
The Bipolar Lisp Programmer - auvi
http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm
======
lexicalscope
I'm not super fond of the assumption that someone is bipolar simply because of
going in and out of frenetic periods of activity, that isn't really what
bipolar disorder is. I have bipolar (II), so here's some things:

Since I only have bipolar II, I have never experienced "true" mania, but I can
tell you that even hypo-mania is not what is described. Hypomania is more like
having your throttle stuck on wide open and nothing you can do will make it
stop. You just keep moving a mile a minute, even if you're exhausted. The
thoughts just keep moving, faster and faster. You become impulsive. Have you
ever bought 20 plants because you were sure it was a great idea then killed
them when you became depressed? Bought $400 worth of sushi because, shit, it's
a Tuesday? Those are some things that happen, out of the blue, and the thing
that's maddening is that anything you do while you're manic is going to get
fucked up as soon as you become depressed.

And the depression isn't just melancholia, at least usually, it's something
far deeper, the _inability_ to do things. You can will yourself to have
motivation to do something for hours, only to find yourself hardly able to do
it. It isn't even really a sadness, or disillusionment, it's a fog, it feels
like you can't even think straight.

As a programmer, it's a special hell, because it feels like my brain doesn't
even work right. And while Lisp is great, it is no salve to that.

So no, this isn't the Bipolar Lisp Programmer, this is the Stereotypical Smart
Bored Youth Programmer.

~~~
waterhouse
> _Stereotypical Smart Bored Youth Programmer_

See also Jamie Zawinski's "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers":
[http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)

~~~
Argorak
I may read it wrong, but that's quite an insult for people that do _actually_
have an attention deficit disorder.

~~~
waterhouse
Heh heh, perhaps they might read it as such. I'm sure that, like the article
this thread is about, the author intended to make a point about a group of
people by describing them in terms of the popular notion of the disorder, and
didn't intend to seriously talk about people who really have the disorder. (In
this case, I imagine the "teenagers" part of the description, which is
directed at people who are most likely professional developers in their 20s,
is meant at least as pejoratively as the "attention deficit" part.)

------
moomin
I wish people would stop throwing mental health diagnoses around. The article
is mostly intelligent, but it bears no resemblance to any disorder. It's just
a standard behaviour of the smart and bored.

Me, I was like that till 16, when I met a teacher with such enthusiasm for his
subject matter it carried me all the way through university. (Modulo some
hiccups.) He was enthusiastic about maths, so I ended up becoming a
mathematician. I imagine if he'd been a chemist I'd have done that.

------
pdonis
Priceless quote: "Writing in C is like building a mosaic out of lentils using
a tweezer and glue."

That alone makes the article worth the read in my book. :-)

~~~
lol123456
Lisp is a failure.

It failed to deliver a usable Operating System within a budget. It failed to
deliver AI with even the intelligence of a donkey. It failed to deliver an
efficient IDE. It failed to deliver a serialization format for the industry to
use. It failed to deliver a fast interpreter for high performance applications
like Games. It failed to deliver a usable framework for Web Applications for
20 years. It failed to deliver package management for libraries.

If the History of Lisp is to teach us anything is that the unity of data and
code is not a prerequisite to write useful applications.

------
iopq
It's not bipolar, I understand those are the symptoms of ADD. Bored with
everything, very high threshold for enjoyment or interest, but getting quickly
bored with that same thing.

~~~
Argorak
This is also not ADD. ADD is, among a few other things, a deficiency to guide
ones concentration. Hyperfocus and repeated Hyperfocus for things you like is
actually a sign of ADD. ADD people can very well do things they enjoy
repeatedly and often.

~~~
coldtea
It's also not something to fret over. A lot of those monikers, like ADD are
thrown around with a cavalier, throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude. And I mean
by doctors.

Some of so-called "diseases" are actually natural responses to messed up
situations (like a boring to hell school environment for a smart kid), and
mostly stick as medical fads (tons of them in previous decades that are dead
and burried now) and because subscribing drugs pays well.

~~~
Argorak
You are aware that ADD is, at the current state of science, considered a
difference within the brain chemistry and no "reaction" to something? You
don't "develop" ADD. One requirement to diagnose ADD in high age is to prove
that it was there from the beginning on, in your very first years.

And that cavalier attitude that you describe is actually very harmful to
people that _do_ have ADD, especially those that continue to have it after a
certain age.

Also note that "disease" is the wrong word for this. It is a condition: you
have it, it won't go away, but you can work on it and build your life around
it. It's not that you necessarily _suffer_. People speaking with half-
knowledge about it are a popular nuisance, though.

Also, describing those things as fads is _also_ very insulting to those that
do struggle with these issues.

------
jrapdx3
I liked this article quite a bit, as I love to program in Lisp (well, Scheme)
and I'm a clinician with a lot of experience treating bipolar disorder. That
is, the _real_ bipolar, which isn't what the author is talking about.

The kind of behavior referred to in the article is certainly common. I've know
many people who show this "crash and burn" pattern. Easily bored,
distractible, procrastinators to the end. Black and white, all or none is
their theme. Very good or lousy at any given task, usually performance varies
randomly, that being a source of consternation for all involved. The
unpredictability and inconsistency are vexing and corrosive in nearly all
domains of life.

They may be subject to moodiness, reacting strongly to criticism, and may blow
up disproportionately. Such individuals may become truly depressed but that's
not usual. Rather they suffer profound discouragement when things get hard and
overwhelming, a state that's almost inevitable, if transient, like
thunderstorms propagating flash floods of high drama and rapid dissipation.

It's a condition that often responds to treatment, the right kinds of
counseling, in some cases carefully applied medication therapies are useful.
The college-age students who are flailing around struggling to gain traction
often respond the best to proper guidance and approaches.

The professor observes correctly the tremendous suffering and waste of talent
that occurs. What's important is to see it for what it is and having seen it
doing the things that can heal it, in the end giving no cause for pessimism at
all.

~~~
9c38bf
> It's a condition

Is there a name for this condition? And how do I get rid of it exactly?

For some of the things you described (like strong reaction to criticism), I
found mindfulness-based approaches to be good.

But how do control my moods and enthusiasm?

------
fyolnish
He really lost me at "lesser languages like C" Lisp is a fantastic language
and I enjoy it. But to say that C is somehow lesser is dismissing the very
thing required to implement lisp itself. And that's the sort of thing which
causes people to dismiss lisp evangelists as fundamentalists.

------
dang
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=bipolar+lisp#!/story/forever/0/bip...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=bipolar+lisp#!/story/forever/0/bipolar%20lisp)

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lisper
Another data point:

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/04/some-perspective-on-
destr...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2009/04/some-perspective-on-destroyed-
career.html)

------
kang
But how to deal with it?

