I go through periods of genuinely thinking I’m capable of greatness, and periods of not caring at all about greatness and just wanting to be happy.
Speaking of adversity the last 6 months I’ve: lost a job, split from fiancé of 7 years, got fat, lost a dog, lost an apartment, got diagnosed with adhd, faced strong suicidal ideation, sever depression and nihilism.
But fast forward to current day - I’ve got back to the gym and doubled all my lifts and genuinely starting to get strong again, lost fat, made friends, started rock climbing and road cycling, progressed in my career and doing well at my new job, planned greater international travels.
I’ve realised I’m unnaturally resilient and I can basically push through anything life throws at me. Even in my darkest days I still dragged my ass to the gym and hit personal bests.
I do not know where this resilience comes from. I’ve realised over the years as a 30 y/o male no one is going to help you get to where you want to be, no one is going to have much empathy for you no matter how shit your life is, and that you control your own destiny and can only play the cards you’ve been dealt, but you alone can push yourself to greatness (whatever that may be for you)
What scares you the most in life? A fear that absolutely paralyses you. Do whatever that is.
For me for whatever reason, that extreme fear is heights and flying. I had an extreme fear of flying to the point where I would refuse to fly and instead take any combination of ship + bus to get to destinations. Had it my whole life.
I would consider myself a very intense person. I’m a nihilist now, I don’t think there is any point to life at all. Truly it’s not been something I’ve ever been able to shake, so lately (last month) I’ve embraced it. I’m only 30. I’ve seen and experienced things in life that have completely broken me.
7 months ago i got diagnosed with adhd. 6 months ago I lost my job. 5 months ago almost to the day, my fiancé left me over a 10 minute phone call, after 7 years together. Took our dog with her. Blamed me for everything failing. Everything was my fault. Now our place is being sold. Lost all my friends over those 7 years and had no social media.
I was in the darkest pit I have ever been in my life. Complete despair. I hit the gym as hard as possible, ate healthy, started twice weekly therapy, started going to events to meet people, started cycling, started rock climbing.
None of that did anything to shake the intense depression and despair and underlying nihilism. Truly I had come to terms with the fact that I’ve had thoughts that you can’t “un-think” and I truly think most people don’t ever break down that no matter what you do life is pointless, low to the point that you think most people are living in ignorance of the pointlessness of living.
So I tried pushing myself harder and harder. My life, I’ve been in several relationships that have failed. Been madly in love a few times. I’ve built viral software (300,000 users). I’ve sold software. I’m self taught. Backend/frontend/low level/graphics. I’m an Electrical Engineer too. I’ve pitched at and won startup comps, made and raised money. Owned a home. Worked with sick animals, walked dogs for a living. Been hiking, done woodwork. Been engaged. Failed papers. Aced papers. Been in a jail cell. Been in an ambulance. Have arthritis. Been in fights. Been beaten up. Taken drugs. Dissociated. Been skinny. Been fat. Been ripped. Almost drowned. Been in a car accident.
None of that did anything for me.
But last weekend I booked a solo flight for myself to a destination I’ve never been to. This is something that I’ve told myself I’m not capable of my whole life. Because I realised I probably wouldn’t be around much longer unless there was drastic change in my life and perspective.
On the tarmac, the moment those plane engines started up I got super excited for the first time in years, because I realised either i die on this flight and it doesn’t matter anyway, or I push through fear and scare myself. I pushed through the fear and felt a rush.
That was only a few days ago. Now I’m booking a global flight to see the other side of the world in 4 months time to do some solo travel. Then more flights after that. I also just did the best rock climbing I’ve ever done, prior to that experience I’d be clinging onto the wall for dear life, but that last session I just flew up the wall without a care in the world.
I’ve realised now that I’m just an intense person and I can’t live a mundane life. So I need to lean into it and seek fear.
I can tell you for free that material possession and earning money is definitely not the answer. In fact, get rid of most of the shit you own because it just bogs you down.
Pushing through fear has been the breakthrough I’ve needed in my life, and no one could do it for me. I feel like a different person.
This may sound stupid, but maybe we all need to get punched in the face. We spend our modern lives constantly in the past, in the future, anxiety and existential dread about what is coming, what may come to pass, how will we deal with it, grief and loss, thinking about fucking money and relationships and housing.
Go to a boxing gym, and spar with someone. Introduce some danger into your life. No one wants to get punched in the face. I guarantee you getting the shit beat out of you, and you doing the same to someone else, will have you in the moment. When you’re actively getting attacked, there is no time for anxiety or depression or grief. Just “do I duck left, or do I duck right”.
Stop waiting for life to happen. Go out and do dangerous shit.
I’m not advocating for being reckless. But my new philosophy is: if life is pointless, then the only rational response is to do whatever makes you feel most alive, regardless of social conventions or personal anxieties real or imagined
Sorry to hear about everything you've been so far. Things have been rough for me as well lately. The only thing that keeps me from falling into nihilism and despair is God.
Thanks and I hope things get better for you. I wish I believed in a god/gods, but I’m just not wired that way as much as I wish I could. The community that believing opens you up to is a great part of it
That was a good read, hope you are feeling some peace.
Rock climbing is a great way of seeing places no one see and meeting interesting people. For instance I loved climbing in Yangshuo, China. I've climbed in most of the continents but am more keen on whitewater kayaking, which is also a great way to experience the world.
My two worst life experiences (physical and emotional) have been my biggest drivers for growth and looking back on how I get over them gives me a lot of strength.
People that don’t ask questions, don’t show any curiosity at all, don’t reciprocate, and don’t contribute to conversation other than talking at length about themselves - are not worth a second of your day.
I’m sorry but if all you can do is talk about yourself and not have a conversation, you are not worth my time.
If you think it’s okay to let the other person lead the entire conversation maybe you need to learn some social skills
I feel like this is going about it the wrong way. This puzzle game licensed by The Atlantic for example, was made because they wanted to provide a fun game experience for their patrons.
With games, the best games come from an organic experience. Its almost worse to have a preset plan.
Not to mention, making a game is work - you have to have approachability, rules think through alot of scenarios even for "simple" games to make sure things make sense etc - and if you haven't even done it before I highly suggest you actually try and make a game first
Thanks for your comment, I’ve toyed with this game idea for about 7 years, no preset plan from the get-go, but within the last year see an opportunity with aligning with a news site.
But I had all the game logic and flow mapped out long before I thought about platform.
Yes games are tough to make, I’ve made a few so far and it’s always a struggle
You may have adhd. This is how I am. I can’t relax ever, I have to be constantly moving mentally or physically, I have to make the most of every moment. It’s an adhd thing, and medication does help with this. Worth getting yourself checked
Not to gaslight you but sometimes adhd isn’t adhd. My son can’t sit still and is this way. The more I watch it and talk to doctors and reflected on my own memory of youth I realize he’s basically my clone and I have all these symptoms too. Turns out it’s a motor sensory (muscle/balance) issue that he can correct with some occupational therapy and learned coping skills. I developed my own coping skills without a therapist and never really intentionally built my core strength.
Anyways I mention it because if one can focus on selective tasks, like working on a side project, I think adhd is perhaps an easy/lazy diagnosis but maybe not the correct one.
Software Engineering is one of the most information-volatile industries in history that I can think of.
You have to aggressively keep pace with potentially, and I’m guessing here, the fastest shifting industry in history in terms of practices and knowledge and improvements.
Not only that, it is constant failure and obstacles - bugs, frameworks, features, platforms, what have you - and constant layers of abstraction. A lot of the time you cannot visualise any outputs.
Software Engineering is a highly skilled industry, and probably the most competitive industry in the world, with a very high rate of uncertainty and layoffs and change. We are working with some of the most complex systems created by man in history.
I don’t think you can make a broad generalisation that we are coddled lol. Software Engineers in the USA in certain population centres earn a large salary, sure, but look overseas and comparatively that is not the case.
Seriously, by what metric is Software Engineering one of the easiest careers? I’d like to hear your viewpoint because I think it’s so off-base that I must be missing something.
It has its definite perks like work from home.
But Software is up there as one of the toughest knowledge-worker industries there is.
There are much tougher careers like anything Electrical Engineering, but by no yardstick is Software easy
> and probably the most competitive industry in the world
It may be fair to say that it wants to work its way towards that as the industry matures, but that hasn't been the case. People have been able to make insane amounts of money in software. You cannot make money in a competitive industry.
I mean, everyone's trying. I've noticed a marked increase in the number of people in software engineering who are there first and foremost for the paycheck. Some of them don't even like writing software!
This doesn't necessarily correlate to skill at writing software, but I've also encountered a higher ratio of poor performers from this growing demographic, as well. The end result is that the median skill level seems to go down over time.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and seems like it should be expected as the pool of people working in software development grows.
But as time goes on, there are definitely more and more people who are trying (and succeeding!) at doing it.
I was working on a ray-casting game engine in C, with the focus on enabling the largest worlds yet seen in such an engine (Minecraft scale etc). [0]
A ray-casting engine is an old style of game engine (think 1990 - Wolfenstein or Duke Nukem). The most famous, well-known example is probably Wolfenstein-3D created by ID software (John Carmack and John Romero etc!) You don’t see these engines used anymore in modern games.
So to me, they are novel and a great challenge to try and modernise. Especially as a solo dev! And for further context, raycasted levels are usually teeny tiny (Wolfenstein 3D or Shadow Warrior are the largest worlds I’ve seen, so nothing impressively scaled). I have never ever come across a raycaster with levels the scale of something like Minecraft. So that’s what my ambition is.
I spent a period of 2-3 months roughly 8-10 hour days every day on this project, not knowing much C and not knowing anything about game engines or graphics, and average at mathematics.
But I’m on a break from the project and coding after my 7 year relationship broke down.
Realised I had tunnel vision with my life and ambitions, and am now “touching grass” daily instead. It’s hard to put effort into your hobbies when you feel other areas of your life are suffering.
So now I’m lifting weights and doing cardio and reading books instead, trying to keep active and my mind occupied.
I do want to pick this project back up, I’m really proud of what I was able to achieve with no knowledge coming in and I think the project has good bones.
And I loved coding, still haven’t found a hobby that scratches a similar itch
But who says they are flaws? I only believe in fixing self-accepted flaws.
Eg if someone can’t handle alcohol -> don’t drink
Fat? Eat less and exercise
ADHD? Get medicated and embrace the condition and understand it
I think you can pick and choose to work on your flaws. I certainly am after a life event, but sometimes it requires an external strong force to make you realise you want to change for the better
Speaking of adversity the last 6 months I’ve: lost a job, split from fiancé of 7 years, got fat, lost a dog, lost an apartment, got diagnosed with adhd, faced strong suicidal ideation, sever depression and nihilism.
But fast forward to current day - I’ve got back to the gym and doubled all my lifts and genuinely starting to get strong again, lost fat, made friends, started rock climbing and road cycling, progressed in my career and doing well at my new job, planned greater international travels.
I’ve realised I’m unnaturally resilient and I can basically push through anything life throws at me. Even in my darkest days I still dragged my ass to the gym and hit personal bests.
I do not know where this resilience comes from. I’ve realised over the years as a 30 y/o male no one is going to help you get to where you want to be, no one is going to have much empathy for you no matter how shit your life is, and that you control your own destiny and can only play the cards you’ve been dealt, but you alone can push yourself to greatness (whatever that may be for you)