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Your generation is taught to be unreasonable in their expectations, this website is basically made up of prodigal children who all missed some substantial devel
by bloqs 4y ago
Your generation is taught to be unreasonable in their expectations, this website is basically made up of prodigal children who all missed some substantial developmental milestones but who ended up being rewarded for years of interest in very specific topics. Bertrand Russell correctly stated that time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. If you have now decided you want change, then great. However, you have played so much World of Warcraft, you are beginning to view life as some sort of RPG you need to min/max. You don't. While removing distractions can be useful, your interest led you where it led you. I'm much the same and am now happily employed as a dev and I still game in my 30s. I have fantastic and substantial memories of virtual worlds and summers with amazing people and alone. 23 is ridiculously young, by western european standards these days you are effectively still an adolescent.
In terms of comparisons, John Carmack made some decent contributions, but you have zero insight into the costs of it. Much of compulsive recreational thrill seeking is due to emotional instability from childhood, so I think a small amount of therapy, and cutting yourself some slack is in order.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
- navjack27 4y agoKnowledge right here
- Delk 4y ago> In terms of comparisons, John Carmack made some decent contributions, but you have zero insight into the costs of it. Perhaps more importantly, John Carmack et al. are massive outliers. Maybe there's some kind of an excessive cost to the prominent achievements, contributions and expertise of some of those people, maybe not. Many of those people have long-term relationships, families and interests outside of CS or tech. Linus Torvalds does scuba diving. Carmack practised judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu at least at some point. I have no idea how much of a long-term thing that was -- lots of people practise a martial art or something else that sounds superficially non-nerdy for a few years -- and it probably doesn't say all that much by itself, but it doesn't seem to me like all of those outlier people just spent all their time obsessed with programming alone. But to be able to have both great professional prominence in technology and a life outside of it, one would probably have to be both an outlier -- even more so than just for great success at tech alone -- and more or less lucky. For most people, trying for the former without regard for the latter would probably come at quite a cost. Other than that, spot on. edit: wording
- simplegeek 4y ago> Linus Torvalds does scuba diving. Recently finished his biography; he was not much into sports all when he was growing up. I suspect he took up scuba diving late in life.
- Delk 4y agoThat would be pretty much in line with the impression I've got, depending on what "late" means in that context. I wouldn't be surprised if scuba diving were something that were quite commonly picked up when people were already adults. I'm not sure if you're intending that as a comment to what I wrote, though, and if so, in what sense. I don't think it necessarily matters if people pick up hobbies and things later in life. It still shows they aren't necessarily having a singular focused on tech at the cost of excluding other things.
- sergiomattei 4y agoFACTS. Favorited for myself as well.
- awsrocks 4y ago
- iJohnDoe 4y agoLevel headed and wise comment.
- dSebastien 4y agoTrue, but the quote is probable from Marthe Troly-Curtin [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/