4 ms·

I bought a steel bike, grabbed my hammock, and went on a 4 day 250 mile solo adventure through the Texas hill country. Riding through empty valleys at sunset w

I bought a steel bike, grabbed my hammock, and went on a 4 day 250 mile solo adventure through the Texas hill country. Riding through empty valleys at sunset with a herd of deer pacing alongisde me was enough to break me into tears. It's what I needed to move on.

duxup 2y ago
It is interesting how many stories in a way involve running or moving away from the lifestyle that ... bought them a new lifestyle.
- hipadev23 2y ago
  Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit.
  - sebmellen 2y ago
    There is a luxury class at both ends of the economic spectrum, as Veblen observed.
    - tasuki 2y ago
      *leisure, I suppose. I'd love to read more on that. Is that from "The Theory of the Leisure Class"?
      - klik99 2y ago
        I don't remember that particular observation being in the book since it's very much about the upper class, but that book is amazing. I used to keep an rss feed of new project gutenberg books and when that popped up I read it just based on the name and was amazed how pertinent it was a hundred years later. I haven't read anything else by him, but that one is absolutely worth it. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833 Also since it was written when the vestiages of european feudal system still had some tiny amount of power, some of the observations about lords who owned massive estates but had no money and would refuse to take on any work, considering it "beneath them" while they starved was fascinating. It's both of it's time and timeless
      - sebmellen 2y ago
        Thank you for correcting. I can no longer edit the parent comment and was sleep deprived while writing it. But yes!
    - taneq 2y ago
      The trick is to attain leisure while also having the resources to live safely and comfortably.
      - tasuki 2y ago
        Is it? I have friends who have very little money. Ok, they live safely, but not comfortably by any stretch. They value their leisure and live a good life. I'm also friends with people who became very rich. In their own ways, they all continue working hard.
        taneq 2y ago
        > Ok, they live safely, but not comfortably by any stretch. > They value their leisure and live a good life. There's an inherent contradiction here unless you believe you can live a 'good life' (which I would expect to be free from excessive discomfort?) while also living 'not comfortably by any stretch'. You also have to consider what 'safely' means here. Sure, it means walls and a door so that you don't freeze to death or get eaten by dingoes or (insert local hazard here), but beyond the immediate, it also means having resources to obtain medical aid if required, ensure food supply and other necessities even in the face of unforeseen circumstances, etc. It's possible to 'live a good life' with no resources while everything goes in your favour but it rapidly gets awful if that changes. On your second point, I'd imagine that the people who became very rich did so because they're constitutionally unable to just relax and coast.
        tasuki 2y ago
        I don't see the "inherent contradiction". Discomfort, as long as it's chosen and not imposed, is not much of a problem. Yes, wrt safety it's hazy. Eastern Europe, so it's reasonably safe, and also we don't take safety as seriously as the Westerners. Our medical aid is all right. They have enough money to eat, but you'd be surprised how cheap and basic a diet can be. > It's possible to 'live a good life' with no resources while everything goes in your favour but it rapidly gets awful if that changes. Oh. It's possible to suffer even with infinite resources. Things can go horribly wrong. Health problems. Death. Other kinds of trauma. > On your second point, I'd imagine that the people who became very rich did so because they're constitutionally unable to just relax and coast. Yes, though some are learning and have improved a lot :)
  - mewmew 2y ago
    Haha, I almost never reply on HN. But the Office Space ref made my day <3
  - technol0gic 2y ago
    my favorite quote in the whole movie
    - acjohnson55 2y ago
      I celebrate the [movie's] entire catalog
  - Grosvenor 2y ago
    Yeah but if you had a million dollars you could do two chicks at the same time. and if you were a millionaire, I bet you could hook that up. Chicks dig dudes with money.
- jborden13 2y ago
  When something consumes you so rabidly and ferociously for so long, and then is just gone (poof), it leaves you searching. Searching for recovery and meaning. It's 4 years later, and I'm still searching...
  - csallen 2y ago
    My discovery having gone through something similar: If something made you happy and gave you purpose before, it probably will again. So just do it again. The second time around, you may discover that finding success, getting rich, etc., wasn't actually the reason you were doing it.
    - jborden13 2y ago
      Getting rich was never the reason. I was a solo bootstrapper who rarely got paid for a decade+. If it was about the $ I would've dipped week one of the startup. My issue is product market fit. I've been building different ideas for the past few years, but traction has eluded me.
      - csallen 2y ago
        Out of curiosity, what have you built? Also, do you enjoy the process of building things?
        jborden13 2y ago
        I love building things - it's my passion in life. I loathe when I build something and it doesn't get traction. I'm all for learning, but I'm truly here for the traction. Here's a list of some things I built in the past few years: - AI Agent Generator: Created no-code platform for customizable AI agents with a MidJourney & RAG/VectorDB document and crawled website integration. - AI-Enabled Town: Crawled all of my tourist town's destinations, retail stores and their products and then tied them into a React Shopify sales channel. Built an agent to interact with and it links to products and locations as it chats. - Job-Matching Browser Extension: Developed Chrome/Firefox extension to analyze job fit and generate multilingual resumes/cover letters in 26 languages. - Job-Searching Agent: Developed MacOS and Winows Electron app to perform a number of searches on popular job website and stream a list of jobs and a % of how the user matches up, so they can focus their time applying instead of sifting through job descriptions.
JALTU 2y ago
Steel is real. And comes in colors other than black! :)
- lobsterthief 2y ago
  Even stainless steel ;)
misiti3780 2y ago
Did you read Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson yet? If you have not, stop what you are doing and read them, especially the first two. He spends a lot of time talking about Hill Country. I suspect you will find them very interesting having spent so much time there.

duxup 2y ago

It is interesting how many stories in a way involve running or moving away from the lifestyle that ... bought them a new lifestyle.

hipadev23 2y ago
Well, you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit.
- sebmellen 2y ago
  There is a luxury class at both ends of the economic spectrum, as Veblen observed.
  - tasuki 2y ago
    *leisure, I suppose. I'd love to read more on that. Is that from "The Theory of the Leisure Class"?
    - klik99 2y ago
      I don't remember that particular observation being in the book since it's very much about the upper class, but that book is amazing. I used to keep an rss feed of new project gutenberg books and when that popped up I read it just based on the name and was amazed how pertinent it was a hundred years later. I haven't read anything else by him, but that one is absolutely worth it. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833 Also since it was written when the vestiages of european feudal system still had some tiny amount of power, some of the observations about lords who owned massive estates but had no money and would refuse to take on any work, considering it "beneath them" while they starved was fascinating. It's both of it's time and timeless
    - sebmellen 2y ago
      Thank you for correcting. I can no longer edit the parent comment and was sleep deprived while writing it. But yes!
  - taneq 2y ago
    The trick is to attain leisure while also having the resources to live safely and comfortably.
    - tasuki 2y ago
      Is it? I have friends who have very little money. Ok, they live safely, but not comfortably by any stretch. They value their leisure and live a good life. I'm also friends with people who became very rich. In their own ways, they all continue working hard.
      - taneq 2y ago
        > Ok, they live safely, but not comfortably by any stretch. > They value their leisure and live a good life. There's an inherent contradiction here unless you believe you can live a 'good life' (which I would expect to be free from excessive discomfort?) while also living 'not comfortably by any stretch'. You also have to consider what 'safely' means here. Sure, it means walls and a door so that you don't freeze to death or get eaten by dingoes or (insert local hazard here), but beyond the immediate, it also means having resources to obtain medical aid if required, ensure food supply and other necessities even in the face of unforeseen circumstances, etc. It's possible to 'live a good life' with no resources while everything goes in your favour but it rapidly gets awful if that changes. On your second point, I'd imagine that the people who became very rich did so because they're constitutionally unable to just relax and coast.
        tasuki 2y ago
        I don't see the "inherent contradiction". Discomfort, as long as it's chosen and not imposed, is not much of a problem. Yes, wrt safety it's hazy. Eastern Europe, so it's reasonably safe, and also we don't take safety as seriously as the Westerners. Our medical aid is all right. They have enough money to eat, but you'd be surprised how cheap and basic a diet can be. > It's possible to 'live a good life' with no resources while everything goes in your favour but it rapidly gets awful if that changes. Oh. It's possible to suffer even with infinite resources. Things can go horribly wrong. Health problems. Death. Other kinds of trauma. > On your second point, I'd imagine that the people who became very rich did so because they're constitutionally unable to just relax and coast. Yes, though some are learning and have improved a lot :)
- mewmew 2y ago
  Haha, I almost never reply on HN. But the Office Space ref made my day <3
- technol0gic 2y ago
  my favorite quote in the whole movie
  - acjohnson55 2y ago
    I celebrate the [movie's] entire catalog
- Grosvenor 2y ago
  Yeah but if you had a million dollars you could do two chicks at the same time. and if you were a millionaire, I bet you could hook that up. Chicks dig dudes with money.
jborden13 2y ago
When something consumes you so rabidly and ferociously for so long, and then is just gone (poof), it leaves you searching. Searching for recovery and meaning. It's 4 years later, and I'm still searching...
- csallen 2y ago
  My discovery having gone through something similar: If something made you happy and gave you purpose before, it probably will again. So just do it again. The second time around, you may discover that finding success, getting rich, etc., wasn't actually the reason you were doing it.
  - jborden13 2y ago
    Getting rich was never the reason. I was a solo bootstrapper who rarely got paid for a decade+. If it was about the $ I would've dipped week one of the startup. My issue is product market fit. I've been building different ideas for the past few years, but traction has eluded me.
    - csallen 2y ago
      Out of curiosity, what have you built? Also, do you enjoy the process of building things?
      - jborden13 2y ago
        I love building things - it's my passion in life. I loathe when I build something and it doesn't get traction. I'm all for learning, but I'm truly here for the traction. Here's a list of some things I built in the past few years: - AI Agent Generator: Created no-code platform for customizable AI agents with a MidJourney & RAG/VectorDB document and crawled website integration. - AI-Enabled Town: Crawled all of my tourist town's destinations, retail stores and their products and then tied them into a React Shopify sales channel. Built an agent to interact with and it links to products and locations as it chats. - Job-Matching Browser Extension: Developed Chrome/Firefox extension to analyze job fit and generate multilingual resumes/cover letters in 26 languages. - Job-Searching Agent: Developed MacOS and Winows Electron app to perform a number of searches on popular job website and stream a list of jobs and a % of how the user matches up, so they can focus their time applying instead of sifting through job descriptions.

JALTU 2y ago

Steel is real. And comes in colors other than black! :)

lobsterthief 2y ago
Even stainless steel ;)

misiti3780 2y ago

Did you read Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson yet? If you have not, stop what you are doing and read them, especially the first two. He spends a lot of time talking about Hill Country. I suspect you will find them very interesting having spent so much time there.