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ema
7 years ago I had just aborted an internship, my foray into being an employed adult, because I found myself unable to deal with disagreements. Contrary to my naive hope that the confidence boost from being a Professional Software Developer(tm) would solve all my emotional problems I now knew that my limitations would follow me around anywhere I would go. But I had no idea how to change and was too stuck in my own anxiety and arrogance to ask for help.
Around that time I Somehow stumbled upon this[1] article on how to make a Buddhist bone trumpet. It took me completely by surprise, the topic, the author, the tone, the context of Buddhism, nothing fit together like I expected. It was the most absurd thing I ever read and I kept laughing, at the same time it felt utterly genuine. My curiosity piqued I read the other less bizarre articles from the author about Buddhism and life in general. It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it. The process of learning to accept unpredictability and open myself to the world, that started the evening I read that article, was by no means always this fun, but looking back boy was it worth it.
superasn
> It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it.
So many enlightened people have quoted this as the one thing that matters most than anything else.
I read this article "This column will change your life"[1] about an Indian philosopher named Jiddu Krishnamurti many many years ago but this passage really stuck with me:
Krishnamurti went on to give countless talks at which he frequently implied that his audience shouldn't be wasting their time listening to spiritual talks. But perhaps the most striking was a 1977 lecture in California.
"Part-way through this particular talk," writes Jim Dreaver, who was present, "Krishnamurti suddenly paused, leaned forward and said, almost conspiratorially, 'Do you want to know what my secret is?' " (There are several accounts of this event; details vary.) Krishnamurti rarely spoke in such personal terms, and the audience was electrified, Dreaver recalls. "Almost as though we were one body we sat up… I could see people all around me lean forward, their ears straining and their mouths slowly opening in hushed anticipation."
Then Krishnamurti, "in a soft, almost shy voice", said: "You see, I don't mind what happens."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/10/stop-mi...
kcartlidge
In his early days Jiddu Krishnamurti was touted as the World Teacher by the Theosophists who 'discovered' and trained him. They made him the main guy of the Order of the Star. Then he stood up at a convention of about 3,000 members and disbanded the whole thing, abandoning the role they'd prepared. He said:
> I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path.
I can't remember the article/blog post now but it was a commentary on that one quote, which led to further reading of his books and a certain view on life (I appreciate the irony/contradiction given the quote, and I'm not a 'follower' of his).
archduck
The same author, Oliver Burkeman, wrote a similarly life-changing book as well, entitled The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking. Besides Buddhism, it also covers stoicism, the inevitability of death, and other topics having to do with the thesis that trying to be happy makes it harder to be.
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reidjs
> Finding a Femur: You probably already have at least a couple of femurs around the house. However, it is usually best to find one whose original owner no longer has any use for it.
certeoun
Reminds me of stoicism. If it's outside your control, don't bother too much. Face your challenges and do the best you can, being a better you.
codemonkey-zeta
Great wisdom presents itself with different faces to different people throughout time, but maintains the same essence. That's what makes it wisdom. It is eternal and unchanging, it just takes perspective to see.
I had exactly the same epiphany while reading Meditations. I thought, "wow, this sounds an awful lot like the Buddhism I've read/heard about".
Again, after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson I saw the same wisdom with a different face. I realized that all these people throughout time came independently to precisely the same conclusions about how to live life as part of the great "wholeness" (for lack of a better word) to which we all belong.
My experience with Buddhism is mostly limited to interactions with an old Buddhist friend, but in terms of literature I found Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and J. D. Salinger's Teddy to be very palatable from a western perspective.
For stoic philosophy you can really do no better than Marcus Aurelius's meditations, specifically the more modern Gregory Hays translation. Epictectus's discourses are pretty good too, but are less pithy and have a lower signal to noise ratio when it comes to true wisdom IMO.
Emerson's Self Reliance, History, and finally The Oversoul will reveal the same wisdom from all the other works I mentioned.
jonaustin
This idea is called the Perennial Philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy
Aldous Huxley wrote a book about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy
salt-thrower
It is very beautiful and interesting to me that Stoics and Buddhists arrived at very similar conclusions despite being thousands of miles apart and having little to no contact.
stevofolife
Seems like mainstream folks tend to give credits of life wisdom to Buddhism and Stoicism but let’s not forget the Bible also mentioned the same in the book of Luke: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” Luke 17:33 NKJV https://bible.com/bible/114/luk.17.33.NKJV
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
There was some interaction between Greece and India, and it's possible some thought from the Indian subcontinent may have influenced the founders of scepticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
While there isn't much direct evidence to support this theory, both philosophies have some ideas related to mindfulness that are too similar to me to be a coincidence.
MaxBarraclough
Christianity has the same idea too, at least if you count the Serenity Prayer. Probably not an independent discovery though, I imagine its creator (a theologian) took the idea from Greek philosophy.
> God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
> courage to change the things I can,
> and wisdom to know the difference.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer#Genuine_precur...
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astrophysics
They did have a lot of contact. I read about it from some Buddhist scholar, but I can't remember where.
mekoka
Somewhat. At a higher level being a stoic, gets you closer to the Buddhist mindset. Buddhism tends to differ in its acknowledgment that the active practice of stoicism (as a discipline) is still a pursuit, and thus still a means to assert control.
yewenjie
Also a fan of David Chapman here. Really looking forward to him finishing at least one of the books.
tomComb
Yes, his writings are very interesting. I believe his two main sites are
zxlk21e
> It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it.
Could you possibly unpack this for me a little bit? It strikes me as absolutely true for me, too, or at least sounds like it could be true, but I'm pulling at a thread I can't quite grasp.
mekoka
Warning: Buddhism redox and incomplete ahead. The purpose of what I write is to whet your appetite and maybe spark an interest for a personal journey. I strongly advise and even recommend a proper introduction. I suggest D T Suzuki and Alan Watts for their introduction to Zen. Amazing vulgarisers of these concepts. Watts' lectures are available on YouTube.
In the Buddhist philosophy the notion that you can control anything other than yourself is considered absurd. Even conceding that you have control over yourself is being generous. A need for control then becomes a major source of frustration, or as it's often referred to in this context, dissatisfaction or suffering. By studying the philosophy, you gradually untangle the absurdity and you progressively start to see the theory be manifested in reality. You then learn to accept it and see the absurdity of your own desire for control.
I can say that to you and it might make sense. But that's still at the theoretical level. For it to be true to you, you need to make the journey yourself.
cpeterso
As the bumper sticker says: "Don't believe everything you think." :) Thoughts have a mind of their own.
ema
I tried so hard to make everything go as I wanted that I increasingly avoided situations where I couldn't predict how they would go. That included stuff like talking about my feelings or asking for a favor or eventually going grocery shopping(anything could happen!! ;). Of course those are all pretty useful things and my difficulty with them convinced me even more that I had to absolutely make sure I had covered every eventuality.
crdrost
This is also a deep principle of physics. Very simple systems can be "linear" and you can say "okay, if you tweak this little knob, e.g. increase the input, then such-and-so is what must happen, e.g. an increase in the output." But most interactions and feedback loops and so forth create a "complex system" and the result of tweaking one knob is not always what you'd expect -- you add more cars to a freeway and the throughput drops radically. Sounds like you were turning up the "control things" knob, and things got progressively more out of control -- this is quite common.
Another example is that often people who give up dieting will lose weight and keep it off. What matters is not the calories but the health of the relationship with food, and if the diet is taking an unhealthy relationship and making it even more dysfunctional, then how could it help?
Of course, you found the Buddhist solution which is quite meritorious in its own right and served me well at a difficult time in my life. There is also a Christian mystic solution which has similar aspects.
buddhistdude
Why do you need to understand this sentence? So that you can use that new knowledge to alter the set of concepts that you have of life, ideally improving them, so that you are more able to control your life, to steer it in a better direction? Because you want to be alright? The point is to let go
zxlk21e
I'm intrigued because at first it appears to be a paradoxical statement, but with a potentially logical answer.
In addition to that though, I think I (and others?) make sense of the world through narrative and there is value to other people's narratives, though that may be in conflict with the context of your comment.
krelian
I recommend listening to some Alan Watts lectures on youtube (try to find a long video, the short ones are usually just bits with music added).
ozim
Maybe you can also think about "Maximizers vs Satisficers" as in this article: https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/maximizers-satis...
Trying to find "the best option" or trying to totally control the outcome is counter productive. You lose your options, you lose your time.
While being satisficer you accept some parts that might not be perfect and your life moves forward. You open more options as you are not stuck on picking exactly the right washing machine and you open time and headspace for other avenues.
agloeregrets
One more logic-focused on it is that control is a false concept in general. You can only choose what to control what you think about at best but outside factors are out of your control so you become a slave to those changing factors. So, effectively, attempting to control external factors makes the external factors control your thinking.
Imagine leading an animal into a cage with food. To that animal, they are controlling their food intake and their lunch! In that attempt to exert control over the situation they have lost all primary control.
artificialLimbs
You can make aims in your life, and try to work towards goals and build willpower. You can aim to surround yourself with people that you believe will help you grow and be positive influences on you, for instance. Or you can aim avoid people that you think won't. You will still run into the whole gamut at the grocery store, however.
Controlling your thoughts is another matter. Just try to stop thinking for an entire minute. Don't have any thoughts. Alternately, only think about 1 thing. You very probably cannot do it. We don't choose what to think, but we can choose how we react (or not) to our thoughts. You CAN choose to accept the thoughts as they come and not identify with them, deciding "oh, that's a thought, how interesting". This is in opposition to what we normally do, which is to act on every little thought that floats along or decide to 'grab' onto the thoughts and stay with them while going down whatever rabbit hole they lead us into.
Your point does stand, control is a false concept in general.
donatj
> It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it.
I genuinely think this is the key to happiness and success in general. Roll with the waves rather than trying to fight them. You can guide your life while still smelling the roses along the way.
mistermann
It would be funny if this was true at both an individual level and global level.
rkhassen9
Hmm. Following on that thought, globally, controlling our environment on a global scale seems to have resulted in a total loss of control of the environment.
oliv__
That was quite the rabbit hole.
vangamoZX
Thank you. I could be in the same state than you were, possibly. Now, I'm intrigued and open to read more.
ripitrust
https://blog.tjcx.me/p/consume-less-create-more
This article inspired me on two things :
1) Lots of the things I do in everyday life is just to consume: buying, watching, following, etc. These things either consume my money, or my time. These things make me feel good, but it does not generate real value. In order to get rich, I need to create things. I also start to realize that great people are great because they started to create things at a very early stage of their life (but not consuming things as they advocate, think about celebrities, entrepreneurs etc), so they are able to practice and perfect the value creating skills to the extreme.
2) I start to realize that the world is binary in nature : I create to sell, I buy to consume. I either at the buyer side, or at the seller side. And in this current society, there is a huge buyer side trap, the whole idea of consumerism and social media is to trap you inside the buyer side, so you keep buying, you keep consuming. I really need to break free from this trap.
This blog post was written before COVID-19, but the idea feels even fresher during this pandemic era
sureglymop
I don't agree with the overall take that the world is binary in that way at all..
You create to sell? No, I think a fundamental part, for example of art, is that it can be created for no reason whatsoever. To give a personal example, I really enjoy music production and playing piano.. but I do it only for myself and have fun doing so.. i don't even share it with anyone. Does that mean I am creating but not selling? And does that mean it is wrong and a waste of my time and I should stop doing it? No, I'm just creating for the sake of creating.
Another thing I don't understand, is your end goal in life to get rich? And do you equal being rich with being happy?
That's not my worldview at all. I mainly care about three things, curiosity, ethics and empathy. But definitely curiosity, being able to learn everyday is what makes me happy. But that doesn't fit into what your explaining, I don't have to create and sell anything with what I've learned because the act of learning already gives me happiness.
Maybe I'm the weird one but I truly find that a life with the sole goal of selling and accruing wealth seems boring.
alesua93
Yeah, I agree with all of this. A lot of these types of posts and responses give me strange vibes, like people going through life trying to minmax everything and 'win' it as if it was a game.
It's an attitude I encounter frequently in tech circles, but it never stops feeling very weird to me.
mbrodersen
You are not weird at all. I feel the same. Being rich is not a goal in itself. It is just a tool that you might use to solve your real goal. However if you don’t think deeply enough to realise what your real goal is then you might not realise that most goals can be achieved without becoming rich.
koilke
There are two kinds of people in this world those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who think there are not.
agloeregrets
One can argue that you are buying an experience with your time and services in this framework rather than money. Kinda just shortcutting the wealth transfer bit. Not that I agree with the framework at all. (It narrows down to Objectivism really and makes no real sense in long-form concepts. In what part of this framework does a mother jumping in front of a bus to save her child does this fit?)
actually_a_dog
> Another thing I don't understand, is your end goal in life to get rich? And do you equal being rich with being happy?
Here's the deal: in a capitalist system, being rich may not equal being happy, but it certainly does equal being secure. The average worker is a lot less secure now that the days of "a job for life" are gone, and prices for housing, education, and health care have gone through the roof.
mbrodersen
So your real goal is not to become rich but to become secure. Being rich doesn’t make you secure. You still have to worry about loosing your wealth, people trying to take advantage of you, raising your kids to be mentally happy/stable without just living off your wealth, not knowing if people are truly your friends etc. etc.
sureglymop
Okay, I get that. But in that case, wouldn't you say that the system itself is flawed/unjust and that you should rather put your efforts into changing that system?
Because if you focus on you making money to make your situation more secure, you're only solving the problem for yourself... which seems selfish and a bit unethical to me.
But I understand, we all have to live in a system and under circumstances we didn't choose and I guess we have to make the best of it.
2OEH8eoCRo0
>I realized that reading a book was really just like reading Reddit—both were consumptive activitives.
I disagree on this but I love and agree with the premise of the blog post. Comparing reddit to Moby Dick could not be further off. reddit (or any similar site) is a shill/bad actor/agitator/troll cesspool full of memes and clickbait.
It is important to learn to tell good shit from bad shit. Consume things produced by masters of their craft. Try not to settle for less, you have limited time here. Use this to create more.
packetlost
The quality of consumption is different for sure, but I would argue that certain areas of reddit are of high value to my job, hobbies, etc. and Moby Dick is of little value those areas and quality of life in general. You could perhaps make arguments about historical value, context, or benefits to reading comprehension, but at the end of the day, reading anything is about only as good as the information you're taking in.
JackFr
I would argue that reading Moby Dick is of value to your quality of life in general. Good fiction speaks to the human condition and can help us live our lives more fully.
BeetleB
Comparing Reddit to one book is not a proper comparison. Instead, compare Reddit as a whole to books as a whole. Most books are not worth reading.
> It is important to learn to tell good shit from bad shit
That would apply within Reddit, as well. Find the good subreddits and the good comments.
CRConrad
> That would apply within Reddit, as well.
And HN.
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aurantia
While I do agree with your first point, I think it's a bit .. obvious. Of course you need to create value in order to be great (or get rich).
Regarding the article, it doesn't match my experience. All the prolific creators I know (about) are prolific consumers as well. Writers are known to read a lot. The girl the author saw sketching on the bus probably loves looking at and reading about art and does it often as well as actually creating art.
The other issue is the amount of creative effort you can spend. For example, software engineering is a very creative job and often at the end of the day I just have no energy left to create more.
slothtrop
I think those of us with leisure time or "bullshit" work struggle with these questions, but I find that the consumption/creation dichotomy is the wrong approach. Arguably almost everything is consumptive in some capacity, from creating art (which is indulgent and pleasurable) to unnecessary programs (they're all unnecessary) or any other passtime. I would further reduce the problem to one of stimulus and desire. Execution and completion of tasks is in itself cognitively satisfying, that's in part why smartphone games can be so addictive, you can "fake" the experience in rapid fashion. The mechanism behind the dopamine release etc doesn't care about the context behind it, that is an existential problem. We like the flow experience. That can be "deep" work, or not.
The question of meaning behind our actions is one divorced from this, and obviously not so easily determined as whether or not an action is creative. Some of the most effective altruistic actions are boring. I'm of the type that has short bouts of investigative interest in certain topics, and that wanes, so I can't count on merely my "mood" to finish projects. I had read anecdotally that authors in particular seem to derive satisfaction from having completed a work, and find that driving themselves to finish it can be torturous. I feel that way about my projects.
Personally, it's a good day if I've "executed" and completed a lot at work. There is no objective reason why this ought to be better than those days where I struggle to finish a single assignment, but that is human nature. You can satisfy such a creature with social validation and the feedback of completing tasks, until maybe you broach the problem of meaning. I wonder how many of us in the future will spend most of our time dwelling in virtual worlds where nothing is real. If we do, then meaning is cheap.
frutiger
> And in this current society, there is a huge buyer side trap, the whole idea of consumerism and social media is to trap you inside the buyer side, so you keep buying, you keep consuming.
Aside from bankruptcy, buying and selling are actually completely balanced in a modern market economy. Even “saving” money is actually best considered as selling it. Earning money is obviously selling your time and bodily energy (those are the only finite things you have that are inputs into the system).
Borrowing is selling your future money to someone who wants to take on the risk.
city41
Why do you have to create to sell? Creating just to create is the best kind of creation.
ripitrust
yeah it is not a reflection of causality, it is just that to sell is to create
barneygale
If you /really/ want to make money, you don't sell. You buy and rent out.
pythonbase
I like that.
GoodJokes
that is not making money. It is merely taking money from others for specious reasons.
kylegalbraith
Wow, really great article. I think there is nuance to consumption as others have pointed out. Regardless, this article really resonated with me and I appreciate you bringing it into my perspective.
knuckleheads
In fall of 2018, I read a blog post by Dan Luu called "The googlebot monopoloy".
https://danluu.com/googlebot-monopoly/
It's a short blog post that I've probably read a thousand times at this point. He wrote about how websites give Google a big advantage when it comes to web crawling and how that big advantage probably makes it harder for other search engines to compete with Google. This was a pretty striking idea to me and there was a lot of talk at the time about antitrust and Big Tech. Dan's post had been written in 2015, so I was sure that a ton of other people, especially DC policy people, already knew about this and were talking about it. Right?
Turns out, basically nobody in DC knew anything about this. A ton of website operators complain about it on their own forums like HN and SEO, it's not hard to find people griping about the cost of Bing's crawlers, but those people never saw fit to tell anybody in DC about this and how it impacts the market for general purpose search engines and gives Google such an advantage. So I started writing down everything that I was finding about Google's web crawling advantage and writing it in a way that policy people could understand these things called web crawlers they had probably never heard much about before.
And, long story short, the policy people were very grateful that I had gotten in touch and explained all this, and I got cited in the Big Tech Antitrust report published by Congress last summer and then featured in The New York Times:
https://knuckleheads.club/we-crawled-our-way-into-the-big-te...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/technology/how-google-dom...
So, Dan's blog post has had a pretty big impact on my life so far and it's not quite done yet. The pandemic has slowed me down this year much more than it did last year, but I'm working on preparing to submit a paper to an economics journal for peer review that lays out the dynamics of web crawling, why Google accrues this advantage and why it matters. I'm very grateful to Dan for writing that post and, as far as career advice goes, I heartily recommend going back every once in a while and rereading everything he has ever written. Who knows what else he's hiding in there?
097A33B8
The difference between Bing and Google's crawlers causes me physical pain.
As part of a team that runs several large sites, the performance difference between them is stunning, but not any any way complimentary to Bing. We want Bing to do better. We want them to challenges Google pole position.
Bingbot will crawl the exact same set pages 10 times in a week, and will make hundreds of requests per minute doing so. Googlebot will crawl them once, at a much more reasonable pace.
The bandwidth and power costs we incur from Bing crawlers are a hundredfold (at least) what we incur from Googlebot.
Please, Microsoft, make Bingbots not suck so badly.
mrob
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/07/instant-pot-el...
If you see cooking primarily as a means of getting nutrients rather than a hobby, I very strongly recommend getting an electric pressure cooker. It greatly simplifies cooking because it's automated. Just add the ingredients, close the lid, press a button, and wait. You will get a perfectly cooked one-pot meal with minimum effort. You can even mix fresh and frozen ingredients and the timer won't start until the frozen ingredients are thawed. If you don't overfill it the only thing the food touches is the inner stainless steel pot, so it's very easy to clean. I get the majority of my nutrition from food cooked this way. I can't imagine going back to slow traditional methods.
It also makes dried legumes far more practical, because you can skip the pre-soak phase. If you eat a lot of legumes, and you switch from canned to dried, the savings will most likely pay for the cost of the machine within a few years. In addition, energy costs are reduced because cooking at increased pressure is faster, and good electric pressure cookers are insulated. I am happy with an Instant Pot brand one, although I don't guarantee they are the best. If somebody has strong opinions on which is best then please post them.
The one major downside is the texture of the food can become boring, because everything is mixed together and you can't make crispy foods with it, but you can always add things like pickles after you've cooked it.
santiagobasulto
First time I see this post (thanks for sharing!). I bought one of these 2 years ago and it was life changing indeed. Stuffing it with vegetables and meat before going to the gym; come back and everything is done.
About boring food; it might not be crispy, but you can make amazing meats in it. Try slow cooking pork collar boneless[0] with honey and mustard.
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inasio
Sous vide for all the hype has had similar benefits for me. Some recipes can take a long time, but same as on an electric pressure cooker things are completely automated and hands off. There's no need to monitor or stir, and the results are always great and always repeatable. Chicken breasts are always perfect, salmon, steak, etc... (also works on some veggie recipes)
archon810
If you get a Ninja Foodi, it has an air dryer mode that does make crispy things (like crispy chicken) in addition to the pressure cooking. There's even a model with Sous Vide.
12 functions: Pressure Cook, Air Fry/Air Crisp, Steam, Slow Cook, Yogurt, Sear/Sauté, Bake/Roast, Broil, Dehydrate, Sous Vide, Reheat, Keep Warm
https://m.ninjakitchen.com/exclusive-offer/FD402WBKT/ninja-f...
LivelyTortoise
> If you see cooking primarily as a means of getting nutrients rather than a hobby, I very strongly recommend getting an electric pressure cooker.
Oh hi there!
Do you have any recipes that you recommend? I actually bought an Instant Pot a couple months ago, and so far have found one great one pot meal that I cook in bulk on the weekend - basically tomatoes + sweet potatoes + peppers + beans + quinoa. Toss it all in and press a button, magic.
I like to eat as healthily as possible, so I'm interested to hear if you have any go-to staple recipes for the instant pot that you'd suggest :)
twic
When i'm cooking in this mode, i use a rice cooker to cook lentils, the Puy / French / lentilles vertes / speckled type. I like those because they retain a lot of texture when cooked, and have a decent flavour. Dry lentils, olive oil (apply to the dry lentils and stir to coat), water, fraction of a stock cube or some miso paste, garlic, herbs, spices, whatever else you like; cook on the white rice programme. Extremely easy, pretty tasty, and with loads of scope for variation.
As an addition, sliced chorizo is great, the spicy pork fat melts out and improves everything. Lardons are almost as good. You can float a chicken thigh on top, and it will cook nicely, but won't get crispy, but you can finish it up under the grill. Sliced onion is remarkably good, soaks up the stock and comes out juicy. I often add leafy brassicas like cabbage or kale, not very exciting but it's healthy.
I've used the same rice cooker on a slow cooking setting to cook beef ragout, something like cassoulet, and pork knuckle.
A pressure cooker can do all this, but can do the high-temperature bits faster!
LivelyTortoise
Wow, thanks. That sounds very tasty. I've cooked lentils, but only indian-curry-style and on a stove, never in a rice cooker. Can I ask how long you cook them for in the rice cooker? I imagine dried lentils to be like beans in that they require pre-soaking and/or a long cooking time - is that right? Also, do you add the kale in near the end, or let it cook the whole way through?
itsoktocry
>Do you have any recipes that you recommend?
Not sure of your dietary preferences, but one of the big advantages of the Instant Pot is being able to cook cheaper, less palatable cuts of meat. It can also cook an entire frozen chicken in under an hour...
LivelyTortoise
I do eat chicken a few times a week, so this is good to know, especially the ability to cook from frozen. Could I just throw some frozen chicken breasts in there with whatever else I want to eat it with, and pressure cook it for say 30 mins?
stnmtn
I've been using my instant pot and your meal sounds great but I am unfortunately hopeless at cooking. Can you let me know what you do with those ingredients? Do you dice the potatoes/peppers? Do you have to cook the beans/quinoa first? How long?
NumberWangMan
Hey, I'm not the parent poster, but anyway...
You'll want to cut up the potatoes and peppers, but when you're cooking them like this, the size doesn't matter much, it's just what you prefer. I'd go a bit chunkier -- smaller will have all the flavors blend more, chunkier and you'll be able to taste the separate ingredients a bit better.
Quinoa definitely does not need to be pre-cooked -- it cooks very quickly. If you're putting in dry beans, you'll want to use the "multigrain" setting for... 60 minutes I think? And add plenty of water for the beans and quinoa to absorb.
If you're using canned beans or pre-cooked beans, you can drop that time down to 15 minutes or so, that should be plenty for the quinoa to cook.
I'd also probably add some spices. You just gotta experiment and see what you like. Make sure you add enough -- when making a big pot of food, don't just add a little spice. I think cumin and/or coriander would go nicely with this. Cinnamon is another that might be good here. Can't go wrong with black pepper.
But really, this is a dish that could go nicely with lots of different spice blends. So don't be afraid to experiment! Try stuff, fail, it's ok, and it's how you get a feel for cooking. If it doesn't come out great, spread some hot sauce on there and it might make it good enough to eat :)
LivelyTortoise
Hey! So this is the specific recipe I used - https://www.wellplated.com/instant-pot-vegetarian-chili/ .
The basic idea is: - Chop up the sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions. This takes me a while lol. - Start with saute mode, heat the oil, fry the onions, then add the garlic, spices, peppers. The saute part overall just takes me around 5-6 mins - Add broth, quinoa, chopped tomatoes, and cook on high pressure for 8 mins (the actual cooking time is longer because it takes some time to reach high pressure, and then to depressurise when done) - I use canned beans, so I just stir them in right here at the end and let them mix for 5-10 mins
(But this is all described in that recipe)
I can basically make 8 good sized portions of this if I fill my Instant Pot, and it's cheap and very healthy. So it's become almost my go-to meal. Oh, and it freezes well too!
voisin
Isn’t one of the benefits of presoaking is that it releases certain gases that can wreck havoc on your gastrointestinal system? Does the same thing happen if you use a pressure cooker?
mrob
If you're susceptible to that effect then presoaking will help, but susceptibility depends on your individual microbiome. Some vegans use the liquid that chickpeas were cooked in as an egg substitute ("aquafaba"). I personally drain the liquid off after cooking, and don't notice any problems.
poutrathor
one still throws away the soaking liquid when retrieving aquafaba, afaik. It's the cooking water that becomes aquafaba.
"cooking primarily as a means of getting nutrients rather than a hobby" is such a strange opposition to me.
twic
Oligosaccharides rather than gases [1] - but your gut bacteria digest those to produce gases. Personally, i can eat unsoaked beans, but i think that varies from person to person.
nobodyandproud
> It also makes dried legumes far more practical, because you can skip the pre-soak phase.
What do you do about the indigestible sugars found in many beans? Traditionally, pre-soaking reduces the amount of sugars and the corresponding flatulence.
jedberg
The pressure takes care of it. It basically forces the sugars out into the water like a pre-soak.
rmsaksida
Pressure cooking is very common in some countries, but I'm only familiar with the simple mechanical pressure cookers (that work on gas or induction stoves). Can electric pressure cookers do things that a regular one can't?
hibikir
It's not a matter of what it can do, but of safety/ease of use. I used a traditional pressure cooker for many years, but nowadays I see no reason to go back to babysitting the cooking process. Waiting for pressure to build? Deciding when it's done and lowering the stove to maintenance pressure? Setting an alarm, and then making the pot stop cooking? Nah, just set the timer at the very beginning and go for a walk.
BeetleB
You don't need to "babysit" them. They'll get to pressure and adjust the heat automatically. And then they'll stop at the appropriate time.
Being able to dump ingredients in and set the pressure for 20 minutes, and then go out for 2 hours and come back and eat warm food that hasn't gone bad is really, really nice.
Apart from that - as others pointed out, they're multifunctional. I make yogurt in mine. Also acts as a slow cooker but in my experience not very well.
matt_morgan
Many electric pressure cookers double or triple as other similar devices, e.g. rice cookers. Also, you can fry stuff in them before you start the pressure cooking phase (maybe you can do that in other devices, too, I don't know).
In general I would say that the temperature control in an electric pressure cooker is going to be more precise, so you see functions like yogurt making in them, too.
ashout33
Hey what do you mean you can skip the soaking time of beans? If I buy dried beans (black beans let's day) don't I still need soak them overnight to avoid being super gassy?
okareaman
I came of age before blogs and frankly, don't see any blog posts that could be life changing for an older person, so I'll add a life changing book and song.
The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler, the sequel to Future Shock. I was a nuclear trained engineer in the Navy. This book convinced me not to pursue a career in nuclear power after the Navy, which was the standard career path for guys like me, because it was "Second Wave." The Third Wave was information technology, which I pursued despite having no training in it.
At the height of my success, "The Arrangement" by Joni Mitchell made me realize that money hadn't made me happy and pursuing more was not something I wanted to do.
You could have been more
Than a name on the door
On the thirty-third floor in the air
More than a credit card
Swimming pool in the backyard
While you still have the time
You could get away and find
A better life, you know the grind is so ungrateful
Racing cars, whiskey bars
No one cares who you really aree12e
> I came of age before blogs and frankly, don't see any blog posts that could be life changing for an older person, so I'll add a life changing book and song.
E. B. White wrote of the essay and the essayist - and I think it goes a long way towards arguing (unintended perhaps) that a good blog post is a good essay (and vice versa) - at least that was my thoughts when I first read it:
> The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. He is a fellow who thoroughly enjoys his work, just as people who take bird walks enjoy theirs. Each new excursion of the essayist, each new “attempt,” differs from the last and takes him into new country. This delights him. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.
> There are as many kinds of essays as there are human attitudes or poses, as many essay flavors as there are Howard Johnson ice creams. The essayist arises in the morning and, if he has work to do, selects his garb from an unusually extensive wardrobe: he can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter—philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil’s advocate, enthusiast. (...)
> There is one thing the essayist cannot do, though—he cannot indulge himself in deceit or in concealment, for he will be found out in no time.
okareaman
Your comment challenged me to try to find a blog that appeals to a spiritually minded older person and offer some new perspectives. I came up with this:
UweSchmidt
I like the idea of making a life-changing decision based on a fundamental revelation about life, and catching that "Third Wave" would certainly have been good in the general case, particular regrets about how the details played out in your situation nonwithstanding!?
okareaman
None, both the decisions I made from the book and song turned out to be the best.
MrPowers
How to Start a Startup by Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
Specifically this line "So if you want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed in business, the evidence suggests you'd do better to learn how to hack than get an MBA."
I spent 5 years building a good business school resume and this post encouraged me to try out programming instead. The flexibility of a programming job let me escape the NYC / San Fran scene and start living abroad. Having way more fun living in different countries around the world now.
joshxyz
those essays were really something. still grateful he wrote those.
barrenko
This still haunts me https://www.nashvail.me/blog/stop-learning.
You got to build stuff too, not just learn. Still, you also have to figure out if you're a builder or a "learner".
I like to figure stuff out, once I know the solution, my interest is minimal.
VBprogrammer
> You can be in the back seat and travel to a place a hundred times. But until you take the driver's seat you'll never know the way.
I know this phenomenon well. In fact, when we moved into our new house which was an easy drive from where we used to live, I drove here half a dozen times using the GPS and still had no idea where I was going until I forced myself to do the trip without turning the GPS on.
silisili
It's really weird, but you're right, I noticed the same thing.
Anymore I try to avoid using GPS anywhere in my city, and it's both taught me a lot and also 'explore' a lot. My wife always asks if I'm afraid of getting lost, but I always tell her 'ah, all roads connect somewhere', which makes me feel better at least. I can only think of a couple times I truly felt turned around enough to pull out GPS.
nicbou
Keeping north up on your GPS also helps a lot. At least you get a better sense of where you're heading.
cityzen
I cannot get over the irony that next to that article he has an ad for "Take my Git course on Skillshare".
dehrmann
I'm really bad at closing old browser tabs, but Firefox was getting sluggish, so it was time. I started bookmarking interesting article, then realized something: I had significantly more things to read than things to do. What's the point of all this reading if I'm not going to put it to use?
avnigo
I took "looping" and "incapacity" to mean not taking a leap. Growth usually happens outside your comfort zone. Remove the safety net and ask, 'what's the worst that could happen?'
randcraw
Yeah, "incapacity" is the wrong term, since more learning should never decrease your capacity to do something.
He's against the overlearning of a skill in a classroom, especially since you won't really learn how to do most things until you close the books and just go do it.
swiley
I've noticed I can just hack out pretty complex stuff if I stick to APIs and languages I already know, often this is even faster than using other people's libraries for it.
vitaminCPP
This is good. It made me think at the "tutorial hell" concept.
bangarsanju12
This is Insane !!
lemoid
https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm
I remember reading this first time in early twenties - it was mindblowing. After several years I can say that many things I’ve expierenced, noticed and learned are mentioned somewhere along these lines.
‚One must permit his people the freedom to seek added work and greater responsibility. In my organization, there are no formal job descriptions or organizational charts. Responsibilities are defined in a general way, so that people are not circumscribed. All are permitted to do as they think best and to go to anyone and anywhere for help. Each person then is limited only by his own ability.’
calderarrow
This is my absolute favorite essay of all time. I actually have it set to my default tab whenever I open a web browser, because I try to make sure I read it as often as I can.
> To complaints of a job poorly done, one often hears the excuse, “I am not responsible.” I believe that is literally correct. The man who takes such a stand in fact is not responsible; he is irresponsible. While he may not be legally liable, or the work may not have been specifically assigned to him, no one involved in a job can divest himself of responsibility for its successful completion.
sethammons
> Unless the individual truly responsible can be identified when something goes wrong, no one has really been responsible. With the advent of modern management theories it is becoming common for organizations to deal with problems in a collective manner, by dividing programs into subprograms, with no one left responsible for the entire effort.
I was quite literally thinking about this exact problem at my organization last week. This quote is older than I am.
jlengrand
I don't know if they changed my life, but they did literally made a big impact in how I value myself for sure. That led to 3x salary raise over time and how I interact with my day job. Both from patio11
* How to negotiate salary : https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
* Don't call yourself a programmer : https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
gonehome
That salary one is great, I’ve used similar strategies to help people negotiate pretty large bumps when interviewing. It’s funny to see the sophistication of the recruiter on the other side (while they’re pretending not to be).
One social thing I learned though is that some people are weird about it - not the recruiters but the friends you’re trying to help negotiate. They’re afraid to do it and instead rationalize how it won’t work and then get angry if you try to persuade them that it’s possible.
jlengrand
That is why I like those articles, they allow me to pass the links without trying to convince people. Folks tend to find it easier to borrow wisdom from people further from their network.
the_jeremy
During my last round of interviews, I chose to spew out salary numbers. This is because I exclusively interviewed with recruiters who reached out on LinkedIn (sometimes you have to know your limits on how much effort you're willing to put in while employed).
I found a recruiter who was reasonably decent (placed a friend of mine). I asked what top-of-band for my YOE in my COL seemed to be, and he said $130k-$140k. I then gave $150k as my requirement to all future companies. Too many were saying yes, so I upped it to $170k, then $190k, then at $200k I only got one bite. (Caveat: of course I asked for numbers from them first - when the recruiter was unwilling, depending on my mood I would say I wasn't willing to proceed further without a comp range, or I would give out my desired number and see what they said.)
I might have missed out on companies willing to offer $200k while earlier in this process, but about half of the recruiters reaching out were positions offering $100k, and I was unwilling to waste that much time in interviews for jobs I didn't want.
In case anyone wants to know how it ended, I told my current company (paying $120k) that I was in final interview rounds for $200k and I wanted to quit to focus on studying for interviews. They offered me $200k to stay and I accepted.
TL;DR: Interviews take a long time. If you're some rando on LinkedIn and they're some random company you've never heard of, it's not worth assuming they'll be able to pay you enough and going through the process.
nicbou
This is the pair of articles I thought of while reading the title. It's excellent advice.
Zealotux
Maybe not a life-changing thing but something that truly unlocked a lot of things: https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_...
HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25513713
mwcvitkovic
Aw I'm so glad!
kamaal
This is just a different way of saying There are no rules.
ValentineC
I like re-reading this once every few months, and taking stock of how little I've internalised it:
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...
adwn
You might want to rethink aligning your life to a Cracked listicle, in particular this one. For example:
> For instance, some people want to respond to that speech with Tyler Durden's line from Fight Club: "You are not your job." But, well, actually, you totally are.
Well, actually, you totally aren't. The next part is even worse and downright dehumanizing:
> you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills [...] Your "job" -- the useful thing you do for other people -- is all you are.
It's not a good idea to view yourself as purely a means to an end for other people. I'm strongly in favor of being a useful and productive part of society, but not to the point where nothing remains of your person except for an exploitable resource for others.
jerf
Having just read it for the first time, I'd characterize that article as the metaphorical slap to bring someone to their senses. It is not enough on its own to build a philosophy on, and it isn't necessarily representative of all of life, but that article is a slap a good number of people need.
But then there's also people for whom it will be the worst thing ever, who have already completely organized their lives around pleasing others and satisfying the needs of others while not thinking about the fact they have their own needs, and need in some sense the complete opposite slap.
But I'm not surprised there's some people who found the article to be food for some fairly big thoughts.
adwn
Thanks, that's an insightful take on it. You bring up a good point, which is that reading this article can be healthy for some people, and unhealthy for others.
I don't think there's a solution for this, because any kind of disclaimer would dilute its message for those that need to hear it, and do nothing for those that shouldn't hear it. And what would such a disclaimer even look like? "Disregard this article if you're not an entitled, selfish man-child"?
pricecomstock
I generally agree and don't know how well this holds up, but reading this article when I was around 20 really broke me out of some entitlement and helped me start working on myself. I think it made me view things less selfishly and think about other people's perspectives more. So I do think it works for the question asked here
rchaud
The article is absolutely perfect for its audience, which is the smirking, early-20s Internet user of 10 years ago that read Cracked, or Maddox and spent their time on Digg and Reddit. You know the type.
I remember the impact it had when it came out. It was the reality check that a lot of people in that age range needed, especially new college graduates. This was the era of the "jobless recovery" of post-2008, when S&P500 was going up but underemployment was very high. You have to learn to drop a lot of ego when your fancy degree has you working at the same Starbucks as a kid straight out of high school.
NoOneNew
Out of every post here so far, this is by far the best. It also aged like fine wine. Probably more poignant now than ever. I totally see this as a good occasional slap in the face every few months to re-analysis yourself.
bob_roboto
I know the article is intentionally provocative and over the top to provoke a reaction... whether it's a healthy reflection on your attitude to success or crippling self-loathing probably depends on the reader.
Also, there are undeniably some hard truths hidden in there. However, my experience in almost 20 years in the tech/software/product industry often paints a different picture. Yes, our brains keep us from changing and evolving and yes, obviously you need skills to be successful in life and your career. But in my industry in particular, hard and soft skills are not the dominant factor that keeps individuals from succeeding or progressing. I'm lucky enough to work with an abundance of talent and skill, and yet, one of the major factors of dissatisfaction is lack of "progression". One of the main factors is self-confidence and in the more severe cases even mental health issues. Some of the most skilled and knowledgeable engineers I worked with struggled to realise their potential because of it. If the leaders in your organisation think they can just shout at them to "learn self-confidence as a skill" and get over it you're going to have a bad time. It will attract a certain type and employee that thrives in that environment and disengage everyone else. Wasting talent, wasting skills and ultimately a lot of money. Creating an environment and learning how to tease the potential out of skilled and talented individuals is not a "hippie/hipster" thing to do, it is good for business.
dcolkitt
I wish I could find an archive of Jason Pargin's old writings back from when he ran PointlessWasteOfTime.com under the David Wong handle. The Monkeysphere was a brilliant essay.
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
datameta
Maybe the Glengarry Glen Ross "closing" scene would have a positive impact on me and get me fired up if the profession was something in tech, at a company whose mission I cared about. Otherwise, as the article mentions, I do indeed just think Alec Baldwin's character is a borderline sociopathic asshole.
jstx1
I just rewatched that scene - he isn't saying anything meaningful. He's being rude, telling people how much money he makes and telling them to "just close".
bradlys
He’s telling them the harsh truths of how the world works. He’s flaunting what they want in front of them and then showing them what they have to do in order to have it.
It’s as controversial as the cracked piece in itself. And for some people in my circle - it’s a wake up call.
You can’t expect to just get what he has by drifting through life aimlessly. You have to do what it takes. It’s a message to the kids who were told as children that they were perfect just the way they are and that they could do anything they wanted (but never put in any effort towards it). It’s a message to the children raised by shitty parents who didn’t instill grit and perseverance and tenacity into their kids that they need to get it together if they want what others have. That it takes work and that you don’t get things handed to you like your parents handed things to you all the time as a kid.
injb
This is the winner!
chubot
I would say "career changing" more than "life changing", but I just wrote a post that shows the longevity of Joel Spolsky's writing. People are still confused today about things he explained well 15-20 years ago:
https://www.oilshell.org/blog/2021/07/spolsky.html
I don't think I've ever read a single life-changing blog post, but an entire blog over years and books can definitely be life changing.
I'd say that life-changing stuff has to be contrarian, and Taleb and PG are pretty contrarian. This also means they can be wrong, repetitive, and piss a lot of people off. You can criticize individual posts or passages easily; it's harder to do that of their entire career.
I'd also be careful to label them "not contrarian" -- contrarians can seem less so once people start agreeing with and imitating them, specifically as a result of the writing :)
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... any blog post that had a major impact on your life, workflow, career, understanding, etc. qualifies.