[sircastor]

For a variety of reasons I wanted some notoriety when I was younger. I wanted to be “the guy who’d done that thing”

I became a lot happier with myself when I stopped chasing that and just decided to post the things that I like and the projects I wanted to do. These days I like to think of my website as part of the “old, good internet”: No ads, no demands, just whatever I like and wanted to write.

It’s worth recognizing that that comfort came around/after I was making decent enough money that I wasn’t also trying to figure out a side hustle. It feels to me like “do the things you like” is a luxury of someone who isn’t anxious about paying all their bills.

[sph]

This is good advice in general, but lately the Internet had grown so large it is healthier to expect no one will ever see your creation. Many of us grew up when the Internet was a pond, today it is an immeasurably large ocean; there is a good chance your audience won’t ever find you, and your chances get shorter every day.

Incidentally I also believe one would have more chance to market their own creation in the real, physical world than the Internet. I believe we’ll eventually see leaflets and indie books being distributed to passersby for free like 100 years ago.

In any case, create for yourself. Create without ever expecting an audience. If this doesn’t sound fun, you probably just like the publicity rather than the act of creation itself.

[Retric]

The internet has increased in the number of users and the amount of time they spend online not just the number of creators.

The odds 5+ people see your content is probably the same as it ever was, but ‘success’ has been redefined in terms of ever larger follower counts.

[sph]

In the age of bots, LLMs and people that have about .5s for you to impress them with a flashy image as they scroll by endlessly, I doubt you get the same attention you would’ve in the 90s Internet.

More eyeballs, sure, but worth 1/1000th of a visitor coming straight from a webring for your own niche, or that found you in the right section on Yahoo and AltaVista.

[rightbyte]

Ye. "Everyone" somehow ended up visiting The Best Page in the Universe somehow. The internet was way smaller and the reach in the internet population way higher.

[imachine1980_]

I personally believe that this doesn't hold, more and more competition outside of webpage, means that we check less and less pages each year, I feel ai could be a savior by destroying the whole internet by spaming SEO websited, and make small pages the only way to find something

[solaire_oa]

Not to make you more downtrodden, but it's not like AI would have any trouble at all producing a small page.

If you mean that there needs to be signals in place that an article was thought about and physically typed up by human fingers, well, that's a different problem I suppose.

In any case, the system prompt can factor in any existing signals that SEO might want to adjust for ("You are a chill software engineer dude, who understands the subtlety of colloquia in the field. You speak in modern slang and are very energetic about you field.").

I share your downtrodden sentiment, for what that's worth. The only idea I have for making genuine human digitized hallmarks is to start "writing" in heiroglyphs and pictograms. I'd love to hear more realistic ideas for signaling humanity, however.

[kevindamm]

you'll still get CDs handed to you if you walk around downtown NYC

[adolph]

If it worked for AOL, why wouldn't someone continue today? (other than a lack of optical reading devicen in most compute). Maybe AOL would be better off today if they kept mailing and just added NFC and QR-code.

In 2011, AOL CEO Steve Case took to Quora to reveal just how successful all those free trials were. “At that time I believe the average subscriber life was about 25 months and revenue was about $350,” Case wrote. “So we spent about $35 to acquire subscribers.” Because that $35 had a gigantic return, AOL was happy to keep pumping money into free CDs.

Marketing manager Reggie Fairchild chimed in on the Quora thread to claim that in 1998, AOL used the world’s entire CD production capacity for several weeks.

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/12/8594049/aol-free-trial-cds

[stavros]

"Why wouldn't someone continue today (other than for the reason why they wouldn't continue today)?"

[brewdad]

I would guess most people over age 30 have at least one optical drive that can play a CD in their home today. Under 30, it gets rarer but any blu-ray player and many gaming consoles will still play that CD just fine.

[skyyler]

Often as part of an intimidation scam where the person that hands you the CD demands payment.

But yes, that does happen.

[al_borland]

The last time someone tried to sell me their album on the street I had to stop and think for a second... I didn't want it in the first place, but I could honestly tell him that I no longer had a way to play the CD. Ironically, years later, I now have a couple ways I could play it.

[abhaynayar]

hahah.. just reminded me of mr. robot..

[cornfieldlabs]

>It feels to me like “do the things you like” is a luxury of someone who isn’t anxious about paying all their bills.

Couldn't have said it better.

I really didn't get to "do things I love" until I escaped poverty.

[didgetmaster]

Even if you are lucky enough to find something you really enjoy that also generates some income; unless it is almost trivial, there will be parts of it you don't enjoy.

Side projects might be fun to code, but bug fixes, tech support, and documentation might be a real chore for you.

I have one of those that I can't wait to sit down and code a new feature; but sometimes have to force myself to do the tasks that make it more 'user friendly'.

[johnnyanmac]

Yeah, that's always been the case. There's lots of things I want to do in my free time. Learn Japanese, learn some art, take a brisk hike. But right now I'm mostly thinking about a portfolio to appeal to get a full time job after 2+ years out.

[themadturk]

I love writing. I definitely wrote things that brought in no money when I was worried about making the rent.

[chairmansteve]

Huh... I used to live in poverty in order to do the things I loved.

Now I have a very comfortable life, but not much time to do the things I love.

[KolibriFly]

"Do what you love" advice always sounds great, but it hits differently when you're also worried about rent

[0xEF]

Agreed, and I've always hated that phrase since it seems like it has two different meanings, depending on who is uttering it;

1. People who use "do what you love" to mean "love what you do," as though you can force yourself to enjoy anything. This is only true for people who lie to themselves and compromise regularly against their own interests.

2. The Lucky Ones™ who happened to accidentally align an enjoyable hobby with a career and think because they "did it," anyone can, without acknowledging that they were simply in the right place at the right time with the right skills, or that the stars don't exactly align the same way for the rest of us.

[marginalia_nu]

> 2. The Lucky Ones™ who happened to accidentally align an enjoyable hobby with a career and think because they "did it," anyone can, without acknowledging that they were simply in the right place at the right time with the right skills, or that the stars don't exactly align the same way for the rest of us.

To be fair, advice doesn't have to be applicable to everyone in order to be useful to someone.

Extremely few people get to become astronauts, but that doesn't go to say there isn't relevant career advice for those who do aspire to become one.

Chalking outcomes up to luck is also not a very useful attitude. Life undeniably has a huge random element, but it's more akin to the randomness of the stock market than a pure dice roll. You don't have control of every outcome, but your choices and decisions can massively tilt the scales in favor of getting "lucky".

[harrall]

3. You are in a career because you mistakenly thought you’d like it, or because your parents told you to do it, or because it’s the only thing that you’ve ever known, but it turns out that you absolutely hate it. You’ve reached a local maximum and you need someone to tell you to try something else before you reach 50 and have major regrets.

[brabel]

To add to that: people like some messed up things, or truly inaccessible things. And while you can try to focus on "some good stuff" that you like, you can't really pick the things you like the most! If you could, wouldn't the world be a much easier place (just like the things that make the most money, or are the most accessible, in other words, the things offering the best cost-benefit... but of course no one can really do that... no one would ever suffer heartbreak - just like the person who likes you, and if they change their mind, just stop liking them and like someone else! Such genius!)?!

[0xEF]

I get what you're saying. It's difficult to convey this to some people. I've been through a lot of jobs in quite a few different fields over the decades and have the appearance of being restless if I am not careful about how I craft my resume.

I've been asked "okay, but what do you _like_ to do?" which just puts me in a position to have to explain that I have a passion for learning new things and experimentation, but nobody is going to pay me to read books and play around in a workshop all day, since those jobs are few and definitely already filled.

So, it's a hobby, instead.

[fragmede]

> since those jobs are few and definitely already filled.

Doesn't that go for most things though?

Designer, across all fields exists; game designer, creative technologist, research scientist. Just because you can't land that job right out of the gate is no reason not to try, and to become an insurance adjuster instead (unless you do want to be an insurance adjuster). In team sports everyone wants to be the star, but even if you're not, if you just love the game, you can always find some way to be involved, even if it's selling t-shirt outside the stadium.

[BurningFrog]

I've learned to love things I used to hate.

For me it took understanding how things are connected and that doing the superficially unfun things are a necessary precondition for the superfun things to happen.

Learning to appreciate what you have instead of hate what you're missing is also a very fundamental mental health principle.

This is of course much easier said than done.

[sircastor]

And to expand on #2, we not only get our hobby coinciding with our career, but that work can pay exceptionally well.

[geeunits]

My advice is not "Do what you love" but "Love what you do". Find pride in yourself and your journey, and no fall will follow.

[johnnyanmac]

Tell that to my landlord, please. I do love what I do. People somehow stopped bothering to pay me for it, though.

[sph]

“Do what you love” doesn’t mean “only do what you love and who cares about bills.”

It’s just a reminder to find time for what you love even if you have other things that demand your time. And, if you can, to always leave enough space for yourself. For far too many of us, there is only work, more work, with the silly hope to one day find the time to dream again. You won’t.

[munificent]

I think this advice works a lot better if you interpret with finer granularity than either "job is my ideal passion" or "job is soul-crushing suffering purely for economic gain".

Very few people get to take the thing they would do completely for free and make money off of it. At the same time, very few people have a job where every single aspect of the work is miserable toil that brings them no joy.

Work is complex and there is a continuum of jobs that have more or less aspects that resonate with you. I think better advice is to seek jobs that let you bring more of your joys to bear while acknowledging that no job will be paid fun. And when in a specific job, try to find the aspects of it that you love and make the most of those to the degree that you're able.

We have a much richer ability to navigate our careers than simply treating any job as all bad or all good.

[pards]

> It feels to me like “do the things you like” is a luxury of someone who isn’t anxious about paying all their bills.

I encourage my kids to keep their hobbies as pastimes, not as income sources. As soon as you try to make a living from your hobby or passion, it sucks the joy out of it.

Make money from your job; derive joy from your hobby. Separation of church and state.

[socalgal2]

I'm pretty sure most movie directors love making movies. Most novelistics love writing. Most indie video game developers love making video games. Most musicians love playing music.

[bookofjoe]

From what I've read most novelists HATE writing.

[goostavos]

Hate writing. Love having written.

[bookofjoe]

Yes! I'm not a novelist but the same applies to running.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

“Slit your wrists and pour yourself onto the page”

[elevatortrim]

Musicianship is a good example of why you should not think doing what you love would keep you afloat.

Effort required to become a good musician is comparable to a surgeon (likely more) yet the chances of success is comparable to that of a football player.

[triceratops]

Yes but if there's zero joy in your job, you probably won't be very good at it. Sprocket sales sounds like a gray, drab career, but the successful salespeople chase the thrill of closing.

Pick something you medium like that someone will pay you money for. Life is too short to work on something you have no emotions about.

[Cthulhu_]

To add, don't think you'd enjoy producing if you enjoy consuming. Many kids these days aspire to become a youtuber or other kind of influencer, only few actually put in the work, and fewer still succeed because I'm convinced you need to have certain specific characteristics to do that kind of work (or hobby), and only a minority of people enjoy recording themselves. Probably more today than 20 odd years ago but still.

[johnnyanmac]

>Make money from your job; derive joy from your hobby. Separation of church and state.

Thing is that the state wants to take more and more of your time for less money. So you lose the ability to enjoy church at some point.

We need huge work reform before we can truly follow this wisdom.

[vitaflo]

The interactions I get when people send me messages from my site are also more meaningful. They tend to have searched the info out and the dialogue can be really beneficial for both parties.

I had a popular site once 25 years ago. Popularity is fun but it’s also demanding and draining. I much prefer a slower pace online now that I’m older.

I’ve also shifted from trying to be “smart” or insightful to just documenting random niche things that don’t have a lot of other info about online. Everyone has something like this in their life/career however seemingly insignificant. That makes the few connections I get from my site even more special.

[mattslip]

Recently broke out of the mentality you described myself. When you have a chance to step back and find yourself it’s actually funny how much we can let others from keeping us from doing what we want. External validation is a drug when you don’t know how to value yourself.

[nuancebydefault]

I'm much a people pleaser and I constantly seem to yearn for validation. I see life as a web of relationships and I want all of them to be good. Especially when someone doesn't respect what I do for them or say to them in good faith, this is very hard for me to take in. I wonder how to get out of this cycle of needing validation. I also wonder where this need comes from. If anybody can shed a light, i would be grateful.

[polishdude20]

Maybe if you see this web of relationships connected to you and your job is to please everyone, how about zooming in and picturing the web that is inside of you?

Have you heard of parts therapy? It operates on the idea that we "contain multitudes" that all are trying to do their best for us. If you learn to include parts of yourself in this web of relationships, where different parts of you are distinct "people" that need pleasing, you may start "pleasing" yourself more often?

Like, I'm imagining zoomed out, there's nuancebydefault4's circle in the middle and everybody in your life is also a circle. You're connected by lines in this web. But zoom in and you can see that inside your circle, is a web of relationships of different parts of you. The part that needs love, the part that needs intellectual stimulation, the part that needs rest etc.

Anyways just a post run thought Im having while the endorphins are kicking in...

[nuancebydefault]

Thanks so much, definitely a track to explore!

[DavidPiper]

This rings so true.

Financial freedom is one of the lenses through which you always have to filter life advice from all sources.

[robertlagrant]

> It feels to me like “do the things you like” is a luxury of someone who isn’t anxious about paying all their bills.

I don't think this is a feeling; it's a fact. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is related to this.

[socalgal2]

For whatever reason which I can't put my finger on, I did more things I liked when I had less money.

[munificent]

About a decade ago, my main "hobby" was writing. I finished and self-published two books that ended up way more popular than I expected.

I understandably was fairly burned out by writing after that. I also tend to cycle out hobbies. So I got into making electronic music for a bit. (Fun but hard.) Lately—a surprise to me—the hobby that's been the more rewarding is knitting. I think I just really needed a more tactile thing to do in my free time. I've been really enjoying knitting and it's so much fun picking up a new skill.

But the whole time, there's a little voice in the back of my head going, "You know, if you spent this time working on a new book, you'd get more money and recognition..." Hitting middle age and starting to really feel the finite nature of time definitely doesn't help.

I wonder if it's something similar for you where it's easier to sink time into random projects before you start thinking of your time as a finite economic resource.

[sodaplayer]

It's easy for me to quickly idolize the authors of books and blogs I have read—yours included (thanks for writing GPP)—and it's often I think I fall into the trap of feeling like I need to dedicate all my free time into practicing and learning software and computer science topics.

I also got a small collection of synths and grooveboxes, so seeing you start your Tiny Wires channel was a nice reminder that even those authors have things outside of software.

One of my favorite moments lately was just hanging out with my wife in the living room after setting up all my synths there and just jamming with her present as she also worked on her hobby.

[munificent]

> One of my favorite moments lately was just hanging out with my wife in the living room after setting up all my synths there and just jamming with her present as she also worked on her hobby.

That sounds so nice!

[nathan_douglas]

You sink your time into "random projects" and accomplish things. I sink my time into random projects and the time, money, artifacts acquired, and knowledge gained just sluice into the void. We are not the same :)

[munificent]

I've been very lucky that a couple of my hobbies have turned out well, but for every one of those, I promise you I have a dozen more that are just complete time wasters. :)

[nathan_douglas]

In all seriousness, I try to think of my projects and hobbies as sketches in a sketchbook. I might not be much of an engineer - sometimes I think I was built for a job that doesn't exist yet - but I feel like I learn from everything I do, and that has to count for something.

I hoped at some point I would produce some magnum opus that would make it all worthwhile. I thought that would happen in my twenties, and then my thirties. In my mid-forties, I think I just want to do little sketches for the rest of my life, always hinting at something and never revealing it. I can do actual work at my job. Which, based on my personal finances, I will also have for the rest of my life :)

[brazzy]

> It feels to me like “do the things you like” is a luxury of someone who isn’t anxious about paying all their bills.

The real lesson is that you should not rely on popularity-based success to pay your bills, because there is no knowing how long it will take until you have any success; it may in fact never come.

It's that kind of thing that should be the side hustle. You'll have only limited time for it, but at least you know how to pay your bills and can do it the way you want.

The other option is to be a starving artist who also feels bad about compromising their vision to make something marketable.

[gravez]

Yeah, agree. The self-pressure to write a good post for others, for lead-gen, for brand awareness, all take away from "things you like".

Something that's been working for me lately is to choose the topics where you have something to say. It's a bit broader than the things you like and allows you to just react to an inner spike to respond. Helps train the muscle for writing

[neom]

Do what you're good at and not what you lust and you'll alway have resources to chase something called love.

[godelski]

I also think that often others benefit more when people write like this.

I think of it like how we say it is good to be lazy. Not lazy as in do no work, but lazy in be efficient and don't put off what is easily done now but hard later.

When writing for yourself you are writing for people like you. People with interests in similar topics, that are facing similar problems, and probably think somewhat like you too. After all, most of us really aren't that different. It's easy to notice small differences because we're similar.

Instead, when you write for others you don't chase those things that make you unique you chase what you think a more average person (in whatever niche) wants. You distance yourself from them just as you distance from yourself. You become more likely to just create more of the same stuff that's already out there. You follow instead of lead.

There's tons of exceptions of course and the qualifiers shouldn't be ignored. All I'm trying to say is that the different approaches come with different biases. You should definitely be writing code documentation to general audiences but your blogs? Imo, that should be you. Not everything needs to be work. Just be the fucking nerds that you are

[m4rc3lv]

What's you websites URL?

[sircastor]

https://aaroneiche.com

[blahaj]

Would you mind sharing your site?

[sircastor]

https://aaroneiche.com

[begueradj]

Is it possible to share your blog ? I can't see it on your profile.

[sircastor]

https://aaroneiche.com