6 ms·

When I saw the title I thought the article would be about the dreadful stress of keeping up with new tech or research.. But it's about spare time reading? Gran

When I saw the title I thought the article would be about the dreadful stress of keeping up with new tech or research.. But it's about spare time reading? Granted the problem seems similar, but only because the author is in the field of reading (working in books related profession). I'm not sure how much it can be applied to just hobby reading. Stress of keeping up with tech/research comes from a sense of professional obligations (you'll fall behind to your professional peers) but there's not much of stress if you're in it as a leisure /hobby; it's not inherently competitive activity. So the conclusion is not that helpful. It's targeted to a very small audience (people that work in a field where reading books and keeping up with the latest books, are important) and is essentially "don't worry about it!"

starbugs 3y ago
> So the conclusion is not that helpful. Isn't the conclusion from the article inherently transferable to what you described? (I was assuming a different topic as well.)
- NalNezumi 3y ago
  I'd say it is transferable only partially? But still not that helpful. It is helpful to people that are not aware of the source of the stress (often in the form of feeling overwhelmed) to be able to identify it. The article spend most of the words actually just describing this phenomenon. I think newly-graduated-in-tech-startup me in the past would've felt validated reading it. But the article falls short on any good remedies for the situation. Like yeah I'd love to be able to just "not worry about it", but the problem is that I (as a researcher needing to keep up) can't just stop worrying about it, but I'd love to find a balance where I can keep the enthusiasm and up to date while not feeling overwhelmed and dreadful while doing it. It works for the author because ultimately, the author is in a position when they can walk away or explain WHY they don't keep up and get accepted for it. Worst case the author will lose respect or some snobbish friends. That's not the case for most tech or research people. Not worrying about it might be close to just quitting (or silent quitting) and require a bit more mental change than "to not just worry about it". Even if that's the ultimate goal, the advice is as helpful as telling a homeless man how dreadful it is to not have a home, and then tell him to just buy a house.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    > Not worrying about it might be close to just quitting (or silent quitting) and require a bit more mental change than "to not just worry about it". Even if that's the ultimate goal, the advice is as helpful as telling a homeless man how dreadful it is to not have a home, and then tell him to just buy a house. I understand the sentiment and I know where you're coming from with this. Still, if you want to be less stressed, the only solution that I have found is to just not stress over things. The moment you deeply believe that only stress will improve your life situation, you have made a decision for it to be so. This is the mechanism by which the stress then proliferates not only in you, but also to others. And you don't even get a guarantee that it's worth it. You may end up with only stress and all the goals you tried to achieve with it falling apart anyway. I don't think it's worth it. One needs to find a balance.
    - NalNezumi 3y ago
      Thank you for your sincere reply.(and understanding) I'm right now not in that mental state, and in matter of fact in the process of quitting my job (well one reason of it) for the stress of keeping up. So the description in your last paragraph does ring true to my previous mentality, and something I had to work on for the past 4 years to correct. Still, when I see my newer coworkers in similar situation as I were, I know neither my experience nor your comment will reach them. But I believe your comment & my experience is probably more useful than the original articles (non-existent) advice.
      - starbugs 3y ago
        > Still, when I see my newer coworkers in similar situation as I were, I know neither my experience nor your comment will reach them. But I believe your comment & my experience is probably more useful than the original articles (non-existent) advice. Yes and that's ok. Everyone needs a different amount of suffering to get to a point where change becomes possible.
resource_waste 3y ago
Thanks for starting the discussion. > Stress of keeping up with tech/research comes from a sense of professional obligations (you'll fall behind to your professional peers) Okay, I'm literally terrified about not being in the top 1% or top 10% of everything I do. Scared. I have built my life around me with people that perform at those levels, so everyone from my wife to my best friends may disappear if I'm not performing at those levels. Not to mention, look at nature: The best do what they can and the weak suffer. It is sad, but its reality. So I work always, every success opens up 2 new problems to deal with. I was happier drinking Stoic koolaid.
- amonith 3y ago
  > so everyone from my wife to my best friends may disappear if I'm not performing at those levels Excuse me, what the flask. You don't have a wife and friends then at all. You've built a non-profit organization, not a family. > look at nature: The best do what they can and the weak suffer What kind of nature are you even watching? It's the sickly bottom 1% that's suffering which is an unfortunate reality, not the 90%. You completely inverted that. Not only that, members of the same intelligent species usually help weaker members of their "packs". And people are supposed to be even better than that.
  - resource_waste 3y ago
    >You don't have a wife and friends then at all. You've built a non-profit organization, not a family. :( Yeah I know >What kind of nature are you even watching From the highest levels to the lowest levels, power dynamics decide how things are. I will admit that you can intellectual insanity your way to enjoying/handling suffering, I was a Stoic for 3 years. Whatever the case, maybe I've personally experienced more of this power dynamic problem. Its literally traumatic.
    - troutwine 3y ago
      > From the highest levels to the lowest levels, power dynamics decide how things are. Even granting this premise, which I don't, the interpretation you are operating under -- all but the 1% or 10% or whatever get get crushed -- is not realistic. Folks live happy, contented lives today in community with others. Many species other than human care for the elderly or their sick and long-term disabled. Keeping with the evolutionary model why would altruism continually evolve into species without utility? I guess, on a personal note, I hope things improve for you.
ErigmolCt 3y ago
But if you feel the stress of keeping up with new tech or keeping up with book reading, don't you think it's the same? Just don't worry, everyone has their own pace
- bobbyadamson 3y ago
  I don’t think it’s the same. The author frames it as a social pressure. It actually reads as a personal anxiety that they project on the world in my opinion. They started feeling competitive about books as an 8 year old? I’m not shocked they assume anyone asking them what they’re reading is some test. I can’t imagine walking through the world like this. Of course there is some of this in software related fields, but for a lot of us the bigger risk is a demonstrable professional one. If you haven’t learned anything new in tech in the last 10 years you could be out of a job. There is a whole ocean of jobs for which you would not qualify.
- mapt 3y ago
  "I will be completely unable to make a meaningful contribution to a five minute discussion at a cocktail party a couple months away" vs "I will be completely unable to collaborate on a project because I literally don't understand the concepts on which it's based" The only non-fluid timeliness considerations of literature are typically social in nature and casual in import. Not so, tech.
  - prewett 3y ago
    I've made a point of not bothering to learn new tech environments unless I was interested, and it hasn't made me unable to collaborate. Usually I just learn it on the fly, when I'm asked to do something outside my usual scope at work. Although I did have a moment of panic when I signed up for a contract work with some OpenGL/C# work. I was hoping to talk them into C++, but I'd used C# before. Turned out to be a TypeScript project using WebGL, neither of which I'd done anything with, so I had a couple of days of panic until I realized that TypeScript was similar enough to C++ that I could get work done while learning. (Also, if you want to learn new things, doing lots of smallish contracts is a great way to do it. You select the contracts that are doing something new but leverage some of your existing knowledge. These are not hard to find; you'll have a harder time finding something that doesn't require some learning!)
llmblockchain 3y ago
Before I started my first tech job many years ago I was quite stressed. I felt behind constantly and I was worried everyone would be so much better than me so I over compensated by reading every tech book I could get my hands on. I threw myself into them and flat out memorized and experimented with the content until I knew it through and through. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. In my entire career I've met one guy that was ever "on my level". I'd say yes-- book reading can help, but the dread of not being enough shouldn't be a part of it. Most tech people don't read. Most tech people don't code before 9AM or after 5PM. Most have never heard of hacker news. You're going to be o.k.
shanusmagnus 3y ago
> I'm not sure how much it can be applied to just hobby reading. It feels very real to me, in the circles I run in.
andsoitis 3y ago
> I'm not sure how much it can be applied to just hobby reading When I widen my aperture, what I see is this is a form of "keeping up with the joneses", or teenagers comparing themselves to others on Instagram, or chasing the latest buzzword in technology, etc. FOMO (fear of missing out) vs JOMO (joy of missing out) is another riff on this age-old idea.

starbugs 3y ago

> So the conclusion is not that helpful. Isn't the conclusion from the article inherently transferable to what you described? (I was assuming a different topic as well.)

NalNezumi 3y ago
I'd say it is transferable only partially? But still not that helpful. It is helpful to people that are not aware of the source of the stress (often in the form of feeling overwhelmed) to be able to identify it. The article spend most of the words actually just describing this phenomenon. I think newly-graduated-in-tech-startup me in the past would've felt validated reading it. But the article falls short on any good remedies for the situation. Like yeah I'd love to be able to just "not worry about it", but the problem is that I (as a researcher needing to keep up) can't just stop worrying about it, but I'd love to find a balance where I can keep the enthusiasm and up to date while not feeling overwhelmed and dreadful while doing it. It works for the author because ultimately, the author is in a position when they can walk away or explain WHY they don't keep up and get accepted for it. Worst case the author will lose respect or some snobbish friends. That's not the case for most tech or research people. Not worrying about it might be close to just quitting (or silent quitting) and require a bit more mental change than "to not just worry about it". Even if that's the ultimate goal, the advice is as helpful as telling a homeless man how dreadful it is to not have a home, and then tell him to just buy a house.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > Not worrying about it might be close to just quitting (or silent quitting) and require a bit more mental change than "to not just worry about it". Even if that's the ultimate goal, the advice is as helpful as telling a homeless man how dreadful it is to not have a home, and then tell him to just buy a house. I understand the sentiment and I know where you're coming from with this. Still, if you want to be less stressed, the only solution that I have found is to just not stress over things. The moment you deeply believe that only stress will improve your life situation, you have made a decision for it to be so. This is the mechanism by which the stress then proliferates not only in you, but also to others. And you don't even get a guarantee that it's worth it. You may end up with only stress and all the goals you tried to achieve with it falling apart anyway. I don't think it's worth it. One needs to find a balance.
  - NalNezumi 3y ago
    Thank you for your sincere reply.(and understanding) I'm right now not in that mental state, and in matter of fact in the process of quitting my job (well one reason of it) for the stress of keeping up. So the description in your last paragraph does ring true to my previous mentality, and something I had to work on for the past 4 years to correct. Still, when I see my newer coworkers in similar situation as I were, I know neither my experience nor your comment will reach them. But I believe your comment & my experience is probably more useful than the original articles (non-existent) advice.
    - starbugs 3y ago
      > Still, when I see my newer coworkers in similar situation as I were, I know neither my experience nor your comment will reach them. But I believe your comment & my experience is probably more useful than the original articles (non-existent) advice. Yes and that's ok. Everyone needs a different amount of suffering to get to a point where change becomes possible.

resource_waste 3y ago

Thanks for starting the discussion. > Stress of keeping up with tech/research comes from a sense of professional obligations (you'll fall behind to your professional peers) Okay, I'm literally terrified about not being in the top 1% or top 10% of everything I do. Scared. I have built my life around me with people that perform at those levels, so everyone from my wife to my best friends may disappear if I'm not performing at those levels. Not to mention, look at nature: The best do what they can and the weak suffer. It is sad, but its reality. So I work always, every success opens up 2 new problems to deal with. I was happier drinking Stoic koolaid.

amonith 3y ago
> so everyone from my wife to my best friends may disappear if I'm not performing at those levels Excuse me, what the flask. You don't have a wife and friends then at all. You've built a non-profit organization, not a family. > look at nature: The best do what they can and the weak suffer What kind of nature are you even watching? It's the sickly bottom 1% that's suffering which is an unfortunate reality, not the 90%. You completely inverted that. Not only that, members of the same intelligent species usually help weaker members of their "packs". And people are supposed to be even better than that.
- resource_waste 3y ago
  >You don't have a wife and friends then at all. You've built a non-profit organization, not a family. :( Yeah I know >What kind of nature are you even watching From the highest levels to the lowest levels, power dynamics decide how things are. I will admit that you can intellectual insanity your way to enjoying/handling suffering, I was a Stoic for 3 years. Whatever the case, maybe I've personally experienced more of this power dynamic problem. Its literally traumatic.
  - troutwine 3y ago
    > From the highest levels to the lowest levels, power dynamics decide how things are. Even granting this premise, which I don't, the interpretation you are operating under -- all but the 1% or 10% or whatever get get crushed -- is not realistic. Folks live happy, contented lives today in community with others. Many species other than human care for the elderly or their sick and long-term disabled. Keeping with the evolutionary model why would altruism continually evolve into species without utility? I guess, on a personal note, I hope things improve for you.

ErigmolCt 3y ago

But if you feel the stress of keeping up with new tech or keeping up with book reading, don't you think it's the same? Just don't worry, everyone has their own pace

bobbyadamson 3y ago
I don’t think it’s the same. The author frames it as a social pressure. It actually reads as a personal anxiety that they project on the world in my opinion. They started feeling competitive about books as an 8 year old? I’m not shocked they assume anyone asking them what they’re reading is some test. I can’t imagine walking through the world like this. Of course there is some of this in software related fields, but for a lot of us the bigger risk is a demonstrable professional one. If you haven’t learned anything new in tech in the last 10 years you could be out of a job. There is a whole ocean of jobs for which you would not qualify.
mapt 3y ago
"I will be completely unable to make a meaningful contribution to a five minute discussion at a cocktail party a couple months away" vs "I will be completely unable to collaborate on a project because I literally don't understand the concepts on which it's based" The only non-fluid timeliness considerations of literature are typically social in nature and casual in import. Not so, tech.
- prewett 3y ago
  I've made a point of not bothering to learn new tech environments unless I was interested, and it hasn't made me unable to collaborate. Usually I just learn it on the fly, when I'm asked to do something outside my usual scope at work. Although I did have a moment of panic when I signed up for a contract work with some OpenGL/C# work. I was hoping to talk them into C++, but I'd used C# before. Turned out to be a TypeScript project using WebGL, neither of which I'd done anything with, so I had a couple of days of panic until I realized that TypeScript was similar enough to C++ that I could get work done while learning. (Also, if you want to learn new things, doing lots of smallish contracts is a great way to do it. You select the contracts that are doing something new but leverage some of your existing knowledge. These are not hard to find; you'll have a harder time finding something that doesn't require some learning!)

llmblockchain 3y ago

Before I started my first tech job many years ago I was quite stressed. I felt behind constantly and I was worried everyone would be so much better than me so I over compensated by reading every tech book I could get my hands on. I threw myself into them and flat out memorized and experimented with the content until I knew it through and through. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. In my entire career I've met one guy that was ever "on my level". I'd say yes-- book reading can help, but the dread of not being enough shouldn't be a part of it. Most tech people don't read. Most tech people don't code before 9AM or after 5PM. Most have never heard of hacker news. You're going to be o.k.

shanusmagnus 3y ago

> I'm not sure how much it can be applied to just hobby reading. It feels very real to me, in the circles I run in.

andsoitis 3y ago

> I'm not sure how much it can be applied to just hobby reading When I widen my aperture, what I see is this is a form of "keeping up with the joneses", or teenagers comparing themselves to others on Instagram, or chasing the latest buzzword in technology, etc. FOMO (fear of missing out) vs JOMO (joy of missing out) is another riff on this age-old idea.