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My Love, Hate, Love Again, Affair with Paul Graham
- mahmud 18y agothis is how good people are made into cult-figures; please do not idolize hackers, they don't care if you do.
- unalone 18y agoI'll play devil's advocate and say that it's not making the guy into a cult figure, it's writing about one person's relationship with his writings. That ought to happen with any good writer and thinker: they should build relationships with people on the basis of their work alone. I have a similar relationship with PG's essays, though mine's not a particularly strong one. My cofounder, on the other hand, quotes PG essays a lot, looks into a lot of the things he recommends, and definitely has had his mindset changed a few times over the course of reading his archives. That's what's so cool about writing! When you make an essay you're putting a part of yourself - your opinions along with your personality - out there for anybody to see. It builds a connection with people, lots of people, on the fact of its sheer existence. That's not a cult. That's good writing.
- mahmud 18y agoMaybe we work differently, but I certainly associate with ideas rather than their originators. The fame of a successful work should eclipse the fame of its author in hacking, unlike other fluffy fields of work like management and self-help industries (hint: the "Linux Torvalds" effect.) I don't know if it's the intention of PG to become a "Get Rich Quick" guru, but to me he is the author of ANSI CL and On Lisp, a decent human being in the same league as Norvig, Kent Pitman and Dick Gabriel. Actually, I like Paul Graham more than "PG", thanks to all this idol-worshiping. Whatever that guy wrote in his blog should have been a private email. Better yet, a personal diary entry in _paper_.
- unalone 18y agoWhy? Making that stuff public should be totally fine. (I get some flack because on my blog I write literally everything I think of, whether it's personal relationships, religious philosophy, web design, or what ever; I get emails regularly asking me to at least tag my various posts for easier consumption and I refuse, because for me that's not what my blog is.) I find a fascination with people: why they build what they do. So while I love books, I tend to love the authors of said books just as much.
- mahmud 18y agoFirst of all, go to the root of the website and see the promotional weight-loss program therein (no comment.) Secondly, go through the essay again and you will find someone who is attributing his life choices, good or bad, to someone else who he has never consulted, met in person or even corresponded with: > "Alone in my room I rolled on the carpet and screamed “I love you, Paul Graham.” " This is after reading "A Taste for Makers" >"Over the next three years I must have read A Taste For Makers at least twenty times." Biblical exegesis? >" I felt bad because your writings had more influence on me than my own father." Completely unwilling to accept/admit that his life choices, influenced by an external input (in this case PG's writings), are still his own. > "Admittedly I am a nobody compared to you but a part of me was a tad jealous of your success. " No comment. >At this point I figured you had completely lost it. Your stature as a guru was toast! See, he wants a guru.
- unalone 18y agoOh. I kind of thought he was being ridiculously over-the-top for the sake of it. Taking this at face value makes it really creepy.
- jshen 18y agoI hope you aren't conflating "decent human being" with technical skill.
- mahmud 18y ago
- sho 18y agoJesus christ. I guess this is the downside of being famous - random crazy people start fixating upon you as their leader/friend/saviour/nemesis/soulmate and reading all sorts of crap into every aspect of their life, when all you were trying to do was write a decent essay. What do you even say to people like this. Dude .. I don't know what you are looking for, but it is almost certain you will not find it in PG. This kind of thing scares me, it really does. Intelligent person .. good writing, obviously can express himself well .. but this search, this willingness to devote himself to something, someone, anything .. this is a serious bug in man's programming. I don't know the answer.
- mrtron 18y agoI think the downside is easily outweighed by being able to inspire people.
- unalone 18y agoI said this in my below comment, but... Don't people do the same thing with any kind of artist? I know that I feel I have a personal relationship with David Lynch that's evolved as I watch his movies. I definitely have that relationship with author Daniel Handler: I'll find an old interview of his and feel slightly wounded, like he didn't tell me about it before. That's natural. We devote ourselves all the times to good things. Do you ever get into web browser fights? Or Mac vs. PC arguments? Hacker News versus Digg? Because that's all devotion.
- sho 18y agoI don't get into any of those arguments. Except Mac vs. PC, which is on very specific technical and aesthetic grounds! Regarding "personal relationships" with cultural authors, all I can offer is Neal Stephenson's Why I Am A Bad Correspondent, which explains better than I ever could: http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Bad_Correspondent.html http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Bad_... By the way, I also like Lynch. And I bet you also like Stephenson. I wonder if there's some ultra-narrow cultural niche we all fit into ; )
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- tipjoy 18y agoUm, early April Fools joke? Oh and did you go to the homepage: http://www.gicleelife.com http://www.gicleelife.com ? I'm laughing, anyway.
- gcheong 18y agoLooks like you could add Tim Ferris to this guy's list of "heroes"?
- jrnkntl 18y agoSeriously, he broke up with his GF in an email?
- time_management 18y agoHe also posted her picture, which is (1) somewhat inapprpropriate, and (2) makes him look even dumber, because she's absolutely gorgeous, and it sounds like there was nothing wrong with the relationship. If you have to dump a good relationship with a beautiful girl, you're doing it wrong.
- latortuga 18y agoBecause her beauty is really all that matters in a relationship.
- time_management 18y agoIt's not, but it's all the information I have in this case. I don't know anything about her aside from her picture, included with the essay, and what's contained in the breakup letter. Let's recap: he was with her for a year and thought he was going to marry her. She's very attractive, and they look happy together. I'd argue strongly that he'd need a very strong reason to break up with her, and the email doesn't provide one (although it does provide her with good reason to break with him).
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- yan 18y agoReminds me of: http://daniellefong.com/2008/04/11/one-response-to-rejection/ http://daniellefong.com/2008/04/11/one-response-to-rejection... People take this way too seriously.
- simplegeek 18y ago>> PG says all you need is a copy of K&R and a Linux box Did PG really say this ?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- delano 18y ago"[3] Learning to hack is a lot cheaper than business school, because you can do it mostly on your own. For the price of a Linux box, a copy of K&R, and a few hours of advice from your neighbor's fifteen year old son, you'll be well on your way." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
- simplegeek 18y agoAh. Thank you.
- akkartik 18y agoRecent related thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=527064 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=527064
- philelly 18y agoi think people are going a little overboard about this. it was a humorous essay, reflecting real events probably but told in an exaggerated style. (i do admit that the part about the dad and girlfriend pushed the humor into something a bit awkward.) i thought his observations about paul's essays were pretty spot-on, and i'm surprised few people have mentioned this.
- ssharp 18y agoWonderful satire!
- ewjordan 18y agoDamn...make sure you don't miss the breakup letter he sent to his ex-gf: http://www.gicleelife.com/email.php http://www.gicleelife.com/email.php My summary: You're kind of a pain in my ass and I can't waste time on your Emotions if I want to be a Success. Let's be friends, cya! ;D I hate to judge people on their personal matters, but this was published and prominently linked, so it's fair game: that's some real cold stuff. I'm all for ambition and wanting to succeed, and it's true that I know nothing about the relationship (there may be plenty of other factors that change things), but to me it's still important to maintain some level of compassion and decency in your human interactions, especially outside of business - at least without context, the lack of tact and general bluntness seem to indicate a real sensitivity problem. To me that's an entirely inappropriate way to end what you once considered a serious relationship, not to mention the inherent cruelty of an e-mail breakup, and the further salt-in-wound damage you inflict by posting the letter online... Am I alone here?
- YuriNiyazov 18y agoI actually don't know why people knock on "You weren't meant to have a boss", even the original, stronger version.