[HN Gopher] Life Has Several Exits
___________________________________________________________________
Life Has Several Exits
Author : lopespm
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-08-19 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lopespm.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lopespm.com)
| [deleted]
| abhayhegde wrote:
| A good thing to know is there are exits from bad things too. Exit
| from a vicious cycle, exit from a mental rut etc. While it's best
| not enter, almost everyone ends up in bad places somewhere along
| the road.
| H8crilA wrote:
| Some bad things have exits into permanently bad/worse states.
| And no, it's not required to suffer a lot to accomplish
| something meaningful, this is just a part of the christian
| mythology.
| trailingComma wrote:
| Not required, but achieving meaningful things is certainly
| easier after the type of growth that comes from overcoming
| challenges.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Some of these exits are not like the others.
| sockaddr wrote:
| Yeah and I'm surprised at the lack of "exit from parenthood"
| it's an exit that I dread even though I've just begun the
| journey. It seems like a poorly thought out piece to have
| skipped one of the core human experiences.
| nicechianti wrote:
| [dead]
| tomohelix wrote:
| I see it in another way, a bit nihilistic though. Sure, there are
| plenty of exits. But we will all have to make the final exit at
| some point. Either now or 10 years or 50 years. We will all have
| to go. And statistically, the chance that you would be someone
| who is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim. And 100
| years is, in the grand scheme of things, a blink of an eye.
|
| Even 1000 years would be inconsequential. So why fret about it?
| Life is yours. It is the only thing that is truly yours. Deal
| with it as you see fit. Including not wanting to deal with it
| anymore. It is all your choice and, in the end, we are all the
| same.
| erhaetherth wrote:
| > And statistically, the chance that you would be someone who
| is remembered 100 years from now is kind of slim
|
| FWIW I've been building a family tree recently and I've made it
| back to 1890. Don't know a lot about those folks but I do have
| pics. And they're the only tie I have to some family in Germany
| who I met just recently.
|
| Bit of a tangent though. I don't think I'll optimize for
| rememberability.
| constantly wrote:
| We spent a lot of time finding historical data from across the
| world and building our family tree back a few hundred years.
| But records didn't keep as well back then. Now everyone is
| posting everything everywhere all at once. Do you think there's
| a greater chance someone 20 generations from now will be able
| to look at TikTok and Threads archives and understand and get
| to know their forebears from 1,000 years ago? I think there's a
| good chance of that.
| Macha wrote:
| I feel I'll outlive TikTok and Threads, and that paper in
| records offices will ultimately turn out to be the most
| durable of current record formats in 20 generations.
|
| I have already outlived many of the websites where I posted
| information in my teens, and in recent days we've heard about
| even big sites like Twitter losing some historical data. Not
| to mention all the users of sites like Orkut, Google+,
| Friendfeed, Bebo, that one where you checked in your location
| that I can't even remember the name of...
| hasbot wrote:
| > So why fret about it?
|
| Well, it's the only life I'll ever have. I'd to get the most
| out of it I can.
| WalterBright wrote:
| We're all going to fall into a black hole anyway.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| > > Even 1000 years would be inconsequential so why fret about
| it?
|
| Being remembered many years in the future is very correlated
| with conspicuous consumption during the individual lifetime
|
| Especially for leaders, but even for artists who get to work
| for leaders and have their lifestyle subsidised
|
| So even if your goal is just abundance of stuff and experiences
| then seeking a position that would have you remembered 1000
| years from now is the way to go
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Your comment is naive. What does it mean to "deal with it"?
| Life is trying to understand precisely that.
| [deleted]
| hasbot wrote:
| A big one for me is exiting one city and entering another (i.e.
| moving) especially when the new city is in another state. I've
| switched cities 7 times in the last 9 years and 6 states.
| francisofascii wrote:
| [delayed]
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _Upon your exit, your contributions, actions, decisions,
| opinions and presence most likely will have affected the
| trajectories of the people and the world around you, in obvious
| and less obvious ways._
|
| Oh I wouldn't be too sure. The company that had acquired us some
| years earlier for millions of dollars then proceeded to can our
| entire division, sunset our product, and laid, more or less,
| everyone involved off. I cannot fathom what the point of the
| acquisition was: our wings were clipped before we even had a
| chance to fail; to date our acquisition is the largest unforced
| financial error I have seen made in my career, and it will be
| quite hard to top. We left no mark on the industry, the IP, if it
| still exists, will collect dust for all eternity. The company is
| no longer in the market, and I doubt ever will be again.
|
| I was fond of the product, and while the tech had the inevitable
| layers of PM-driven tech debt layered upon it, it wasn't the
| worst? The only lesson I can learn there is that caring will
| bring nothing but disappointment, and that's continued to be
| driven in by subsequent employers. Today's corporate zeitgeist
| does not want nor produce, IMO, history-changing labor2. (I think
| the ones listed are products of earlier zeitgeists that _could_
| produce such.) Employers do not value retention, so experience is
| not built within the company. The PMs driven desperate desire to
| push new features out and bugfix never do not make good products.
| The inability of today 's "agile" to handle uncertainty1 and
| dependencies means little to no planning is done (and bad tools
| like JIRA do not help here).
|
| As for getting my name carved into the annals of history ...
| screw that? Unless that's life's secret to joy and happiness (and
| I rather doubt it), I think the advice I was once given is sound
| here: walk around a graveyard and note what is written upon the
| stones: "loving mother" "caring father" -- what you don't see is
| "excellent <occupation>".
|
| I have a nephew, and I've probably left a larger mark on him and
| his life (I hope for the better) than anything I've done in my
| career, despite my career being longer than his life.
|
| 1Yes, I've read the manifesto, yes, I feel the irony in this
| statement.
|
| 2To some extent, at least two companies in FAANG I know do things
| that _do_ make for a good atmosphere ... I partly think this is
| _why_ they became part of "FAANG". I wish we could emulate some
| of their less boneheaded decisions (and ignore the boneheaded
| ones). Perhaps that would someday snowball into another letter in
| that acronym.
| Genghis_Khan wrote:
| [flagged]
| bhaney wrote:
| The typo in "your name will be engraved into the anals of
| history" really distracted me from the gravitas of the article.
| lopespm wrote:
| Good catch, thank you! Fixed it now :)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| FYI: (Based on the title) I thought this was an article about how
| people die, not about prosaic endings like graduating high school
| and retiring from your job.
| its_a_random_ac wrote:
| Yeah, I thought it was a reference to the DIY assisted suicide
| book, Final Exit.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| omoikane wrote:
| If you are interested in that kind of books, there is also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide
|
| This book used to be banned due to its contents, but in 2012
| I was able to easily buy a copy from Amazon Japan. And now
| it's only sold in their third party marketplace, not sure if
| it's banned again.
| ehPReth wrote:
| For the curious, seems to be available here:
|
| Original Japanese version with pictures/design/colour:
| https://www.mediafire.com/file/0eknpsoz6p87af8/Wan Quan Zi
| Sha maniyuaru+(He Jian ...
|
| English Machine/Human translated .txt file: https://www.med
| iafire.com/file/qb7b5ha20hyzl56/The+Complete+...
| cogogo wrote:
| I tend to read obituaries of everyday people (as opposed to the
| long form for famous people) when I see them. They are almost
| always a cruel distillation of what was certainly a far more
| complicated life. I think the tradition has evolved so they are
| written so that the people who knew them best can fill in their
| own memories. Especially when I don't know the person they feel
| callous and lacking.
| generalizations wrote:
| I imagine that's partly because the obituaries are written soon
| after the deceased's passing. Someone in the group of people
| close to the deceased has to write it, and probably someone
| less emotionally destraught by their passing. So it ends up
| colder than if someone more emotionally invested had written
| it.
| appplication wrote:
| It's also in the middle of the insane logistics that get
| dropped on you when a loved one dies. I wrote my dad's
| obituary. Three days prior none of us would have ever thought
| about it. We were dealing with figuring out what actually
| happened, planning the funeral, tracking down contact info
| and notifying friends and family who we hadn't talked to in
| sometimes decades, notifying my work, his work, medical bills
| and health insurance, life insurance claim, police reports,
| autopsy and coroner, notifying banks, canceling gym
| membership, unlocking computers and online accounts, pulling
| out old photos, actually talking to people because everyone I
| knew was suddenly messaging at once, coordinating family
| flights and housing from overseas... it's just one of an
| crazy number of tasks at that point. You want to do a good
| job, but you also very quickly want it behind you.
|
| I recall talking to the newspaper and they said it was
| something like $40 for a text obit, and $75 for one with a
| picture. For whatever stupid reason I was on autopilot frugal
| instincts and went with the lower cost option. It didn't even
| occur to me until days later that was the dumbest place to
| save money, and not even that much.
| cheema33 wrote:
| It has been suggested that one should write their own
| obituary. It gives you perspective. I just tried writing my
| own and it was a depressing affair. Maybe I need to
| reconsider my priorities.
|
| Also, it goes without saying that your loved ones will
| appreciate it when you do finally kick the bucket.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-08-19 23:00 UTC)