[imperialdrive]

Life is just hard. I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going.

Someone told me that life and work and relationships are sometimes just pushing everything you have in a giant deep dark hole in the ground, and every now and then, something pops back out. If you're lucky, it makes it all worth it. The only way to know is to keep trying. Maybe you'll give up on all your hard work and be even more depressed, but eventually get a job that doesn't even seem good, but then the days get better and better and one night you feel pretty darn good before bed and your realize all that behind you was just part of the journey, and it's ok. Let yourself feel sad, doubt, fear, get it out, behind you, make room for the good. You will discover it, I'm sure of it. If it's really hard to keep going, then you're on the right path. Life just is not easy! Gl

[e40]

They survived in the past by having low expectations and knowing hardship was a fact of life. And also that life was unfair to the extreme.

[DoesntMatter22]

This sums up so well the current state of the world. Quality of life is relatively high so people expect a lot.

For most of human history life was extremely hard, tons of death during child birth and diseases running rampant. Not to mention you don't have enough food.

Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone. Not a criticism of OP, because indie startup stuff is very hard, relativly.

[johnchristopher]

> Now life js unfair if you can't afford the latest iPhone.

Not once in my life have I heard anybody saying life is unfair because they can't afford an iPhone (or a ps5 or whatever expensive but dispensable good), except from children or teenagers.

But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids. Or from people who couldn't afford an education at the right time to get their adult life on tracks.

[meiraleal]

> But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

[johnchristopher]

> > But I have heard it from people who couldn't find jobs or had to work two jobs to barely make rent and couldn't plan to have children and raise kids

> And I have seen people in this same situation spending all their money in booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones...

I don't think people who don't have a job have much money to spend on booze, drugs, parties, food, unnecessary gadgets, iphones (hey ! at least they don't complain how unfair life is because they don't have one !)... I also don't think people who work two jobs to barely make rent have much money left either for said activities and consuming...

[meiraleal]

Have you ever been poor? That's exactly what I saw more often than not when I was poor. Many times what makes people poor is exactly this "irrational" behavior of spending money they shouldn't.

[DoesntMatter22]

Oh I've heard it from adults before. Were they acting like children? Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

[johnchristopher]

> Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Damn Fair Labor Standards Act and that pesky National Child Labor Committee and that man, am I right ?

edit, because it scratches me:

> Sure. Even so, in the past, children were working pretty hard themselves to try to eek out an existence with their parents and the concept of life being unfair because you couldn't have a device wasn't even a thought.

Don't know which specific past you are referring to but I'd venture to guess that there were far fewer of such inaccessible goods though.

Anyway. I'd rather live in a present where children (and adults ?) think life is unfair because they can't have an iPhone than a present in which children are forced to work in coal mines or plants so their whole family don't die from starvation.

That's not what's wrong with the world today.

[DoesntMatter22]

Never once did I say that that is what is wrong with the world today.

[johnnyanmac]

I mean, spoiled people are spoiled no matter what year. It's not the best representation of an entire population.

I think it's more about how the current generation can't afford a lot of what the previous one had or even took for granted. Housing, education, the process of procurring a career; a few things that changed so radically that it creates a generational divide among contemporaries.

[DoesntMatter22]

I think there was a very short time in human history where it was "the good life" where it was affordable and that was basically the 50s to the early 90s.

Other than that in human history things have been extremely hard.

[voxl]

I would argue that they didn't survive, unless they were predisposed to it. If you were depressed 500 years ago you died.

[e40]

I disagree. Life 500 years ago was a constant struggle to stay alive. That left very little time to sit around and be depressed.

For those humans, at that time, who were mentally ill, I agree, they either died from exposure or were protected by other humans. That protection was expensive, though, and wasn't available to many families.

[lilbaby]

Why would you want to survive, though. Just for the sake of it?

Actually it feels somewhat unfair, how hard it is to die, nowadays. You literally have to commit a violent act towards your body to do it.

I'd love to just sort of blamelessly die by exposure or something. No fault of mine and no fucking life on Earth, thank you very much.

[johnchristopher]

I don't follow your take. If you were sick 500 years ago your survival chances were low. If you are sick today your survival chances are lower (but not as much). Why is depression any different ?

[tim333]

Depression must have had some survival value or it would have evolved out.

[badpun]

Same could be said of hunger or tiredness. In other words, depression can be an unwanted, but inevitable byproduct of our internal workings - same as being tired is.

[tim333]

My guess is it caused people to stay home and keep their head down when things were going badly. Which may have been functional in a violent tribal ancestral environment but maladapted for the modern world.

[aquarkortwo]

They also had strong communities in many cultures/cases. Community, "sharing the load", and having a sense of purpose (e.g. kids, community members) helps a huge amount.

[ilyaovchinnikov]

Thank you, that's inspiring as hell. I guess that's the way it is.

[ajb]

" I don't know how folks managed 50 years ago, 100 years, 500+ years, it was just our ability to keep pushing through the mud, the cold nights, the loneliness, sometimes letting a glimpse of a beautiful day or sparkling night be enough to keep going."

You can get a glimpse of this in Tolkein's "The Monsters and the Critics"[1]: "in a little circle of light about their halls, men with courage as their stay went forward to that battle with the hostile world and the offspring of the dark which ends for all, even the kings and champions, in defeat. "

The idea that courage, or any virtue, will be rewarded - and its (less theologically correct) corollary so that if you are not rewarded, your courage or virtue must be suspect - is a Christian one[2], flowing from the idea that the universe is just. Indomitability, and unyielding will were valorised in earlier times, and given respect even if the only result were defeat. For are not even the gods part of time, doomed to be defeated at its end by the ice giants? "the gods, who are defeated, think that defeat no refutation.". So thought the pagans.

I'm not presenting this as a model for the OP, or anyone else. By all means look for success in a different way! But perhaps the idea that defeat does not invalidate your effort and courage is of some comfort.

[1]https://jenniferjsnow.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/11790039-j...

[jantissler]

Well said!