10 ms·

The quiet rebellion of a little life

78 points by durmonski 2y ago

pluc 2y ago
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "i had to help my uncle jack off a horse". Use it. Shit is unreadable.
- eluketronic 2y ago
  Yikes
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  What specific sentences or phrases in this article could you not understand? For that matter what kinda shit does your uncle get up to that would create this ambiguity?
  - pluc 2y ago
    It's not about understanding, it's about readability.
sgt101 2y ago
Ok, no capital letters as a writing affectation is immediately upsetting... but I'll let my anxiety about that subside and focus on the content. I get it, I really do. I find it a daily struggle. Last week I told my boss I couldn't travel this week. He was fine about it, there wasn't even a discussion. But I've worried about it ever since. Not because I want a raise or a promotion, but because I need this job and I worry that I won't get another good one if I lose it. I need it to cover my families needs, I need it so that I can live a good life post work. I need to think about post work because we all know that when your hair goes white and you struggle with the accessibility of the office you're not going to get another one. So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money.
- throwaway34443 2y ago
  I think I've found my peace. I'm 24, planning to live my entire life without long term relationships, so I don't have to worry about responsibilities to others. I live in Europe so theoretically retirement is not a death sentence, but if it gets too difficult I can always kill myself. One advantage of this life is that it becomes quite easy to save money when you don't have pointless expenses. So far I am very happy and stress free.
  - HL33tibCe7 2y ago
    Seek professional help
  - accrual 2y ago
    It is peaceful and I'm finding myself in a similar place at a slightly older age. Responsibility to others can indeed be draining. But I'd encourage you to see beyond ending yourself as an alternative. There's always another way to go forwards and grow.
    - throwaway34443 2y ago
      Oh, certainly. I am not suicidal or depressed, but I simply do not see a point in living further if I had to work myself to exhaustion every day just to feed myself, or became severely ill. Having an escape button feels quite nice even if I'm not going to press it.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money. Money is the best freedom buyer. Don't trust anyone who says "Money doesn't buy happiness". That's rich-people propaganda to keep the rest of us dependent. As Lucy Liu said in a fantastic interview: Do everything in your power to accumulate fuck you money as early as possible. Because then you can say No. Even a few months of buffer is enough to buy lots of wellbeing. Having FIRE money is obviously even better.
spokaneplumb 2y ago
Is there some kind of reader-mode filtering site one can put a URL in to get a version that undoes this extra effort to remove capital letters? From what I’ve gotten of this piece I think it’s up my alley, but reading it is unpleasant. [edit] incidentally, if this fad doesn’t burn out soon we’re going to need a setting to fix it under the heading of accessibility. I expect there are several categories of people for whom this is even more annoying than for most of us, and who can’t just get over it or re-train their brain to do better without the very-useful cues provided by capital letters, notably dyslexics.
- xigency 2y ago
  This is actually one of the great uses of transformer models. Pick your favorite A.I. and you can ask it to capitalize the text.
- gedy 2y ago
  I just don't read long form in this silly style. Skipped.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  i don’t get it, most letters you read will be lowercase, what’s a few more in the grand scheme?
  - DennisP 2y ago
    Also, periods are just a small percentage of the characters. Maybe we should skip them.
    - collingreen 2y ago
      And spaces! They don't even have any content, just the wasted space! Let's drop those too.
      - bookofjoe 2y ago
        >'The Art of Asking Your Boss For A Raise' by French experimental author Georges Perec is best read aloud. It’s a theatrical piece with dazzling, recursive language that evokes laughter and pity at 'your' plight as you tackle the practical and emotional burden of asking for a much needed (if not deserved) pay increase while in the employ of one of France’s largest companies. >The entirety of the book's 80 pages are one sentence, without punctuation, capitalization or spatial breaks. https://www.michael-maiello.com/logical-loops-with-georges-perec/ https://www.michael-maiello.com/logical-loops-with-georges-p...
fireynis 2y ago
I always think these kinds of mentalities are based on people who have never been in dire straits or financially insecure. Living a simple life is almost impossible, pursuing wealth is probably the only way to be secure in a simple life. Even if you FIRE, you need to pretty aggressively pursue wealth at the beginning to make it work.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  It’s pretty easy to live a simple life if you don’t expect cutting edge healthcare, the best education for one’s kids’, and living in colder/flatter places. If you expect a better than average quality of life, then you will have to compete for it. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be bequeathed a sufficiently large portfolio.
  - adrianN 2y ago
    If you want an average quality of life you need to compete for it because the average person competes.
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      Or you are born to a developing country and get a remote job as a software engineer. Not much competition (at least until 2022).
      - pdimitar 2y ago
        Sadly no longer true. :(
        meiraleal 2y ago
        Maybe just for now? Imagine if China start hiring all the laid off engineers. The US companies would need to start hiring again, paying even more than the first round.
mattgreenrocks 2y ago
Only part way through this, but I feel it in my bones. Currently going through a bout of reflux that feels like it may be my body saying, "make changes, this is too much stress." Learning to climb down the ladder after a lifetime of striving up it is a really hard mindset shift.
mberning 2y ago
I find these types of ideas to be more of a coping mechanism than any sort of deep insight on the human condition. Once everything is stripped away and you are spending your days making artisanal gooseberry preserves you may find that life is still not possessed of anything meaningful.
- TaupeRanger 2y ago
  Yes. These types of hot takes only have force because most people don't pursue them. In a world where most people pursued a "little life", you'd see articles about the "quiet rebellion of ambition". Is either life better than the other? On what grounds? Is it not entirely dependent on the details of the life in question? Does no one understand the deep truth of the phrase "the grass is always greener"?
carabiner 2y ago
Author lives in NYC (a little city?) and seems to be rediscovering early '00s hipsterdom ("authenticity"), JOMO, and realizing her surrogate activities are just that. Her instagram is a sea of beige and rouge that represents what I hate about IG: an unattainably fashionable and curated portrayal. Oddly, this is what I loved about tiktok. On tiktok I watched a 60 year old man talk about his early mornings working at costco. I watched a middle aged woman prepare breakfast at a rural gas station. I can't imagine these types of real, ordinary, and representative lives on IG versus OP's yuppie elite ideal. For god's sake, does she ever sit down and eat a big mac? She is dripping in pretense not authenticity, especially with the tumblr-era lack of upper case.
- righthand 2y ago
  Eating a big mac and posting on Tiktok isn’t authenticity. It’s two bad health choices. Asserting someone is not serious or intelligent because they don’t post on your marketing driven social media app of choice is very pot-kettle behavior.
  - Xeronate 2y ago
    Agree but at the same time talking about leaving the rat race and glorifying the simple life is old hat for anyone over the age of 25. It gets annoying reading trite advice written by someone that sees it as profound insight.
    - righthand 2y ago
      Don’t read it then. People are allowed to write advice you deem trite.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  Have some sympathy. She's been told she's a princess her whole life and is waiting for the rich prince to provide the IG worthy lifestyle of luxury and ease she deserves.
eluketronic 2y ago
I’ve wrestled with this idea since reading My Side of The Mountain when I was quite young. Our society and culture constantly reinforces the perceived need to make enough money to retire one day, assuming that there is a necessary amount of money one needs to continue living and that one should stop working at some point. The fear of exorbitant medical costs in our privatized healthcare system scare me into thinking I need a fortune to feel safe and be able to live a long health life. My rampant consumption and desire to live a “full” life, like those that I see posted on social media, also stoke this financial insecurity mindset—“I must have more so that I can do more so that people will know that I am fulfilled and then I will feel happy and fulfilled.”
- xigency 2y ago
  I'm coming to terms with the fact that if I want to leave any inheritance at all I will need to be voluntarily turning down medical care at some point in my life. I'm only 30 and I know for certain that lifespan is not the parameter I want to optimize. Rather, it is quality of life.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    Turning down medical care at some point in your life maybe the right thing to do. I bet if you were to ask most doctors, one of the most heartwrenching things they are required to do is keep people alive and in pain long past the point of compassion. I am not advocating for euthanasia, but within the last 2 years I have observed such cruelty only once averted
  - TaupeRanger 2y ago
    Most people agree with you until the moment they actually have to decide between further treatment and likely death. Most people simply hold on until they have no choice but to die.
  - riku_iki 2y ago
    I hope to solve it through the healthy lifestyle: diet, exercises, sleep, outdoor time, stress management, so I will be healthy and active for a long time until some organ suddenly fails, so I won't spend money on medical care which observes my slowly fading body while giving some not necessary helpful treatment.
bdangubic 2y ago
the irony in all of this, is that if social media were completely eradicated from the world and everyone had a chance to look inward in order to pursue being the very best version of themselves possible, both emotionally and logistically in their career pursuits, imagine the repercussions of this and how it would positively impact our society… but alas, i’m dreaming of a world where that could never exist again. could not have said it better myself… I quit all social media and I cannot even put in words how much my life has improved since then. not only in personal aspect of not being subjected of nonsense of social media but also my social life has improved immensely. my friends of course are all on social media and any discussion that relates to it that spills into our group chats I am like “no clue and don’t give two shits about it” - glorious existence!
- uncletaco 2y ago
  Are you the author on an alt? This article and comment are the first time I've ever seen someone on this website not use capitalization.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    1) lots of people write like that; it's become a bit of a trend 2) the author did not capitalize "I" when referring to themselves like OP did
    - fwsgonzo 2y ago
      A trend? People never capitalized anything on IRC in the early 90s. The only time I saw it was on forums and other longer forms of text. And then eventually everyone else joined the Internet and more formal writing became the norm. Not wanting to pointlessly capitalize letters is neither here nor there. It doesn't mean anything.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
        That's fair enough but it is actually a style which some people choose for their blog. I'd also note that this post isn't on IRC; perhaps they're eschewing capitalization for some reason other than to communicate in a more natural cadence.
pdimitar 2y ago
Meh. To have a little life you have to compete for a good job so you have a good pay. The author frames it as if you can just semi-retire and still have $200K a year which is observably and factually absolutely not true. Like the tired Hollywood trope of "I am done working hard, let's just go live at this beach-front property and work whenever we like and oh, by the way, money is not a problem ever and how the frak did we buy this beach-front property again?". Like the old Angelina Jolie movie: "Life or Something Like It" (2002). Glad that the author has such a privileged life but most of us have arrived at this "wisdom" by 25 year old at the most and the depressing conclusion is that you have to keep grinding just to have this "little life". Because if you stop or even slow down, it's mostly homeless life that's awaiting you, not a little one.
- the_gastropod 2y ago
  Lol. This cynical attitude cracks me up so much. I lived in NYC for over 10 years. I never in my life made anywhere near $200k. I just retired this year at the ripe old age of 38. How? By following this apparently obvious "wisdom" of living simply, within my means, for ~15 years, and saving the excess. No trust funds, no Bitcoin-esque investment wins. Just saving money in boring index funds over 15 years, and living within my means.
  - pdimitar 2y ago
    How much did you make per year? How many jobs did you have? How many jobs did you hop?
    - the_gastropod 2y ago
      In my most recent job, I earned $160k. During my ~15 year software development career, I worked for a total of 4 companies, none overlapping, none that required more than 40 hours per week. I saved ~60% of my take-home pay every year, and invested it in a 60/40 mix of VTSAX / VTIAX. I'm married, and my wife made $8,000 last year. I had to save enough to cover our collective expenses, otherwise this timeline would've been even faster! If you're unfamiliar, this is an excellent introduction to this concept: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... It's extremely simple. It's boring. It's slow (but much faster than the alternative!). And it works.
mattbee 2y ago
Mmmm the OP describes a very expensive mid-life retirement: an unspecified number of children, cats, a dog, a garden, living near enough a park that you might want to walk through, shopping at a farmer's market, books and art in your home, wine, and all in a "culturally rich" location! I think most humans are pleasure seeking and would choose the above, if it were a choice! But the pinnacle for most people I know would be to enjoy one or two of the above, on the margins of a hard-working life.
- duxup 2y ago
  It reminds me of some of the "I had a job in finance but it wasn't fulfilling so I went and did X" and X is where they take their massive nest egg and largely without much hassle just buy a nice retirement (farm or something and do wood working). It's presented as some sorta contrast / revelation, but story is one that wasn't going to happen without the first part. Reminds me of the start up that gets acquired and the former founder sitting on his pile of cash upset about what they do with his product. Bro you took gobs of money to let them do that thing ... I'd be most interested in folks jiving those two lives and how they intersect rather than the almost strange born again type stories.
- K0balt 2y ago
  That’s grim. There is a better way, but you can’t drink any of the kool aid. I wish I could tell other people how to do what I have done, but I have come to understand that it only works for me because i tend not to think things are important that other people value, and I value things that other people sacrifice to obtain those unimportant things. It’s worked very well for me. If I have a piece of advice I think people might be able to use, it would be to own a place. It should be cheap and have little or no property taxes. A bit of land. Maybe an acre or two. In the country but not too far off a road. It’s not an investment, it’s not your home, it’s a place. Build a house there. Build it yourself. A very modest house with your own hands. Learn how. Build a home that you can walk away from and come back in ten years and not be bothered by the inevitable decay. The absolute minimum. This is not your home. This is your refuge. Put it in a legal situation so that it can’t be taken from you (obviously this also means you don’t really own it, and can never sell it) The worst that can ever happen is that you have to go and live there while you start from zero. Now, you will never be without a place. For most people, this will be enough to give them courage to take some necessary risks. That is enough. If you want to take it farther (you probably don’t) this is what I have done, and I’m not at all alone in this experience: Once you have a place, Become unemployable. Any job is a means to a very near end. If you have to work, take a job that pays well but you hate. invest your time and resources in anything where your efforts will be rewarded disproportionally to the risks. 10:1 bets on 1000:1 odds. There are so many things that people will simply ignore because the chance of failure is 90% if done well… but there are a lot of those losing propositions that will compensate way above their risk. The hack is you can never go bust. Only your health can stop you. you have your place. You have to always be willing to put it all on the line. You can go to zero but it doesn’t matter. Just do it again. And again. And again. You get better, you get smarter, you get wiser. Eventually you win. Is it enough? If it’s not, set half aside in durable assets, and keep going. Most people are so risk averse that you will have these opportunities basically to yourself. 99.99 percent will find a reason that this won’t work for them, and they’ll be right. But sometimes you’ll run into someone else in a different stage of the same game. If they’re much farther along than you, they’ll recognise you and you might have a drink, and make a mentor. This is the most valuable relationship you will ever have. Your spouse can be replaced. Your mentor probably can’t . That’s it. Bring on the hate.
Devthrowaway80 2y ago
The rest of this persons feed is jam-packed with ludicrously pretentious photos of people posing in expensive clothing in ways clearly carefully chosen to appear spontaneous, uploaded to the internet for attention. The irony.
- duxup 2y ago
  I'm probably drifting from the blog post here: I'm usually averse to pointing out conflicts like you mention but there's certainly an sort of "internet culture" of playing the game of internet imagery and etc and ... decrying it / pining for something simpler / more fulfilling. They know they can just go be simpler and give it a shot right? People are full of conflicts so that alone isn't a surprise, but the scale of this seesaw on the internet feels weirdly large. I sometimes think they mean that the people they see with all the "titles, achievements, influence" are not the people they like, and some simpler ideal is just the natural argument against them. Meanwhile ... they would rather be the folks with "titles, achievements, influence.".
readthenotes1 2y ago
"there’s a pervasive myth that has seeped into every corner of our current reality claiming that in order to have a meaningful life, we’re told that worth is measured in titles, achievements, and the scope of our influence. " The formerly most pervasive myth in my culture required that in order to live a good life we should strive to treat others well. Not many did it but it seems a good aspiration, to base my self-esteem on how I treat others rather than on how they view me.
flobosg 2y ago
Along the same topic: Obituary for a quiet life (2023) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40028643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40028643
bookofjoe 2y ago
'A Little Life' https://www.amazon.com/Little-Life-Hanya-Yanagihara/dp/0804172706/ref=sr_1_1?crid=36YYAUXASQRJO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6R2SZjK73gUqi08u9pd0mo3RoNjdxigIhZDiYQkMmA1mSufytQzf8YztrHqpdEc1Ov_N-f0aewPhZJMWX4iJAGAQqxVZZeEZEmhu0_GNYrado_OMcPqsRmFZExVCPe0CVr1ico6skprLL0plgwCc4HnB3KrNb6N4DZr1FHhr705Y88jspSyawIhrsjuL2y80.ysJOodqt5Znxlw4TBmrVrhXpYfMTOMJw_7yAtOTN04s&dib_tag=se&keywords=A+little+life&qid=1737404032&s=books&sprefix=a+little+life%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Little-Life-Hanya-Yanagihara/dp/08041...
- senordevnyc 2y ago
  Hands down the most depressing book I’ve ever read.
redeux 2y ago
For those that don't know, the lack of capitalization is a Gen Z affect. To the people who write like this, using capitalization is a type of formality that is reserved for serious topics and is almost like most of us would consider all caps, but more nuanced. Writing is inherently a form of self-expression, and so is ripe for artistic expression. The topic and the lack of capitalization actually make a lot of sense together given the author's cultural context.
- Analemma_ 2y ago
  Oh please. The author describes "the little life" as an absurdly posh mid-life retirement which no actual person can afford if they don't come from immense inherited wealth: their "cultural context" is Manhattan trust fund brat. In that context, trying to look like bell hooks with the all-lowercase affect is ridiculous and bordering on offensive.
- clydethefrog 2y ago
  Gen Z affect? This Substack post has all the staples of a Millenial tumblr blog post, not only the lack of uppercase but also the whimsical drawings of cherished children books to emphasise the “vibe”, and the whole thesis of the post is basically promoting the hipster “”“authenticity “”” (using hipster runoff inspired use of quotes on purpose here)
  - SauciestGNU 2y ago
    Man I do the quote thing and couldn't tell remember where I'd picked up that particular affect. HRO is a pretty good guess. Maybe Carles is in web heaven with MySpace Tom.
- cafard 2y ago
  All I can say is the John Williams's Stoner would have handed back the essay covered in red ink. For that matter, so would have John Williams himself.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dmje 2y ago
Well, I thought this was pretty terrific, and I'm a little sad to see some of the comments. I don't think it's a "very expensive mid-life retirement", to echo and paraphrase much of the criticism here. Yes, it could be, but it also doesn't need to be. Instead, it's about a mindset which says - I'm ok with going this far but don't feel the need to go a huge lot further. We spent the weekend with friends. She is high up working for some US corp, doing maybe £250k a year. He's in something to do with governance that I don't fully understand, on maybe £150k+. They live in a stunning house, they have insanely busy jet-setting type lives, they have two small kids, two expensive cars, endless holidays abroad, several flats that they rent out, all the trimmings. We had fun seeing them, and dipping into their life - but on the whole they seem to spend their lives being stressed, busy and not very contented. My wife and I spent the journey home thanking our stars for our much simpler, much less glamorous, much (financially) poorer lives. We live by the sea, we have raised our (now late teen / early twenties) kids by choosing to be present, and this has come at the "expense" of our careers. We've run a small business working with non-profits for 15 years where we deliberately (in order to keep a sense of life balance) choose not to grow. My wife started a floristry business because she wanted something beautiful that was hers, but she has no ambitions to make it into something enormous and unwieldy. We're in our late 40's / 50's - so I guess we partially fit the criticism, although we're far from retirement (lolz, not nearly enough cash to do that!), but on the other hand - we've always chosen to live like this. We had brief flirtations with big jobs in our mid-20's, and we had some hunger to climb a little bit up the salary pole early on, but we've both always been in and around non-profits and we've never had ambitions to be hugely wealthy or hugely successful, or hugely anything really. We just like ticking along, doing what we do, seeing some friends, writing a few songs and looking at bits of art along the way. I do fully accept that there is a whole level of shitness in environments in which you have to hold down 3 jobs in order to make ends meet, and I also feel that the current environment is pretty scary for kids just entering the job market or at the beginning of their working lives. I'm under no illusions: I've been pretty lucky in my personal and working life. But I've also made this journey making quite a lot of conscious decisions that I think can be chosen (if you want to choose them!) along the way, not just when you're older or luckier or more comfortable. You can sometimes choose (for example) to buy second hand, or to try not to take on debt, or to go for jobs that give you a better balance of time vs money. You can choose to do things cheaper. You can choose to be happier with less. You can choose experiences over objects. Having no money is awful. But having a massive ton of it with all the complexity it brings - that can be awful, too.
hprotagonist 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_of_Lisieux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_of_Lisieux also bears reading. Her "Little Way" is well worth chewing on.
jcmontx 2y ago
I'm the CTO of a small startup. Recently I bought a small farm and moved there. I will continue working remotely while also enjoying being closer to nature, eating healthier, being able to have more animals and eventually start having children with my partner. I think this is the right balance for me, but time will tell. In the meantime I'll enjoy the ride!

78 points by durmonski 2y ago

pluc 2y ago

Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "i had to help my uncle jack off a horse". Use it. Shit is unreadable.

eluketronic 2y ago
Yikes
giraffe_lady 2y ago
What specific sentences or phrases in this article could you not understand? For that matter what kinda shit does your uncle get up to that would create this ambiguity?
- pluc 2y ago
  It's not about understanding, it's about readability.

sgt101 2y ago

Ok, no capital letters as a writing affectation is immediately upsetting... but I'll let my anxiety about that subside and focus on the content. I get it, I really do. I find it a daily struggle. Last week I told my boss I couldn't travel this week. He was fine about it, there wasn't even a discussion. But I've worried about it ever since. Not because I want a raise or a promotion, but because I need this job and I worry that I won't get another good one if I lose it. I need it to cover my families needs, I need it so that I can live a good life post work. I need to think about post work because we all know that when your hair goes white and you struggle with the accessibility of the office you're not going to get another one. So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money.

throwaway34443 2y ago
I think I've found my peace. I'm 24, planning to live my entire life without long term relationships, so I don't have to worry about responsibilities to others. I live in Europe so theoretically retirement is not a death sentence, but if it gets too difficult I can always kill myself. One advantage of this life is that it becomes quite easy to save money when you don't have pointless expenses. So far I am very happy and stress free.
- HL33tibCe7 2y ago
  Seek professional help
- accrual 2y ago
  It is peaceful and I'm finding myself in a similar place at a slightly older age. Responsibility to others can indeed be draining. But I'd encourage you to see beyond ending yourself as an alternative. There's always another way to go forwards and grow.
  - throwaway34443 2y ago
    Oh, certainly. I am not suicidal or depressed, but I simply do not see a point in living further if I had to work myself to exhaustion every day just to feed myself, or became severely ill. Having an escape button feels quite nice even if I'm not going to press it.
Swizec 2y ago
> So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money. Money is the best freedom buyer. Don't trust anyone who says "Money doesn't buy happiness". That's rich-people propaganda to keep the rest of us dependent. As Lucy Liu said in a fantastic interview: Do everything in your power to accumulate fuck you money as early as possible. Because then you can say No. Even a few months of buffer is enough to buy lots of wellbeing. Having FIRE money is obviously even better.

spokaneplumb 2y ago

Is there some kind of reader-mode filtering site one can put a URL in to get a version that undoes this extra effort to remove capital letters? From what I’ve gotten of this piece I think it’s up my alley, but reading it is unpleasant. [edit] incidentally, if this fad doesn’t burn out soon we’re going to need a setting to fix it under the heading of accessibility. I expect there are several categories of people for whom this is even more annoying than for most of us, and who can’t just get over it or re-train their brain to do better without the very-useful cues provided by capital letters, notably dyslexics.

xigency 2y ago
This is actually one of the great uses of transformer models. Pick your favorite A.I. and you can ask it to capitalize the text.
gedy 2y ago
I just don't read long form in this silly style. Skipped.
deadbabe 2y ago
i don’t get it, most letters you read will be lowercase, what’s a few more in the grand scheme?
- DennisP 2y ago
  Also, periods are just a small percentage of the characters. Maybe we should skip them.
  - collingreen 2y ago
    And spaces! They don't even have any content, just the wasted space! Let's drop those too.
    - bookofjoe 2y ago
      >'The Art of Asking Your Boss For A Raise' by French experimental author Georges Perec is best read aloud. It’s a theatrical piece with dazzling, recursive language that evokes laughter and pity at 'your' plight as you tackle the practical and emotional burden of asking for a much needed (if not deserved) pay increase while in the employ of one of France’s largest companies. >The entirety of the book's 80 pages are one sentence, without punctuation, capitalization or spatial breaks. https://www.michael-maiello.com/logical-loops-with-georges-perec/ https://www.michael-maiello.com/logical-loops-with-georges-p...

fireynis 2y ago

I always think these kinds of mentalities are based on people who have never been in dire straits or financially insecure. Living a simple life is almost impossible, pursuing wealth is probably the only way to be secure in a simple life. Even if you FIRE, you need to pretty aggressively pursue wealth at the beginning to make it work.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
It’s pretty easy to live a simple life if you don’t expect cutting edge healthcare, the best education for one’s kids’, and living in colder/flatter places. If you expect a better than average quality of life, then you will have to compete for it. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be bequeathed a sufficiently large portfolio.
- adrianN 2y ago
  If you want an average quality of life you need to compete for it because the average person competes.
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Or you are born to a developing country and get a remote job as a software engineer. Not much competition (at least until 2022).
    - pdimitar 2y ago
      Sadly no longer true. :(
      - meiraleal 2y ago
        Maybe just for now? Imagine if China start hiring all the laid off engineers. The US companies would need to start hiring again, paying even more than the first round.

mattgreenrocks 2y ago

Only part way through this, but I feel it in my bones. Currently going through a bout of reflux that feels like it may be my body saying, "make changes, this is too much stress." Learning to climb down the ladder after a lifetime of striving up it is a really hard mindset shift.

mberning 2y ago

I find these types of ideas to be more of a coping mechanism than any sort of deep insight on the human condition. Once everything is stripped away and you are spending your days making artisanal gooseberry preserves you may find that life is still not possessed of anything meaningful.

TaupeRanger 2y ago
Yes. These types of hot takes only have force because most people don't pursue them. In a world where most people pursued a "little life", you'd see articles about the "quiet rebellion of ambition". Is either life better than the other? On what grounds? Is it not entirely dependent on the details of the life in question? Does no one understand the deep truth of the phrase "the grass is always greener"?

carabiner 2y ago

Author lives in NYC (a little city?) and seems to be rediscovering early '00s hipsterdom ("authenticity"), JOMO, and realizing her surrogate activities are just that. Her instagram is a sea of beige and rouge that represents what I hate about IG: an unattainably fashionable and curated portrayal. Oddly, this is what I loved about tiktok. On tiktok I watched a 60 year old man talk about his early mornings working at costco. I watched a middle aged woman prepare breakfast at a rural gas station. I can't imagine these types of real, ordinary, and representative lives on IG versus OP's yuppie elite ideal. For god's sake, does she ever sit down and eat a big mac? She is dripping in pretense not authenticity, especially with the tumblr-era lack of upper case.

righthand 2y ago
Eating a big mac and posting on Tiktok isn’t authenticity. It’s two bad health choices. Asserting someone is not serious or intelligent because they don’t post on your marketing driven social media app of choice is very pot-kettle behavior.
- Xeronate 2y ago
  Agree but at the same time talking about leaving the rat race and glorifying the simple life is old hat for anyone over the age of 25. It gets annoying reading trite advice written by someone that sees it as profound insight.
  - righthand 2y ago
    Don’t read it then. People are allowed to write advice you deem trite.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
Have some sympathy. She's been told she's a princess her whole life and is waiting for the rich prince to provide the IG worthy lifestyle of luxury and ease she deserves.

eluketronic 2y ago

I’ve wrestled with this idea since reading My Side of The Mountain when I was quite young. Our society and culture constantly reinforces the perceived need to make enough money to retire one day, assuming that there is a necessary amount of money one needs to continue living and that one should stop working at some point. The fear of exorbitant medical costs in our privatized healthcare system scare me into thinking I need a fortune to feel safe and be able to live a long health life. My rampant consumption and desire to live a “full” life, like those that I see posted on social media, also stoke this financial insecurity mindset—“I must have more so that I can do more so that people will know that I am fulfilled and then I will feel happy and fulfilled.”

xigency 2y ago
I'm coming to terms with the fact that if I want to leave any inheritance at all I will need to be voluntarily turning down medical care at some point in my life. I'm only 30 and I know for certain that lifespan is not the parameter I want to optimize. Rather, it is quality of life.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Turning down medical care at some point in your life maybe the right thing to do. I bet if you were to ask most doctors, one of the most heartwrenching things they are required to do is keep people alive and in pain long past the point of compassion. I am not advocating for euthanasia, but within the last 2 years I have observed such cruelty only once averted
- TaupeRanger 2y ago
  Most people agree with you until the moment they actually have to decide between further treatment and likely death. Most people simply hold on until they have no choice but to die.
- riku_iki 2y ago
  I hope to solve it through the healthy lifestyle: diet, exercises, sleep, outdoor time, stress management, so I will be healthy and active for a long time until some organ suddenly fails, so I won't spend money on medical care which observes my slowly fading body while giving some not necessary helpful treatment.

bdangubic 2y ago

the irony in all of this, is that if social media were completely eradicated from the world and everyone had a chance to look inward in order to pursue being the very best version of themselves possible, both emotionally and logistically in their career pursuits, imagine the repercussions of this and how it would positively impact our society… but alas, i’m dreaming of a world where that could never exist again. could not have said it better myself… I quit all social media and I cannot even put in words how much my life has improved since then. not only in personal aspect of not being subjected of nonsense of social media but also my social life has improved immensely. my friends of course are all on social media and any discussion that relates to it that spills into our group chats I am like “no clue and don’t give two shits about it” - glorious existence!

uncletaco 2y ago
Are you the author on an alt? This article and comment are the first time I've ever seen someone on this website not use capitalization.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  1) lots of people write like that; it's become a bit of a trend 2) the author did not capitalize "I" when referring to themselves like OP did
  - fwsgonzo 2y ago
    A trend? People never capitalized anything on IRC in the early 90s. The only time I saw it was on forums and other longer forms of text. And then eventually everyone else joined the Internet and more formal writing became the norm. Not wanting to pointlessly capitalize letters is neither here nor there. It doesn't mean anything.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
      That's fair enough but it is actually a style which some people choose for their blog. I'd also note that this post isn't on IRC; perhaps they're eschewing capitalization for some reason other than to communicate in a more natural cadence.

pdimitar 2y ago

Meh. To have a little life you have to compete for a good job so you have a good pay. The author frames it as if you can just semi-retire and still have $200K a year which is observably and factually absolutely not true. Like the tired Hollywood trope of "I am done working hard, let's just go live at this beach-front property and work whenever we like and oh, by the way, money is not a problem ever and how the frak did we buy this beach-front property again?". Like the old Angelina Jolie movie: "Life or Something Like It" (2002). Glad that the author has such a privileged life but most of us have arrived at this "wisdom" by 25 year old at the most and the depressing conclusion is that you have to keep grinding just to have this "little life". Because if you stop or even slow down, it's mostly homeless life that's awaiting you, not a little one.

the_gastropod 2y ago
Lol. This cynical attitude cracks me up so much. I lived in NYC for over 10 years. I never in my life made anywhere near $200k. I just retired this year at the ripe old age of 38. How? By following this apparently obvious "wisdom" of living simply, within my means, for ~15 years, and saving the excess. No trust funds, no Bitcoin-esque investment wins. Just saving money in boring index funds over 15 years, and living within my means.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  How much did you make per year? How many jobs did you have? How many jobs did you hop?
  - the_gastropod 2y ago
    In my most recent job, I earned $160k. During my ~15 year software development career, I worked for a total of 4 companies, none overlapping, none that required more than 40 hours per week. I saved ~60% of my take-home pay every year, and invested it in a 60/40 mix of VTSAX / VTIAX. I'm married, and my wife made $8,000 last year. I had to save enough to cover our collective expenses, otherwise this timeline would've been even faster! If you're unfamiliar, this is an excellent introduction to this concept: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... It's extremely simple. It's boring. It's slow (but much faster than the alternative!). And it works.

mattbee 2y ago

Mmmm the OP describes a very expensive mid-life retirement: an unspecified number of children, cats, a dog, a garden, living near enough a park that you might want to walk through, shopping at a farmer's market, books and art in your home, wine, and all in a "culturally rich" location! I think most humans are pleasure seeking and would choose the above, if it were a choice! But the pinnacle for most people I know would be to enjoy one or two of the above, on the margins of a hard-working life.

duxup 2y ago
It reminds me of some of the "I had a job in finance but it wasn't fulfilling so I went and did X" and X is where they take their massive nest egg and largely without much hassle just buy a nice retirement (farm or something and do wood working). It's presented as some sorta contrast / revelation, but story is one that wasn't going to happen without the first part. Reminds me of the start up that gets acquired and the former founder sitting on his pile of cash upset about what they do with his product. Bro you took gobs of money to let them do that thing ... I'd be most interested in folks jiving those two lives and how they intersect rather than the almost strange born again type stories.
K0balt 2y ago
That’s grim. There is a better way, but you can’t drink any of the kool aid. I wish I could tell other people how to do what I have done, but I have come to understand that it only works for me because i tend not to think things are important that other people value, and I value things that other people sacrifice to obtain those unimportant things. It’s worked very well for me. If I have a piece of advice I think people might be able to use, it would be to own a place. It should be cheap and have little or no property taxes. A bit of land. Maybe an acre or two. In the country but not too far off a road. It’s not an investment, it’s not your home, it’s a place. Build a house there. Build it yourself. A very modest house with your own hands. Learn how. Build a home that you can walk away from and come back in ten years and not be bothered by the inevitable decay. The absolute minimum. This is not your home. This is your refuge. Put it in a legal situation so that it can’t be taken from you (obviously this also means you don’t really own it, and can never sell it) The worst that can ever happen is that you have to go and live there while you start from zero. Now, you will never be without a place. For most people, this will be enough to give them courage to take some necessary risks. That is enough. If you want to take it farther (you probably don’t) this is what I have done, and I’m not at all alone in this experience: Once you have a place, Become unemployable. Any job is a means to a very near end. If you have to work, take a job that pays well but you hate. invest your time and resources in anything where your efforts will be rewarded disproportionally to the risks. 10:1 bets on 1000:1 odds. There are so many things that people will simply ignore because the chance of failure is 90% if done well… but there are a lot of those losing propositions that will compensate way above their risk. The hack is you can never go bust. Only your health can stop you. you have your place. You have to always be willing to put it all on the line. You can go to zero but it doesn’t matter. Just do it again. And again. And again. You get better, you get smarter, you get wiser. Eventually you win. Is it enough? If it’s not, set half aside in durable assets, and keep going. Most people are so risk averse that you will have these opportunities basically to yourself. 99.99 percent will find a reason that this won’t work for them, and they’ll be right. But sometimes you’ll run into someone else in a different stage of the same game. If they’re much farther along than you, they’ll recognise you and you might have a drink, and make a mentor. This is the most valuable relationship you will ever have. Your spouse can be replaced. Your mentor probably can’t . That’s it. Bring on the hate.

Devthrowaway80 2y ago

The rest of this persons feed is jam-packed with ludicrously pretentious photos of people posing in expensive clothing in ways clearly carefully chosen to appear spontaneous, uploaded to the internet for attention. The irony.

duxup 2y ago
I'm probably drifting from the blog post here: I'm usually averse to pointing out conflicts like you mention but there's certainly an sort of "internet culture" of playing the game of internet imagery and etc and ... decrying it / pining for something simpler / more fulfilling. They know they can just go be simpler and give it a shot right? People are full of conflicts so that alone isn't a surprise, but the scale of this seesaw on the internet feels weirdly large. I sometimes think they mean that the people they see with all the "titles, achievements, influence" are not the people they like, and some simpler ideal is just the natural argument against them. Meanwhile ... they would rather be the folks with "titles, achievements, influence.".

readthenotes1 2y ago

"there’s a pervasive myth that has seeped into every corner of our current reality claiming that in order to have a meaningful life, we’re told that worth is measured in titles, achievements, and the scope of our influence. " The formerly most pervasive myth in my culture required that in order to live a good life we should strive to treat others well. Not many did it but it seems a good aspiration, to base my self-esteem on how I treat others rather than on how they view me.

flobosg 2y ago

Along the same topic: Obituary for a quiet life (2023) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40028643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40028643

bookofjoe 2y ago

'A Little Life' https://www.amazon.com/Little-Life-Hanya-Yanagihara/dp/0804172706/ref=sr_1_1?crid=36YYAUXASQRJO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6R2SZjK73gUqi08u9pd0mo3RoNjdxigIhZDiYQkMmA1mSufytQzf8YztrHqpdEc1Ov_N-f0aewPhZJMWX4iJAGAQqxVZZeEZEmhu0_GNYrado_OMcPqsRmFZExVCPe0CVr1ico6skprLL0plgwCc4HnB3KrNb6N4DZr1FHhr705Y88jspSyawIhrsjuL2y80.ysJOodqt5Znxlw4TBmrVrhXpYfMTOMJw_7yAtOTN04s&dib_tag=se&keywords=A+little+life&qid=1737404032&s=books&sprefix=a+little+life%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Little-Life-Hanya-Yanagihara/dp/08041...

senordevnyc 2y ago
Hands down the most depressing book I’ve ever read.

redeux 2y ago

For those that don't know, the lack of capitalization is a Gen Z affect. To the people who write like this, using capitalization is a type of formality that is reserved for serious topics and is almost like most of us would consider all caps, but more nuanced. Writing is inherently a form of self-expression, and so is ripe for artistic expression. The topic and the lack of capitalization actually make a lot of sense together given the author's cultural context.

Analemma_ 2y ago
Oh please. The author describes "the little life" as an absurdly posh mid-life retirement which no actual person can afford if they don't come from immense inherited wealth: their "cultural context" is Manhattan trust fund brat. In that context, trying to look like bell hooks with the all-lowercase affect is ridiculous and bordering on offensive.
clydethefrog 2y ago
Gen Z affect? This Substack post has all the staples of a Millenial tumblr blog post, not only the lack of uppercase but also the whimsical drawings of cherished children books to emphasise the “vibe”, and the whole thesis of the post is basically promoting the hipster “”“authenticity “”” (using hipster runoff inspired use of quotes on purpose here)
- SauciestGNU 2y ago
  Man I do the quote thing and couldn't tell remember where I'd picked up that particular affect. HRO is a pretty good guess. Maybe Carles is in web heaven with MySpace Tom.
cafard 2y ago
All I can say is the John Williams's Stoner would have handed back the essay covered in red ink. For that matter, so would have John Williams himself.

deleted 2y ago

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dmje 2y ago

Well, I thought this was pretty terrific, and I'm a little sad to see some of the comments. I don't think it's a "very expensive mid-life retirement", to echo and paraphrase much of the criticism here. Yes, it could be, but it also doesn't need to be. Instead, it's about a mindset which says - I'm ok with going this far but don't feel the need to go a huge lot further. We spent the weekend with friends. She is high up working for some US corp, doing maybe £250k a year. He's in something to do with governance that I don't fully understand, on maybe £150k+. They live in a stunning house, they have insanely busy jet-setting type lives, they have two small kids, two expensive cars, endless holidays abroad, several flats that they rent out, all the trimmings. We had fun seeing them, and dipping into their life - but on the whole they seem to spend their lives being stressed, busy and not very contented. My wife and I spent the journey home thanking our stars for our much simpler, much less glamorous, much (financially) poorer lives. We live by the sea, we have raised our (now late teen / early twenties) kids by choosing to be present, and this has come at the "expense" of our careers. We've run a small business working with non-profits for 15 years where we deliberately (in order to keep a sense of life balance) choose not to grow. My wife started a floristry business because she wanted something beautiful that was hers, but she has no ambitions to make it into something enormous and unwieldy. We're in our late 40's / 50's - so I guess we partially fit the criticism, although we're far from retirement (lolz, not nearly enough cash to do that!), but on the other hand - we've always chosen to live like this. We had brief flirtations with big jobs in our mid-20's, and we had some hunger to climb a little bit up the salary pole early on, but we've both always been in and around non-profits and we've never had ambitions to be hugely wealthy or hugely successful, or hugely anything really. We just like ticking along, doing what we do, seeing some friends, writing a few songs and looking at bits of art along the way. I do fully accept that there is a whole level of shitness in environments in which you have to hold down 3 jobs in order to make ends meet, and I also feel that the current environment is pretty scary for kids just entering the job market or at the beginning of their working lives. I'm under no illusions: I've been pretty lucky in my personal and working life. But I've also made this journey making quite a lot of conscious decisions that I think can be chosen (if you want to choose them!) along the way, not just when you're older or luckier or more comfortable. You can sometimes choose (for example) to buy second hand, or to try not to take on debt, or to go for jobs that give you a better balance of time vs money. You can choose to do things cheaper. You can choose to be happier with less. You can choose experiences over objects. Having no money is awful. But having a massive ton of it with all the complexity it brings - that can be awful, too.

hprotagonist 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_of_Lisieux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_of_Lisieux also bears reading. Her "Little Way" is well worth chewing on.

jcmontx 2y ago

I'm the CTO of a small startup. Recently I bought a small farm and moved there. I will continue working remotely while also enjoying being closer to nature, eating healthier, being able to have more animals and eventually start having children with my partner. I think this is the right balance for me, but time will tell. In the meantime I'll enjoy the ride!