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Good advice, however I find myself quite struggling with the third point. I recentyl turned fifty, with a decent career up to now: software engineer, sold a co

Good advice, however I find myself quite struggling with the third point. I recentyl turned fifty, with a decent career up to now: software engineer, sold a company I co-owned some time ago. My daughter spent years figthing cancer, so that was also a big part of my life in the last ten years. Now things are better and I cannot seem to find decent interest in anything. I still love to code from time to time, but I am more in CTO or managing roles. I exercise on a regular basis, I eat quite well (vegetables a lot, fish, a little bit of meat, everything home made), I try to pursue some hobby like playing music, which I enjoy, but it is quite hard to find the time to do more than half an hour per day. I am also trying to take care of friendships as much as I can. Despite all this I have a very hard time to find anything that motivates me, and I really wonder how I will go on in my professional life for another 10 years. Clearly I need some peace-bringing meaning, but it is very hard to find, and I do not even know how to start looking for it. So yes I think a meaning is paramount in a good mental health, but it is quite difficult to find!

hprotagonist 4y ago
> Clearly I need some peace-bringing meaning, but it is very hard to find, and I do not even know how to start looking for it. there is almost no way to say this without sounding preachy, at least to my american english ear. But. it’s true nonetheless. that meaning? it’s in your neighbors, and you find it in direct, human service to them. There are many, many ways to serve, and one of them fits you. It doesn’t have to be some huge thing, and i’ve found that it helps not to talk about it, just do and be open to the moment.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  I would like to argue that this painful state of seeking meaning is a good thing. For most of human history we have been stuck in a Stockholm syndrome, a cozy state of delusion, that has been perpetuated by each generation. The more people find that old mental systems (religions, woo, etc.) are fraudulent and are confronted with this issue the higher the chances someone discovers/creates a paradigm shifting philosophy. Many people got excited in the past two decades for something like this, yet I feel the wave has dissipated without achieving much, and many have fallen prey to charismatic charlatans.
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    The (and i mean this seriously) delightful part of your response is that it’s as old as written history. Personally, I choose to find that reassuring.
    - alexvoda 4y ago
      Maybe. That is how many of humanities advancements have been realized. People being unsatisfied and believing there can be a better way, believing there can be a better explanation, etc.. Even so, I do worry about the future. I fear, for multiple reasons, that we risk entering a new kind of dark age. The combination of the power of the internet to propagate disinformation and quackery at greater speed and scale than it is debunked. The development of language model AI's which enable at scale the hallucination of meaningless content masquerading as legitimate content. The article here captures some of my thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34126450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34126450

hprotagonist 4y ago

> Clearly I need some peace-bringing meaning, but it is very hard to find, and I do not even know how to start looking for it. there is almost no way to say this without sounding preachy, at least to my american english ear. But. it’s true nonetheless. that meaning? it’s in your neighbors, and you find it in direct, human service to them. There are many, many ways to serve, and one of them fits you. It doesn’t have to be some huge thing, and i’ve found that it helps not to talk about it, just do and be open to the moment.

alexvoda 4y ago
I would like to argue that this painful state of seeking meaning is a good thing. For most of human history we have been stuck in a Stockholm syndrome, a cozy state of delusion, that has been perpetuated by each generation. The more people find that old mental systems (religions, woo, etc.) are fraudulent and are confronted with this issue the higher the chances someone discovers/creates a paradigm shifting philosophy. Many people got excited in the past two decades for something like this, yet I feel the wave has dissipated without achieving much, and many have fallen prey to charismatic charlatans.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  The (and i mean this seriously) delightful part of your response is that it’s as old as written history. Personally, I choose to find that reassuring.
  - alexvoda 4y ago
    Maybe. That is how many of humanities advancements have been realized. People being unsatisfied and believing there can be a better way, believing there can be a better explanation, etc.. Even so, I do worry about the future. I fear, for multiple reasons, that we risk entering a new kind of dark age. The combination of the power of the internet to propagate disinformation and quackery at greater speed and scale than it is debunked. The development of language model AI's which enable at scale the hallucination of meaningless content masquerading as legitimate content. The article here captures some of my thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34126450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34126450