
It's too late to collect sand - secondbreakfast
https://secondbreakfast.co/its-too-late-to-collect-sand
======
andrewla
The page does not render correctly; something to do with the logo loading. For
reference, here's the brief story told:

> It’s too late to collect sand

> When I was 13, my family went to California. We walked along a beach near
> Mendocino. I’d never seen black sand before. I wanted to bring some home.

> So I got a ziplock bag from my mom, scooped some sand into it, and put it in
> my backpack.

> When I got back to Birmingham, I put it in a jar and placed it on my
> bookshelf. “Cool,” I thought.

> But I only had one jar. It wasn’t going to be “Really Cool” until I had a
> bunch of jars.

> I was missing the jar of sand from the Gulf of Mexico. I was missing the jar
> of sand from the Caribbean. I was missing the jar of sand from the Eastern
> Shore in Virginia.

> “I’ve been to so many beaches already! And I never collected sand before
> now.”

> So I scrapped the whole idea. What was the point in collecting jars of sand
> when I hadn’t started from the beginning? I’d never recover from missing the
> jars I could’ve already had.

> What a ridiculous thought.

> I fall for this trap repeatedly.

> “I haven’t been keeping a journal since childhood, I’m missing so much.”

> “I didn’t blog the first half of my trip, so what’s the point in the second
> half?”

> “I haven’t been keeping track of contacts in a CRM, I’m missing so many
> people!”

> “I haven’t been running, I’m so far behind.”

~~~
jvm___
"Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly"

~~~
maltalex
I like this one:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

~~~
paulbaumgart
Whenever I hear this saying, even though I know it’s sort of pedantic, I can’t
help but wonder: _but what about 19 years and 364 days ago?_

~~~
christiangenco
I'm so glad you posted this—I have the same problem with this aphorism. I'm
craving a more precise way to express this idea. Maybe "it would have been
better to start five minutes ago, but starting now is better than starting in
five more minutes."

------
neltnerb
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

~~~
0xff00ffee
I was at a lecture once and the speaker recited a hypothetical conversation he
had once had:

"Someone asked me, 'When is the right time to plant a tree?' I responded, '20
years ago.'"...

But it ended there, he never followed up with your second sentence. Odd,
because that's way more salient!

However, what surprised me was that some in the audience took it as a
defeatist statement, while others took at is motivation. It seemed clear to me
that it was intended to be motivational. How could this anecdote be defeatist?
I still don't understand that sentiment. Literally every day is ANOTHER chance
to start a habit, trend, experiment, set a goal, etc. that you forgot to do
yesterday. For me that's a relief because I'm always forgetting shit.

Maybe forgetting that last sentence makes it seem doomed.

~~~
neltnerb
Yeah, I admit it's easy to get into the mindset that you're already doomed
because of reason after reason after reason. Just look at how people respond
to climate change... well, or to people posting their hobby projects on less
friendly aggregators than HN (though we fall victim to the "well I'd have done
it this other way better" incredibly disheartening responses to someone
teaching themselves a new skill and wanting to show people).

The tree quote (ancient Chinese proverb, I do not know more specific origins)
is especially salient given that you're not planting the tree to make the
planet better today, you're doing it so that future generations can benefit
because it's the least you can do. But for most things the timeframe is
shorter; I've seen 60 year olds start karate for the first time and 80 year
olds go to college.

The important part is to not get in your own way with a defeatist attitude.
Not wishful thinking, you'll still have to work hard to get to where you wish
you were. And as a disabled person I also know that sometimes it really just
isn't practical. But it's important to remember that how you spend your life
is for you, not to impress other people.

~~~
0xff00ffee
> ...and wanting to show people

I still don't quite get this need to show strangers. I've had it explained to
me, but I'm pretty sure it is part of a cultural shift, i.e. I'm old.

Like, if stranger's approval is needed, doesn't that mean you're LESS likely
to do something since it isn't guaranteed? Or maybe it is easier to start
something BECAUSE there are so m any strangers willing to offer support.
Either way it seems like putting success/fail in the hands of external forces.

> Not wishful thinking, you'll still have to work hard to get to where you
> wish you were.

Yeah, exactly. The accomplishments in my life with the most meaning are the
hardest ones. But I don't know if that's universal. I read the book "Flow" in
1991 and it changed my life, and your quote is kinda the central thesis.

:

:

Ironically, I planted four trees last year and three haven't started to bud
yet (the fourth one is), which means I prolly killed them. Maybe still too
wintry. / _sigh_ /

~~~
neltnerb
So, to respond seriously, I'm somewhat of an artist and I derive a lot of joy
from others enjoying my pieces. I assume that's a large part of it, other
people just have mediums that are more like "weird programming language
tricks" or "cool math". But if someone doesn't like my piece it has very
little impact on what I do next, much less my feelings at the time. Some
people like stuff, some people don't. But the showing part is necessary for it
to be art.

You might well be right that it has to do with getting the approval of
strangers (certainly a phenomena for low energy barrier stuff like posting to
twitter), but I think I'd give people who put in enough time to figure out how
to solve a weird new problem the benefit of the doubt that they want to share
it because they find it cool and you share things you think are cool.

But maybe that part of culture has changed, I've only got a little grey in my
beard but I don't remember a time when my friends _didn 't_ want to show me
something they found cool. Maybe the change is just that people see internet
strangers as "friends they don't know yet"? I dunno, I gave up on social media
because I don't think this is true on those platforms anymore.

So I'd say that, hopefully, whether a stranger approves at the end of your
project is besides the point, and the sharing is because you think people who
share interests with you will be interested (or possible collaborators,
mentors, or mentees!) and you're proud of the quality of your work. It's also
useful as an online portfolio if you ever need to find a job to be able to
point people at that has lots of posts of professional quality about projects
you've done.

~~~
0xff00ffee
> I'm somewhat of an artist and I derive a lot of joy from others enjoying my
> pieces ... > I think I'd give people who put in enough time to figure out
> how to solve a weird new problem the benefit of the doubt that they want to
> share it because they find it cool and you share things you think are cool.

Ah. That's a helpful way to frame it. Now that you put it that way, I think
can understand it, it just seems distant. I can see that I'm not wired that
way. Example: I played music in various bands for about 20 years, and for me
it was about that shared experience of flow, locking in with the drummer and
the guitar player and feeling like the song was in control, not us. But for
other members of the band(s) it was about being on stage and hearing an
audience cheer that drew them in. Same experience, totally different
perception.

Of course, it appears at this instant that I am sharing with you (a stranger)
my thoughts (because I think they are cool). So perhaps I simply literally do
understand what you are saying by evidence that I'm doing it. /head explodes/

Provocative response, neltnerb.

~~~
neltnerb
I definitely think people are wired both ways, to an extent. Sometimes people
are just sort of... craftspeople who mostly keep to themselves. But I agree
that's been mostly older people so far, though I don't know... Samuel Clemens
certainly liked the spotlight.

So maybe it's just a personal trait that has perhaps gotten more visible
lately due to the ease of communicating. People always wanted their five
minutes right? But maybe it's more common, I can see people posting low-effort
communications simply to get the approval of their in-group. Maybe even high-
effort material, though at some point I'd hope the high-effort stuff gets out
to the rest of us.

------
JadoJodo
I just finished David Epstein's 'Range' last night, and one of his admonitions
in the conclusion seemed pertinent:

> "Don't feel behind. ...Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to
> younger people who aren't you. Everyone progresses at a different rate, so
> don't let anyone else [including you] make you feel behind. You probably
> don't even know where exactly you're going, so feeling behind doesn't help."

He also notes a number of athletes and musicians who started "late", including
Steve Nash and Sviatoslav Richter.

~~~
rumanator
Apparently Steve Nash started playing at 12yo. That hardly passes off as
starting late.

~~~
LeonB
Compared to the Tiger Woods' school of thought where you put a golf club in
the hands on an infant it's very late.

------
makach
It's never to late to collect sand, but don't be a hoarder. Did you know that
sand is a precious commodity? [https://www.businessinsider.com/global-sand-
shortage-could-c...](https://www.businessinsider.com/global-sand-shortage-
could-cause-damaging-effects-2018-12?r=US&IR=T)

Don't have regrets, they move the focus away from today and your future.
Mostly, live in the now. Things are just things, appreciate the living. All
things can be replaced, the living can not.

------
bradknowles
I was thinking that this was related to
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sa...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time)

However, I haven't actually been able to load the page yet.

~~~
Symmetry
I was thinking it would be about people running out of easily accessible river
sand for concrete.

------
dmd
This is why I started guitar lessons at 41. At 30, I didn't because I was
upset with myself for not starting when I was 20, and now it was "too late"
somehow.

~~~
fossuser
The funny part about this one is that you can go from zero to really good with
under two years of focused practice.

Most people don't do focused practice over time because when you're actually
forcing yourself to learn and get better at the edge of your ability it's
hard.

I think people get better in the beginning when they know nothing, but once
they know a few things most people just plateau at the level where they can
play the couple of things that they know without forcing themselves to get
better.

Children mostly are forced to do it, with all the advantages and disadvantages
of that process.

All this is to say in the majority of cases you can trivially catch up if
you're interested in learning a new skill.

~~~
Sammi
The best part of learning an instrument is that it usually just takes a couple
of months of deliberate practice before you can play well enough to enjoy
yourself. You don't need to have the finer details in place in order to play a
song.

------
djsumdog
I once thought it'd be nice to do a blog post on all the cellphones I had
owned, but after a ton of searching by year and type, I couldn't find photos
of the two earliest cellphones I had. I scrapped the idea.

I do have photos of most of my workstation/computer setups since I was in high
school. I'm currently drafting a post on all my workstations, and while I was
digging through photos and editing the post, I came across photos of my very
first two cellphones; photos I had taken so I could put them on eBay in the
early 2000s!!!

I still have no idea what the model number of one of them is, but who cares?!
I have a photo. I started to make a list of every phone I had since then! I'm
glad I'm a data horder, even if I lose a ton of photos in the mess of my
disorganization.

------
homonculus1
Take only memories, leave only footprints. _Please_ do not remove sand from
beaches.

------
fouc
It's an interesting sort of retroactive procrastination.

Procrastinating because you missed the subjective "optimal time" to begin.

~~~
TheGrassyKnoll
As a big league procrastinator, it's just another tool in the toolbox.

------
informatimago
and foremost, illegal: French tourists face jail term for stealing sand
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-49394828](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49394828)

~~~
close04
> A French couple who were caught with 40kg (90lb) of Sardinian sand in their
> car

I imagined they took a tiny vial of sand as a memento. This is not that.

P.S. There's an extra ">" at the end of the URL.

~~~
nck4222
Regardless of legality, you shouldn't be taking sand as a souvenir. Beaches
are a natural resource for both people (recreation) and animals/plants. They
provide food, breading grounds, habitats...

Leave no trace.

------
PHGamer
well in some cases it is, given our sand mining for silicon lol. but no i get
the point of the article. even if your behind now. start, dont fall for the
trap its too late.

------
blakespot
"Collect what?"

"Collect sand."

------
vincent-toups
I thought this was going to be about stockpiling sand because of semi-
conductors.

~~~
djsumdog
When I first started reading it, I thought he was going to tell us all the
sand was gone or the beach was too polluted.

~~~
mc3
I definitely thought this would be climate change related, or perhaps
something to do with carbon dating not being accurate since nukes.

