tjarrett

Hey friend. I’m right there with you. Everything you said resonates with me.

I’m curious, are you fully remote?

Have you tried anything to shake things up?

It’s so apt that you mention it life feeling sisyphean. I was just feeling that way while walking the dogs yesterday.

Maybe another tool would be to try to mix it up more… so each day feels different.

Especially at work where we have always been busy but lately there is no break, no time for modernization or learning or technical debt, we just move from one epic to the next epic, no fanfare, no launch parties. Just each of us at home working alone.

Man this is for real. I’m 46 and I tell my therapist and my friends that I’m not suicidal but like… can we wrap this shit up already? (A tasteless joke stolen from Tom Segura)

I have been meditating on WHY I feel this way. On paper things are pretty good. I’m married. I have a job that is safe for now. I have kids. Two dogs. A house. Two cars.

But I feel really lonely and unseen and like I am a disappointment to everybody including myself. Like it makes sense I’m unseen because I’m unexceptional.

So I’ve done some things that have helped a little including scheduling lunches with friends and coworkers, more frequent date nights (especially double date nights), working out (setting and achieving even small pointless goals like mile time, distance, weight lifted, etc really helps).

All of that and it feels like I’m bailing water out of a sinking ship. It is barely enough to stay afloat and heaven help me if I skip a day or make a mistake…

It is hard to imagine doing this for another 30 years…

I used to think Soma was one of the more disturbing ideas in Brave New World. These days, I understand the temptation a little better.

Wow. Came here expecting to read about truckers and instead learned something really useful! Thank you!

You would think so right?

The problem is, the way things have been for the last couple of decades, many of us are not absolutely certain that the Senate would ever convict a sitting president unless it was 2/3rds of the opposite party -- which is pretty rare.

Probably, if a sitting president (regardless of party) assassinated a political rival, the Senate would convict. Probably.

They are almost certainly hyper-partisan Senators (of both parties) who would not convict a president from their own party no matter what.

The reasons for that would be multiple... greed, fear, a weird sense of loyality to the person, or even just a warped view of reality.

For example, if you thought Trump was Hitler 2.0 coming to take over the government and hunt down minorities and LGBTQ people, then you might feel justified in doing anything possible to prevent that -- including assassination.

Wow that sounds pretty scary. I'm sorry you and your family had to endure that. I'm also very sorry about your cousin.

I share some of your concerns about using mRNA technology as an annual preventative solution against COVID and flu. Even though I'm triple Pfizer mRNA vaccinated I'd probably go for a non-mRNA solution going forward (my employer finally dropped their COVID vaccine requirement but maintain an annual flu vaccine requirement).

But it seems to me that mRNA is a fantastic tool for fighting deadly cancers. Without treatment, the patient is absolutely going to die.

I know. My mom died of glioblastoma back in September 2019. The tumor was wrapped around her thalamus so we had very limited treatment options -- at the time the most advanced treatments needed access to the tumor which is hard to do when it's in the center of your brain.

Hang in there MisterDizzy and, since we are on Hacker News here, remember one of the principles of software development -- use the right tool for the right job. For me, right now, that looks like tried and true protein-based vaccines for those annual vaccinations and fancy mRNA platforms for those specialized treatments.

Yeah probably...

I'm trying to understand this.

I guess by "safer" you mean "less accessible by the US" and I suppose that is likely "true".

But would you rather be in China and send an anti-Chinese message to your friend via... some app that China allows? Or would you rather be in the US and send an anti-US message to a friend?

Both countries are going to try and snoop that data. Both are going to be successful.

But in which would you feel "safer" -- meaning in which one is the government likely to take action against you?

Frankly... other countries should probably consider this IF they have an adversarial relationship with the US.

And they already do -- neither China nor Russia allow Meta services in their countries. Nor do they allow most of Google's services.

During the pandemic I was changed to permanent full time remote.

I work for a large private university. If they told me to come back into the office three days a week I would not even consider not complying. I'm pretty sure they'd fire me after a week or two of me not showing up.

It blows my mind that people can get away with just ignoring such directives -- especially in the commercial sector.

Of course you also have to pay for Youtube Music which is inferior to Apple Music and Spotify.

If they'd bust YouTube Premium apart from YouTube Music it'd be cheaper and a more inviting proposition.

"It wasn't that hard for me to find a quality physician."

Any tips? I keep swinging and missing.