Formulas are like magic spells. You don’t get to use them without understanding what they mean, and more importantly what they assume.
Readit NewsSnowHill9902 commented on Confronting failure as a core life skill buildinghealthier.substac... · Posted by u/blh75
It feels like I have failed in every way that is possible.
I have lost my wife, my child, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my house burned down with all of my possessions. I lost my ability to code due to burnout and had to spend several years doing nothing.
During my burnout experience I was basically forced to confront the roaring void of existence. I spent time at a monastery and contemplated the futility of it all.
And yet at the end of all of this, I considered what else is there to do with life but to begin anew? And now that I have lost everything, I am no longer naive. I know what is possible to have, and what is possible to lose, and I can act with understanding from past experience. I feel far more capable of success now that I know what it is to fail in the hardest ways I can imagine.
Read the book of Job.
> The buyer usually waits until the very last minute, then drops the bomb on the seller "Btw, we can't do the deal anymore at this price, but we can sign tomorrow for 30% less". The sad part is it's such a common tactic and PE firms will do things like encourage founders to get their whole team excited about the transaction -before- dropping the bomb / new deal terms. At which point the founder is basically trapped with their whole team excited about an exit, which PE then exploits.
Eh, this was tried on a friend of mine selling his company. He simply said "the deal's off" and walked away. A couple weeks later, he got another call which said "ok" and he got the full price.
> That also puts bootsrapped companies at a severe disadvantage
It's very simple. Just say "no". It's an incredibly powerful tool. It's crucial to getting a proper deal on anything from selling/buying your house, your car, to your company. Be ready to walk away. Sometimes by the time you started your car and are backing out of the parking spot, they'll come running out and say "ok".
But you gotta mean it when you say "no" or you'll fail. They can smell weakness.
“You have to be prepared to walk away.”
Ever been to Disney world?
When you first walk through the gate it's like 8am and it's incredible. There's so much to do and see. So much potential. You don't know where to start.
So you get a map and you look at all the rides and attractions and you start doing them by what interests you.
As the day goes on, you're having a great time but you kinda have to take a break at 3-4pm because your feet kinda hurt and youre hungry.
But you still have the other half of the park to get to so you get back to it.
Eventually, night time rolls around and you did everything you wanted to do. You rode all the rides that looked fun, and you saw all the attractions that looked fun.
Now, you have been wandering around main street looking at all the shops, wondering what you're going to buy as you wait for the fireworks display, and you realize, you're exhausted. You have been on your feet since early this morning. You have walked literally 20 miles today. You have had a great time though.
The firework show starts and it's just fantastic. It spends the rest of the mental energy you have and then it's time to head back to the hotel and go to sleep.
Now instead, imagine that someone locks the front gate and you can never leave. You can never go home. You can never sleep again. You must stay in the park forever. Imagine how exhausting that sounds...
Obviously I am equating this to the life events of being born, being a kid, living life as a young adult through mature adult, through your senior years until it's time for you to pass on. And being trapped in the park is like living forever...
Realize that by the time it's all over, you should be able to look back and say "I rode all the rides I wanted and I eat all the waffle cake I could", rather than "Boy I really wish I didn't complain that my feet were sore for an hour and I never got to ride that one ride".
Except that life is not for enjoyment and entertainment.
I know it’s only tangential related to the topic, but reading this article just overflows me with this feeling I’m describing below. I didn’t voice this out somewhere before, it somehow just started very recently and it’s so difficult for me to let go of it.
I can’t get over the fact that we all must die. Everybody you ever knew and could be able to know will. You who are reading this message, I, all the other significant people in our lives, all the users on this platform. Everybody who is right now experiencing their consciousness in this universe. All the consciousnesses before - the person in the article who asked to tell the bees about their dead.
It’s as if whatever is and ever could be completely collapses once your consciousness is gone. Saying it doesn’t make sense to try to make sense about it makes no sense because once it’s over it’s as if there never was and will be no sense to begin with.
It’s filling me with nothing but deep dread, tears, pain and suffering all over my body.
Still, beautiful to see how others tried to cope with it by telling the bees.
“Yes, and?”
—- that’s a Zen response not a snarky question.
SnowHill9902 commented on The real lesson of The Truman Show theatlantic.com/culture/a... · Posted by u/ecliptik
I found the religious themes interesting. There's the famous Problem of Evil in religion.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?"
I've actually used the movie when arguing about religion, because it makes for an interesting parallel. Christof plays the role of a mostly benevolent, power limited God.
And he does his best (of course not perfect) attempt to give Truman a good life. And Truman at the start seems quite happy and positive, until things start falling apart because Christof isn't powerful enough to keep up the illusion.
It's very interesting to me that people give the Christian god a pass for doing a worse job than Christof does in the movie.
The answer is that good and evil are just human perspectives. His plan is beyond our understanding and is neither good nor evil.
Stay humble.
SnowHill9902 commented on Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half theguardian.com/science/2... · Posted by u/bichonnages
I just wonder how we've not been able to make a drug to increase lean mass without negative effect on cardiovascular system
Increase your natural T. Doubt you maxed it.
If the fundamental part of your argument played any role in medicine, then all the >$1M cancer treatments would be practically free too.
Pharmaceutical companies are not charging for the cost it took to develop that drug, but for the rolling cost it’ll take to develop future ones.
Belief in astrology puts words to the chaos and randomness of life. There's something very human about how we try to add life and agency to everything: mother earth, ghosts, forests, grumpy co-workers, broken toasters, and the actions of those around us that don't make sense. We try to breathe life and meaning into everything. That's why I don't get too keyed up about it. I think plenty of people "believe" in astrology about as much as they believe the toaster hates them, which is probably quite a bit.
We have to remember, as STEM people we have to see the world exactly as it is, without any superstition or mystery. But the average person has the ability to live in a world filled with mystery and magic that is backed by a lifetime of confirmation bias.