8 ms·

Life Has Several Exits

79 points by lopespm 3y ago

bhaney 3y ago
The typo in "your name will be engraved into the anals of history" really distracted me from the gravitas of the article.
- lopespm 3y ago
  Good catch, thank you! Fixed it now :)
DoreenMichele 3y ago
FYI: (Based on the title) I thought this was an article about how people die, not about prosaic endings like graduating high school and retiring from your job.
- its_a_random_ac 3y ago
  Yeah, I thought it was a reference to the DIY assisted suicide book, Final Exit.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - omoikane 3y ago
    If you are interested in that kind of books, there is also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide This book used to be banned due to its contents, but in 2012 I was able to easily buy a copy from Amazon Japan. And now it's only sold in their third party marketplace, not sure if it's banned again.
    - ehPReth 3y ago
      For the curious, seems to be available here: Original Japanese version with pictures/design/colour: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/完全自殺マニュアル+(鶴見済)+(Z-Library).pdf/file https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/完全自殺マニュアル+(鶴見... English Machine/Human translated .txt file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+Manual+of+Suicide+(English+machine-translatededited+by+Google+and+myself)+(Wataru+Tsurumi)+(Z-Library).txt/file https://www.mediafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+...
antisthenes 3y ago
Some of these exits are not like the others.
- sockaddr 3y ago
  Yeah and I'm surprised at the lack of "exit from parenthood" it's an exit that I dread even though I've just begun the journey. It seems like a poorly thought out piece to have skipped one of the core human experiences.
  - prmph 3y ago
    But you never stop being a parent, unless you are referring to the children dying. On the other hand, you can certainly exit from the not-a-parent state.
tomohelix 3y ago
I see it in another way, a bit nihilistic though. Sure, there are plenty of exits. But we will all have to make the final exit at some point. Either now or 10 years or 50 years. We will all have to go. And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim. And 100 years is, in the grand scheme of things, a blink of an eye. Even 1000 years would be inconsequential. So why fret about it? Life is yours. It is the only thing that is truly yours. Deal with it as you see fit. Including not wanting to deal with it anymore. It is all your choice and, in the end, we are all the same.
- JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
  > > Even 1000 years would be inconsequential so why fret about it? Being remembered many years in the future is very correlated with conspicuous consumption during the individual lifetime Especially for leaders, but even for artists who get to work for leaders and have their lifestyle subsidised So even if your goal is just abundance of stuff and experiences then seeking a position that would have you remembered 1000 years from now is the way to go
- waynesonfire 3y ago
  Your comment is naive. What does it mean to "deal with it"? Life is trying to understand precisely that.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  We're all going to fall into a black hole anyway.
  - 8jef 3y ago
    The death of a living entity is a black hole in itself: matter just get rearranged. Assuming black holes are just galactic sized blenders that leak matter out, eventually.
    - ransackdev 3y ago
      Another thing that is an unchanging constant, but also changes. “Black holes have so much gravity that nothing can escape it, not even light” “Except for all those particles there, and there, it’s called hawking radiation, and eventually the black hole which nothing can escape, not even light, will evaporate from everything escaping it” Makes perfect logical sense
abhayhegde 3y ago
A good thing to know is there are exits from bad things too. Exit from a vicious cycle, exit from a mental rut etc. While it's best not enter, almost everyone ends up in bad places somewhere along the road.
- H8crilA 3y ago
  Some bad things have exits into permanently bad/worse states. And no, it's not required to suffer a lot to accomplish something meaningful, this is just a part of the christian mythology.
  - trailingComma 3y ago
    Not required, but achieving meaningful things is certainly easier after the type of growth that comes from overcoming challenges.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Genghis_Khan 3y ago
[flagged]
cogogo 3y ago
I tend to read obituaries of everyday people (as opposed to the long form for famous people) when I see them. They are almost always a cruel distillation of what was certainly a far more complicated life. I think the tradition has evolved so they are written so that the people who knew them best can fill in their own memories. Especially when I don’t know the person they feel callous and lacking.
- generalizations 3y ago
  I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written it.
  - appplication 3y ago
    It’s also in the middle of the insane logistics that get dropped on you when a loved one dies. I wrote my dad’s obituary. Three days prior none of us would have ever thought about it. We were dealing with figuring out what actually happened, planning the funeral, tracking down contact info and notifying friends and family who we hadn’t talked to in sometimes decades, notifying my work, his work, medical bills and health insurance, life insurance claim, police reports, autopsy and coroner, notifying banks, canceling gym membership, unlocking computers and online accounts, pulling out old photos, actually talking to people because everyone I knew was suddenly messaging at once, coordinating family flights and housing from overseas… it’s just one of an crazy number of tasks at that point. You want to do a good job, but you also very quickly want it behind you. I recall talking to the newspaper and they said it was something like $40 for a text obit, and $75 for one with a picture. For whatever stupid reason I was on autopilot frugal instincts and went with the lower cost option. It didn’t even occur to me until days later that was the dumbest place to save money, and not even that much.
    - cheema33 3y ago
      It has been suggested that one should write their own obituary. It gives you perspective. I just tried writing my own and it was a depressing affair. Maybe I need to reconsider my priorities. Also, it goes without saying that your loved ones will appreciate it when you do finally kick the bucket.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nicechianti 3y ago
[dead]
hasbot 3y ago
A big one for me is exiting one city and entering another (i.e. moving) especially when the new city is in another state. I've switched cities 7 times in the last 9 years and 6 states.
- francisofascii 3y ago
  Wow. Do you enjoy the adventure, move for the job, or some other reason?
  - hasbot 3y ago
    I'm looking for someplace to call home. Each city hasn't fulfilled my dream (e.g. too hot, too congested, too boring, too expensive).
    - geraldwhen 3y ago
      Have you tried therapy? Home isn’t a place you find. It’s a place you make.
deathanatos 3y ago
> Upon your exit, your contributions, actions, decisions, opinions and presence most likely will have affected the trajectories of the people and the world around you, in obvious and less obvious ways. Oh I wouldn't be too sure. The company that had acquired us some years earlier for millions of dollars then proceeded to can our entire division, sunset our product, and laid, more or less, everyone involved off. I cannot fathom what the point of the acquisition was: our wings were clipped before we even had a chance to fail; to date our acquisition is the largest unforced financial error I have seen made in my career, and it will be quite hard to top. We left no mark on the industry, the IP, if it still exists, will collect dust for all eternity. The company is no longer in the market, and I doubt ever will be again. I was fond of the product, and while the tech had the inevitable layers of PM-driven tech debt layered upon it, it wasn't the worst? The only lesson I can learn there is that caring will bring nothing but disappointment, and that's continued to be driven in by subsequent employers. Today's corporate zeitgeist does not want nor produce, IMO, history-changing labor². (I think the ones listed are products of earlier zeitgeists that could produce such.) Employers do not value retention, so experience is not built within the company. The PMs driven desperate desire to push new features out and bugfix never do not make good products. The inability of today's "agile" to handle uncertainty¹ and dependencies means little to no planning is done (and bad tools like JIRA do not help here). As for getting my name carved into the annals of history … screw that? Unless that's life's secret to joy and happiness (and I rather doubt it), I think the advice I was once given is sound here: walk around a graveyard and note what is written upon the stones: "loving mother" "caring father" — what you don't see is "excellent <occupation>". I have a nephew, and I've probably left a larger mark on him and his life (I hope for the better) than anything I've done in my career, despite my career being longer than his life. ¹Yes, I've read the manifesto, yes, I feel the irony in this statement. ²To some extent, at least two companies in FAANG I know do things that do make for a good atmosphere … I partly think this is why they became part of "FAANG". I wish we could emulate some of their less boneheaded decisions (and ignore the boneheaded ones). Perhaps that would someday snowball into another letter in that acronym.
- ransackdev 3y ago
  Most businesses fail. Most acquisitions get shitcanned, because statistically most of them are acquisitions of failing businesses. Then there’s the possibility they bought that company and killed it to stomp out completion and suppress the IP. Or it could have been because they needed to get funds moved, and that company was used to empty the bank, so they could ask VCs for another round, with the added bonus of that purchase raising the valuation. I’m sure there are a million other reasons but I know that every company eventually starts to gobble up other companies so it’s some “tie it up”, “use up the surplus”, or “dodge taxes” reason
revskill 3y ago
It's all about to whom you choose to live with, to work with, to play with.
m3kw9 3y ago
“ you should be grateful if your loved ones keep you in their thoughts for those ensuing decades.” I wonder how exactly anyone can be grateful after their exit from life, far as we know that don’t matter after to that person
raydiatian 3y ago
I am thirteen and this is deep
fnord77 3y ago
So, 1,000 years from now, who will still be a household name from our era?
- rubidium 3y ago
  Assuming human civilization is still around keeping track of things, Buzz Aldrin.
- ransackdev 3y ago
  Does it matter? It’ll all be lies to spin something anyway, and that’s if humanity exists, or the same governments do. We won’t hear the lies about George Washington anymore if the country is gone. Also there’s no way of knowing everything wasn’t created last thursday, or that you’re all figments of my imagination, or we are all in a simulation, or dead, or aliens. Being remembered after I’m dead doesn’t matter to me. Being thought of while I’m alive does. The only legacy I care about is that my children felt loved by me and that they have good memories with me. I want to die knowing that I succeeded in the one area of my life that actually mattered. Status doesn’t. Money doesn’t. Career doesn’t. I have none of those. My impact on them is what matters
quanto 3y ago
memento mori -- remember the death. life only has one true exit.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
I want to take the granularity down a notch. For everything you do, there is a last time you do it: ride a bike, make a new friend, visit Italy, hike a mountain, write code, see the sea, watch Shakespeare, see your mother, post to HN, play tennis, hug your grandchild, eat tiramisu, listen to Miles, have sex, walk without pain, remember your first love, drink a beer, take a breath. Some are already in your past, you may not know which ones. The rest are in your future of unknown duration. They will each pass without fanfare, mostly without you noticing. Like crossing the event horizon of a large black hole: there is no going back, but you may not know it at the time. I suspect, for me, the last two on my list will be quite close together.
- no_time 3y ago
  Do you just like beer or are you suffering from alcholism?

79 points by lopespm 3y ago

The typo in "your name will be engraved into the anals of history" really distracted me from the gravitas of the article.

lopespm 3y ago
Good catch, thank you! Fixed it now :)

DoreenMichele 3y ago

FYI: (Based on the title) I thought this was an article about how people die, not about prosaic endings like graduating high school and retiring from your job.

its_a_random_ac 3y ago
Yeah, I thought it was a reference to the DIY assisted suicide book, Final Exit.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- omoikane 3y ago
  If you are interested in that kind of books, there is also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide This book used to be banned due to its contents, but in 2012 I was able to easily buy a copy from Amazon Japan. And now it's only sold in their third party marketplace, not sure if it's banned again.
  - ehPReth 3y ago
    For the curious, seems to be available here: Original Japanese version with pictures/design/colour: https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/完全自殺マニュアル+(鶴見済)+(Z-Library).pdf/file https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/完全自殺マニュアル+(鶴見... English Machine/Human translated .txt file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+Manual+of+Suicide+(English+machine-translatededited+by+Google+and+myself)+(Wataru+Tsurumi)+(Z-Library).txt/file https://www.mediafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+...

antisthenes 3y ago

Some of these exits are not like the others.

sockaddr 3y ago
Yeah and I'm surprised at the lack of "exit from parenthood" it's an exit that I dread even though I've just begun the journey. It seems like a poorly thought out piece to have skipped one of the core human experiences.
- prmph 3y ago
  But you never stop being a parent, unless you are referring to the children dying. On the other hand, you can certainly exit from the not-a-parent state.

tomohelix 3y ago

I see it in another way, a bit nihilistic though. Sure, there are plenty of exits. But we will all have to make the final exit at some point. Either now or 10 years or 50 years. We will all have to go. And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim. And 100 years is, in the grand scheme of things, a blink of an eye. Even 1000 years would be inconsequential. So why fret about it? Life is yours. It is the only thing that is truly yours. Deal with it as you see fit. Including not wanting to deal with it anymore. It is all your choice and, in the end, we are all the same.

JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
> > Even 1000 years would be inconsequential so why fret about it? Being remembered many years in the future is very correlated with conspicuous consumption during the individual lifetime Especially for leaders, but even for artists who get to work for leaders and have their lifestyle subsidised So even if your goal is just abundance of stuff and experiences then seeking a position that would have you remembered 1000 years from now is the way to go
waynesonfire 3y ago
Your comment is naive. What does it mean to "deal with it"? Life is trying to understand precisely that.
WalterBright 3y ago
We're all going to fall into a black hole anyway.
- 8jef 3y ago
  The death of a living entity is a black hole in itself: matter just get rearranged. Assuming black holes are just galactic sized blenders that leak matter out, eventually.
  - ransackdev 3y ago
    Another thing that is an unchanging constant, but also changes. “Black holes have so much gravity that nothing can escape it, not even light” “Except for all those particles there, and there, it’s called hawking radiation, and eventually the black hole which nothing can escape, not even light, will evaporate from everything escaping it” Makes perfect logical sense

abhayhegde 3y ago

A good thing to know is there are exits from bad things too. Exit from a vicious cycle, exit from a mental rut etc. While it's best not enter, almost everyone ends up in bad places somewhere along the road.

H8crilA 3y ago
Some bad things have exits into permanently bad/worse states. And no, it's not required to suffer a lot to accomplish something meaningful, this is just a part of the christian mythology.
- trailingComma 3y ago
  Not required, but achieving meaningful things is certainly easier after the type of growth that comes from overcoming challenges.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Genghis_Khan 3y ago

[flagged]

cogogo 3y ago

I tend to read obituaries of everyday people (as opposed to the long form for famous people) when I see them. They are almost always a cruel distillation of what was certainly a far more complicated life. I think the tradition has evolved so they are written so that the people who knew them best can fill in their own memories. Especially when I don’t know the person they feel callous and lacking.

generalizations 3y ago
I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written it.
- appplication 3y ago
  It’s also in the middle of the insane logistics that get dropped on you when a loved one dies. I wrote my dad’s obituary. Three days prior none of us would have ever thought about it. We were dealing with figuring out what actually happened, planning the funeral, tracking down contact info and notifying friends and family who we hadn’t talked to in sometimes decades, notifying my work, his work, medical bills and health insurance, life insurance claim, police reports, autopsy and coroner, notifying banks, canceling gym membership, unlocking computers and online accounts, pulling out old photos, actually talking to people because everyone I knew was suddenly messaging at once, coordinating family flights and housing from overseas… it’s just one of an crazy number of tasks at that point. You want to do a good job, but you also very quickly want it behind you. I recall talking to the newspaper and they said it was something like $40 for a text obit, and $75 for one with a picture. For whatever stupid reason I was on autopilot frugal instincts and went with the lower cost option. It didn’t even occur to me until days later that was the dumbest place to save money, and not even that much.
  - cheema33 3y ago
    It has been suggested that one should write their own obituary. It gives you perspective. I just tried writing my own and it was a depressing affair. Maybe I need to reconsider my priorities. Also, it goes without saying that your loved ones will appreciate it when you do finally kick the bucket.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nicechianti 3y ago

[dead]

hasbot 3y ago

A big one for me is exiting one city and entering another (i.e. moving) especially when the new city is in another state. I've switched cities 7 times in the last 9 years and 6 states.

francisofascii 3y ago
Wow. Do you enjoy the adventure, move for the job, or some other reason?
- hasbot 3y ago
  I'm looking for someplace to call home. Each city hasn't fulfilled my dream (e.g. too hot, too congested, too boring, too expensive).
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    Have you tried therapy? Home isn’t a place you find. It’s a place you make.

deathanatos 3y ago

> Upon your exit, your contributions, actions, decisions, opinions and presence most likely will have affected the trajectories of the people and the world around you, in obvious and less obvious ways. Oh I wouldn't be too sure. The company that had acquired us some years earlier for millions of dollars then proceeded to can our entire division, sunset our product, and laid, more or less, everyone involved off. I cannot fathom what the point of the acquisition was: our wings were clipped before we even had a chance to fail; to date our acquisition is the largest unforced financial error I have seen made in my career, and it will be quite hard to top. We left no mark on the industry, the IP, if it still exists, will collect dust for all eternity. The company is no longer in the market, and I doubt ever will be again. I was fond of the product, and while the tech had the inevitable layers of PM-driven tech debt layered upon it, it wasn't the worst? The only lesson I can learn there is that caring will bring nothing but disappointment, and that's continued to be driven in by subsequent employers. Today's corporate zeitgeist does not want nor produce, IMO, history-changing labor². (I think the ones listed are products of earlier zeitgeists that could produce such.) Employers do not value retention, so experience is not built within the company. The PMs driven desperate desire to push new features out and bugfix never do not make good products. The inability of today's "agile" to handle uncertainty¹ and dependencies means little to no planning is done (and bad tools like JIRA do not help here). As for getting my name carved into the annals of history … screw that? Unless that's life's secret to joy and happiness (and I rather doubt it), I think the advice I was once given is sound here: walk around a graveyard and note what is written upon the stones: "loving mother" "caring father" — what you don't see is "excellent <occupation>". I have a nephew, and I've probably left a larger mark on him and his life (I hope for the better) than anything I've done in my career, despite my career being longer than his life. ¹Yes, I've read the manifesto, yes, I feel the irony in this statement. ²To some extent, at least two companies in FAANG I know do things that do make for a good atmosphere … I partly think this is why they became part of "FAANG". I wish we could emulate some of their less boneheaded decisions (and ignore the boneheaded ones). Perhaps that would someday snowball into another letter in that acronym.

ransackdev 3y ago
Most businesses fail. Most acquisitions get shitcanned, because statistically most of them are acquisitions of failing businesses. Then there’s the possibility they bought that company and killed it to stomp out completion and suppress the IP. Or it could have been because they needed to get funds moved, and that company was used to empty the bank, so they could ask VCs for another round, with the added bonus of that purchase raising the valuation. I’m sure there are a million other reasons but I know that every company eventually starts to gobble up other companies so it’s some “tie it up”, “use up the surplus”, or “dodge taxes” reason

revskill 3y ago

It's all about to whom you choose to live with, to work with, to play with.

m3kw9 3y ago

“ you should be grateful if your loved ones keep you in their thoughts for those ensuing decades.” I wonder how exactly anyone can be grateful after their exit from life, far as we know that don’t matter after to that person

raydiatian 3y ago

I am thirteen and this is deep

fnord77 3y ago

So, 1,000 years from now, who will still be a household name from our era?

rubidium 3y ago
Assuming human civilization is still around keeping track of things, Buzz Aldrin.
ransackdev 3y ago
Does it matter? It’ll all be lies to spin something anyway, and that’s if humanity exists, or the same governments do. We won’t hear the lies about George Washington anymore if the country is gone. Also there’s no way of knowing everything wasn’t created last thursday, or that you’re all figments of my imagination, or we are all in a simulation, or dead, or aliens. Being remembered after I’m dead doesn’t matter to me. Being thought of while I’m alive does. The only legacy I care about is that my children felt loved by me and that they have good memories with me. I want to die knowing that I succeeded in the one area of my life that actually mattered. Status doesn’t. Money doesn’t. Career doesn’t. I have none of those. My impact on them is what matters

quanto 3y ago

memento mori -- remember the death. life only has one true exit.

mikhailfranco 3y ago

I want to take the granularity down a notch. For everything you do, there is a last time you do it: ride a bike, make a new friend, visit Italy, hike a mountain, write code, see the sea, watch Shakespeare, see your mother, post to HN, play tennis, hug your grandchild, eat tiramisu, listen to Miles, have sex, walk without pain, remember your first love, drink a beer, take a breath. Some are already in your past, you may not know which ones. The rest are in your future of unknown duration. They will each pass without fanfare, mostly without you noticing. Like crossing the event horizon of a large black hole: there is no going back, but you may not know it at the time. I suspect, for me, the last two on my list will be quite close together.

no_time 3y ago
Do you just like beer or are you suffering from alcholism?