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Everyone's Life Is Weird

digging 2y ago
Interesting short piece... but I can't help but notice it never addresses F's very normal-seeming life, which would invalidate the title. Perhaps every artist's life is weird? Perhaps weirdness makes for a good artist, but isn't guaranteed.
- paulcole 2y ago
  > Perhaps every artist's life is weird? Definitely not. People like to believe it because it's an interesting story and people like interesting things. And it's an interesting story to tell – "This artist has a weird life!" But it's no different from the depressed comedian trope. It's boring to talk about the happy and well-adjusted comedian. Artists have weird lives and artists have normal lives – although some people's definition of normal is weird to others and vice versa.
  - digging 2y ago
    Take that up with the author!
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Well, ditching the tech life for med school is, maybe not "weird", but it's at least a bit of a curve from where F seemed to be headed as a sophomore. (Presuming that I correctly interpreted the not-very-explicit statements in the article.)
  - digging 2y ago
    One might feel that way but that was known information when the author determined that F's life looked normal.
- groby_b 2y ago
  The point is that you can't see from the outside. F's life is weird, too, in ways that only F knows and understands. (IDK, maybe he taxidermies mice he catches in his backyard. Point being, we'd never know) The article's not quite reaching that conclusion, but trust me, we're all strange in our own ways. And it's not an artist thing. The "career path" and the "rules and customs" that the article mentions don't actually exist. It's what lives within one or two standard deviations of the average, but... in individual things, we're all far from the average. It just, well, averages out in the long run. To stick with the example: I can name large amounts of FAANG folk who do well, and who never majored in CS, or got that internship, or went to grad school, or started at FAANG. I can name large amounts of folks who followed exactly that path, but either didn't go to FAANG at all, or left quickly. "Normal" is a facade. For all of us. The only thing to keep in mind is that people will complain if you don't keep up the facade (because what does that mean for their choice to keep it, for decades?). But, facade or not, the true average human being has slightly less than two legs. They don't exist.
  - digging 2y ago
    >The point is that you can't see from the outside. I didn't get that from this article. The author compared their own life to the lives of historical figures, viewed from the outside.
- tomxor 2y ago
  > I can't help but notice it never addresses F's very normal-seeming life, which would invalidate the title Perhaps "normal" is merely a facade, better maintained by those able to successfully tread the traditional path adequately enough; Perhaps those who label themselves "weird" aren't fundamentally much different, but have freed themself of that untenable position. </weird armchair philosopher>
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
It's OK to realize that the path you're on doesn't fit you and isn't going to make you happy, and to chose to get off that path and pick another one that will fit you better. Really! It's OK! But... There also is no perfect life. Nothing on earth ever perfectly satisfies. Your dream job won't pay enough for all your other dreams. You may find a wonderful person to share your life with, but they won't be perfect. Some of their dreams will clash with some of your dreams. When that happens, don't throw out something really good to try to reach something perfect. It's only perfect in your dreams. In reality, it may not even be better. "Take time in your pursuit of happiness to just be happy." So, yes, you can ditch a path that doesn't fit you. But no path fits perfectly. Don't destroy something good in order to try to reach an unattainable amount of perfection. Where's the line between those two kinds of advice? Aye, there's the rub...
- mm263 2y ago
  > It's OK to realize that the path you're on doesn't fit you and isn't going to make you happy, and to chose to get off that path and pick another one that will fit you better. Really! It's OK! Up to a certain age it's totally possible. Having commitments and people depending on you decreases this possibility that to a great extent.
tomxor 2y ago
> I grew up in an environment where I was made to feel that if I got a single B+ on a report card nothing good would happen in my life because no colleges would accept me and then I would never get a FAANG job and I would die alone. Internalizing that logic helped me work hard but I also think it made me neurotic and fearful in ways that took a long time to undo. What I believe now is that if you’re creative and willing to work hard there’s a lot of different paths to success. I wish I knew this at the end of mandatory education. It's pretty clear there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't operate well under traditional education and career paths. For us, it's just a slow, often painful exercise in realising following rules laid out by some institution just doesn't work for us - and most critically: that that is OK! that it doesn't mean you are not capable, or not smart, at most it means you might not be good at jumping through hoops when you have no intrinsic motivation to do so, and at least it shows that education is not designed to work for everyone, it's one size fits all. ... but almost no one tells you this, and so we are destined to waste time and, in some countries huge amounts of money, and psychological pain learning this lesson. The irony is I now work in ed-tech. But I have some solace in knowing the technology I work on is moving traditional education towards a more individualised experience that might work better for someone like me.
weinzierl 2y ago
"Something I wish someone had told me as a kid is that the only real “rule” for work is that you have to be able pay your rent and not hurt anyone and not break any laws." In the article this sounds like a liberating revelation, but for most people this is just a small ridge they struggle to stay and not fall down on either side. The less privileged, the smaller the ridge. The least privileged manage to fall down all sides.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  100%, been subscribed to this Substack for quite some time, so I mean this as gently as possible: the weird descriptor, and this revelation, are byproducts of hyperfocus on achievements or being on guiderails from parents. Not necessarily a wealth thing, so I don't mean to be talking down about that. I didn't grow up with much, but had to go through the same realization when leaving Google. All the worrying about retirement, TC, etc., tolerating abuse.in the workplace, etc., were mechanisms hiding that it was totally fine to leave. Something that helped me a lot along the way was seeing a comment on Blind from a 50-60 year old with 2M+ TC combined with his lawyer wife in Bay Area. They were getting divorced, and his message was tl;Dr man I was dumb. The part that hit hardest was him pointing out virtually any savings can be wiped away quickly by emergencies, there's not really a safe # once you're making tech bucks.

Interesting short piece... but I can't help but notice it never addresses F's very normal-seeming life, which would invalidate the title. Perhaps every artist's life is weird? Perhaps weirdness makes for a good artist, but isn't guaranteed.

paulcole 2y ago
> Perhaps every artist's life is weird? Definitely not. People like to believe it because it's an interesting story and people like interesting things. And it's an interesting story to tell – "This artist has a weird life!" But it's no different from the depressed comedian trope. It's boring to talk about the happy and well-adjusted comedian. Artists have weird lives and artists have normal lives – although some people's definition of normal is weird to others and vice versa.
- digging 2y ago
  Take that up with the author!
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Well, ditching the tech life for med school is, maybe not "weird", but it's at least a bit of a curve from where F seemed to be headed as a sophomore. (Presuming that I correctly interpreted the not-very-explicit statements in the article.)
- digging 2y ago
  One might feel that way but that was known information when the author determined that F's life looked normal.
groby_b 2y ago
The point is that you can't see from the outside. F's life is weird, too, in ways that only F knows and understands. (IDK, maybe he taxidermies mice he catches in his backyard. Point being, we'd never know) The article's not quite reaching that conclusion, but trust me, we're all strange in our own ways. And it's not an artist thing. The "career path" and the "rules and customs" that the article mentions don't actually exist. It's what lives within one or two standard deviations of the average, but... in individual things, we're all far from the average. It just, well, averages out in the long run. To stick with the example: I can name large amounts of FAANG folk who do well, and who never majored in CS, or got that internship, or went to grad school, or started at FAANG. I can name large amounts of folks who followed exactly that path, but either didn't go to FAANG at all, or left quickly. "Normal" is a facade. For all of us. The only thing to keep in mind is that people will complain if you don't keep up the facade (because what does that mean for their choice to keep it, for decades?). But, facade or not, the true average human being has slightly less than two legs. They don't exist.
- digging 2y ago
  >The point is that you can't see from the outside. I didn't get that from this article. The author compared their own life to the lives of historical figures, viewed from the outside.
tomxor 2y ago
> I can't help but notice it never addresses F's very normal-seeming life, which would invalidate the title Perhaps "normal" is merely a facade, better maintained by those able to successfully tread the traditional path adequately enough; Perhaps those who label themselves "weird" aren't fundamentally much different, but have freed themself of that untenable position. </weird armchair philosopher>

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

It's OK to realize that the path you're on doesn't fit you and isn't going to make you happy, and to chose to get off that path and pick another one that will fit you better. Really! It's OK! But... There also is no perfect life. Nothing on earth ever perfectly satisfies. Your dream job won't pay enough for all your other dreams. You may find a wonderful person to share your life with, but they won't be perfect. Some of their dreams will clash with some of your dreams. When that happens, don't throw out something really good to try to reach something perfect. It's only perfect in your dreams. In reality, it may not even be better. "Take time in your pursuit of happiness to just be happy." So, yes, you can ditch a path that doesn't fit you. But no path fits perfectly. Don't destroy something good in order to try to reach an unattainable amount of perfection. Where's the line between those two kinds of advice? Aye, there's the rub...

mm263 2y ago
> It's OK to realize that the path you're on doesn't fit you and isn't going to make you happy, and to chose to get off that path and pick another one that will fit you better. Really! It's OK! Up to a certain age it's totally possible. Having commitments and people depending on you decreases this possibility that to a great extent.

tomxor 2y ago

> I grew up in an environment where I was made to feel that if I got a single B+ on a report card nothing good would happen in my life because no colleges would accept me and then I would never get a FAANG job and I would die alone. Internalizing that logic helped me work hard but I also think it made me neurotic and fearful in ways that took a long time to undo. What I believe now is that if you’re creative and willing to work hard there’s a lot of different paths to success. I wish I knew this at the end of mandatory education. It's pretty clear there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't operate well under traditional education and career paths. For us, it's just a slow, often painful exercise in realising following rules laid out by some institution just doesn't work for us - and most critically: that that is OK! that it doesn't mean you are not capable, or not smart, at most it means you might not be good at jumping through hoops when you have no intrinsic motivation to do so, and at least it shows that education is not designed to work for everyone, it's one size fits all. ... but almost no one tells you this, and so we are destined to waste time and, in some countries huge amounts of money, and psychological pain learning this lesson. The irony is I now work in ed-tech. But I have some solace in knowing the technology I work on is moving traditional education towards a more individualised experience that might work better for someone like me.

weinzierl 2y ago

"Something I wish someone had told me as a kid is that the only real “rule” for work is that you have to be able pay your rent and not hurt anyone and not break any laws." In the article this sounds like a liberating revelation, but for most people this is just a small ridge they struggle to stay and not fall down on either side. The less privileged, the smaller the ridge. The least privileged manage to fall down all sides.

refulgentis 2y ago
100%, been subscribed to this Substack for quite some time, so I mean this as gently as possible: the weird descriptor, and this revelation, are byproducts of hyperfocus on achievements or being on guiderails from parents. Not necessarily a wealth thing, so I don't mean to be talking down about that. I didn't grow up with much, but had to go through the same realization when leaving Google. All the worrying about retirement, TC, etc., tolerating abuse.in the workplace, etc., were mechanisms hiding that it was totally fine to leave. Something that helped me a lot along the way was seeing a comment on Blind from a 50-60 year old with 2M+ TC combined with his lawyer wife in Bay Area. They were getting divorced, and his message was tl;Dr man I was dumb. The part that hit hardest was him pointing out virtually any savings can be wiped away quickly by emergencies, there's not really a safe # once you're making tech bucks.