by hmart on 1/9/21, 8:10 PM with 143 comments
by every on 1/9/21, 10:42 PM
by labster on 1/9/21, 10:11 PM
by _huayra_ on 1/10/21, 8:27 AM
After feeling stuck for a long time and trying to read my way out of it (swerving between Tim Ferris-esque books about "life hacks" and unhelpful emotion-laden books with banal platitudes), the one book that has really helped me lately is How We Change [0].
I am not wont to recommend books, as I get really annoyed by the sort of folks who recommend personal growth / self-help books (again, mostly banal platitudes and unactionable faux-insights). I hope my post history shows I am not one of these types of people. However, this book has really helped me turn a corner like no other has.
The gist is that when you _don't_ pursue something you want to do (e.g. learn Haskell, Unix, or the other wonderful suggestions in this thread and many others on HN) and feel flummoxed at how you continually stymie your own best intentions, you _are_ actually making a choice (i.e., to stay put); it's not some bad-faith abdication of agency. When one chooses to stay stuck (or "petrified", an apt term used by the author), one is actually choosing to preserve a sense of hope for the future; one preserves it from the painful feelings of failure that one anticipates will come due to a lack of faith in oneself to make meaningful progress towards things one deems to be important.
The best way out of this trap (besides being aware that you are making a choice, instead of giving up) is to do something extremely simple on a regular basis (daily if possible) that helps you realize you have agency. As goofy as it sounds, I have started a lot of habits because of the "habit tracking" feature in Emacs' org mode (just to make all of the little marks in the agenda go green).
Whether it is meditating for one minute, writing "hello world" is Haskell for the umpteenth time just to write _some_ Haskell each day (even on bad days), or anything else, that will slowly help you feel unstuck.
[0] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-change-ross-el...
by submeta on 1/9/21, 9:31 PM
by helmholtz on 1/9/21, 9:39 PM
by dmos62 on 1/10/21, 12:55 AM
by vecinu on 1/9/21, 10:48 PM
I was really hoping he would mention having a social life as a secret to longevity, referencing the Harvard study on happiness and living long. [1] He briefly mentions his friend from Canada, I wonder if they still go on walks together or if he passed away and made new friends in the mean time. Getting old is hard because your friends pass away.
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-8...
by djedr on 1/9/21, 9:41 PM
what caught my attention is that when asked about his secret to longevity, he said that he eats lots of fruit and takes cold showers
not the first time I'm hearing about cold showers being beneficial; been doing that myself regularly for a few months and I definitely find benefits
this is definitely encouraging to continue
does anybody have a longer experience with cold showers and can share any findings?
by kowlo on 1/9/21, 10:05 PM
by lifeisstillgood on 1/10/21, 12:55 AM
good luck to him
by asxd on 1/9/21, 10:28 PM
by commonturtle on 1/11/21, 9:26 PM
by mmhsieh on 1/9/21, 11:38 PM
by rhdxmr on 1/10/21, 8:23 AM
by vuciv1 on 1/9/21, 9:37 PM
I can't find much convincing official research (just blogs) to support that cold showers are beneficial to skincare, but I've been taking them nonetheless, and honestly, my pores have looked better :)
by gchamonlive on 1/9/21, 11:55 PM
It could also be a matter of language, and words can't convey the elders experiences as effectively as it could in simples times, where symbols did not need to account for vastly different experiences. So when someone says "I don't regret working hard" in the context of a village, where hard work is essencial, It could mean something else completely to someone who grew up with absent parents, who devoted their lives to work and didn't pay attention their children. And theses discrepancies permeates the entirety of the discourse.
To rescue the value of elderly advice I suggest more context is needed, at least more than a 4 minutes video could possibly convey.
by dzink on 1/9/21, 10:11 PM
by jp57 on 1/9/21, 11:23 PM
Every interview with a centenarian asks "what's the secret of your longevity?" They answer and we all nod and stroke our chins and think maybe there's something to that cold shower thing after all. Or whatever. If his secret had been that he drinks three Dr. Peppers a day, or that he does a headstand for five minutes every morning at sunrise, our response would be the same.
He no more knows the secret of his longevity than a gambler knows the secret of a hot streak. Like every centenarian, he's on the mother of all hot streaks, that's all. Our impulse to find some causal agency that we can understand and adopt is no different than a gambler's. When he said "fruit and cold showers", it's no different than saying "if I stand on one foot and close my left eye when I throw the dice, I don't crap out."
I have to think that he knows this and he's just humoring us because he knows we want an answer other than ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. After all, we are all just children to him.
by superdeeda on 1/9/21, 9:26 PM