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Jason posts a handful of cool links each week and occasionally writes a few paragraphs about them. He also sometimes produces a podcast. As far as I can tell, t

Jason posts a handful of cool links each week and occasionally writes a few paragraphs about them. He also sometimes produces a podcast. As far as I can tell, this is the full extent of his job. It’s really hard to imagine getting “burnt out” from this. It sounds exactly how many people actively enjoy spending their free time: surf the internet for fun and take a few minutes sharing a couple cool links with your friends.

jpadkins 4y ago
maybe people just need to take a break from the internet? especially people who have been a part of the internet for almost the whole time of the commercial web.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  It really rubs me the wrong way that someone claims to be "burnt out" from a job that probably requires an average of an hour or two a day of non-taxing work. I'd love to see Jason say with a straight face that he's "burnt out" to a minimum wage worker who works 12+ hours days, 7 days a week, or even to your average office drone who spends 8 hours a day pushing TPS reports without any breaks in a soulless cubicle. It just seems really tone deaf and privileged, especially given how much Jason has loved to post about issues regarding privilege as of late. It's on the level of someone saying they're "malnourished" because they had to give up a daily diet of Michelin Star-level restaurant food.
  - edmcnulty101 4y ago
    I got the same feeling. Wish I had the luxury to tell my boss , hey I'm burnt out, be back in 6 months or so.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The term used to be ennui in this case - but burnout makes you sound more like you’re “one of us” I guess.
  - santoshalper 4y ago
    I really feel like you're reading too much into the term "burned out". You can get sick of doing anything and lose the spark. I've never managed to do anything consistently for half as long as he's run his blog. It's kind of amazing to me he lasted this long. I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in terrible conditions, doesn't mean he can't be sick of his job. I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).
    - MontyCarloHall 4y ago
      I agree with everything you wrote. This is the crux of my annoyance: >I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months). Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork. It feels insulting and sneeringly privileged coming from someone whose job is to surf the internet for a few hours a day and sometimes post about it. It is as if someone unironically described themselves as "severely clinically depressed" after their favorite sports team lost a game, or someone in the top 1% sincerely calling themselves "impoverished" after a slight cut to their yearly bonus (or the recent bloodbath in the stock market).
      - nullandvoid 4y ago
        I think burnout is unique to an individual, and can simply be bought on by prolonged working on something (anything) that doesn't deliver the results you expect. If the blog poster expected to be happy, or to have riches for example, and neither occurred at the level they expect (especially now 24 years in) burn out occurs.
      - patternMachine 4y ago
        Is it possible that running a blog is not as easy as you think?
  - thevardanian 4y ago
    And I would like to see that minimum wage worker in America say they're "burnt out" to third-world country workers. You would think the old "think about the starving children in Africa" retort would die out by now... Just because things can be worse doesn't mean things aren't bad. Making things better, not worse, should always be the goal. On the same note suicidal or depressed people can similarly be called privileged, spoiled, or what have you, but that would seriously be tone-deaf.
karaterobot 4y ago
You can get burned out from anything, though. I like pizza, and look forward to the next pizza I get to eat. But if you made me eat pizza every day for 24 years, I'd want to take a long break from eating pizza.
kajecounterhack 4y ago
I'm not saying curation is the world's hardest job but stakes are a bit different when you've become popular enough to make a living off of it. It's like being a Youtuber -- folks donate to you because you add value to their lives via your content. Even if generating links and paragraphs seems low-effort to you, to do it well every day for 24 years you can't shut off your consumption of media and you need to stay in a certain mindset. You are always a bit concerned about whether you are delivering value too. Every job takes a psychological toll and one that involves being "on" for 24 years certainly warrants taking a break. It's also clear that Jason has other things going on in life and wanting to clear your plate and reset is very human and understandable.
- judofyr 4y ago
  I think people react here because of the term “burn out”. It’s usually used when you’ve been under high stress for a longer period and you completely collapse and is unable to do any work. Losing motivation for a project and moving over to new things is very different from a burn out.
  - kajecounterhack 4y ago
    > I think people react here because of the term “burn out”. It’s usually used when you’ve been under high stress for a longer period and you completely collapse and is unable to do any work. Yeah you're probably right, though it's so annoying when people can't contextualize the usage of terms like "burn out" -- what's "high stress" or "a longer period?" Isn't that subjective? > Losing motivation for a project and moving over to new things is very different from a burn out. Is it though? I googled "burnout" and got "Burnout is a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling swamped." If someone says the reason they are taking a break is because they are burned out, who is anyone to say that's not what they're experiencing? If you've heard of Chinese water torture, it's one little drop at a time over a long period of time -- seems entirely plausible that 24 years of being in non-stop curation mode could make someone feel exhausted and constantly swamped.
munificent 4y ago
The emotional experience of an activity is 10% the activity itself and 90% the framing around the activity and what it means for your life. It's not the surfing and posting links. It's the knowing if I don't surf and post sufficiently interesting links every day, I can't afford my health insurance. The stakes are much higher in the latter.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  >[K]nowing if I don't <perform satisfactorily at my job>, I can't afford my <life necessities>" is true for literally everyone except the independently wealthy. It is a lot easier to not stress over for someone for whom "the activity itself" is a non-demanding job, than for someone whose job is inherently extremely emotionally or physically draining. As an extreme example, suppose my parents bestowed on me a trust fund. It affords me a monthly allowance that lets me live an upper middle class lifestyle without having to otherwise work. The only requirement to get this allowance is to have an earnest phone call with my mother for an hour each week. Failure to do so results in the trust being revoked. Saying that I'm "burnt out" from "knowing if I don't call my mom this week, my whole income disappears" would be absurd. The ease of my carefree lifestyle is more than enough to offset the mild stress of having to remember to call my mom on a weekly basis.
  - munificent 4y ago
    Yes, and that's why jobs are more stressful than hobbies even when the activity is the same. I think you're just restating my point? The parent comment was, essentially, "Why is doing X stressful for Kottke who does it for work when I do X for fun and don't find it stressful at all?" And the answer is... Kottke does it for work and you do it for fun.
  - mypalmike 4y ago
    Why are you so invested (given your several posts in this thread) in trying to get the rest of us to lack empathy? He says he feels burnt out. He feels burnt out.
astroalex 4y ago
I disagree. Firstly, I believe you underestimate the amount of work Jason does and the amount of stress he is under. I've read Kottke.org since I was a kid, and it's the only blog I still regularly read. There's a reason it's the only website I've looked at everyday for the majority of my life: consistent excellence. Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality. And that doesn't happen for free. I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years. Remember that his livelihood depends directly on driving traffic to his website — there's no safety net or wiggle room. This sounds incredibly stressful to me. Secondly, in another comment you claim that because other people with different jobs might be burnt out from those jobs, it is not reasonable for Jason to feel burnt out from his job, and therefore his sabbatical is unwarranted. This makes no sense. Anyone can get burnt out from any job, and if they have the privilege to do so (and I do agree with you that it is a privilege), they should take time off. In a similar vein, if someone suffers from depression, that person should seek therapy if they can, regardless of whether someone else has life circumstances that are worse. It makes no sense to prevent someone from taking time off (or seeking therapy) just because their life isn't as bad as someone else's. Instead, we should advocate for better working conditions (or access to therapy) for those who cannot afford the privilege.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  I didn't say his sabbatical is unwarranted; he can spend his life however he pleases. I simply said that I think it's extremely tone deaf and sneeringly privileged for Jason to describe his current state as "burnt out." This is a very strong term referring to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork that applies more to people forced to work 60+ hour weeks at minimum wage than to people whose livelihood is posting cool links a handful of times a week. As I said in another post, it would be equally tone deaf for a millionaire to unironically describe themselves as being "impoverished" due to a small cut in their yearly bonus or an underperforming investment. If Jason simply wrote that he's sick of maintaining his blog and wants to try something new, that would be perfectly fine. >I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years. I disagree. Plenty of prolific Reddit and Hacker News posters do the same thing in their spare time. >Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality. Isn't that because they usually post more long-form original content (e.g. https://kottke.org/tag/Tim%20Carmody https://kottke.org/tag/Tim%20Carmody) than cool links?

jpadkins 4y ago

maybe people just need to take a break from the internet? especially people who have been a part of the internet for almost the whole time of the commercial web.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
It really rubs me the wrong way that someone claims to be "burnt out" from a job that probably requires an average of an hour or two a day of non-taxing work. I'd love to see Jason say with a straight face that he's "burnt out" to a minimum wage worker who works 12+ hours days, 7 days a week, or even to your average office drone who spends 8 hours a day pushing TPS reports without any breaks in a soulless cubicle. It just seems really tone deaf and privileged, especially given how much Jason has loved to post about issues regarding privilege as of late. It's on the level of someone saying they're "malnourished" because they had to give up a daily diet of Michelin Star-level restaurant food.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  I got the same feeling. Wish I had the luxury to tell my boss , hey I'm burnt out, be back in 6 months or so.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The term used to be ennui in this case - but burnout makes you sound more like you’re “one of us” I guess.
- santoshalper 4y ago
  I really feel like you're reading too much into the term "burned out". You can get sick of doing anything and lose the spark. I've never managed to do anything consistently for half as long as he's run his blog. It's kind of amazing to me he lasted this long. I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in terrible conditions, doesn't mean he can't be sick of his job. I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).
  - MontyCarloHall 4y ago
    I agree with everything you wrote. This is the crux of my annoyance: >I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months). Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork. It feels insulting and sneeringly privileged coming from someone whose job is to surf the internet for a few hours a day and sometimes post about it. It is as if someone unironically described themselves as "severely clinically depressed" after their favorite sports team lost a game, or someone in the top 1% sincerely calling themselves "impoverished" after a slight cut to their yearly bonus (or the recent bloodbath in the stock market).
    - nullandvoid 4y ago
      I think burnout is unique to an individual, and can simply be bought on by prolonged working on something (anything) that doesn't deliver the results you expect. If the blog poster expected to be happy, or to have riches for example, and neither occurred at the level they expect (especially now 24 years in) burn out occurs.
    - patternMachine 4y ago
      Is it possible that running a blog is not as easy as you think?
- thevardanian 4y ago
  And I would like to see that minimum wage worker in America say they're "burnt out" to third-world country workers. You would think the old "think about the starving children in Africa" retort would die out by now... Just because things can be worse doesn't mean things aren't bad. Making things better, not worse, should always be the goal. On the same note suicidal or depressed people can similarly be called privileged, spoiled, or what have you, but that would seriously be tone-deaf.

karaterobot 4y ago

You can get burned out from anything, though. I like pizza, and look forward to the next pizza I get to eat. But if you made me eat pizza every day for 24 years, I'd want to take a long break from eating pizza.

kajecounterhack 4y ago

I'm not saying curation is the world's hardest job but stakes are a bit different when you've become popular enough to make a living off of it. It's like being a Youtuber -- folks donate to you because you add value to their lives via your content. Even if generating links and paragraphs seems low-effort to you, to do it well every day for 24 years you can't shut off your consumption of media and you need to stay in a certain mindset. You are always a bit concerned about whether you are delivering value too. Every job takes a psychological toll and one that involves being "on" for 24 years certainly warrants taking a break. It's also clear that Jason has other things going on in life and wanting to clear your plate and reset is very human and understandable.

judofyr 4y ago
I think people react here because of the term “burn out”. It’s usually used when you’ve been under high stress for a longer period and you completely collapse and is unable to do any work. Losing motivation for a project and moving over to new things is very different from a burn out.
- kajecounterhack 4y ago
  > I think people react here because of the term “burn out”. It’s usually used when you’ve been under high stress for a longer period and you completely collapse and is unable to do any work. Yeah you're probably right, though it's so annoying when people can't contextualize the usage of terms like "burn out" -- what's "high stress" or "a longer period?" Isn't that subjective? > Losing motivation for a project and moving over to new things is very different from a burn out. Is it though? I googled "burnout" and got "Burnout is a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling swamped." If someone says the reason they are taking a break is because they are burned out, who is anyone to say that's not what they're experiencing? If you've heard of Chinese water torture, it's one little drop at a time over a long period of time -- seems entirely plausible that 24 years of being in non-stop curation mode could make someone feel exhausted and constantly swamped.

munificent 4y ago

The emotional experience of an activity is 10% the activity itself and 90% the framing around the activity and what it means for your life. It's not the surfing and posting links. It's the knowing if I don't surf and post sufficiently interesting links every day, I can't afford my health insurance. The stakes are much higher in the latter.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
>[K]nowing if I don't <perform satisfactorily at my job>, I can't afford my <life necessities>" is true for literally everyone except the independently wealthy. It is a lot easier to not stress over for someone for whom "the activity itself" is a non-demanding job, than for someone whose job is inherently extremely emotionally or physically draining. As an extreme example, suppose my parents bestowed on me a trust fund. It affords me a monthly allowance that lets me live an upper middle class lifestyle without having to otherwise work. The only requirement to get this allowance is to have an earnest phone call with my mother for an hour each week. Failure to do so results in the trust being revoked. Saying that I'm "burnt out" from "knowing if I don't call my mom this week, my whole income disappears" would be absurd. The ease of my carefree lifestyle is more than enough to offset the mild stress of having to remember to call my mom on a weekly basis.
- munificent 4y ago
  Yes, and that's why jobs are more stressful than hobbies even when the activity is the same. I think you're just restating my point? The parent comment was, essentially, "Why is doing X stressful for Kottke who does it for work when I do X for fun and don't find it stressful at all?" And the answer is... Kottke does it for work and you do it for fun.
- mypalmike 4y ago
  Why are you so invested (given your several posts in this thread) in trying to get the rest of us to lack empathy? He says he feels burnt out. He feels burnt out.

astroalex 4y ago

I disagree. Firstly, I believe you underestimate the amount of work Jason does and the amount of stress he is under. I've read Kottke.org since I was a kid, and it's the only blog I still regularly read. There's a reason it's the only website I've looked at everyday for the majority of my life: consistent excellence. Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality. And that doesn't happen for free. I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years. Remember that his livelihood depends directly on driving traffic to his website — there's no safety net or wiggle room. This sounds incredibly stressful to me. Secondly, in another comment you claim that because other people with different jobs might be burnt out from those jobs, it is not reasonable for Jason to feel burnt out from his job, and therefore his sabbatical is unwarranted. This makes no sense. Anyone can get burnt out from any job, and if they have the privilege to do so (and I do agree with you that it is a privilege), they should take time off. In a similar vein, if someone suffers from depression, that person should seek therapy if they can, regardless of whether someone else has life circumstances that are worse. It makes no sense to prevent someone from taking time off (or seeking therapy) just because their life isn't as bad as someone else's. Instead, we should advocate for better working conditions (or access to therapy) for those who cannot afford the privilege.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
I didn't say his sabbatical is unwarranted; he can spend his life however he pleases. I simply said that I think it's extremely tone deaf and sneeringly privileged for Jason to describe his current state as "burnt out." This is a very strong term referring to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork that applies more to people forced to work 60+ hour weeks at minimum wage than to people whose livelihood is posting cool links a handful of times a week. As I said in another post, it would be equally tone deaf for a millionaire to unironically describe themselves as being "impoverished" due to a small cut in their yearly bonus or an underperforming investment. If Jason simply wrote that he's sick of maintaining his blog and wants to try something new, that would be perfectly fine. >I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years. I disagree. Plenty of prolific Reddit and Hacker News posters do the same thing in their spare time. >Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality. Isn't that because they usually post more long-form original content (e.g. https://kottke.org/tag/Tim%20Carmody https://kottke.org/tag/Tim%20Carmody) than cool links?