can you burn out by painting?
- metagame 5y ago
  Painting is serious labor as much as anything else, and requires skills and effort comparable to and sometimes exceeding programming.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    But efforts are good. Its fuzzy chaos that hurts in computing. Absurd meetings, changing infrastructure, colleague turn over and politics. I'd assume painting is stable and bs free. Struggling to achieve results can still hurt though.
    - killtimeatwork 5y ago
      Painting can be very frustrating. Usually the process goes like this: you want to achieve something, you try for dozens of hours, the result doesn't look nearly as good as you hoped, and you have only vaguest ideas on how to make it better on the next attempt. You basically need to love the process and not the results, as the results are going to suck for the first 10 years. Programming, which purely follows logic, is much less frustrating for people for whom logic is their primary mode of functioning.
      - agumonkey 5y ago
        I couldn't disagree more. You can have both kinds in both fields. Regular straightforward coding or discovery coding. I'm currently trying to derive a timeout monad, I have no clue how and trying hours of dead ends before starting from scratch. It hurts but it's my own pain. I decide how much, the kind, the time... In it jobs, social interactions cause so much friction, information uncertainty, bad dependencies .. it adds to the raw effort. That said it also helps avoiding rabbit holes too deep.
  - hsn915 5y ago
    Programmers who escape programming are sort of yearning for the physical labor and physical effort and physical tirdeness that comes with it. We're kind of designed for that sort of work. People who enjoy programming and long stretches of mental exercise are rare, and have been rare throughout history.
    - metagame 5y ago
      Painting is almost exclusively mental, and requires just as long or longer stretches of mental exercise.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Probably not art painting but rather interior paining and/or exterior staining. It is lot of physical work and the long term health outcomes (unless you are religious about wearing a respirator) aren't great.
  - thejohnconway 5y ago
    Speaking as a professional artist, art can burn you out just as surely as programming can. Just try painting six novel paintings a month for a couple of years.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  I'm mostly joking, but painting is difficult mental labor. It requires an enormous amount of mental and physical control. Most people when seeing my paintings are quite surprised to find out I rarely sell them. It's because as soon as I try to professionalize that part of my career I have to change what I'm doing to fit a market, and I hate everyone else's taste but my own. P.S. some of my paintings can be found at https://lnsy.studio https://lnsy.studio, but mostly I write software for organizations that work on dealing with the climate crisis.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Money seems to remove the joy from most activities. This is at the root of most of the complaints in this thread.
    - avian 5y ago
      Reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/buttpoems/status/1335423879238455299 https://twitter.com/buttpoems/status/1335423879238455299 I started drawing as a hobby when I burned out in my academic career some years ago. I don't think I'm any good at it, but every once in a while I get an offer to do paid artwork. So far I declined all of them because I felt that would make me lose the relaxing escape from my day job.
  - thecupisblue 5y ago
    Love your style, got a new subscriber!

Sebb767 5y ago

The common option cited on HN seems to be buying a farm, so you're not out of options yet :-)

jagged-chisel 5y ago
Followed by a metal fabrication shop, and wood shop ...
- motioncuty 5y ago
  Im stoked to become a ski instructor.
DeathArrow 5y ago
A CPU farm or a GPU farm?
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The canonical response is a goat farm. But personally, I surely would be happier tendering a GPU farm.

ford_o 5y ago

How can you burn out by painting?

metagame 5y ago
Painting is serious labor as much as anything else, and requires skills and effort comparable to and sometimes exceeding programming.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  But efforts are good. Its fuzzy chaos that hurts in computing. Absurd meetings, changing infrastructure, colleague turn over and politics. I'd assume painting is stable and bs free. Struggling to achieve results can still hurt though.
  - killtimeatwork 5y ago
    Painting can be very frustrating. Usually the process goes like this: you want to achieve something, you try for dozens of hours, the result doesn't look nearly as good as you hoped, and you have only vaguest ideas on how to make it better on the next attempt. You basically need to love the process and not the results, as the results are going to suck for the first 10 years. Programming, which purely follows logic, is much less frustrating for people for whom logic is their primary mode of functioning.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I couldn't disagree more. You can have both kinds in both fields. Regular straightforward coding or discovery coding. I'm currently trying to derive a timeout monad, I have no clue how and trying hours of dead ends before starting from scratch. It hurts but it's my own pain. I decide how much, the kind, the time... In it jobs, social interactions cause so much friction, information uncertainty, bad dependencies .. it adds to the raw effort. That said it also helps avoiding rabbit holes too deep.
- hsn915 5y ago
  Programmers who escape programming are sort of yearning for the physical labor and physical effort and physical tirdeness that comes with it. We're kind of designed for that sort of work. People who enjoy programming and long stretches of mental exercise are rare, and have been rare throughout history.
  - metagame 5y ago
    Painting is almost exclusively mental, and requires just as long or longer stretches of mental exercise.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
Probably not art painting but rather interior paining and/or exterior staining. It is lot of physical work and the long term health outcomes (unless you are religious about wearing a respirator) aren't great.
- thejohnconway 5y ago
  Speaking as a professional artist, art can burn you out just as surely as programming can. Just try painting six novel paintings a month for a couple of years.
lindseymysse 5y ago
I'm mostly joking, but painting is difficult mental labor. It requires an enormous amount of mental and physical control. Most people when seeing my paintings are quite surprised to find out I rarely sell them. It's because as soon as I try to professionalize that part of my career I have to change what I'm doing to fit a market, and I hate everyone else's taste but my own. P.S. some of my paintings can be found at https://lnsy.studio https://lnsy.studio, but mostly I write software for organizations that work on dealing with the climate crisis.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Money seems to remove the joy from most activities. This is at the root of most of the complaints in this thread.
  - avian 5y ago
    Reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/buttpoems/status/1335423879238455299 https://twitter.com/buttpoems/status/1335423879238455299 I started drawing as a hobby when I burned out in my academic career some years ago. I don't think I'm any good at it, but every once in a while I get an offer to do paid artwork. So far I declined all of them because I felt that would make me lose the relaxing escape from my day job.
- thecupisblue 5y ago
  Love your style, got a new subscriber!