Ask HN: What do you care about? What is your joy and purpose?
What do you care about these days? The world feels so misaligned directionally and work is all in service of some esoteric AI that just strips the beauty from various crafts. What are you finding joy and purpose in for your own life and wellbeing?
Csikszentmihalyi did research around what gives people joy. From that, he introduced the concept of Flow in 1975, which is often misunderstood.
Flow is my definition of joy. You do something that needs intense focus. The focus makes you lose sense of self and time. You're too focused to be self-conscious. You don't overthink. You move fluidly.
I don't have fixed hobbies. I did boxing for half the year just because I love the feel of redirecting energy from my toes to my fists. But something like climbing or basketball works too.
Work can give flow too, it's just programming and writing the way we're usually taught is quite bad for it. One hack is to write at the speed of thought and then edit it afterwards, instead of doing block by block.
Meditation makes everything more pleasurable because you learn to silence all the internal voices and ambient thoughts. You learn to empty your mind and other emotions. You focus on the present. And once you can do this, you can apply the same to work or other less joyful activities.
As for purpose, it's the long term, the infinite game as described by Carse. Not just the afterlife, but what lies beyond death - family, community, country, humanity, ethics. Purpose has been solved many centuries ago, just RTFM.
I derive joy from writing about things I care about. I derive joy from writing code. I derive joy from working out and seeing myself getting stronger. I derive joy from knowing I'm becoming a better person.
My purpose? I don't know. I just want to be financially successful and help people who have known me when I was a nobody, and also people who need assistance.
Experiencing new things with people i enjoy being around. People tend to stay in their comfort zones, and miss out on things that could become their new favorite hobby, food, or destination. There's so much in this world to experience and learn from, and it does take courage sometimes to step out of the comfort zone. But I find that doing so with friends encourages me to take that step more easily, and results often become core memories.
doing something that you love, creating something new using AI, well happiness comes from within, you create the feeling while doing something that you love
I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the state of the world these days. Returning to the teachings of the stoics has really helped me (Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius)
“Some things in this world are up to us, while others are not.
Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, aversion —in short everything that is our own doing. Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations and our positions —in short everything that is not our own doing.”
The things you control are in you. Maximize those and find satisfaction in that. The things outside of your control are not your concern. Let them go.
I care about being at peace; my entire life has been "the next thing". Started in my childhood and continues into my mid 40-s. Nothing is sweet, nothing is savoured. It's always "what's next?"
My joy and my purpose is to help those around me and to get the feedback that they appreciate it. My purpose is to earn money so my wife can do the things she loves and not have to worry about working, so my mom's health is looked after and so, at some point, I can go do something that brings me peace.
I think it's important to focus on self-development / mastery of skills, even if they are theoretically replaceable by an AI or technology more generally.
For example – maybe AI will make 90% of video editing work unnecessary. But knowing how to edit video properly, when to cut, how to tell stories, etc. is an invaluable skill that is worth learning.
I think this applies to pretty much any skill. Just because a computer can do it doesn't mean it's not worth mastering on an individual level.
I agree but differently. My opinion, is that we see soooo much of AI slop without any intent or taste behind it while being completely bland.
I think that it is just up to taking responsibility of your output which can be the key factor into what I call authenticity, because what I am seeing is people not take responsibility of AI generated output and sometimes even push it to production.
Tangentially, hackernews itself is sometimes filled with 100% AI slop articles/posts which is a bit sad... :-(
The latest term for this in the AI-hype-sphere seems to be "intent" but I like to call it authenticity behind who the person is behind any output perhaps IMO.
Simon's article about taking responsibility also is an interesting read and I still like his mostly nuanced opinions rather than complete AI hype which is a bit rare. I respect both simon and mitchell and their opinions for the most part regarding things in this space and its always good to have a discussion with them.
Edit: I have edited my post to explain better as to what I was saying.
I think world is big. I mean: universe, technologies, quantum effect, love. There are many interesting things besides AI.
What I really trust - only technologies can help us to improve our life and make unlimited experience.
i used to and still care about science and tech, im not much of an arts person but have a very strong opinion that narrow AI cant ever replace human creativity
it can be an enhancer/augmenter though, so almost all the work that used to be meaningful should still be the same
about the world, i mean all the hype is powered by giants and they are the ones who feed on it so public narrative is polluted for their personal gains apart from a niche group of people.
AI is like a mirror reflecting the user. As I continuously improve my own capabilities, I am interested in checking how far the AI reflecting me develops.
I care about arch, design more than ever before as it is a lot easier now.
During the dark days of human slop, the progress was hindered by so many factors -- layers of abstractions, answers hidden behind thin documentation, self-important experts gatekeeping the knowledge, forums doling out rtfm attitude.
Now, it's just a matter of pointing a pack of llm in that direction, and with inquiry based learning, suddenly you are back in control. Heck, to get setup with eval boards and toolchain, it would've cost thousands of dollars 20 years ago.
LLM has allowed me to spend more time on hobbies, at the same time make new tech domain lot more approachable.
Being frugal really helps too - my job might disappear any time.
I wrote this in my personal diary just today before going to eat for some french fries and coding some questions on codeforces: "I wish to code for myself, nothing else"
I do think that I have the privilege for doing exactly that as I am going to college and many people within the workforce don't exactly have that choice but I believe that long term, the consequences of completely using AI for anything and everything is going to bite, so I am comfortable for the next 4 years to come.
It's not that I dislike AI the tech, but I hate AI, everything surrounding it. We have the abilities to ask it customized questions to learn so much which we previously couldn't have, (Yes AI is still sycophantic and one can say that its a better search engine) but instead, we are using it to completely automate ourselves or creating a set of expectations and ineffectiveness around the competent management around it.
My purpose: I don't think that there's one. We all just exist and I don't wish to die. So I have constructed my purpose around staying alive as an absolute baseline. Everything is built on top of it.
I think that my purpose is to feel alive probably which requires passion,dedication,failure/struggle, acceptance and perhaps friendship and love. I recently heard a line which struck with me is that: "Life has so much to offer, why are we stuck at only one emotion of happiness, why not just be alive"
I want to do better and be more competitive for the sake of it because I like doing the thing and improving at it.
Thus, I wish to code for myself, nothing else, except eating french fries of course :)
most of my week is screens, the joy is whatever forces slowness.
Flow is my definition of joy. You do something that needs intense focus. The focus makes you lose sense of self and time. You're too focused to be self-conscious. You don't overthink. You move fluidly.
I don't have fixed hobbies. I did boxing for half the year just because I love the feel of redirecting energy from my toes to my fists. But something like climbing or basketball works too.
Work can give flow too, it's just programming and writing the way we're usually taught is quite bad for it. One hack is to write at the speed of thought and then edit it afterwards, instead of doing block by block.
Meditation makes everything more pleasurable because you learn to silence all the internal voices and ambient thoughts. You learn to empty your mind and other emotions. You focus on the present. And once you can do this, you can apply the same to work or other less joyful activities.
As for purpose, it's the long term, the infinite game as described by Carse. Not just the afterlife, but what lies beyond death - family, community, country, humanity, ethics. Purpose has been solved many centuries ago, just RTFM.
I derive joy from writing about things I care about. I derive joy from writing code. I derive joy from working out and seeing myself getting stronger. I derive joy from knowing I'm becoming a better person.
My purpose? I don't know. I just want to be financially successful and help people who have known me when I was a nobody, and also people who need assistance.
I don't really know how to answer this.
“Some things in this world are up to us, while others are not. Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, aversion —in short everything that is our own doing. Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations and our positions —in short everything that is not our own doing.”
The things you control are in you. Maximize those and find satisfaction in that. The things outside of your control are not your concern. Let them go.
My joy and my purpose is to help those around me and to get the feedback that they appreciate it. My purpose is to earn money so my wife can do the things she loves and not have to worry about working, so my mom's health is looked after and so, at some point, I can go do something that brings me peace.
For example – maybe AI will make 90% of video editing work unnecessary. But knowing how to edit video properly, when to cut, how to tell stories, etc. is an invaluable skill that is worth learning.
I think this applies to pretty much any skill. Just because a computer can do it doesn't mean it's not worth mastering on an individual level.
I think that it is just up to taking responsibility of your output which can be the key factor into what I call authenticity, because what I am seeing is people not take responsibility of AI generated output and sometimes even push it to production.
Tangentially, hackernews itself is sometimes filled with 100% AI slop articles/posts which is a bit sad... :-(
The latest term for this in the AI-hype-sphere seems to be "intent" but I like to call it authenticity behind who the person is behind any output perhaps IMO.
An article that I had written sometime ago: https://smileplease.mataroa.blog/blog/i-dont-want-brand-age-...
Simon's article about taking responsibility also is an interesting read and I still like his mostly nuanced opinions rather than complete AI hype which is a bit rare. I respect both simon and mitchell and their opinions for the most part regarding things in this space and its always good to have a discussion with them.
Edit: I have edited my post to explain better as to what I was saying.
it can be an enhancer/augmenter though, so almost all the work that used to be meaningful should still be the same
about the world, i mean all the hype is powered by giants and they are the ones who feed on it so public narrative is polluted for their personal gains apart from a niche group of people.
During the dark days of human slop, the progress was hindered by so many factors -- layers of abstractions, answers hidden behind thin documentation, self-important experts gatekeeping the knowledge, forums doling out rtfm attitude.
Now, it's just a matter of pointing a pack of llm in that direction, and with inquiry based learning, suddenly you are back in control. Heck, to get setup with eval boards and toolchain, it would've cost thousands of dollars 20 years ago.
LLM has allowed me to spend more time on hobbies, at the same time make new tech domain lot more approachable.
Being frugal really helps too - my job might disappear any time.
I do think that I have the privilege for doing exactly that as I am going to college and many people within the workforce don't exactly have that choice but I believe that long term, the consequences of completely using AI for anything and everything is going to bite, so I am comfortable for the next 4 years to come.
It's not that I dislike AI the tech, but I hate AI, everything surrounding it. We have the abilities to ask it customized questions to learn so much which we previously couldn't have, (Yes AI is still sycophantic and one can say that its a better search engine) but instead, we are using it to completely automate ourselves or creating a set of expectations and ineffectiveness around the competent management around it.
My purpose: I don't think that there's one. We all just exist and I don't wish to die. So I have constructed my purpose around staying alive as an absolute baseline. Everything is built on top of it.
I think that my purpose is to feel alive probably which requires passion,dedication,failure/struggle, acceptance and perhaps friendship and love. I recently heard a line which struck with me is that: "Life has so much to offer, why are we stuck at only one emotion of happiness, why not just be alive"
I want to do better and be more competitive for the sake of it because I like doing the thing and improving at it.
Thus, I wish to code for myself, nothing else, except eating french fries of course :)